The Kapoors arrived at noon the next day and the haveli's noise level increased by what felt like a perceptible physical amount.
Meera's family was not a small family, and they were not a quiet one. Her mother arrived first, ahead of everyone else, because she had opinions about the state of Meera's room and she needed to express them in person. Her aunts arrived in two separate cars for reasons that had to do with a disagreement about seating arrangements from a previous function that no one had resolved. Her cousins arrived last, tumbling out of a third car with the energy of people who had been in a vehicle for too long and were ready to apply themselves to the occasion.
The Malhotra household received all of this with the equanimity of a family that had seen everything.
Baba greeted the Kapoors at the entrance with a warmth that was entirely genuine, because Baba only did genuine — he did not have a social warmth and a real warmth, he only had the one kind. Meera's mother immediately began crying, which was not unexpected, and Baba's wife came to manage this with tissues and affection, and within twenty minutes the two families were fully integrated in the way that happened when a house was big enough and warm enough that people could find their level.
Meera watched all of this from the second floor with a feeling she could only describe as grateful.
"Your mother brought four suitcases," Anaya observed from beside her.
"She's staying four days."
"Four suitcases for four days."
"She likes options." Meera leaned on the railing. "She's going to cry at least twice a day for the entire time she's here, by the way. I'm warning you in advance."
"My mother is already crying and it's noon," Anaya said. "They're going to be fine together."
Below, in the main hall, the cross-family conversation was in full swing. Meera's aunts had found Kabir — she could see him in the group, several inches taller than everyone around him, nodding with the patience of a man who had learned that the most efficient response to extended family conversation was sustained, attentive silence. Dev was telling a story to a cluster of her younger cousins who were already delighted by him. Rohan had been adopted by her uncle, who seemed to have decided they had something to discuss at length.
And Veer was—
She found him near the corridor entrance, talking to her father.
This surprised her. Not that they were talking — the families knew each other, there had been formal meetings, it was not unusual. But there was something in the particular quality of the conversation that made her stop. Her father was not an easy man to talk to. He was warm, deeply warm, but he had a reserve that made small talk difficult, and most people gave up on the kind of conversation that went below the surface within a few minutes of attempting it with him.
Veer was not giving up. He was listening — genuinely listening, which was a thing he did with his entire attention in a way most people didn't — and her father was talking with his hands, which he only did when he was actually engaged. She couldn't hear the words. She didn't need to.
Something happened in her chest that she didn't have a word for.
"Meera beta!"
She looked down. Her aunty — her mother's elder sister, the formidable one — had spotted her on the second floor and was waving with the force of someone who had a lot to say and had found her target.
Meera went downstairs.
— ✦ —
The afternoon was the particular chaos of two large families getting comfortable with each other in a compressed timeline. Meera moved through it — greeting people, accepting congratulations, being looked at by aunties with the assessing fondness of women who were cataloguing how she'd turned out — and felt herself enjoying it despite the undercurrent of anxiety that she'd been carrying all week. This was the thing about the Malhotra house: it was impossible to feel entirely alone in it, whether you wanted to or not.
She was in the main hall, accepting a cup of chai from a household staff member, when she heard it.
It was not said loudly. It was wrapped in a tone of great affection, of warmth, of the kind of casual intimacy that made it difficult to push back against. It came from one of the distant relatives — someone on the Malhotra side, not closely connected, a woman Meera had met twice and whose name she couldn't quite remember — and it was directed at Meera's mother, but Meera was close enough to hear every word.
"So wonderful," the woman was saying. "Such a good match for your daughter. She's very lucky, isn't she — the Malhotras are not the kind of family who usually—" a small, significant pause — "well, you know. They have standards. But Meera is such a sweet girl. Very lucky."
Meera's mother said something gracious. She was good at gracious.
Meera stood with her cup of chai and did not move for a moment.
It was the kind of comment that had no good response. If she said something, she looked like she'd misunderstood a compliment. If she said nothing, she'd heard it and let it sit in her. Either way, it was in her now — the small, sweet poison of being told she was lucky to be here. That her presence in this family was a gift being extended to her, not a reciprocal thing. That she should be grateful.
She excused herself. Found the door to the back garden. Stood in the evening air and breathed.
She was not going to cry about this. She was going to breathe for a moment and then go back inside and be perfectly fine, because she was perfectly fine, because this was one person's idea of a compliment and it said nothing about what was actually true.
She was still breathing when she heard footsteps on the garden path.
She turned, expecting Anaya.
It was Veer.
He stopped when he saw her. Took in her expression — whatever she was doing with her face, she wasn't managing it very well — and said nothing for a moment.
"I needed air," she said, because it was the simplest true thing.
He nodded. He moved to stand near her, not beside her exactly, but close enough that she was aware of him. He looked at the garden.
"Shanta aunty," he said after a moment.
She blinked. "What?"
"The woman who made the comment in the hall." His voice was even. "I heard it. Shanta aunty by marriage, the family sees her at events and she says things that she thinks are kind because she doesn't understand what kind means."
Meera stared at him. "You heard it?"
"I was behind you."
She processed this. "You didn't say anything."
"I handled it." He was quiet for a moment. "She won't say it again."
Meera looked at him. He was looking at the garden — a patch of evening-lit grass and the old jasmine bush that had been there as long as the neem tree. His profile in the low light. The particular stillness of him when he'd decided something.
She thought about asking what he'd said. She decided not to.
"Veer," she said instead.
He looked at her.
"Thank you."
He held her gaze for a moment. Nodded once. Looked back at the garden.
They stood there for another minute — not talking, not needing to — and then the sounds from inside got louder with the particular escalation that meant someone had decided it was time for music, and they went back in.
Later that night, Anaya's phone buzzed. She looked at it and showed it to Meera without comment.
It was the group chat — Rhea's message, four words: Did he just—
Naina's response: He did.
And then Anaya's, which had been sent before she'd shown Meera the phone: Okay.
Meera read them. Set the phone down.
Okay, she thought. Maybe.
She was starting to think maybe.