Mom flipped to the next page. “I never felt like we were like the other families. They had two kids…I just had you.” She smiled. “I thought you were better than those kids. Smarter. You never gave us any trouble.” Mom closed the album and picked up another one from the box. “In this album, your daddy took the pictures.”
Jana hadn’t seen this album before. It was filled with pictures of Jana. In her ornate Bollywood dance costume at a recital. In her fifth-grade speech competition where she won first place for her speech on the economics of war (Jana hadalwaysbeen Jana, apparently). There were pictures of cupcakes she’d baked as a kid, of her winning academic awards, and even pictures of her straight-A report cards.
“Dad made this album?” Jana asked, tearing up.
Mom nodded. “He was so proud of you.”
Jana tried to remember if he’d ever told her that. But even if he’d never said it, Janafelther father’s pride. He’d come to all her recitals and clap from the front row and put her A-plus essays on the fridge. Mom flipped to the next page, halfway through the album. There was only one picture on the page…a shot of Jana accepting an academic award—the history award—in grade eleven. There were no more pictures after that.
And Jana knew why. Her father passed away about a month later. Jana closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about that terrifying day.
“I should have kept the album going,” Mom said. “Things were never the same after that.”
Jana shook her head, wiping the tears from her eyes. She’d gone to university just over a year later. At first, she was only a few hours away, but after her first year, Jana transferred to the UK. And she hadn’t ever really come home after that—until she was pregnant with Imani.
“Do you…”Jana paused. “Do you think Dad would still be putting pictures in here?” Parents were proud of their adult kids for different reasons. Jana wasn’t running her own company, like Kamila, Rohan, and Zayan were. She wasn’t a yoga mom and head of the PTA with a nanny and housekeeper like Shelina. Jana didn’t own a home or have a husband.
She was a single mom living with her parent, bouncing from job to job.
Mom turned sharply to look at Jana. “Nah, beta. Don’teverthink he wouldn’t be proud of you. If he was still with us, this album would be full. Pictures of your university graduation, and of the good work you’ve done around the world. He’d frame every article about you. He would tell everyone about his brilliant daughter.”
“Okay,” Jana whispered. “But what about Imani? Dad was so…traditional.”
Mom shook her head. “We grew up at a different time. In a different place. I don’t think we realize how damaging the things we were taught were.” She sighed. “No one ever prints pictures to put them in albums these days,” Mom said, picking up her phone and launching the photos app. She opened an album that was all pictures of Imani. Some had Jana in them, too. Some of the pictures were from a long time ago—Jana nursing baby Imani. Holding her hands while she was learning to walk. Pushing Imani on the swings.
Jana could feel herself tear up again.
Mom smiled at the pictures. “I wish your father were here. He would have been such a loving nanabapa. He would have had albums full of pictures of Imani. And of you with her. I should have done that for him.”
Jana didn’t say anything, just sat with tears flowing down her cheeks. Dad would have been thebestgrandfather.
Mom put her finger on a picture of Jana and Imani from the sangeet in the Serengeti. “My motherhatedit when people took pictures of her kids. There are hardly any of me or my brothers and sisters. She said it would promote vanity. She would scold anyone who said we were smart or beautiful…She said our heads would get too big. She wanted us to be pious and humble.”
Jana’s maternal grandmother died when Jana was quite young, but Jana remembered that she hadn’t been a very nice woman.
Mom suddenly looked at Jana. “That’s why I took so many pictures of you on holiday. I didn’t want to be like my mother. But I should have done more. Iamproud of you, beta. So proud of you. Your father was better at showing it. I’m sorry I said those things about you and Anil. I wanted life to beeasierfor you. I never wanted you to suffer.” She held Jana’s hand. “And when everyone talked about their kids and how proud they were, I didn’t know how to say that even though you took a path that we were taught was wrong, Istillthink my child is the best one. People talked and gossiped, and I thought I was helping.”
Jana didn’t know what to say. She blinked.
“Your father always said, ‘There is no limit to what my Jana can do.’ But…after he passed, you weren’t the same. It was so hard for you…And whenever you came home, you seemed…”
“A little lost,” Jana said. She felt a lot lost after Dad died. Like she didn’t have an anchor at home anymore.
Mom nodded, her eyes glistening. “I think I forget that whatIthink will make your life easier, or what our culture says will make your life easier, isn’t the same as whatyoufeel will make it easier. I promise, beta…I will try harder. I willlistento you. And I amveryproud of you, beta. Always.”
With tears streaming down Jana’s face, she hugged her mother. “Thank you, Mom.”
After Mom released Jana from her tight hug, she looked into Jana’s eyes. “I…don’t know what happened in Africa with Anil—”
“Mom, I—”
“No, wait. Let me speak. I know it’s not my business, and I know that you will do what you feel is best for you and Imani…but I just…”Mom exhaled, clearly not sure how to say this. “I hope you’re not staying away from something that can make you and Imani happy because of what other people think. Or even what I think. You should live foryou, not others.”
“That’s what Sam Lopez just said.”
“He’s a smart man. PhD, like you. You should listen to him, not me.”
Jana laughed. “Thanks, Mom.”
