Read Online Rebels by Accident by Patricia Dunn - Free Book Online Page B

Deanna points to a black-and-white photo of a young Sittu smiling at a very handsome man in a suit. The man is smiling back at her like she’s the most beautiful woman in the world.
    â€œYes, that was me before the snow settled.” Sittu touches her white hair.
    â€œIs that your husband? He’s hot,” Deanna says.
    â€œDeanna!” Calling my grandfather hot— what is she thinking?
    â€œI didn’t mean any disrespect.”
    â€œThat’s quite all right,” Sittu says, looking at his picture. “He was hot. Very hot.” Sittu kisses her middle and index finger and places them over my grandfather’s face.
    â€œMar, is this you with your grandfather?” Deanna looks sideways at me, questioningly.
    Sittu smiles. “That’s Mariam and her giddu .”
    â€œThat ice cream cone is bigger than I am.”
    â€œYour giddu loved to take you for ice cream. He always bought you three scoops, knowing he’d have to finish it for you.”
    I smile like I remember, but I don’t. Not until this moment do I realize that we don’t have any photos, anywhere, of my grandfather. And the only picture in our apartment of Sittu is of her holding Baba when he was an infant. Now I wonder if it was my grandfather who took that picture.
    Sittu puts her hand on my shoulder. “He loved you very much.”
    It’s nice to hear this. I want to ask her what happened between my dad and his father, why Baba never talks about him. It’s like Baba doesn’t want me to remember my grandfather at all.
    â€œCome on, let me show you your room.” Sittu drops her hand from my shoulder and walks out of the living room. When we get to the hugest bedroom I’ve ever seen—bigger than my living room and kitchen put together—Sittu says, “This is your room. I hope you don’t mind sharing.”
    â€œOf course not,” I say. The last thing I want is to be alone in this place.
    â€œThis is great,” Deanna says, bouncing on one of the two twin beds. “You have a beautiful home.”
    â€œIt’s more beautiful now you are both here.”
    â€œThank you,” Deanna and I say in unison.
    â€œYou don’t need to thank family,” Sittu says.
    â€œWas this Baba’s?” I ask, sitting down at a huge wooden desk and touching the surface around the computer. Baba talks about his desk all the time. Every time he sees me doing homework anywhere but at mine, he says, “When I was a child, I did all of my homework at my desk. There was no doing homework at the dining room table. My mother wouldn’t have it any other way.” When he talks like this, I picture him chained to the leg of his desk. I look down. No chains.
    â€œThis was his room.” Sittu picks up a framed photo of a class of children in school uniforms. “This is your baba right here.” She points to a small boy with big ears, sitting in the first row.
    â€œCan I see?” Deanna looks over my shoulder.
    â€œThat’s him.” I tap the child Sittu just pointed to.
    â€œHe’s so cute,” Deanna says.
    â€œYes, but those ears!” Sittu laughs and kisses the photo before putting it back down. I like her laugh.
    â€œThese look like Catholic school uniforms,” Deanna says.
    â€œLycée Français was a Catholic school.”
    â€œCatholic? Really?” Deanna says.
    â€œYes. Muslims often go to Catholic schools here, especially when they are of such quality.” Sittu sounds a lot like Baba. Baba is only a snob when it comes to education. “You’ve had a long journey, so rest a bit, and then we’ll have you both call home.”
    â€œMy mom says I need to buy a cell here because mine won’t work,” Deanna says.
    â€œCell?” Sittu asks.
    â€œMobile,” I say, which is what Baba calls it.
    â€œWe can get that at the mall.”
    â€œThe mall?! There’s a mall?”