Archive of Our Own

Surya Abbot–Mohan had grown up convinced that her family was exactly like any other. 

However, as the years went by, a series of small moments showed her that not all families were the same. Some discoveries made her laugh, others left her confused, and a few even hurt her feelings. But they all had one thing in common: with time, Surya would come to understand that those differences had never been a bad thing. They were simply the things that made the Abbot–Mohan family so special.

—

In one of her earliest memories, Surya was about four years old. She was at the neighborhood park with her father and her older brother, Jay, on an autumn afternoon—she assumed it had been autumn because she could still vividly remember a blanket of red and yellow leaves scattered across the grass, glowing beneath the sunlight. 

She was sitting on a bench while her father, seated beside her, handed her pieces of apple and grapes for her to eat. Surya—who, as the years went by, would come to be described by everyone who knew her as remarkably perceptive—watched her brother intently while chewing each piece slowly, savoring every bite. 

A few yards away, Jay was part of a small group of children. Some of them were familiar faces to Surya, while others were not. They seemed to be trading National Football League cards—Jay's newest obsession—while proudly showing off their collections. 

That was when Surya noticed one boy in particular. He was tall, much bigger than the others—probably because he was older than seven—with fair hair and eyes so blue that she could make them out even from that distance. He was talking to her brother, whom he towered over by at least a head, a mocking smile playing across his face. Surya had no idea what words they were exchanging, but judging by the look on Jay's face, she knew they couldn't be good. 

Then the boy snatched a card out of her brother's hands and let out a laugh so loud that everyone in the park could hear it, though no one except Surya paid enough attention to notice. 

She looked over at her father, but he was focused on his phone—she knew he was concentrating because of the little crease that always formed between his eyebrows. She was just about to say something, to warn him that they were making fun of Jay, but in the end she didn't. Instead, she looked back at her brother, who seemed much sadder than he had a moment before. 

Barely an hour later, they were driving home. 

Some old song was playing on the radio. Surya bobbed her head to the music while making up the lyrics. In his own seat, Jay stared out the window with a serious expression. 

That was when their father spoke. 

"Did you trade a lot of cards this afternoon, son?" 

Surya looked over at her brother. 

Jay's only response was a shrug. 

Frowning, their father glanced at him through the rearview mirror and asked if everything was all right. 

Jay shrugged again and replied with a simple, "yeah." 

But for Jack Abbot, that wasn't a satisfactory answer. He pressed again, asking his eldest son to please tell him what had happened, because if he didn't, he wouldn't be able to help him. 

Surya kept watching her brother. She could see the anger slowly spreading across his face as their father continued talking, a fire building inside him until, after a few seconds, it burst out. 

"A kid called me a fucking half-breed!" 

The silence that followed those words was so uncomfortable that even Surya shifted uneasily in her seat without realizing it. 

Their father didn't say anything right away. He simply turned the wheel to the left, pulled into the driveway, and parked. Once he had switched off the engine, he slowly turned toward them. 

"Yes," he said calmly. "Your mother and I are from different races, and the two of you inherited a little from both of us. But that's a beautiful thing." 

Jay still had a frown on his face.

"But he insulted me." 

"I know, son. And I'm so sorry someone said something like that to you." 

Jack fell silent for a few seconds. 

"Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who are afraid of—or suspicious of—what they see as different. Some of them even say ugly things, like that boy did. But just because someone says something awful doesn't mean they're right." 

Surya looked at her father attentively. 

"Throughout your lives, you're probably gonna hear unpleasant comments. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but I'd be lying. What I can tell you, though, is something much more important." 

A small smile appeared on his face. 

"Your mother and I love you exactly as you are. And we wouldn't change a single thing about either of you." 

Jay lowered his gaze. He seemed a little less embarrassed. 

"Not one thing?" 

"Not one thing," Jack confirmed. "Your skin color, your eyes, your curls, your personalities… all of that makes you unique. And your mother and I are incredibly proud of you." 

Surya watched her brother slowly raise his head. 

"Really?" 

"Really. Besides, you know something?" Jack asked with a smile. "Being different has never been a bad thing. The world would be a very boring place if we were all the same, don't you think?" 

That was enough to draw a smile from Jay, and she found herself smiling too. 

It was then that Surya realized that not every family looked like hers, and that there was nothing wrong with that. Because, after all, having a white father and an Indian mother was, to her, simply having Mom and Dad.

—

Surya was five years old when she discovered that most children went to bed knowing their parents were asleep in the room next door. 

For her, though, normal looked very different. After finishing their homework, while she and Jay helped their mother set the kitchen table, their father—already dressed in his scrub top and his trusty cargo pants—would put on his shoes, grab his car keys, and get ready for another night in the ER. 

Then came the usual ritual. 

He would share a kiss with their mother, hug Jay first and then her, and finally deliver his signature line—mostly aimed at his eldest son: “Behave yourselves and don't do anything stupid. I don't want to see either of you in the pit tonight.” 

The next morning, by the time Surya woke up, her father had already come home. Most days, he was making breakfast while Samira finished getting ready to leave for the hospital. 

For a long time, Surya assumed every family worked that way. That it was perfectly normal to say goodbye to your father before dinner and then wish him good morning a few hours later while he poured you a bowl of cereal, the dark circles beneath his eyes making his gaze seem even deeper. 

It was one morning during recess, while she was playing house with her group of friends—Surya had been assigned the role of the father because none of the boys in her class would even consider participating in a game that didn't involve a ball—that she casually mentioned that her dad always went to bed after breakfast. 

Every one of her friends stared at her in complete surprise. 

“Why?” Marie Jenkins asked, breaking the brief silence that had settled around them. 

“Yeah, why?” Sophie Stevens quickly added before Surya could answer. “Shouldn't he be going to work?” 

Surya shook her head. “No, because my dad works at night.” 

The girls' eyes widened as they looked at their friend.

"All night?" 

The question caught Surya off guard, because in her five-year-old mind, nights were precisely when her father was supposed to work. 

"Yeah," she finally replied. "And then he sleeps during the day." 

"What about your mom?" Marie asked. 

"My mom works while my dad sleeps." 

That answer seemed to confuse her friends even more.

 "So…" Sophie frowned. "Do they ever see each other?" 

Surya blinked several times, finding the question just as strange as the previous ones. 

"Of course they do." 

"When?" 

"Well… when Dad comes home." 

"But your mom goes to work." 

"Yeah." 

"Then they don't see each other." 

"Yes, they do." 

"When?" 

Surya thought for a few seconds. 

"When they say goodbye before my dad goes to work," she finally answered. 

"Only then?" 

"No. They have breakfast together, too." 

"And dinner?" 

"Yes." 

"And they sleep together?" 

"Yes." 

"But when?" 

Surya shrugged. "Whenever they can." 

Marie and Sophie fell silent, still trying to solve that particular mystery. 

Because to her, having dinner with her mother and breakfast with her father was normal. It was normal for Jack to tell her goodnight hours before he actually went to bed. It was normal to wake up on Saturday mornings and find her parents asleep on the couch, wrapped in each other's arms, after he had come home from his shift and she had chosen to wake up early so she could greet him while he was still awake. 

And above all, it was normal that, even though they rarely happened to be home at the same time during the week, they always found time to be together. Because, in Surya's eyes, that had never meant that her parents were any less present. It simply meant that they loved each other enough to make it work.

—

Surya was six years old when she started first grade. 

She had already been classmates with most of the children the previous year, but her teacher, Miss Morris—a petite woman with large glasses and a cheerful smile who came from Kansas—was new. Wanting to get to know her students a little better, she assigned them a family tree project. 

Surya came home that day so excited that she could barely get the words out fast enough as she told her parents about the special project she had to present on Monday. 

Over the course of the weekend, Jack and Samira helped her choose the best photographs and, with construction paper, glue, and plenty of family stories, the three of them gradually put together a family tree worthy of being displayed. Along the way, Surya discovered countless stories about uncles, cousins, and grandparents that she had never heard before.

Monday arrived, and Surya was the first to present her family, explaining who everyone was and where they fit within her rather extensive clan. When she finished, Miss Morris congratulated her on such a well-done project. 

The smile stayed on Surya's face right up until lunchtime. 

While she was eating with her two best friends, Anika and Heather, Susan Cowan approached them with her inseparable entourage, a group of girls who, even at six years old, seemed obsessed with being the center of attention. 

"Hey, Surya," she said, with a smile that promised nothing good. "I saw your family tree." 

Surya looked up from the sandwich she was eating. 

"So?" 

"Well, your dad looks really old." 

The girls surrounding Susan let out a few giggles. 

"Are you sure he's not your grandpa?" 

Surya froze for a moment. The question caught her completely off guard. 

"He's not that old," she hurried to reply. 

Susan tilted her head slightly to one side without losing her smile. 

"Oh, really? How old is he?" 

Surya felt her cheeks gradually grow warm. She didn't understand why, but suddenly everyone seemed to be waiting for her answer. 

"Fifty-six," she murmured, barely above a whisper. 

Susan's eyes widened. 

"Fifty-six?" she repeated before turning to the others. "I knew it. He's a grandpa." 

The other girls burst out laughing again, and Surya lowered her gaze to her sandwich, not entirely sure why she suddenly felt a strange knot in her stomach. Because until that morning, it had never occurred to her that there might be anything unusual about having a father with gray hair and wrinkles.

That same evening, while her parents were making dinner—playfully teasing each other, as they always did—she and Jay were finishing their homework at the round table. As Surya watched them, the conversation she had had with Susan earlier that day kept replaying in her mind. 

That was when her mother turned around and noticed her staring. There must have been a mixture of sadness and anger on her face, because Samira immediately asked: 

"Honey, are you okay?" 

Her father and Jay looked up as well, waiting expectantly for an answer. 

Surya sighed. 

"Susan Cowan says you're my grandpa." 

Surya saw her father freeze for a second. Her mother, on the other hand, burst out laughing. 

"Well, technically, I suppose he could be," Samira said, looking at Jack. 

"Samira!" he protested. 

"What? It's true." 

"You're not helping." 

Samira snorted with laughter, and out of the corner of her eye, Surya could see her brother smiling too. 

Jack set down the spoon he had been using to stir the stew, walked over to a chair, and settled his daughter on his lap. 

"Listen, sweetheart. People are gonna say a lot of silly things throughout their lives. Most of the time, it's because they don't understand what they're talking about. So you only need to remember one thing." 

"What's that?" 

"That I'm far too handsome to be your grandfather."

Samira snorted another laugh. 

"That's debatable." 

"I married a woman almost twenty years younger than me. I must have done something right." 

"Jack." 

"All right, all right. The real lesson here is that I love you more than anything else in this world." He looked at her and then at Jay. "And if anyone calls me your grandpa again, at least tell them I'm an incredibly handsome one." 

Surya was six years old when she realized that some families had fathers who were older than the mothers, and others where the opposite was true. 

As the years went by, though, that difference seemed less and less important to her. After all, her father's gray hair didn't make his hugs any less warm, and the years between her parents had certainly not stopped her mother from falling in love with him. 

So, to Surya, it was simply one of those things adults seemed determined to overcomplicate. Because in her world, Mom was Mom, and Dad was Dad. And that was the only thing that truly mattered.

—

Surya was seven years old when she convinced her mother to let her have a sleepover with Anika and Heather. 

She had everything planned out: her friends would come over a few hours before dinner so they could play with the new Barbies she had received for her birthday a few weeks earlier; at dinnertime, her father was going to order several pizzas, and they had bought chocolate ice cream for dessert; and after dinner, they would watch a movie—the new Disney one—well into the night. It probably wouldn't be later than eleven o'clock, but at that age, it felt like quite an achievement. 

When the day finally arrived, Surya spent it buzzing with excitement, especially because every part of her plan unfolded exactly as she had imagined. 

By the time night fell, the girls' laughter had begun to mingle with increasingly long yawns. With an amused smile, Samira convinced them to move the party to Surya's bedroom, where a pair of air mattresses awaited them so they could continue enjoying their sleepover until sleep eventually claimed its victory.

The girls decided to listen to her, though not before offering a few complaints that weren't particularly convincing. 

With Samira following close behind, Surya headed upstairs with Heather and Anika on either side of her. Between muffled giggles and increasingly frequent yawns, the three girls made their way down the hallway toward the bedroom. 

As they passed the master bedroom, Anika and Heather froze. 

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Mr. Abbot had just removed his prosthetic leg and was carefully resting it against the nightstand. To the eyes of two seven-year-old girls, it was the most fascinating thing they had seen not only all night, but probably in their entire short lives. 

All three of them stopped in the middle of the hallway. Surya, however, barely noticed. To her, it was as ordinary as seeing her mother take down her bun when she got home. 

That was when Jack looked up and found his daughter's friends staring at him with wide eyes. An amused smile immediately spread across his face. 

"What's wrong?" he asked, pretending to be surprised. "Never seen a man disassemble himself before bed?" 

Heather opened her mouth, but no sound came out. 

Anika was the first to find her voice. 

"Doesn't… doesn't it hurt?" 

Jack glanced down at the prosthetic and shook his head. 

"No. If it did, it would be a terrible way to end the day." 

The girls exchanged glances. 

"And can you put it back on?" Heather asked, a mixture of curiosity and amazement in her voice. 

"I certainly hope so," Jack replied with a smile. "It'd be pretty inconvenient if I had to crawl my way to the hospital every evening."

The two girls let out little giggles. 

"Dad," Surya protested, rolling her eyes. "You're scaring them." 

"On the contrary, sweetheart. I think they're judging me for leaving my leg lying around. And rightly so, because your mother has been telling me for years that I should put it away properly." 

"And I'm still right," Samira chimed in from behind the girls, crossing her arms with an amused smile. "One of these nights, somebody's gonna trip over it." 

"Love, we've been married for eleven years and it still hasn't happened." 

"Because I'm the one who makes sure it's not always in the way." 

Jack raised his hands in surrender. 

"See? That's why I married her. She's a very smart woman." 

The girls burst out laughing, and a few seconds later, resumed their journey toward Surya's room, far too tired to keep asking Mr. Abbot questions. 

Weeks later, however, Heather would confess to her friend that it had been the first time she had ever met someone with a prosthetic limb. 

Surya remembered blinking several times in surprise. Because until that moment, it had never occurred to her that it wasn't perfectly normal for all fathers to leave a leg propped against the nightstand before going to sleep.

—

It was a few months after that sleepover that Surya realized that crutches were not a sign that her father was sick. They simply meant that it was one of those days. 

Surya knew that both of her parents spent long hours on their feet. She had seen it for herself on the occasions when she had had to visit the hospital for one reason or another. So she knew that, whenever he had had a particularly rough night, Jack's residual limb hurt more than usual, which also meant that her mother would scold him for trying to be brave instead of resting when his body was asking him to. 

"Jack Abbot, I swear, if you ignore the physical therapist again, I'll personally talk to Robby and make sure he forces you to take a few days off." 

"Love, you're exaggerating." 

"And you're being stubborn." 

Those arguments were so common on bad days that Jay and Surya had learned to measure their father's pain by the number of times their mother called him by his full name. 

And even then, the last thing they cared about was who would win the argument. Because in the end, crutches never meant that Dad stopped being Dad. They simply meant that Mom would fuss over him a little more than usual for a few days.

—

Surya was eight years old when one of the coldest winters Pittsburgh had seen in decades arrived.

While most people complained about the freezing temperatures, the snow, and how early the sun set, Surya awaited the arrival of winter with an excitement that was difficult to put into words. After all, that season brought with it the two celebrations that had made her happiest for as long as she could remember.

First came the lights of Diwali.

Nani Pari always came a few days early, accompanied by her husband. That was when, together, they filled the house with diyas and garlands, Grandma cooked the traditional dishes of her childhood, filling the house with the scent of spices and homemade sweets, and video calls with her mother's uncles, aunts, and cousins became mandatory.

Her father, of course, took every opportunity to prove that he still pronounced certain Hindi words terribly, earning exasperated laughter from her mother.

During the five days of the festival, Surya ate well, enjoyed spending time with her nani, and received plenty of gifts.

Then, a few weeks later, her father would officially declare the Christmas season open.

With almost childlike excitement, he would pile everyone into the car and drive out to the outskirts of Pittsburgh to choose the best Christmas tree of them all; one which, according to him, was always obviously superior to the rest and which would eventually take its customary place in the corner of the living room.

With Christmas carols playing in the background, the four members of the family decorated the house—inside and out—with festive ornaments while laughter filled every corner.

And then came the most important days of all, the ones when the entire Abbot family gathered together.

If Diwali brought Surya a sense of peace that was almost impossible to describe, Christmas Eve was the exact opposite: a wonderful kind of chaos.

Her grandparents, her aunts—Jack's two older sisters—her cousins and their spouses, some already accompanied by children of their own, crowded into a house that seemed to grow smaller with every passing year. Conversations overlapped as plates of food passed from hand to hand, laughter echoed everywhere, and the voices grew so loud that not even the Christmas carols her grandmother insisted on playing every year on the old record player could overpower the noise.

It was completely different from the celebrations with her mother's family, where everything seemed calmer and more serene. But that mixture of hugs, overflowing plates of food, children running through the hallways, and adults all talking at once had been part of Surya's Christmases for as long as she could remember.

So when the holidays were over and a classmate—Tyler Simons, after everyone had taken turns telling the class what they had done during winter break—asked her which of the two celebrations was the real one, Surya was completely thrown off.

“Both,” she answered, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“But you have to choose.”

Surya frowned in confusion.

“Choose what?”

“Whether you're Indian or American.”

Surya fell silent for a moment, but she couldn't think of an answer for Tyler.

That very night, while her mother brushed her hair before bed, she asked her the very same question.

Surya watched her mother's eyebrows rise in surprise before she burst out laughing.

“Honey, nobody has to choose,” Samira replied after a few seconds. “Your father and I never did. We kept both traditions.” She met her daughter's eyes through the mirror. “And honestly, I think we got the better deal.”

Later, tucked into bed up to her chin to keep out the cold, Surya still couldn't understand why that seemed so complicated to some people. Because in her mind, Diwali meant traditional sweets and candlelight, while Christmas meant hot chocolate and old movies.

And both of them, inevitably, meant family.

—

A sweltering heat wave had reached the East Coast that July, just as Surya was about to turn nine.

As it did every summer, the community pool had opened weeks earlier and was packed with neighbors trying to escape the oppressive heat, if only for a few hours. Between splashes, children's laughter, and the constant hum of conversation, the place had once again become the center of the neighborhood's social life.

While Jay was competing with the Raffay twins to see who could stay underwater the longest, Surya was splashing around in the shallow end with Heather and Anika, whom she had invited to spend the day at the pool. Nearby, Jack lounged in a deck chair, resigned to his role as the official lifeguard while Samira read a book beside him.

That was when Nick Raffay—the worst of the twins, in Surya's opinion—wandered over to the girls.

"You've never told me what happened to your dad," the redheaded boy asked out of nowhere.

Surya looked at him in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"That."

Nick pointed at Jack's chest.

Surya followed the direction of his finger and took a few seconds to understand what he meant.

The scars.

Those pale, uneven lines that ran across part of her father's chest, shoulders, and legs. Marks she had known for as long as she could remember. Marks that, honestly, were simply part of what made her father her father.

"The scars?" she asked, puzzled.

Nick nodded.

"Yeah. My dad doesn't have any."

"Mine doesn't either," Heather added.

"My dad has one on his hand because he cut himself with a knife a few years ago. But not as many as yours," Anika said.

Surya blinked several times.

That was strange. Not her father's scars—that was normal. What was strange was that everyone else's fathers didn't have them.

"Well… I don't know," she finally admitted. "They're Dad's scars."

Nick frowned.

"But from what?"

"Well… stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Grown-up stuff. The war… I don't know."

The answer didn't seem to satisfy the redhead very much.

"I read once that scars tell stories," he said suddenly.

“Well, my dad's tell a lot of them,” Surya replied with all the conviction of a child her age.

Nick glanced back toward the deck chairs.

Jack was sitting upright with his arms crossed. Behind him, Samira had temporarily abandoned her book to apply sunscreen to his back and shoulders.

“I'm not letting you get sunburned again this year and listening to you complain for an entire week,” she said, a mixture of firmness and affection in her voice.

“Babe, I only got sunburned once last year.”

“Three times.”

“One and a half.”

“Three.”

“You're being very dramatic.”

The children watched the scene in silence.

“Your mom scolds him a lot,” Nick commented.

“Because she loves him,” Surya said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“And the scars?”

“Those too,” she replied firmly.

Nick thought about that for a few seconds before shrugging and swimming back to his friends.

Surya, meanwhile, remained where she was, watching her parents.

She saw her mother carefully spread the sunscreen over her father's pale skin, and her father smiled at her with that peaceful expression he reserved only for her.

It was then that she realized that perhaps Nick was right. Perhaps scars did tell stories. But to Surya, they had never been sad stories, because ever since she was little, she had always seen them accompanied by kisses, hugs, terrible jokes, and Mom's hands covering them with sunscreen every summer.

In the end, those marks were just another part of her father, like his gray hair, his glasses, or the way he always managed to make her laugh.

—

Classes were just about to end and give way to spring break that year when Surya was ten.

With the weather growing warmer by the day and the evenings stretching longer, Mr. Diaz, her fourth-grade teacher, had allowed his students to forget about homework and focus instead on a project they had to present before the holidays.

Since all the assignments had to be done in groups, Surya had, of course, ended up teaming up with Heather and Anika.

That Friday afternoon, the girls were sitting in the Abbot family's living room, researching the state of Massachusetts while Jay—who had also been spared from homework—devoted himself to fulfilling his role as an insufferable older brother, annoying them with his usual antics.

Surya was in the middle of scolding her brother with the limited patience characteristic of any younger sister when a loud crash coming from upstairs made her fall silent.

All four children froze.

For a few seconds, silence reigned as they strained their ears, trying to figure out what on earth could have fallen. Then, a woman's voice echoed throughout the house, launching into a rapid stream of words in a language Heather and Anika had never heard before.

Among all those unfamiliar words, however, there was one thing the girls recognized perfectly.

“Jack Abbot!”

Jay looked up and let out a sigh.

“Uh-oh.”

“She’s mad,” Surya declared with complete calm.

“And very mad,” her brother added, nodding with the solemnity of someone who had spent years witnessing the phenomenon.

Heather and Anika exchanged a glance, utterly bewildered.

“What did she say?” Anika asked in little more than a whisper.

“We don't really have a clear idea. We only understand a few words here and there,” Surya answered honestly.

“But what we do know is that Mom is mad at Dad,” Jay added. “Really mad.”

As though to confirm his words, Samira's voice rang out upstairs once again, even faster than before.

Then, a male voice answered immediately.

“It was an accident!” their father protested.

Jay sighed again.

“Whatever it is, it must be pretty bad.”

“How do you know?” Heather asked.

“Because Mom only calls him by his full name when she's angry,” Surya replied as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“And when she starts speaking Hindi that fast, it's best to let Dad figure things out on his own,” her brother added.

Heather's eyes widened.

“But does your dad understand what she's saying?”

The siblings looked at each other.

“He'd better,” they answered in unison.

Because to them, that situation was as normal as having pizza on Fridays.

—

One thing their parents had never hidden from either Jay or Surya was Alice's existence.

Throughout their lives, her photographs had occupied a place among the frames decorating the walls and bookshelves of the house, and the stories about her were part of the same collection of family memories as the anecdotes about Jack's parents or sisters.

However, it wasn't until a quiet Saturday afternoon, when Surya was eleven years old, that she truly understood what that woman had meant to her father.

A few days earlier, Jack had decided that the garage needed to be reorganized from top to bottom. While he and Jay were at the hardware store buying new shelves and arguing—according to her mother—about matters of wildly disproportionate importance for two people who simply needed more storage space, Samira had decided to take advantage of her husband's absence to begin cleaning.

With Surya serving as her official assistant, mother and daughter had settled into the garage, surrounded by forgotten boxes, photo albums, and objects that had spent years gathering dust, patiently deciding what to keep and what to throw away.

It was there, among old clothes and memories from another life, that Surya came across a photograph that brought her to an abrupt halt.

In it, a much younger Jack stood beside a brown-haired woman in a white dress—a woman she recognized immediately—wearing an elegant suit and smiling happily, neither of them able to take their eyes off the other.

“Mom,” she asked after a few seconds, bewildered. “Was Dad married to Alice?”

Samira looked up from the items in front of her and smiled gently.

“Yes, honey.”

The answer only deepened the girl's confusion.

“And…” She frowned. “Doesn't that make you sad?”

Samira's smile softened even more.

“What does?”

“That her pictures decorate our house too.”

Her mother was silent for a few seconds before setting aside the old magazines she had been sorting through.

“No, honey,” she finally replied. “Because Alice was part of his life back then, and your father has every right to remember her.”

Surya looked back at the photograph.

“So… you're both his wives?”

“That's right.”

“And that's okay?”

Samira couldn't help but let out a soft laugh.

“Of course it is.”

“Aren't you jealous of her?”

“Of someone who passed away years before I even met your father?” she asked rhetorically. “No, honey.”

Surya bit her lower lip before looking up at her mother.

“But Dad loved her.”

“Yes.”

“And he loves you too.”

Samira's smile turned almost tender.

“Yes.”

“Can you love two people?”

“Not at the same time, and not in the same way. But yes, you can love more than one person over the course of a lifetime.”

Surya fell silent for several seconds.

“So… if Alice hadn't died, you and Dad would never have met?”

The question made Samira pause thoughtfully.

“Maybe we would have met. But we never would have fallen in love the way we did.”

“And doesn't that make you sad?”

Her mother smiled.

“No, because things happened the way they happened. And because, in a rather strange way, all the people we love help shape who we become.” She pointed at the photograph. “Alice helped your father become the man I fell in love with, and for that, I'm very grateful to her.”

Surya studied the picture for a few seconds before looking back at her mother.

“And that doesn't seem weird to you?”

Samira's smile widened.

“Sweetheart, if having you and your brother here with me, and having the life I have now, means accepting that your father loved someone else before he met me, then I accept that gladly. Because I would choose the both of you every single time.”

That made Surya blush slightly.

“And Dad would too?”

“Your father would too. Trust me.”

Surya smiled as she realized that Alice wasn't simply Jack Abbot's other wife, but a woman who had been part of her father's life long before she was born.

And somehow, because of the life Jack had shared with Alice, he had eventually found the one he would build with her mother, with Jay, and with herself.

It was at that moment that Surya understood that people's hearts were much bigger than she had ever imagined.

—

One of Surya's favorite traditions over the past few years had been Saturday movie nights.

Ever since she could remember—and Surya was twelve now—every Saturday after dinner, her parents would turn on the television, open one of the streaming services, and look for a movie the four of them could enjoy together.

When she and her brother were little, those family nights had been filled with cartoons and children's movies. But the years passed, and just as they grew up, so did the films they chose to watch together.

And since every good tradition needed a ritual, these evenings were no exception.

After dinner, while Surya and Jay finished cleaning up the kitchen, their parents would settle onto the couch and turn on the television, searching for something that might appeal to all four of them. Once everything was ready, movie night officially began—and with it, the next step in the tradition.

Years earlier, Surya and her brother had calculated the average amount of time it took their father to fall asleep once the movie started: somewhere between ten and fifteen minutes. So, the moment the opening credits appeared on screen, Jay and Surya would glance at the little clock sitting on the mantelpiece.

That was when the siblings' favorite game began: sneaking occasional looks at their father every few minutes and, through shared smiles and knowing glances, following the different stages of his inevitable nap on the couch.

First came the yawn—about three minutes after the movie started. Then the television remote, resting on his chest, would slowly slide down a few inches. And finally, his eyes would close while he continued insisting—if anyone dared accuse him—that he was merely resting them.

But what fascinated the siblings most was that their mother never seemed surprised by any of this. She would simply take the remote from his hands, set it carefully on the coffee table, and drape a blanket over him. And if she herself was particularly tired, she would eventually settle beside him, using his shoulder as a pillow while pretending to keep watching the movie.

Surya and her brother would usually exchange amused glances at that point. They knew that, after a few minutes, their mother would fall asleep too.

And that was almost always exactly what happened.

The movie would continue playing while the siblings sat quietly, occasionally glancing over at their parents, sound asleep and wrapped around each other with the kind of effortless intimacy that only couples who had spent years together seemed to possess.

Those impromptu naps became such a familiar image throughout her childhood that, as the years passed, Surya came to associate Saturday nights with the soft sound of her father's snoring and her mother's head resting on his shoulder.

Because for a very long time, Surya believed that all stories ended the same way: with a blanket, a movie left unfinished, and her parents asleep on the couch.

—

One chilly morning in early October, a thirteen-year-old Surya woke up drenched in sweat. But she barely cared because it was Saturday, which meant that the most anticipated day of the week had finally arrived: she was going to her very first concert.

She and her best friend, Heather, had been planning this day for months, ever since their favorite band had announced a stop in Pittsburgh. Convincing her mother hadn't been easy—her father had agreed the moment Surya brought it up—but she had enough savings to pay for her own ticket, so Samira had eventually had no choice but to give in.

Heather's mother would be accompanying them. Surya had been present when Mrs. Wells assured a somewhat skeptical Samira that she wouldn't let the girls out of her sight.

When Surya walked into the kitchen that cold morning, her mother was standing by the stove, finishing a batch of scrambled eggs, while her father sat at the table reading the newspaper with a cup of coffee in front of him and his crutches propped against the wall beside him.

She greeted them both before sitting down across from her father. The moment she did, Jack looked up at her and immediately frowned.

“Sweetheart, you have a fever.”

The moment those words left his mouth, Samira looked at her daughter as well, while surprise spread across Surya's face.

“What? No.”

Jack set the newspaper aside before reaching out and placing a hand on her forehead.

“Yeah, you definitely have a fever. And I'd bet it's almost a hundred and two.”

Her mother came over as well and performed the same ritual as her father, gently placing a hand against her forehead.

“Your throat hurt last night, didn't it?” Samira asked.

Surya gave a small nod and rolled her eyes.

“Yeah. But I'm fine.”

Her mother shook her head.

“I don't think so. It's very likely strep throat.”

Jack nodded in agreement, never taking his eyes off his daughter.

“There have been several cases in the last few days. The best thing you can do is stay home and rest.”

Those words hit Surya like a punch to her already sore throat.

“But Dad! I have the concert this afternoon!”

Samira looked at her daughter with obvious sympathy.

“I'm sorry, honey, but your father is right. The best thing for you is to stay home and rest until your fever goes down.”

“I don't want to!” Surya shouted, jumping to her feet. “I'm going to that concert with Heather no matter what!”

She stormed out of the kitchen, her footsteps echoing through the house, leaving her parents behind. They merely looked at each other for a moment, sharing an unspoken conversation.

Both had reached the same conclusion: Surya wasn't going anywhere that afternoon.

And, of course, two doctors as experienced as they were turned out to be right.

Even though Surya spent the entire morning doing everything strictly necessary to bring the fever down—drinking plenty of water, taking some Tylenol after breakfast, and soaking in a lukewarm bath—within a few hours, she was feeling even worse.

After lunch, her mother went upstairs to check on her. Samira found her daughter curled up in bed, wrapped in a thick blanket that covered ninety-nine percent of her body.

“I'm gonna call Mrs. Wells. Hopefully we're still in time to get your money back for the ticket,” Samira announced in a calm voice.

A few minutes later, she returned with a washcloth soaked in cold water and gently placed it on Surya's forehead. Surya greeted the relief with a small sigh of satisfaction, but she was so exhausted that she couldn't even find the strength to say a word.

“Get some rest, honey. You'll have plenty more chances to see your favorite band,” Samira whispered lovingly before pressing a soft kiss to her daughter's feverish cheek.

Surya didn't answer. Instead, she curled up a little tighter beneath the blankets while her mother brushed a lock of hair away from her forehead and made sure the washcloth was still in place.

The next morning, the fever had eased somewhat, but her throat still hurt so much that she could barely swallow.

What surprised Heather the most when Surya told her about it a few days later wasn't that she had missed the concert—although Surya still regretted having had such terrible luck—, but the fact that her parents had known she was sick even before the symptoms had really appeared.

“How did they know?” she asked, fascinated.

Surya shrugged.

“You know… doctor parents.”

And honestly, that answer seemed more than sufficient. Because, after all, things had always been that way in her house. Her parents simply knew those kinds of things.

—

Surya was fourteen years old when she realized, for the first time in her life, that her father had had an entire life before becoming her father.

That shouldn't have come as a surprise. After all, she had spent years listening to him tell his old war stories from high school or from his days as a resident. But somehow, she had never really stopped to think about it.

Until Super Bowl night.

The Pittsburgh Steelers had made it to the championship game for the first time in years, and the whole city was celebrating. It was also the first time in years that her father had managed to get the night off from the ER on such an important occasion, a day when accidents were usually inevitable.

The Abbot house was packed with her father's side of the family. Jack's sisters had filled the kitchen with homemade food, while their husbands had stocked the refrigerator with beer and soft drinks for the younger crowd. Surya's cousins had taken care of bringing Steelers jerseys and scarves for everyone, along with face paint. And Jack, with Jay's help, had rearranged the living room so that everyone would have a place to sit and watch the game. The atmosphere was so festive that it reminded Surya of Christmas or one of their birthdays.

It was during the minutes before kickoff that Lisa, Jack's oldest sister, remarked: “Do you remember the Super Bowl in 1980, Jackie?”

Before answering, her father rolled his eyes at the nickname that, even at sixty-three years old, his sisters stubbornly refused to give up.

“To be honest, I barely remember the game itself,” Jack admitted with a small smile. “What I do remember is how happy we all were about winning the Super Bowl for the second year in a row.”

His eyes drifted to some distant point, as though, for a few seconds, he had stopped sitting in the living room and returned several decades into the past.

“Dad was convinced it was nothing short of a miracle,” he continued with a soft laugh. “I also remember Uncle Brian celebrating for an entire week. I think Mom eventually learned the quarterback's name just from hearing it so often.”

“Mom knew the quarterback's name,” corrected Diane, the middle sibling, with an amused smile. “What she never understood were the rules.”

“I don't blame her,” Samira chimed in. “I don't understand them either. I just pretend I do.”

That earned several bursts of laughter from around the room.

“But what I remember most is Dad,” Jack added then, his gaze drifting to an old photograph of his parents from the early sixties resting on a shelf. “It was the fourth time he'd seen his team win, and he was more excited than any of us.”

Lisa smiled from the other side of the living room.

“Well, somebody had to make up for Jackie's lack of enthusiasm.”

“Oh, please don't start calling me that again.”

“You're sixty-three and still blush when people call you Jackie,” Diane teased.

“Because it's a terrible nickname.”

“Say whatever you want, Jackie. I plan on calling you that until the day I die,” she replied firmly, leaving no room for argument.

Laughter once again echoed throughout the living room while Jack rolled his eyes, surrendering with the resignation of a man who had lost that particular battle several decades earlier.

And that was when Surya understood it: her father had lived an entire life before becoming her father.

He had been a medical student, a military doctor far too young for the things he had seen, an unbearably enthusiastic football fan, and apparently, a little boy whom his older sisters affectionately tormented by calling Jackie.

And, for some reason, that thought made her smile. Because she realized that the stories her father told were not stories about the past, but stories about the people he had loved most and who had shaped him the most.

And just as he would always be little Jackie to his sisters, Surya suspected that, even when she was thirty years old, she would still be simply his little girl.

—

The first signs of autumn were beginning to color the city when Surya, freshly fifteen and still adjusting to her sophomore year of high school, received a piece of news that left her completely bewildered.

She was at Heather's house on a Friday afternoon after school, finishing her chemistry homework, when her best friend spoke.

“My parents are getting divorced.”

Surya looked up from her textbook, convinced she had misheard.

“What?”

Heather shrugged without looking up from her own book, though Surya could see that her eyes were far too red for the gesture to seem indifferent.

“They sat my sister and me down yesterday to tell us.”

It took Surya a few seconds to find the words.

“But…” she blinked several times. “Why?”

“I guess because they don't love each other anymore,” Heather replied, shrugging once again as she tried desperately to hold back her tears.

That was when Surya finally reacted, wrapping her best friend in a hug as Heather broke down in her arms.

But even as she comforted her, Surya remained utterly confused. Because, in her mind, none of it made any sense.

Parents loved each other. It was one of those absolute truths she had never even thought to question. After all, she had spent her whole life watching her own parents kiss each other every day, hug in the kitchen while making dinner every weekend, or argue about who had forgotten to buy eggs only to burst out laughing five minutes later over something ridiculous.

To Surya, it was impossible to imagine a version of the world where that simply ceased to exist.

And yet, Heather was crying in her arms, which meant that somehow, such a world could exist.

By the time Surya got home half an hour before dinner, she was greeted by such an ordinary scene that Heather's words, spoken only a few hours earlier, still felt strange to her.

Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table, reading aloud what appeared to be a medical article, while her father, leaning on one crutch and absentmindedly stirring the contents of a pot, listened with the kind of attention one might reserve for a lecture.

“This part is the most interesting,” Samira said, raising a hand when Jack tried to taste the food.

“Babe, I've spent the last fifteen minutes listening to you talk about new treatments for heart failure. I think I've earned the right to taste the sauce.”

“Jack…”

“All right, all right.”

The little exchange drew a small smile from Surya, but it also caused a knot to form in her stomach.

“Hi, honey,” Samira greeted when she saw her come in. “Did you finish all your homework at Heather's?”

Surya dropped her backpack beside the kitchen door.

“Yeah.”

“And how was school?”

“Fine.”

At that second answer, Jack looked up.

“Those answers were suspiciously short.”

“They're the same ones you give when you've had an awful shift,” Samira pointed out.

“Which is exactly how I know something's wrong. Because they never fool anyone.”

Surya smiled weakly.

“Heather told me something today.”

Samira and Jack exchanged a glance.

“Is everything okay?” her mother asked.

“Her parents are getting divorced.”

The silence that followed was immediate.

Jack set the wooden spoon down on the counter while Samira lowered her tablet onto the table.

“Oh, honey,” her mother murmured. “I'm so sorry.”

“She’s really sad.”

“That’s understandable,” Jack replied softly.

Surya fiddled with the sleeves of her sweatshirt.

“She says they don't love each other anymore.”

That made her parents look at each other again.

And, for some reason, that glance was enough for the fear she had been trying to ignore ever since Heather had broken the news to finally come spilling out.

“Could… could that happen to you two?”

The question hung in the air.

Jack was the first to react.

“To us?” he repeated, as though the idea itself seemed strange to him.

Surya nodded.

“I mean… Mr. and Mrs. Wells loved each other too. But now they don't. And… I don't know.”

She didn't need to finish the sentence. Samira rose from her chair and immediately crossed the kitchen to her daughter.

“Come here,” she whispered.

She hugged her tightly, and a second later, Jack joined the embrace, wrapping his free arm around his girls.

“Listen to me, Surya,” he said with a gentle smile. “Just because something bad has happened to another family doesn't mean it's gonna happen to ours.”

“But what if…?”

“What if, ten years from now, your father is still putting too much salt in the chili?” Samira asked with a smile.

“Or if your mother still insists on buying mushrooms even though she hates them?” Jack added.

“Or if we keep arguing over silly things and making up five minutes later?”

“Or if we keep choosing each other every single day?”

Surya looked up.

“Is that what you do?”

Jack smiled before absentmindedly pressing a kiss to Samira's temple.

“Every day, sweetheart.”

Samira rested her head on her husband's shoulder while wrapping an arm around his waist.

“Every day.”

And as she watched them there, in the middle of the kitchen filled with the smell of dinner, with a tablet full of medical articles no one else read aloud forgotten on the table, Surya realized that love wasn't something that simply happened—it was something you chose.

And ever since she could remember, her parents had never stopped choosing each other. Not even for a single day.

—

Over the years, Surya had discovered many things that made her family different from most others. And yet, none of those differences had ever made her wish to change anything, because in the end, families were simply like that.

Some were louder than others. Some had countless traditions and celebrations, while others had only a few. Some were made up of people who looked alike, while others were made up of people who had learned to love one another precisely through their differences.

And all of them were equally real.

All of them were equally valid.

All of them were a family.

That was why, whenever someone asked her what it was like to grow up in a house like hers, Surya never quite knew how to answer. Because the truth was, she had no idea what it was like to grow up any other way. She only knew what it had been like to grow up as an Abbot–Mohan.

And honestly, she wouldn't have traded that for anything in the world.

Because, after all, the very things that made her family different were the same things that had made her feel loved her entire life.

And perhaps that was the closest thing to normal there really was.