Back at home, light streamed between the plantation shutters of her living room. She picked up the laptop, brought it outside, settled on her porch swing. Late May in Atlanta bloomed in every patch of grass, every garden, every tree. A carpet of white and pink impatiens formed a perimeter along the porch, lined the walkway to the mailbox. The pastel petals of her tulips were weighted with ripeness.

Yesterday’s soaking rains had washed away the last remnants of pollen from the car, the mailbox, the pickets of her white fence. The air had a lightness to it again, a buoyancy. She slipped off her slippers, stretched open her toes, felt the air rush between them.

She opened her laptop. She was not the most computer literate person in the world, but she had volunteered at her local New Jersey public library for fifteen years, was accustomed, and quite adept she might add, at finding a needle in a haystack.

After several weeks of online research, calls to the Partition Project and two refugee organizations in Lahore and Delhi, and a useless experience with a private investigator who did nothing but try to extort money from her, Shan was on the verge of giving up her search for her grandfather and great-aunt. She was ready to throw in the towel.

This saddened Chandani in a way she hadn’t expected. Shan had discovered Harjeet’s story.

Returning the favor, Chandani thought, was the least she could do.

She first considered what, if any stones, had been left unturned. There were two primary barriers to the search. One, Amir’s and Laila’s first names and surname were some of the most common. Two, their advanced ages meant that their internet footprints, if they had any, would be minimal. Assuming they were still alive, they were not likely expounding on social media about their latest vacations, or what they ate for lunch. If anything existed about them online, it would be in the form of their obituaries.

Laila was ten years younger than Amir and more likely to still be alive. It made the most sense to exhaust the search for her first.

Chandani ran through several pages of entries for Laila Rahim Lahore. She came upon dozens of Facebook and Instagram accounts with fresh, young faces, teenagers making the peace sign, wearing large dark sunglasses over half their faces, tattoos on their upper arms, the low parts of their bellies. Apparently, the name “Laila” inspired reckless abandon.

She typed, Laila Rahim Partition.

She paged through the enties. None were relevant.

She sighed, cracked her knuckles, pushed back again in the swing, typed in Amir Rahim Partition.

The search unveiled actors, doctors, television commentators. No one appeared over the age of forty.