“You grew up here?” she asked Jas as they walked into the equally posh living room. What a puzzle he was. He dressed well, but not rich. He was subdued, not over the top. He’d grown up on a farm, but other than his penchant for gardening, he didn’t seem to care much about agriculture or rural life. How had all this come together to produce him?
Jas surveyed the home with no expression. “Until my mom remarried, yes. It’s—”
“My pride and joy,” Andrés boomed, entering the living room. “Jasvinder, Daisy’s in the kitchen and wishes to speak with you.”
“About what?”
“I’m not sure.” Andrés scowled at Jas. “By the way, did you give Bikram the shotgun from the little house? That gun belongs there, not here.”
“What shotgun?” Katrina asked.
“My father’s gun. It was on the mantel,” Andrés explained.
Katrina didn’t recall seeing anything above the fireplace. She wasn’t sure what this was about exactly, but given Jas’s aversion to firearms, she could figure it out. When Jas didn’t respond, she jumped in. “I don’t like guns in the house.” Not a total lie.
Andrés’s face relaxed. “Ah, I understand. Jasvinder, Daisy is waiting.”
Jas gave her a questioning look and she gave him a tiny shake of her head. It was such an automatic exchange it took her a second to realize that it was even done—his checking in on her, her subtly indicating whether she needed him or not.
How could she have potentially jeopardized this?
Later. You will apologize to him later for it. She stuck her hand in her pocket, settling her thumb into the groove of the rock. Yes. She would apologize. It would all work out. He cared about her, and he understood her, and he would understand that she had been overcome by emotion.
Which she had been. He never needed to know that that emotion had been overwhelming feels for him.
“Go on,” Andrés said. “I won’t eat her.”
“Fine.” Jas lifted the bag that contained the cobbler. “I’ll put this in the kitchen too.” He left after one more searching look.
Katrina turned to Andrés, determined. It wasn’t imperative Jas’s family liked her. It wasn’t imperative anyone liked her.
She did like to be liked, though, and it was easy enough to surmise where Andrés’s soft spot might lie. “This is a beautiful home.”
Sure enough, Andrés beamed with pride. “Thank you. It was my father’s dream to own such a place. I only wish he could have lived to see it.” He gestured to a large frame over the ornate marble fireplace, containing a portrait of a young man dressed in silk, with a red turban and a thick beard.
There were hints of Jas in his powerful frame, his dark eyes, his stern visage. “He’s very handsome. When was this painted?”
“I had it painted, from a photograph I have of him. From right before he came to America in 1910.”
Katrina tried to bury the wisp of longing. Her mother had been born so much later, and yet Katrina had no photographs of her from her youth like this. “Wow.”
“You like history, yes? Come here.”
She followed him to a large display case running the length of the room. There were framed photos, clippings, household objects, and books under the glass, each painstakingly arranged and preserved. Andrés pulled out his phone and pressed something, and dim lighting filled the case.
She whistled, genuinely impressed. “I thought the family photos in the little house were cool, but this is like a museum.”
“This is nothing. There’s an actual museum dedicated to Punjabi-American history in town. I’ve donated many pieces for their exhibits there.”
“It’s wonderful you have this connection to the past that you can pass on to your community.”
Andrés’s chest puffed out with pride. “It’s the least I can do. Our descendants should know about their forefathers, the part they played in this nation’s history.”
She drifted down the case, curiously absorbing the seemingly mundane articles that created a life. Bills of sale for livestock, correspondence for seed and supplies. “Did your father come to the States to farm?”
“He came here to survive. Farming was what he knew. He worked as a laborer when he first got here, earned pennies a day, until he found his own plot of land.” He pointed to another faded photo. It was the same man from the photo above the fireplace, but this time Jas’s great-grandfather was older, his face weathered. His turban and facial hair were gone, his hair cut short. The only tangible thing that remained from the large portrait above the fireplace was the iron bracelet around his wrist. “That was him in 1930. He had a couple acres by this time, worked them with his friend.” Andrés rolled his eyes. “Your late husband’s grandfather. He was younger and flightier and left, of course, after a couple years.”
“Ah,” she said, because she wasn’t sure what to say. Hardeep had never spoken about Jas’s family with anything but fondness, but now that she thought about it, he’d mostly talked about Jas’s mother. He’d told Katrina he and Tara had been close friends in their youth, though they’d drifted apart as he made fewer visits to this part of the world, and he considered Jas one of his nephews.
It was a little weird when she thought of the fact she’d been married to someone who was of Jas’s mother’s generation, but her relationship with Hardeep had been a special case.
“That still upsets you, that he left? Enough that you resent his grandson?”
“That’s not exactly why I don’t like Hardeep.”
“Oh?”
Much to her dismay, he didn’t elaborate on Hardeep. “Yes, I do carry some bitterness over Arora leaving my father. Farming life can be lonely, and it was lonelier then. My father couldn’t even own the land he farmed. Some of his friends put their land in the names of their citizen children, but my father felt the possibility of a family was out of reach for him.”
“Why?”
Andrés gave her a measuring look. “Do you know about the Immigration Act of 1917? It was also called the Asiatic Barred Zone Act.”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“Not many have.”
“My mother was Thai. She didn’t care much for history, but I like to learn. It’s my history.”
Andrés rocked back on his heels, clearly at home in professor mode. “Well, then you know that the law barred immigration from most of Asia for decades. The majority of South Asians who came to America before that were men, and California’s laws made marrying outside one’s race difficult.”
“He did have a family, though, eventually.”
“Aha, yes. As I mentioned, theoretically California didn’t permit mixing between the races. Theoretically.” Andrés offered her his hand, and drew her along the case. “My father was older and resigned to being alone when he met my mother at a party. She always said it was love at first sight. She was Mexican, and they feared they wouldn’t be able to marry. They took a risk, went to the courthouse, and to their great relief, all the clerk did was assess whether they were both brown.” He pointed to an ornate frame in the case. “I have their wedding photo enlarged in the dining room as well.”