The living room had been arranged for exactly this.

Thirty-seven people.

The caterers had left the last of the mithai on the center table — the kaju katli stacked in silver boxes, the gulab jamun still warm in their syrup — and the families had settled into the , comfortable configuration of people who had accomplished something and were prepared to sit in the accomplishment for several hours.

The television was on.

A wedding channel. Perpetually running ceremony footage from someone else’s celebration, the background hum of shehnai music providing the ambient warmth that silence would have been inadequate to provide.

Preet’s mother was talking to Suresh’s mother.

The two women — seated on adjacent sofa cushions with the careful, mutually assessing ease of families who had decided to become family six weeks ago and were now in the implementation phase — were discussing the embroidery on Preet’s blouse.

"Such fine work," Suresh’s mother said. "The threadwork. Where did you get it done?"

"Karol Bagh," Preet’s mother said, with the , warm pride of a woman who had spent four months sourcing fabric. "Took three months. The woman there, she does only one blouse at a time."

"You can tell."

"She cried when I described what I wanted." Preet’s mother smiled. "The embroiderer. She said it was the most beautiful brief she had received in ten years."

Suresh’s mother pressed her hand.

"You raised a beautiful girl," she said.

Preet’s mother’s eyes went soft.

"She was always stubborn," she said. "Stubborn, but good. She will make him happy."

Suresh’s father, overhearing, looked up from his conversation with Preet’s uncle and said, "They will make each other happy. That is all that matters."

General murmuring of agreement.

The mithai was passed around again.

Preet’s younger cousin, twelve years old, had fallen asleep against her mother’s arm and was being repositioned without waking.

The shehnai from the television.

The warm, indoor density of a family gathering at eleven PM — the , comfortable, well-fed hush of it — the kind of evening that had been prepared for and had arrived and was now being occupied.

Suresh’s uncle said something that made three people laugh.

The sound arrived like a weather event.

It did not announce itself.

It simply began — traveling through the ceiling and the walls with the shameless, architectural honesty of a sound that had been produced in a room and had decided not to stay there.

"AAANGHH~!! RAVEN — MY BELLY — I FEEL — MY BELLY IS FULL—"

The living room processed this in segments.

First: the heads turning.

Not all at once — in the , sequential way that thirty-seven people registered an unexpected sound from an unexpected direction, each person’s head following the previous person’s, the ripple of it traveling around the room.

Second: the silence.

The shehnai music suddenly sounding very thin against the absence of conversation.

Third: the , comprehensive mutual awareness that settled over the room like a dropped blanket — everyone looking at everyone else, no one saying anything, the collective, polite, desperate attempt to locate a face expression that communicated I did not hear that.

Preet’s mother cleared her throat.

"These young people," she said.

The sentence arrived like a life raft and thirty-seven people grabbed it.

"Hai hai," said Suresh’s aunt from the far sofa, adjusting her dupatta. "Very energetic. The youth today."

"Different times," said someone’s uncle, looking at the ceiling.

"Different times," another uncle agreed, also looking at the ceiling.

The television volume went up.

Nobody admitted to being the one who changed it.

It simply went up — fifteen to twenty-four, the shehnai now at full, robust, protective volume — and the room exhaled.

"IAAAANGHH~!! AAAHH~!! I’M — SOMETHING IS — I’M GOING TO—"

This one arrived through the television volume.

The shehnai did not have enough shehnai.

Preet’s mother took a very precise sip of her chai.

Suresh’s mother looked at her chai cup with the focused attention of a woman who has found something extraordinarily interesting about its rim.

Preet’s younger cousin stirred in her sleep, fussed, was gathered tighter.

Suresh’s father looked at the photograph of Suresh and Preet from the ceremony — framed, placed on the mantelpiece by the catering staff at someone’s instruction — with the expression of a man who has decided to think about the photograph very hard.

"Beta," said Preet’s aunt to no one in particular, fanning herself, "I think the AC is not working properly. It is very warm in here."

"I will check," said someone’s husband, standing up with the grateful alacrity of a man who has been offered a reason to leave the room.

He went to check the AC.

He did not come back for seven minutes.

The kitchen.

Three women had arrived there without a stated reason.

Preet’s maternal aunt. Suresh’s cousin’s wife. And a family friend whose name nobody present could quite recall but who had been at every function for twenty years.

They were making tea.

There was already tea.

They were making more tea.

"Such a cold night," said Preet’s maternal aunt, turning the gas on.

"Very cold," agreed Suresh’s cousin’s wife, who was standing with her back to the other two women and her hands braced on the counter.

"Shall I add ginger," said the family friend.

"Yes, add ginger," said the aunt.

"PHAAACKK!"

The sound came through the kitchen ceiling.

All three women looked at the ceiling.

Then at each other.

Then away.

"Two teaspoons," said the aunt.

"Yes," said Suresh’s cousin’s wife, not moving from the counter, her knuckles still white against the edge of it. "Two teaspoons is correct."

The kettle heated.

"AAANGHH~!! MY CHEST — THEY HURT — AAAHH~!!"

The family friend put the ginger in.

Put more ginger in.

"Strong tea," she said, to nobody.

"Very cold night," said the aunt again.

Suresh’s cousin’s wife said nothing.

Her thighs were pressed together very firmly.

She had decided to think about other things and was working on that.

Back in the living room.

The TV was at thirty-one.

"These new homes," said someone’s uncle, with the grave, architectural authority of a man who has found a topic, "the walls are very thin. They don’t build like before."

"Absolutely," said Preet’s father, with the grateful, immediate agreement of a man who has been offered a structural explanation for a structural problem. "No thickness. Everything is just — drywall and problems."

"In our day," the uncle continued, warming to it, finding the comfort of a topic that could absorb anything, "the walls were eighteen inches of brick. You could hear nothing."

"Nothing," Preet’s father agreed.

"Eighteen inches," the uncle said.

"Minimum," said Preet’s father.

They both looked at the wall.

The wall through which, at this moment, the following was audible:

"IAAAANGHH~!! RAVEN — MY ASS — AAAHH~!! IT’S BREAKING — HNGHHHAAAAA~!!"

The uncle and Preet’s father looked at each other.

"These builders today," Preet’s father said.

"Criminal," the uncle agreed.

PAH! PAH! PAH! PAAAH! PHAAACKK!

The bed hitting the wall.

In the room above — the bridal suite, the flower-petalled, jasmine-decorated room that twelve aunties had spent two days preparing — the bed frame had been introduced to the wall three times now and was on first-name terms with it.

The door.

Open.

Raven had opened it at some point between positions — the , deliberate opening of the door of a bridal suite through which an entire wedding party was sitting thirty feet away — with the calm, unhurried motion of a man who had decided that soundproofing was not on his list of priorities for this evening.

Preet had not noticed.

She was occupied.

Doggy now.

’H-he... is treating me like a bitch—"NIieeenght~!!! AHN~ AHNGH~~ HIEKK!!"