Shan was standing in front of the dresser, holding a picture frame. Above her was a painting of Guru Nanak. The peppery scent from incense sticks Chandani lit that morning lingered in the air. She pushed the door all the way open.

Shan turned to face her. “Is this Harjeet? What a handsome man he was. It’s a gorgeous photo.”

It was Chandani’s favorite. She’d taken it herself. In northern New Jersey, she had been a professional photographer. She shot weddings, sari ceremonies, anniversaries, had taken publicity photographs for temples. She hadn’t touched her cameras since moving to Atlanta, hadn’t even removed them from the bubble wrap. Their cardboard boxes collected dust in the office.

In the photo, Harjeet was young. The first specks of white glinted in his thick beard. His smile was warm, full. It reminded her of his laugh, how he threw his head back, how the sound of it boomed throughout the room. The love and light—this was Harjeet before his illness.

“He was handsome, Shan. All my friends were jealous that I ended up with someone with such good looks. But he was so kind and compassionate too. He was always the first to arrive at someone’s front door during a crisis. That’s what I loved about him most. And he was so much fun. Goodness, we had some wonderful times together. How I miss him!” She had missed their long hikes in the Poconos, the weeks every summer they spent at Cape May. They were long ago, those good years with him, but her memories of them now flooded her with joy.

“How did he die, if you don’t mind me asking?” Shan said.

Chandani averted her gaze. The window against the far wall was the only bare window in the house. She liked to keep it uncovered so the full sunlight could shine on her husband’s face. No one had asked her how he died. She supposed they didn’t care. Once you reached a certain age, people assumed that how one died was irrelevant, inevitable. Old age.

Except Shan. Shan seemed to sense there was something more to it.

What was the point of keeping Harjeet’s story a secret now that he was gone? In the eighteen months since his death, she’d lived with the burden of his sadness, alone. Kush refused to talk about it. He harbored so much anger toward his father, not just from his death but for the twenty years preceding it, the years Harjeet was simply a man moving throughout their home, not a parent.

“Let’s go to the living room,” Chandani said. “I’ll tell you about my husband.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Attari

August 28, 1947