And the Mountains Echoed

to marry him?”
    Thalia shrugged. “She has the worst taste in men. The
worst
.” She shook the dice in her hands, seemed to reconsider. “Except for Andreas, I suppose. He’s nice. Nice enough. But, of course, she’s leaving him. It’s always the bastards she falls for.”
    â€œYou mean, like your father?”
    She frowned a little. “My father was a stranger she met on her way to Amsterdam. At a train station during a rainstorm. They spent one afternoon together. I have no idea who he is. And neither does she.”
    â€œOh. I remember she said something about her first husband. She said he drank. I just assumed …”
    â€œWell, that would be Dorian,” Thalia said. “He was something too.” She moved another checker onto her home board. “He used to beat her. He could go from nice and pleasant to furious in a blink. Like the weather, how it can change suddenly? He was like that. He drank most of the day, didn’t do much but lie around the house. He got real forgetful when he drank. He’d leave the water running, for instance, and flood the house. I remember he forgot to turn off the stove once and almost burned everything down.”
    She made a little tower with a stack of chips. Worked quietly for a while straightening it.
    â€œThe only thing Dorian really loved was Apollo. All the neighborhood kids were scared of him—of Apollo, I mean. And hardly any of them had even seen him; they’d only heard his bark. That was enough for them. Dorian kept him chained in the back of the yard. Fed him big slabs of lamb.”
    Thalia didn’t tell me any more. I pictured it easily enough, though. Dorian passed out, the dog forgotten, roaming the yard unchained. An open screen door.
    â€œHow old were you?” I asked in a low voice.
    â€œFive.”
    Then I asked the question that had been on my mind since the beginning of summer. “Isn’t there something that … I mean, can’t they do—”
    Thalia snagged her gaze away. “Please don’t ask,” she said heavily with what I sensed to be a deep ache. “It tires me out.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” I said.
    â€œI’ll tell you someday.”
    And she did tell me, later. The botched surgery, the catastrophic post-op wound infection that turned septic, shut down her kidneys, threw her into liver failure, ate through the new surgical flap and forced the surgeons to slice off not only the flap but yet more of what remained of her left cheek and part of her jawbone as well. The complications had kept her in the hospital for nearly three months. She’d almost died, should have died. After that, she wouldn’t let them touch her again.
    â€œThalia,” I said, “I’m sorry too for what happened when we met.”
    She tipped her eyes up at me. The old playful shine was back. “You should be sorry. But I knew even before you hurled all over the floor.”
    â€œKnew what?”
    â€œThat you were an ass.”
    Madaline left two days before school started. She wore a tight butter yellow sleeveless dress that clung to her slim frame, horn-rimmed sunglasses, and a firmly knotted white silk scarf to hold down her hair. She was dressed as though she worried parts of her might come loose—like she was, literally, holding herself together. At the ferry port in Tinos town, she embraced us all. She held Thalia the tightest, and the longest, her lips on the crown of Thalia’s head in an extended, unbroken kiss. She didn’t take off her sunglasses.
    â€œHug me back,” I heard her whisper.
    Rigidly, Thalia obliged.
    When the ferry groaned and lurched away, leaving behind a trail of churned-up water, I thought Madaline would stand at the stern and wave and blow us kisses. But she quickly moved toward the bow and took a seat. She didn’t look our way.
    When we got home, Mamá told us to sit down. She stood before us and said, “Thalia, I want you to know that you don’t have to wear that thing in this house anymore. Not on my account. Nor his. Do it only if it suits you. I have no more to say about this business.”
    It was then that, with sudden clarity, I understood what Mamá already had seen. That the mask had been for Madaline’s benefit. To save
her
embarrassment and shame.
    For a long time Thalia didn’t make a move or say a word. Then, slowly, her hands rose, and she untied the