Meena flipped through the rest of the photos, studied them, and started to recognize the aunties and the person Meena assumed to be Neha. There were wedding photos of couples Meena didn’t know. Aunties’ baby showers. Early Halloween costumes. She looked at them again: when Neha was even there, she was off to the side. By choice? Or was that how Neha felt—a part of the group but not quite? Maybe Meena was reading too much into it and it was simply that Neha had been the photographer.
She got to the end of the album, and there was a little pocket. Meena stuck her fingers in and pulled out a single picture.
Two people in front of the living room fireplace in this apartment. The woman, Neha, resembled the college student in the earlier photo. The man next to her might have been her husband. They stood side by side. Not even their shoulders touched. Neither smiled. The man was in a white shirt and black pants. He had a beard. Thick eyebrows. Neha was in a long skirt and a patchwork sweater. Her hair was short, cut just below her ears, and in waves. Her lipstick was bright red, her eyebrows shaped into thin arches. Meena looked closer. Her eyes were as flat as her expression.
Meena couldn’t see familiarity. Neha’s nose was a little wider than hers, the forehead smaller, the chin narrower. They could have been the same height. Meena was barely five eight. She’d hoped for recognition, to see herself in someone else, to know that even though Neha was dead, Meena was a part of the legacy of the Engineer’s House, that she had a familial history. She ran her finger over the face. Neha had had everything many strived for—wealth, marriage, a passion for her vocation. Yet something seemed to be missing. Then she saw it in Neha’s eyes, staring back at Meena. A wave of recognition washed over her.
Loneliness.
This was what she had in common with her birth mother. Meena flipped the photo over, no longer able to look at it. Stuck to the other side was a folded-up piece of paper. It was from a notepad with a Merriam-Webster letterhead.
I do not know the meaning of love. Even its definition is abstract. “Strong affection based on kinship.” My parents are my kin. If providing for me is considered strong affection, I suppose I have that. But I do not feel anything for them except that I came from them. If it is sexual desire, I have that for my husband. But have no other use for him. What does it mean to hold someone dear? I’ve concluded that I do not care for it. Let it exist for others. I’m enough without it.
Meena’s heart broke for Neha. To think that this woman had gone through the whole of her life not knowing love. A second wave crashed over her. That last line. It was what Meena had said to herself for the last eighteen years. She’d known what it was to hold someone dear. Didn’t need to anymore. Except that wasn’t true. Meena knew love. Had been cradled within it, until she’d lost it. The truth was, Meena was only enough without it because she hadn’t wanted to replace what she’d had. Or lose it all again.
If she took a photo of herself, Meena knew she’d see the same bleakness she saw in Neha’s eyes. She held the album in her lap and mourned for this woman she was starting to know. She looked at the photos of the aunties again. The love and friendship among them were so obvious in the way they smiled, the way they wrapped their arms around each other. They hadn’t included Neha in the trio. Was it because that was how Neha had wanted it? Or had inclusion not been offered to her?
Neha was only her birth mother, but Meena hadn’t felt this link with anyone, not with a sense of deep familiarity. Whether she felt the link because of living here or through the notes or these photos, Neha mattered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The four frothy concoctions were as festive as the decor in the dark lounge. The leather furniture, the rich wood of the tabletops, the paneled walls were made cheerful with gold metallic garlands, red-and-white ornaments, and white lights.
“These are almost too pretty to drink,” Tanvi said. “Not that it’s going to stop me.”
“I’m going to start with the spiced Mexican chocolate,” Uma said, “then work my way down.”