They heard Dev Malhotra before they saw him.
This was standard. Dev operated at a frequency that preceded him by approximately thirty seconds — not loud, exactly, but present in the way that weather was present. You felt it coming. Meera and Anaya were in the upstairs corridor when the sound of voices in the entrance hall below shifted into a particular kind of laughter that could only mean the friend group had arrived, and then came a crash, distinct and resonant, followed by a brief silence, followed by Dev's voice saying, "That wasn't — okay, that was me, but in my defence—"
"There is no defence," said another voice, and Meera registered it as Kabir's — deeper than Dev's, clipped, the voice of a man who had spent several years being exasperated by his youngest brother and had made peace with it being a permanent condition.
"If I could just — the garland is attached to the — no, if you pull it that way it's going to—"
A second crash, smaller than the first.
More silence.
"Bhai." That was a third voice. Quieter. "Just put it down."
"I'm trying to put it down, Rohan, that's what I've been—"
Meera looked at Anaya. Anaya's expression was serene.
"He broke the vase," Anaya said calmly. "The blue ceramic one in the entrance. I told Baba last week we should move it."
"Will Baba be upset?"
"Baba will do the thing where he looks at Dev for three seconds without speaking and Dev will apologise four times and then offer to replace it, and Baba will say it doesn't matter, and Dev will spend the next two days mildly anxious about the vase." Anaya was already heading toward the stairs. "Come on. I want to see Arjun."
The entrance hall, when they arrived, was the precise image of organised chaos. The blue ceramic vase — or rather, several pieces of what had recently been the blue ceramic vase — was occupying a corner with the dignity of ruin. Dev was standing next to it with the expression of a man who understood that apologies were in order and was composing his best one. Kabir had his arms crossed and the look of someone who had known this would happen and was not angry so much as philosophically tired. Rohan was holding what appeared to be a jasmine garland that had somehow become involved in the incident and was looking at it with quiet bewilderment.
And Arjun Singhania was standing slightly apart from all of it with his hands in his pockets, watching the scene with an expression of mild interest, and when Anaya appeared at the bottom of the stairs his gaze moved to her immediately, the way certain things moved — not dramatically, just inevitably, like water finding its level.
Meera noticed this and filed it away.
"Dev bhai," Anaya said, arriving in the entrance hall with the particular authority of someone who had grown up in this house. "Please tell me you didn't break the—"
"It was an accident," Dev said immediately. "I want to be very clear that it was an accident and also that the garland was in a completely unreasonable location."
"The garland was on the table."
"It was overhanging the edge."
"Dev."
"I'll replace the vase. I'll get two vases. I'll get Baba a whole vase collection—"
"Baba is right here," said Baba, who had appeared from the direction of the kitchen with the air of a man who had been here for this exchange in various forms many times before. He looked at the ruins of the vase. Looked at Dev. Said nothing for three seconds.
Dev visibly gathered himself. "Baba, I am deeply sorry about—"
"It's a vase," Baba said. He patted Dev on the shoulder. "Come, everyone. You must be tired from the drive. Chai is ready." And he turned and walked back toward the kitchen, and that was that.
Dev sagged with relief. "I love him," he said sincerely.
"We all love him," Kabir said. "You still broke the vase."
"I didn't not break the vase, I'm just saying—"
"Arjun," Anaya said, cutting through her brothers with the ease of long practice.
Arjun stepped forward from his position near the door. He and Anaya had the particular greeting of two people who were extremely comfortable with each other and had never needed to make it demonstrative — a brief exchange, genuine warmth, the kind of ease that came from years of showing up in each other's lives consistently. Meera watched it and thought: those two have no idea, do they.
Then she caught Arjun's eye and he nodded at her, warm and brief. "Meera. Congratulations."
"Thank you." She paused. "Has Veer said anything about—"
"No."
"Right."
"He won't."
"I know." She sighed. "Hello, Kabir bhai."
Kabir uncrossed his arms. He was the eldest Malhotra son — the one who'd been running the family's legitimate operations for the last four years, the one who carried the weight of everything in the set of his jaw. He was not unkind, just contained. He looked at her with the slightly formal warmth that was his version of affection. "Congratulations, Meera. Are you eating? You look thin."
"Kabir bhai, you say that every time I see you."
"Because every time I see you, you look like you've forgotten to eat."
"That's just my face."
"It's not just your face."
Dev threw his arm around Meera's shoulder. "Ignore him. He says that to everyone. I once ate an entire second dinner in front of him and he told me I looked thin." He grinned at her — that wide, uncomplicated grin that was Dev's default expression. "So. Ten days. You nervous?"
"About the wedding?"
"About my brother."
Meera considered. "Ask me again in ten days."
Dev opened his mouth to say something that would almost certainly be inappropriate, and then the sound of more voices from the entrance stopped him — Rhea and Naina arriving, Meera's phone buzzing with Rhea's text that said simply we're here, where are you, is Dev already in trouble and Meera typed back yes and crossed the hall toward the door.
The girl reunion was everything the boy arrival had not been — no vases broken, significantly more sound, Rhea immediately hugging Meera with the force of someone who had opinions about the separation and Naina appearing behind her with a large organised tote bag and an expression of serene preparedness.
"I have," Naina said, unzipping the tote, "made a schedule."
"Of course you have," Meera said with great affection.
"Colour-coded. Ten days, each function, all the logistics I'll need to track." She produced a laminated document. "I've also made one for each of you, but your version is slightly simplified because—"
"Because she thought we'd lose the detailed one," Rhea finished, accepting her laminated schedule with the expression of someone who absolutely would have lost the detailed one.
"I didn't say that."
"You implied it with the laminating."
Naina smiled the smile of someone who had thought about all of this very carefully. "I implied nothing. I laminated because it's going to be messy. Have you seen the state of the entrance hall?"
"Someone broke a vase," Meera said.
"Dev," Naina and Rhea said simultaneously.
"Dev," Meera confirmed.
Anaya appeared between them and the four of them stood for a moment in the warmth of the haveli entrance, the sounds of the household all around them, and Meera felt it again — that particular thing she always felt here. Like arrival. Like something that had been waiting.
Across the hall, she caught movement — Rohan Verma putting down the jasmine garland, looking up, and going very still. She followed his gaze to the staircase, where Priya Malhotra had appeared, quiet and lovely and looking at nobody in particular with the focused attention of someone who was doing their very best to look at nobody in particular.
Meera looked back at Rohan. He had recovered. His face was perfectly composed.
She stored this away too.
"Right," said Naina, consulting her schedule. "Shall we begin?"
— ✦ —
Dinner that evening was exactly what dinner in the Malhotra haveli during wedding season always was — everyone talking at once, at least three separate conversations happening across the table, Baba moving through it all with the quiet authority of a man who understood that what his family needed was not management but space, and the food arriving in waves that never seemed to end.