Shan made her way to the kitchen, sat down at the table. “Why would my father have kept your name and address with his personal papers if he hadn’t been in touch with you since he was a child?”

There was a pause at the end of the line.

“I have no idea, Shan. I never heard from him again. But I would love to think that perhaps he’d been thinking of finding me after all of these years,” Gertrude said. “Or, perhaps the real reason he kept my contact information has something to do with the question in your letter. You asked me why Vijay moved to India. I think he wanted to try to find his father, who might have been living in Delhi at the time. I was the only person, aside from Deepa, who knew anything about him.”

Shan shifted the phone to her other ear. “You knew who my grandfather was?”

“Shan, have you had this conversation with Deepa? I interfered once and hurt her very badly in the process. I won’t do it again.”

“I haven’t seen my grandmother since I was ten,” Shan said. “She disappeared after my father died. I’ve spent hours searching for her online. There are a million Deepa Khannas living in London.”

“You’re probably looking in the wrong place,” Gertrude said. “A long while back, right before her book was published, I heard she moved out of the UK. But I don’t know where.”

“She published a book?”

“A collection of poetry,” Gertrude said. “As far as I know, it was her first and last one. I have a copy of it here somewhere. It’s one of the few things I brought with me here to the nursing home.”

Shan heard several thuds, items colliding into one another.

“Here it is. Exodus, by Kavita Grover.”

“Who?”

“Kavita Grover. Deepa’s pen name. Kavita was her mother’s name. Grover was her favorite school teacher’s name.”

“Hold on a minute, Gertrude.”

Shan dashed into the living room, unstacked several of the boxes, found the one marked, BEDROOM. She ripped off the tape with her fingernails, opened the flaps, tossed the clothing to the side. Her father’s box sat at the bottom. She exhumed it, lifted off the top. Exodus sat just inside. She flipped to the back cover.

In a stunning debut collection of poetry, Kavita Grover recounts India’s Partition. Below the description was the author’s brief, bare-bones bio.

She was born and raised in New Delhi and moved to London at age sixteen.

This was why the book was among her father’s things. It was his mother’s.

Shan picked up the phone. “I found it! I have a copy of the book too. I don’t believe it.”