And the Mountains Echoed

a 9mm when I am out driving around the city, which I probably shouldn’t be doing in the first place.
    Mamá takes a sip of coffee, winces a bit. She doesn’t push me. I am not sure whether this is a good thing. Not sure whether she has drifted off, descended into herself as old people do, or whether it is a tactic to not corner me into lying or disclosing things that would only upset her.
    â€œWe missed you at Christmas,” she says.
    â€œI couldn’t get away, Mamá.”
    She nods. “You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
    I take a sip of my coffee. I remember when I was little Mamá and me eating breakfast at this table every morning, quietly, almost solemnly, before we walked to school together. We said so little to each other.
    â€œYou know, Mamá, I worry for you too.”
    â€œNo need to. I take care of myself all right.” A flash of the old defiant pride, like a dim glint in the fog.
    â€œBut for how long?”
    â€œAs long as I can.”
    â€œAnd when you can’t, then what?” I am not challenging her. I ask because I don’t know. I don’t know what my own role will be or whether I will even play one.
    She levels her gaze at me evenly. Then she adds a teaspoon of sugar to her cup, slowly stirs it in. “It’s a funny thing, Markos, but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really what guides them is what they’re afraid of. What they
don’t
want.”
    â€œI don’t follow, Mamá.”
    â€œWell, take you, for instance. Leaving here. The life you’ve made for yourself. You were afraid of being confined here. With me. You were afraid I would hold you back. Or, take Thalia. She stayed because she didn’t want to be stared at anymore.”
    I watch her taste her coffee, pour in another spoonful of sugar. I remember how out of my depth I’d always felt as a boy trying to argue with her. She spoke in a way that left no room for retort, steamrolling over me with the truth, told right at the outset, plainly, directly. I was always defeated before I’d so much as said a word. It always seemed unfair.
    â€œWhat about you, Mamá?” I ask. “What are you scared of? What don’t you want?”
    â€œTo be a burden.”
    â€œYou won’t be.”
    â€œOh, you’re right about that, Markos.”
    Disquiet spreads through me at this cryptic remark. My mind flashes to the letter Nabi had given me in Kabul, his posthumous confession. The pact Suleiman Wahdati had made with him. I can’t help but wonder if Mamá has forged a similar pact with Thalia, if she has chosen Thalia to rescue her when the time comes. I know Thalia could do it. She is strong now. She would save Mamá.
    Mamá is studying my face. “You have your life and your work, Markos,” she says, more softly now, redirecting the course of the conversation, as if she has peeked into my mind, spotted my worry. The dentures, the diapers, the fuzzy slippers—they have made me underestimate her. She still has the upper hand. She always will. “I don’t want to weigh you down.”
    At last, a lie—this last thing she says—but it’s a kind lie. It isn’t me she would weigh down. She knows this as well as I do. I am absent, thousands of miles away. The unpleasantness, the work, the drudgery, it would fall on Thalia. But Mamá is including me, granting me something I have not earned, nor tried to.
    â€œIt wouldn’t be like that,” I say weakly.
    Mamá smiles. “Speaking of your work, I guess you know that I didn’t exactly approve when you decided to go to that country.”
    â€œI had my suspicions, yes.”
    â€œI didn’t understand why you would go. Why would you give everything up—the practice, the money, the house in Athens—all you’d worked for—and hole up in that violent place?”
    â€œI had my reasons.”
    â€œI know.” She raises the cup to her lips, lowers it withoutsipping. “I’m no damn good at this,” she says slowly, almost shyly, “but what I’m getting around to telling you is, you’ve turned out good. You’ve made me proud, Markos.”
    I look down at my hands. I feel her words landing deep within me. She has startled me. Caught me unprepared. For what she said. Or for the soft light in her eyes when she said it. I am at a