And the Mountains Echoed

the nightmares into it, and pulled the drawstrings tight.
    There
.
    Baba made a guttural sound.
    Happy dreams, Baba. I’ll see you in two weeks
. It occurred to me that we had 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.
    â€œYou could not see in the picture that I showed to you, but it has fantastic view of the Vaucluse Mountains.”
    â€œAre we all going to fit? It’s a lot of people for a farmhouse.”
    â€œPlus on est de fous, plus on rit,”
she says. “What is the English? The more the happier?”
    â€œMerrier.”
    â€œAh voilà. C’est ça.”
    â€œHow about the children? Where are they—”
    â€œPari?”
    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, Ireached 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 brown paper. An envelope had been taped to the package. On it were written, in English, the words
For my sister, Pari
. Immediately, I recognized Baba’s handwriting from my days working at Abe’s Kabob House when I picked up the food orders he would jot down at the cash register.
    I hand the package now to Pari, unopened.
    She looks down at it in her lap, running her hands over the words scribbled on the envelope. From across the river, church bells begin to ring. On a rock jutting from the edge of the water, a bird tears at the entrails of a dead fish.
    Pari rummages in her purse, digging through its contents.
“J’ai oublié mes lunettes,”
she says. “I forgot my reading glasses.”
    â€œDo you want me to read it for you?”
    She tries to tear the envelope from the package, but today is not a good day for her hands, and, after some struggle, she ends up handing me the package. I free the envelope and open it. I unfold the note tucked inside.
    â€œHe wrote it in Farsi.”
    â€œBut you can read it, no?” Pari says, her eyebrows knotted with worry. “You can translate.”
    â€œYes,” I say, feeling a tiny smile inside, grateful—if belatedly—for all the Tuesday afternoons Baba had driven me to Campbell for Farsi classes. I think of him now, ragged and lost, staggering across a desert, the path behind him littered with all the shiny little pieces that life has ripped from him.
    I hold the note tightly against the blustering wind. I read for Pari the three scribbled sentences.
    They tell me I must wade into waters, where I will soon drown. Before I march in, I leave this on the shore for you. I pray you find it, sister, so you will know what was in my heart as I went under
.
    There is a date too. August 2007. “August of 2007,” I say.