“That doesn’t sound good,” Jasmine murmured as the banging continued.
“I’ll see what the matter is.” Aladdin stood up.
“No, Your Majesty, please relax.” Omar sighed. “It’s a man—he came by earlier, just before you arrived. An eager subject wanting to welcome his prince home, I suppose. But he’ll meet you in due time. Please enjoy your meal. I’ll go speak to him again. If you’ll excuse me.” With that, Omar turned and walked out of the room.
Aladdin wondered if he should follow; what would a real prince do in such a situation? But he decided Omar would come get him if he were needed.
Birds chirped outside the window across from them. He watched as a chickadee fluttered up and disappeared into a birdhouse perched on a wooden pole just beyond a patch of shrubbery.
“Hope you didn’t mind Omar sharing that story,” Jasmine said.
“No, no.” Aladdin turned to look back at her, shaking his head. “It had been a long time since I had heard it, actually.”
“Where are your parents?” Jasmine asked. “Are they traveling these days?”
Aladdin put his teacup down and swallowed. “They died.”
“Both of them?” Jasmine put her own tea down and turned toward him.
“I was young when it happened. First my father. A few years later, my mother.”
“Oh, Ali. I lost my mother years ago; I can’t imagine how painful it must be to lose both of your parents.”
“It was a long time ago. I don’t remember much.”
“Doesn’t mean you miss them any less, I’m sure.”
She was right about that.
“So, all of this”—she gestured to the room—“the palace and the grounds. This entire kingdom. It’s all yours?”
“Yes. I don’t have any family left in the world.”
Jasmine’s eyes brimmed with tears. Aladdin cleared his throat.
“I’m never wanting for company, though,” he said quickly. This was true; after all, Abu was like family. And now he had the carpet, and Genie. “And I have so many responsibilities—I’m too busy to think much about it.”
“Does that make you the king of Ababwa, if you are the sole heir?”
“Oh, right. Well. I’m the ruler, so I’m effectively the king,” he said, improvising. “But I can’t be officially king until my twenty-fifth birthday. So until then I’m a prince.” He flinched as the words left his mouth. He knew it was unavoidable, but he hated lying to her.
“When you lose your parent, there’s a part of you that remains missing,” Jasmine said. “It doesn’t go away. You just learn how to live with it.”
Aladdin nodded. He knew just what she meant. “I was only a few years old when my father died. I have almost no memories of him except some fuzzy recollections. But I was about seven years old when my mother died from a lengthy illness. I remember her more than my father, but with each passing day, when I close my eyes and think of her, the memories fade a bit more. I hate that. I have some memories, but they’re not enough.” He blinked. He’d never said so much about all of this to anyone. Jasmine was so easy to talk to. The way she listened—it was a new feeling. He liked it.
“Memories have a way of losing their edges as time passes.”
“What was she like, your mother?” Aladdin asked.
“She was lovely,” Jasmine said. “She was from Shirabad, which she ruled long before she met my father. She traveled back and forth all the time. Sometimes I went with her.”
“So she let you travel.”
“Oh, yes. She wasn’t anything like my father. He’s so afraid to lose me, he won’t let me live. I was supposed to become a ruler like her. I’d linger in her quarters for hours listening as she met with her advisors and brokered peace agreements between nations. She let me observe and absorb it all because I was meant to follow in her footsteps. I never met anyone who was as natural a leader as she was. If she knew the way I was living now, she would be livid.”
“She sounds amazing,” Aladdin said.
“She was. But I guess it’s not her leadership I miss most. It’s all the rest of it. The things that wouldn’t matter to anyone else except for me. Like how she tucked me in at night with my favorite lullaby. The way she held my hand until I was asleep. The sound of her laughter. But even then…” Her eyes grew misty. “Even with all of these memories, I want more. Memories can’t replace the person you miss.”
Aladdin thought of his mother. Even when she was alive they’d still been poor. But despite all they didn’t have, having one another had always felt like enough. Even now, he could remember his mother’s deep brown eyes, so dark they looked black if you didn’t pay close enough attention.
He gazed around the room, and then his eyes landed on a pair of golden-framed portraits at the far end. They hung adjacent to where Jasmine and Aladdin sat in the dining room. He straightened, blinking. It couldn’t be. His eyes were playing tricks on him. But there they were, against the gold-papered walls: two floor-to-ceiling oil portraits. And the people in those portraits looked like his mother and father.
He walked toward the portraits as though in a trance. Jasmine followed close behind. She didn’t say a word. Face to face now, there was no doubt about who those people in the frames were. His mother wore a taffeta and lace sage-green blouse. Her hair was wrapped in a bun and she wore a diamond tiara. His father held a staff in his hand and peered down at them with sparkling green eyes—it was almost as though he were truly looking at them. Aladdin remembered his father’s eyes. When so much had faded from his memories of the man, he’d remembered that much. Now he saw that his father had the same brown skin and square jawline as Aladdin’s own.
He knew his parents had probably never worn clothing like this, but beneath the royal garb, he felt the warmth of their smiles, which seemed truer than anything in the world.
“You have her eyes,” Jasmine said. “And his smile.”
Aladdin nodded, unable to speak.
“You okay?” Jasmine asked gently.
“It’s just that I haven’t seen their faces in some time.” He turned to Jasmine. “Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if your mother had still been a part of it?”
“All the time.”
Until Aladdin had met Jasmine, he’d assumed people who lived in palaces, with every material thing they could ever desire at their fingertips, did not want for anything. But all the gold and riches in the world could not bring back Jasmine’s mother or his own parents. Jasmine had so many memories of her mother. Far more memories than he had of his own parents. Did it hurt less to have fewer memories? Did the loss not sting as deep? Or did it not make a difference at all, because whether the memories of those you’d lost were many or few, it didn’t change how much you loved them?
