Jana exhaled. “No. Mom and I never fight. Things are as they’ve always been.”
Kamila looked like she wanted to ask more. She knew Jana’s mother well. She’d been Kamila’s Rashida Aunty forever—the one who gossiped with her father, always made the best dhokla, and who was like the universal aunty in the crew. But Jana doubted that Kamila ever really thought about who Rashida Suleiman was. Or ever noticed how distant she was with her own daughter.
Kamila must have read Jana’s mind, because she changed the topic away from Jana’s mother. “So what was the complicated not-a-fight discussion, anyway?”
“We’re trying to be friendly on this trip. It’s taking some negotiating. He’s pushing hard for forgiveness or something. He says it’s for Imani, but I’ll bet it’s more for his own guilt.”
“I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I will say that man is very motivated by his daughter’s needs.”
“Don’t say that’s admirable,” Jana warned.
Kamila raised a brow. “Okaaay…”
“I mean, no one ever says that about a mother.She’s so admirable…she did her kid’s laundry.”
“I fully agree with you. There is a ton of sexism in the way we see parenting.”
“We’re shamed for having the baby,” Jana said. “For choosing not to have the baby. For working. For not working. We’re shamed for having sex. For not having sex.”
Kamila nodded vigorously. “Yes. Women can’t win. Is that why you’re salty with him?”
Jana nodded her head. “Yeah, partially. The man has had life soeasy. Don’t get me wrong—I adore Imani and have no regrets at all, but he hasn’t seen nearly the fallout from our affair as I have. I lost a ton of respect, an actual job, and even friends.”
Kamila’s eyes widened. “You lostfriends?”
Jana nodded. She wasn’t sure why she’d never told Kamila this. “My friend Jess from uni. After all the gossip came out, she said that supporting me reminded her too much of her cheating husband. And my other school friends went with her, too.”
Kamila shook her head. “Unbelievable. That’s not really a friend, you know.”
Jana did know. When Rohan and Kamila found out about Jana’s pregnancy, neither of them showed even a moment of judgment. They fell right into supporting her. Jana sighed, taking Kamila’s hand and squeezing. “I know. And I know what Anil’s ex did to him wasn’t fair to him, but…”Jana’s voice trailed.
Kamila looked at Jana curiously, probably shocked that Jana was being open about her life for the first time. “Jana,” Kamila said slowly. “I don’t actually know the whole story with him and Nadia. She left him?”
Jana sighed. She didn’t even knowwhyshe’d kept it from her friend for so long. “Just between you and me?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. Remember years ago when he followed me to Toronto after I left him in D.C.?”
Kamila nodded. “Yeah. That’s when I first met him. That was right after you two broke up, right?”
“No, actually, it was a few monthsafterwe broke up. I left him when I found out he was married, and then I discovered I was pregnant a few weeks later. I stayed in D.C. a few months wrapping up my contract and figuring out what to do.”
Kamila frowned. “Oh, I thought you were only in D.C. a few weeks.”
Jana shook her head. She’d lied to everyone when she got to Toronto and said she was only in D.C. a week, mostly because she was ashamed that she’d left her post in Tajikistan so early into her contract. Jana hated thinking about those months—she’d felt so alone, and she’d had no idea what to do with the mess she’d turned her life into. Eventually, she decided to keep the baby, leave her job, and move back to Toronto. “Apparently after I left him, he finally tracked down his wife and told her it was beyond over and that he’d fallen in love with someone else. Then when I moved to Toronto, he followed me to apologize and win me over. But I refused to hear him out.”
Kamila sat up straight. “Wait, Jana—he had totrack downhis wife? He didn’t know where she was?”
Jana shook her head. “When I told him I was pregnant, he finally told me everything about his marriage. He hadn’t seen or heard from Nadia for six months by then. He traveled a lot for work, and she was apparently hooking up with her high school boyfriend whenever he was gone. Anil suspected as much but had no proof. He came home from a trip one day and she wasn’t there. He went to her family to see if they knew where she was, and they insisted he not say anything, and they’d find her. They threatened him, telling him they’d say he’d been mistreating her or something if he told anyone she’d left him. They were very traditional and were worried about saving face. So, he carried on with his life. He traveled a ton and came to Tajikistan to see a friend while I was working there.”
“And that’s where you met him.”
“No, we’d met a few times before that. But yeah…that’s when we got together. He told me he was divorced. A nice, amicable split, not a messy one with a missing wife and threatening in-laws.”
“What a mess. But then he found her?”
Jana nodded. “Yes. And he told her he wanted a divorce. But all hell broke loose with her family. It was apparently a shit show. And it got worse when they found out I was pregnant, because they couldn’t force him to stay with her anymore. They were the ones who spread the word that the split was because ofhisinfidelity, not hers. They started the rumors about me, that I was a home-wrecker who knowingly split up his happy marriage and trapped him with a baby.”
