The words fell out of his mouth, landed with a thud between them. His father. Her grandfather. She knew this, though how she came to know it escaped her. She always seemed to know about this absence in her father’s life, much the same way she always knew of her own father’s absence in hers.

“I’ve no idea what he even looks like,” he continued. “I think about him every day, though.”

“Why don’t you try to find him?” she asked.

“I can’t. The only information I have is his name.” He leaned over the railing, dropped his head to his chest. “He had a younger sister too. All I know is her name. Your grandmother refuses to tell me more.”

Shan had just met her grandmother for the first time on their way to India. They had a twenty-four-hour layover in London and stayed overnight in her drafty apartment a few streets over from Big Ben. She was rail-thin with stark black hair. Her forehead wrinkled like an accordian when she raised her eyebrows. A lit cigarette dangled from her fingers. She held it like some kind of stylish accessory to her outfit.

Her grandmother had hugged Shan awkwardly, as if she hadn’t quite known where to place her hands, patted her head a little too firmly. The next day, when she and her father headed out to catch the second leg of their flight to Delhi, their goodbyes had been just as awkward as the greetings. Shan couldn’t imagine what it was like for her father to have such a cold mother, to never know his own father.

He had seemed oblivious to the fact that they shared this kind of sadness—of missing fathers. She wanted to shake him in that moment. His decision to move to India without her had been a selfish one. He still did not see it as such, five years into his relocation, was wholly unaware of how his absence continued to hurt her, how it made her feel so lonely. For her eighth birthday, he had mailed her a globe, the earth parted by latitudes and longitudes, oceans and continents. She had measured, with her hands, the distance between Seattle and India. Nine hands. The sun never shone on them at the same time. He had moved so far away from her he might as well have moved to the moon.

When he lifted his face, his gaze traced the horizon, settled back on Agra Fort. “Nothing makes me happier than having you here with me now,” he said. “No one has ever meant more to me than you.”

She smiled, her first of the day. If these rare moments were all they could ever have together, maybe it would be enough.