Eight

Fall 2010

This evening, I come home from the clinic and find a message from Thalia on the landline

phone

in my bedroom. I play it as I slip off my shoes and sit at my desk. She tells me she has a cold,

one she is sure she picked up from Mamá, then she asks after me, asks how work is going in

Kabul. At the end, just before she hangs up, she says, Odie goes on and on about how you

don’t

call. Of course she won’t tell you. So I will. Markos. For the love of Christ. Call your mother. You

ass.

I smile.

Thalia.

I keep a picture of her on my desk, the one I took all those years ago at the beach on

Tinos—Thalia sitting on a rock with her back to the camera. I have framed the photo, though if

you look closely you can still see a patch of dark brown at the left lower corner courtesy of a

crazed Italian girl who tried to set fire to it many years ago.