Page 286 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

never been apart for this long before.

As I was walking away, I had the distinct feeling that Baba was watching me.
But when I turned to see, his head was down and he was toying with a button on
his fidget apron.
Pari is talking about Isabelle and Albert’s house now. She has shown me
pictures of it. It is a beautiful, restored Provençal farmhouse made of stone, set
up on the Luberon hills, fruit trees and an arbor at the front door outside, terra-
cotta tiles and exposed beams inside.
“You could not see in the picture that I showed to you, but it has fantastic
view of the Vaucluse Mountains.”

“Are we all going to fit? It’s a lot of people for a farmhouse.”
“Plus on est de fous, plus on rit,” she says. “What is the English? The more
the happier?”
“Merrier.”

“Ah voilà. C’est ça.”
“How about the children? Where are they—”
“Pari?”
I look over to her. “Yes?”

She empties her chest of a long breath. “You can give it to me now.”
I nod. I reach into the handbag sitting between my feet.
I suppose I should have found it months ago when I moved Baba to the
nursing home. But when I was packing for Baba, I reached in the hallway closet
for the top suitcase, from the stack of three, and was able to fit all of Baba’s
clothes in it. Then I finally worked up the nerve to clear my parents’ bedroom. I
ripped off the old wallpaper, repainted the walls. I moved out their queen-size

bed, my mother’s dresser with the oval vanity mirror, cleared the closets of my
father’s suits, my mother’s blouses and dresses sheathed in plastic. I made a pile
in the garage for a trip or two to Goodwill. I moved my desk to their bedroom,
which I use now as my office and as my study when classes begin in the fall. I
emptied the chest at the foot of my bed too. In a trash bag, I tossed all my old
toys, my childhood dresses, all the sandals and tennis shoes I had outworn. I
couldn’t bear to look any longer at the Happy Birthday and Father’s Day and
Mother’s Day cards I had made my parents. I couldn’t sleep at night knowing
they were there at my feet. It was too painful.
It was when I was clearing the hallway closet, when I pulled out the two
remaining suitcases to store them in the garage, that I felt a thump inside one of
them. I unzipped the suitcase and found a package inside wrapped with thick