Chapter 22

If the yawns from Jennifer were any indication, she was exhausted. We’d had two meetings that she’d been apprehensive about – particularly the second one. When we got back to the hotel we thanked Martin and asked him to have breakfast with us in the morning which he agreed to do.

I hadn’t really comprehended just how tired Jennifer was until I notice she had almost dozed off in the elevator. I got her into our suite and helped her get into bed. Almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, she was asleep.

I love watching Jennifer when she’s asleep and admiring her beauty. Tonight I thought she looked especially beautiful, perhaps because she’d managed to re-establish connections with her parents’ families. After watching her for a few minutes, I joined her in the bed and, like Jennifer, was soon asleep.

The next morning I woke to see Jennifer, still in bed but up and leaning on one of her arms, looking at me with what can only be described as a look of love. I smiled and pulled her down to kiss and cuddle. “I love looking at you when you’re sleeping,” she said. “You look so innocent – and I know firsthand that you’re far from innocent.” She started to laugh.

“What a horrible way to be woken up – having someone insult you,” I said trying desperately not to laugh. “I have a mind to leave you out on the sidewalk outside and go home.”

Jennifer laughed harder then fell on top of me to kiss me. We had a few moments of gentle kissing and holding one another but I knew we needed to get going. We got ready, luggage packed and then headed down to meet Martin for breakfast.

Martin was already seated when we got down to the dining room and smiled when he saw us. “Well, did things go as you hoped they would or... ?” he asked. Jennifer smiled then bent down to kiss his cheek. As we were getting seated Jennifer started to answer Martin’s question.

“Martin, things went much better than I thought they would. Your family – Dad’s family – made it a wonderful meeting and I almost didn’t want to leave. I was quite worried about what would happen when we met Mom’s family since they’d been very upset at what Mom did when she married Dad. When I called the lady ‘Naani - Grandmother’ that seemed to break the ice and things went way better than I thought they would. I know she’s not my real grandmother – she’s my grandmother’s sister - but I felt that using that title would show my respect for her.”

“I was surprised to hear you use those titles,” Martin said. “I presume they are your mother’s family’s native language.”

“Yes, the language is Urdu and when Mom’s family agreed to meet with us, I decided that I’d learn to call the older members of the family by the Urdu title that they’d be used to using,” Jennifer said. “Urdu is actually pretty easy to learn. I found a couple of places on the internet where I could actually hear the words spoken and I practised until I thought I was saying the words correctly. From the looks on their faces when I called ‘Grandma’ ‘Naani’ I’d say I did a pretty good job.”

I hugged Jennifer to my side and kissed her. “I was so impressed that you did that and when you started speaking I wondered where you’d learned the language.”

At this moment the waitress arrived and we placed our breakfast orders. Once she had left our table I looked at Jennifer. “Do you think we can ask Martin to give everyone our own address and see if he can get us addresses to allow us to communicate with them when we get back home?”

Jennifer looked at me and smiled. “Oh yes, let’s,” then turning to Martin told him she would be pleased to be able to mail back and forth with them. Martin agreed to do this and told us that when we got home we’d probably find a bunch of letters from his family waiting for us.