‘Maybe we could try to go together next week?’
‘All right.’
‘After my doctor’s appointment,’ Leilah kissed her daughter on the cheek. ‘I might need you there for that too.’
Aleisha stopped, she took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice from cracking. ‘Mum, that’s wonderful. I’m so proud of you.’ And she meant it, she meant every word. She wished Aidan were here to see this.
That evening, Aleisha and Leilah sat in the cool shade of the living room, the windows open, just a fraction, letting in a gentle warm breeze.
They’d spent the afternoon going through some baby photos, of Aidan, of Aleisha – they took it one at a time, but Aleisha watched as each photo prompted Leilah to light up, a memory to jump out at her. Beach holidays in the pouring rain, Aidan in the bath as a baby, foam on his head, Aidan learning to surf, Aidan and Aleisha’s first school photo together.
When the photos had run out, when they started to hurt again, to remember he wasn’t coming back, Aleisha opened the last book on the list: A Suitable Boy. She began to read out loud.
Immediately, Leilah and Aleisha were thrown into a wedding, where Mrs Rupa Mehra was telling her unmarried daughter Lata that she would have to marry a boy that her mother was going to choose for her.
The book was vibrant, immersive, the wedding was alive in their living room – Aleisha watched as Leilah smiled along at Rupa Mehra’s sternness.
‘I’m not like that, am I?’
‘Not always,’ Aleisha laughed.
For a while, mother and daughter were swept up in another story, centred on a mother and a daughter, and a quest to find this young woman a suitable boy.
‘It’s so vivid,’ Leilah said. ‘So many characters, with different backgrounds and beliefs – it’s so clever, setting up all these strands. It’s beautiful – I feel like I need to paint it.’
Aleisha’s eyes shot up. Leilah hadn’t spoken about her art in months. Not wanting to ruin the moment that the author’s words had created, she continued to read.
She wondered why this book was the last on the list, whether the list writer had ordered them for any particular reason. She thought about the journey the books had taken her on, the places they had transported her to – Maycomb, Alabama, Cornwall and Kabul, to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, to some shire in England, to Massachusetts, to Cincinnati, and finally Brahmpur, India. Through the reading list’s characters, she’d experienced injustice and childlike innocence, terror and unease, guilt and regret and powerful, everlasting friendship, a dalliance with Mr Darcy （still Zac came to her mind when she thought about Pride and Prejudice）， resilience, independence, and determination through the little women, the repercussions of trauma and the power of hope, faith and community. And now, with A Suitable Boy, a new journey was just beginning.
‘What’s that?’ Leilah asked, peering at the pages.
Aleisha looked up. ‘What?’
‘In the book?’
‘They’re just leaving the wedding now – Savita is the bride, Pran is the groom.’
‘No, I mean, at the back of the book, there’s something there.’
Aleisha stopped reading and flicked to the last page.
Leilah was right: tucked into the plastic dust cover was an envelope, creased yet flattened by the weight of A Suitable Boy.
She prised it out, carefully, as though it were a piece of buried treasure.
‘What is it?’ Leilah asked.
‘An envelope. A letter, I guess.’ Aleisha turned it over to see if it was addressed to anyone.
Mukesh.
‘Mum,’ Aleisha asked. ‘I think it’s for Mr P.’
‘What?’
‘The letter.’ She held it up.
Leilah squinted. ‘Do you think it’s the same handwriting as the list?’
Aleisha pulled the reading list from her phone case, but she didn’t really need to look at it. Its image was almost ingrained on her memory: every book, the curling ‘y’s and ‘i’s of the writer’s careful script.
She handed them both over to Leilah, knowing her artistic mum had an eye for this kind of thing.
‘Definitely. Is it … is it for your Mukesh? Mr Patel?’
Aleisha shrugged and gently stroked the paper. ‘Well … let’s find out.’
‘Okay, but don’t lose our place.’
Aleisha frowned, confused.
‘In the book,’ Leilah said. ‘I want to know what happens next.’