The phone’s vibration was a frantic insect trapped against the wood of her desk. The screen glowed with a cascade of notifications, a digital waterfall of outrage and support. Jennifer watched it for a long moment, the noise a physical presence in the quiet of her apartment. She silenced it, the sudden lack of sound a new kind of pressure. Then it rang, a single, insistent call cutting through the digital static. The caller ID was just a number, but she knew the rhythm of it.

She picked up.

“Jenny?”

“Ma.”

“The neighbors were making a racket. Something about your name on the television.” Lata’s voice was devoid of panic, a flat statement of fact. There was a pause, the sound of a spoon clinking against ceramic. “Have you eaten?”

“Not yet.”

“Come over. I made daal.”

The line went dead. It was not a request. It was a summons.

Lata’s apartment was two floors down in a different building, but it occupied another era. The air inside held the scent of toasted cumin and fabric soap. Everything had its place. Newspapers were folded into neat squares on a low stool, their edges perfectly aligned. Spices were arranged in small steel bowls, a palette of reds and yellows. Here, chaos was a foreign language.

Her mother sat at the small wooden table that served as her office and dining room. Before her lay a ledger bound in worn blue cloth. Its pages were filled with a fine, deliberate script, columns of figures that tracked the flow of life in rupees and paisa. The pen in her hand moved with the slow grace of a practiced ritual. She did not look up when Jennifer entered.

“Take your shoes off.”

Jennifer did, placing them beside the door. She sat opposite her mother, the table between them a territory of unspoken history. Lata finished her entry, blotted the ink with a small piece of paper, and closed the book. The soft thud of the cover settling was a sound of finality.

“Your father had a book like that,” Jennifer said, her voice quiet.

“His was for other people’s money.” Lata’s eyes, dark and knowing, finally met hers. “This is for ours. There is a difference.” She rose and went to the stove, her movements economical and precise. She ladled daal into a bowl and placed it, along with two warm rotis, in front of Jennifer. “The men you spoke of. They are dangerous.”

“I know.”

“Knowing and feeling are two different things.” Lata sat back down, her hands resting on the closed ledger. “When your father stopped coming home, the neighbors started whispering. They said he ran off with another woman. They said he owed money. They said he was a spy.” She smoothed a non-existent wrinkle on the book’s cover. “Rumors cost nothing to start, but they take everything to survive.”

Jennifer ate, the warmth of the food a small comfort. Her mother’s world was built on tangible things: the weight of a coin, the measure of rice, the strength of a seam. It was a world designed to withstand shocks.

“I remember you had a postcard,” Jennifer said. “From a man. He was going to America.”

Lata’s gaze sharpened. “He promised a new life. He sent a picture of a mountain in a place called Colorado.” Her lips thinned into a line. “A picture does not keep you warm. A promise does not feed a child.” She tapped the ledger. “This feeds a child.”

It was the closest she ever came to speaking of the failed romance, a life she had considered before Jennifer’s father. A footnote in her personal accounts. Just like her sister in London, whose name appeared in the ledger only on birthdays, next to the cost of an international stamp for a card that was never answered.

“You have your father’s heart,” Lata continued, her voice softening just a fraction. “You believe a story can change the world.”

“Don’t you?”

“I believe the world changes you.” She reached across the table, her hand briefly covering Jennifer’s. Her skin was dry, calloused from a lifetime of work. “That man on the radio, Trevor. He lost his job for you.”

“He resigned. It was his choice.”

“It was a choice you gave him.” Lata withdrew her hand. “Every choice has a price. I write them all down.” She looked at Jennifer, her expression a mixture of fierce pride and a deeper, older fear. “Your father’s last entry was the cost of a bus ticket to the coast. I never got to write down his return fare.”

She did not say more. She simply watched her daughter eat, ensuring the ledger of her life had at least one more entry marked by a full stomach and a safe return. For now.