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My mother and I stood in the kitchen one Saturday pouring flour from the tall Tupperware container onto the counter, where we rolled out pulka after pulka , the round pancake-size bread for the dinner party later that evening. She stood to my right and gripped the rolling pin, clasping her hands firmly over mine, correcting my movements when I rolled the dough out unevenly or when the emerging shape strayed too far from a circle.

"Like this, beti ," she said, using the commonplace term of endearment. Each time the pulka swelled on the grill like the pride in my mother's heart and she kissed me on the cheek. "Very good, beti ."

Looking at the grill brought back a memory of a day almost fifteen years ago. One afternoon after school, she bundled me up for winter, and clutched my purple-mitten hand as we trekked to a department store. We only had one car, which my father took, as he, as usual, was working out of town.

Upon reaching the mall, my mother unzipped my coat and held my small hands up to her mouth to blow warm air on them. After pulling off my hat, she smoothed my short black bangs that stood upright, charged with static. My mother explained to the salesclerk that she needed a wire grill that rose to a point in the middle like a triangle without a base, one that she could place over a burner without fear that the bread on top would be burned by contact with the coils. The sales clerk peered quizzically at my mother. It is very commonplace in India, my mother had persisted. The saleslady informed us that the store did not stock such a grill, but she led us to the baking aisle suggesting that perhaps we could find an appropriate substitute. I trailed behind, wanting to escape from my mother, from my embarrassment, from the saleslady's glances of disapproval.

"This is what we use for cooling bread in Canada," said the salesclerk, picking up a wire rack and handing it to my mother. The salesclerk wore a red and white plastic badge pinned above her bosom. The badge proudly displayed her name, square white letters punched into shiny ribbon.

"Thanks," my mother answered and after a pause added "Thank-you, Wendy." Conscious of my mother's pronunciation, which sounded more like "Vendhi" I sauntered a few steps away, creating distance, pretending that she was a stranger. I studied the assorted tin muffin trays, the cookie cutters, the cake pans intently, lifting one, checking the price of another.

"Jyoti," my mother called me. The salesclerk was still in the aisle, so I pretended not to hear my mother. "Jyoti," my mother repeated louder this time, "Look what Wendy has found us." Feeling trapped, I regarded her casually, hoping my token acknowledgment would satisfy her until Wendy left.

"What is wrong with you?" She approached me and tugged one of my thick braids, which commenced with a tightly bound rubber band at the side of my scalp so that my braids pointed straight out of the side of my head for inches before curving down towards my shoulders. The security of the first rubber band assured my mother that should the braid ever come undone, my hair would never scandalously cascade down my back in open wild waves like the other girls at school. I looked up blankly. "Why are you acting like you don't hear me?"

"W. Why can't you say W, not V."

"What? What are you taking about?" Without waiting for an answer, she continued, excited by her discovery. "Jyoti, if we bend this rack in the centre, I think it might work, no?"

"Her name is Wendy with a W."

"That is what I said." She fiddled with the rack.

"No, no it's not."

"Yes it is. Enough of this nonsense now, let's pay for this and go home."

"You said Vendhi," I persisted.

"Enough. Let's go"

"Like a stupid Paki."

In silence, she blinked rapidly. Her limpid hazel eyes welled up with tears, which trailed down her cheeks as if to cool them from the sting of my rebuke. Mascara leaked onto her smooth skin in muddy streaks. "What did you say?" Without pausing, she grabbed my shoulders and shook me. Her long nails dug crescent moons in my back. I looked up, unaffected.

"Paki," I repeated. She slapped me hard on my cheek. Her wedding band bit into my face.

"Don't you ever use that word again, do you hear me?" And then she fiercely hugged me, wrapping me in the folds of her clothes, which smelled lightly of mothballs and Avon perfume. I heard Wendy's brown moccasins further down the aisle shuffle away and the swish-swish of her polyester pants. For a long time, we stood there like that, me standing rigidly, my hands in tight fists at my sides, while my mother's body bent over me, enveloping me as she heaved and shook with sobs. I plunged my nails into my sweaty palms and chewed my thin lower lip to keep from crying.

"Here, you finish this one," my mother handed me a pulka she had half rolled. Her voice brought me back to the present. "Wait until it starts bubbling before flipping it. You should take off your ring when you cook, the diamond might get scratched." She referred to the engagement ring Sanjay had given me a month earlier. He had proposed to me at the harbourfront, because, he explained, that way our relationship would be a complete cycle. We had met on a boat cruise seven months earlier, and I suppose in his own way, he was being poetic. When Sanjay told me this, I wasn't stirred, as I imagine I should have been, so I hugged him to avert his eyes. If someone were to ask me why I had accepted, I would have automatically responded because I love him. And I do. But I always imagined my relationship would resemble, at least somewhat, a fairytale; that I would be swept off my feet. With Sanjay, though, my heart doesn't skip a beat, there are no anxious fluttering wings of butterflies in my stomach. Instead everything is calm, serene and still like the surface of a pond on a windless day.

"It's fine," I said, looking at my ring. The diamond sparkled even under the light dusting of flour. Sanjay had told me that the diamond was flawless. His mother had insisted that nothing less would do. A year earlier, his cousin had divorced his wife; and the year before that Sanjay's brother and his wife had ended their marriage. The streak of bad luck led Sanjay's superstitious mother to consult a pandit , who determined the quality of the ring was key to the duration of the marriage. Prior to proposing, Sanjay had the ring approved and blessed.

"What will your mother-in-law think? Not being able to cook proper Indian food, how will she think I raised you? Look at the pulka ," my mother said. The misshapen pulka angled off at five corners, a veritable pentagon cooling uncomfortably in the round tin container.

"I can cook. But who has time for making Indian food every night? Other things are so much faster."

"Like what?"

"Like pasta. If Sanjay and I want Indian food during the week, we can buy it, or he can make it."

My mother sighed and clicked her tongue, as she did when unsatisfied. She had made the same sound when I told her we weren't getting married for at least a year. My mother warned me then about the dangers of long engagements: his intentions might change, his mother might discover something about our family that displeased her, I might put on weight, somebody might fall ill, making a wedding inauspicious; I might get grey hair; or he might meet someone else. In the end, her paranoia about our engagement breaking stemmed from her notion that Sanjay was too good for me: his family was wealthier, his skin was fairer, his caste was one above ours, and to top it all off, he was brilliant. I was fine with the delay and Sanjay's insistence upon first completing clerking. Our whole relationship had moved too quickly. Once we had met each other's parents, we were mutually accepted as suitable matches - my mother eagerly, delighted and in awe; his mother, I sensed, somewhat grudgingly, under Sanjay's coercion.

"Do you love Dad?"

"What? He is my husband."

"No, Mom, really. If you had a choice, if you could know everything you know now, would you have married him?"

"He is my husband, and that's all that matters. Soon you will have a husband and then you will understand."

"That is what I am afraid of. Maybe we got engaged too quickly. I love him, I think, but sometimes I wonder if I'm making a mistake."

"Sanjay is a good boy." My mother spread butter over the pulka without looking at me.

"Yes."

"He comes from a good family." She placed her hand on top of mine, directing the pressure of the rolling pin.

"So?"

"He is nice to you."

"I know. Very nice, in fact." He is fair, handsome, smart."

"Yeah." "More flour on that side, otherwise it will stick. What else do you want, Jyoti?"

"Maybe that is not enough."

"Don't be ungrateful."

"I am not. I know he is all those things, but he is not … something's missing … maybe … I think."

"Too thin on the right side."

"Do you believe in soul mates, Mom?"

"Hmm … maybe."

"I wonder whether Sanjay really is my soul mate."

"Perhaps he is not then. He doesn't need to be after all. He will be your husband instead."

One weekend shortly after we were engaged my mother pulled out her wedding album from a cupboard on the fake mahogany wall cabinet, which was like a mini-universe storing encyclopedias, the TV, DVD player, cassettes, old records, CDs, speakers, a stereo, two plants and miniature statues and collectible centre pieces my mother accumulated from various weddings. Sanjay cautiously leafed through the pages, painstakingly peeling the onionskin that separated each heavy black page upon which the pictures were mounted. Sanjay admired the intricacies: the design of the mendhi painted on my mother's hands, forearms, and feet; the elaborate flower garlands that hung around both her and my father's necks; and the fine hand embroidery on my mother's clothing. My mother beamed at Sanjay. I too, looked at the pictures with a fresh eye, with a new found appreciation for the subtleties and richness of my culture. In all the pictures, my mother's eyes were downcast, a sign of respect for her husband. At that point she had not even raised her gaze to directly meet his. In fact, she had only met him once, three weeks prior to the marriage, when she had sat with her father and eldest brother while his parents and grandfather hurled questions to establish the suitability of my mother as a wife, to ensure she could bear sons and that her familial background would not cast any shadows on their name. I wanted to reach out to her delicate, diffident face and flip her chin upward.

When I whispered this to Sanjay, he snapped, "That is part of our culture." Our engagement seemed to awaken some latent antiquated ideals that I had not previously suspected he possessed. Another time, Sanjay told me that he wanted me to speak only in Hindi with our children. He didn't want our kids to grow up without their culture. Thinking he was joking, I laughed, and then I stopped in full flow, shocked by the solemn furrow on his forehead that knitted his bushy eyebrows together into a heavy log above his eyes. Waves of incredulity and indignation washed over me: he could not even speak a complete sentence in Hindi himself.

"Don't expect that kind of deference from me," I warned him, in part to provoke him, in part because I wanted to set the ground rules. Before, such a strike would have seemed preemptive, unnecessary, ridiculous, but lately, with all the planning, the resurgence of religion, tradition, culture, surrounding the wedding, I was feeling defensive. I was beginning to regard our future with increased trepidation, wary that the time warp applying to our wedding would march into our marriage.

"God forbid," he retorted.

"Jyoti, watch the stove. It's burning."

"It's fine, Mom."

"You are marrying a lawyer. You think he expects to cook?"

"Mom, please. Didn't you hear anything I said?"

"Please, smease, don't tell me in the two thousands men want to work and cook and clean. He is an Indian boy after all. And don't start with this nonsense about how your career is just as important."

"He is marrying me as his equal, not his servant."

"Equal? Soul mates? All nonsense. What has gotten into you lately? The sooner you learn that marriages can never be equal the less heartache you will have."

"My marriage will be a partnership of equals."

"Equal, my foot. Sanjay is a genius, that is why he is working the Courts of Appeals." She liked repeating this fact, and she often did to friends and various relatives in a hushed dramatic whisper, as if she were confiding something momentous.

Indeed, Sanjay was intelligent, he held scholarships all throughout school, he graduated a silver medalist and had the honour of clerking instead of articling. And while I was proud to be with Sanjay, my mother's inflated perception of him frightened me. I didn't want to be rendered secondary, subservient, inconsequential, the way my mother was with my father.

"Appeal," I corrected her.

"That is what I said."

"Listen, just because you and Dad aren't equals doesn't mean anything." A vicious feeling got a hold of me, hardening my words into little rocks, which I hurled, not wanting to hurt, but to draw forth her acknowledgement that her marriage was unfair, a failure. Maybe then we could figure out how it had happened, how I could resist being led down the same path, the path of persistent cooperation, compromise, deference.

"What? Is this how I have raised you? Don't be disrespectful."

"It's the truth, Mom. If you didn't cater to Dad's every whim, your marriage would fall apart."

"Enough now. Your father has always provided for us. We have a nice home, clothing, food, comforts. We cannot be ungrateful." "Gratitude. There you go again. No, Mom, I am not ungrateful."

"Good. Enough then."

"But marriage should be more than a debt forever to be repaid. The truth is you and Dad should have got divorced a long time ago. I don't know how you live the way you do."

"Enough, I said. Shut-up." My mother wiped her eyes with the back of her hand laced with flour. "Enough with your nonsense." She pounded the dough with the rolling pin. If I were a few years younger, I suspect my insolence would have given rise to a sharp slap. For years now, my father and mother spoke only minimally to each other, but maintained the façade of a marriage to the outside world. It only got worse after he retired. She made him tea and meals, did his laundry and folded his clothes; he carried out the garbage and vacuumed on Sundays. In the evenings, they watched the news sitting on separate ends of the sofa. On the weekends, she went shopping or socialized with my aunts or her friends, and my father disappeared for large chunks of time on the golf course. While eating, they spoke to me, rather than directly to each other. Every night they slept with the door open.

"If you want equality, you should marry a Canadian," she said.

"I am."

"A white."

"Oh God, please. What do you know about white people?"

"Hmmf. What do you know?"

I rolled my eyes. She picked up the pulka I had just made and cast it in the garbage. "I will not serve this to Sanjay's parents. They might call off the wedding." As if on second thought, she scooped out the pulka and placed it on the counter. "When we are done, feed the bread to the birds."

My mother developed an interest in feeding the birds when I was in grade twelve. My teacher, Mrs. Fry, was an avid naturist: she formed the first environmental club at school, which I joined and then learned about recycling, composting, chemical spills, conservation, bio-degradable products and even the concept of externalities. From her appearance, I gathered that Mrs. Fry didn't trim her hair, for the long blond strands hung unevenly like an untended field that grazed her buttocks. She wore no makeup, but always had a distinct fruity scent about her, not sweet, but clean and tangy citrus. She had gentle round features, and tranquil grey eyes that if viewed at the right angle, seemed to twinkle. With almost no variation, she dressed in neutral tones: earth, moss, chalk, sand; and her clothes were always made of natural fibers that appeared tired, worn and comfortable from years of washing. Supporting her tall, lanky body were thick-soled brown moccasins that she wore regardless of the season.

For my environmental project, I built a bird feeder. The week before I had to put the feeder on display, my mother and I sat at the kitchen table measuring and hammering small planks of wood we had bought together at the hardware store. My father had come downstairs, complaining about the noise. He was to catch an early flight for his five-week business trip. His dark frame in the doorway blocked the light of the hallway, so his shadow fell across the table. I had taken on the responsibility, he lectured me, and the burden was mine to suffer if I could not plan my time wisely. Throughout his pedantic quiet monologue, I bit down on my lip to stifle my tears. His words were barely audible. Straining to hear, I bent towards him. The more upset he became the quieter his speech grew. Once my father confessed that this was a corporate trick he had learned: if you speak softly, people bow forward to listen. Powerful people speak softly, he revealed. Upon completing the lecture, he marched up the stairs. My mother saluted him with false solemnity. I pounded a nail into the feeder to disguise my rush of emotion: sobs mingled with laughter. My mother kissed my forehead and stroked my hair.

Mrs. Fry attended each club member's home to view their completed project. The evening she was to come to our house, I prepared to dash out with her. My sneakers were laid out at the front door, and my jacket hung by the hood on the doorknob. The last thing I wanted was for Mrs. Fry to come into our home and have her nostrils fill with the scent of onions and curried spices, which persisted in our house, like an invisible but permanent cloud, as if we fried our entire home, instead of just the food. As soon as I saw her car pull up, I shut the door lightly behind me and escorted her around the side to the large backyard. The bird feeder was placed close to the kitchen window, so my mother could monitor the supply of seeds. Within a few moments, to my horror, my mother appeared with three glasses of lemonade balanced on a silver tray. The sari thrown over her shoulder slipped a little, and her free hand darted to push the fabric back in place.

"Why thank-you," Mrs. Fry exclaimed in her upbeat, sing-song voice. "What a beautiful … sari?" Mrs. Fry said tentatively, as if careful not to offend. My mother nodded and her full lips formed a gracious, bright smile. "Why it's lovely," Mrs. Fry said. "You are lovely."

A compliment about my mother's appearance sounded so foreign to my ears that I took in her appearance as if for the first time. A pale chiffon sari wrapped around her slender figure, setting off her smooth, even skin the colour of a doe, her eyes the hue of dark honey with their wide, slightly slanted shape lending an innocent, wondering expression to her oval face. At that moment, my mother's beauty registered. Had she always been this lovely, this graceful? I had been embarrassed by the pleats and draping yards of fabric she wore when we had company. I had wondered why my mother couldn't put on regular slacks or even a dress like other mothers. But now, when I compared my mother's appearance to Mrs. Fry's, I was surprised. Mrs. Fry in her pale washed-out cotton clothing and her lack- luster complexion seemed a wilted carnation, pale and droopy under the heat, while my mother bloomed like a fresh tiger lily delicate and brilliant all at once. I had only considered my mother as my mother, moving past her appearance, taking it for granted, I suppose, but finally I understood even as she approached forty, she could take your breath away. As we walked back around the side of the house, my mother invited Mrs. Fry to stay for dinner.

"Oh, but it's Indian food, you wouldn't like it, Mrs. Fry." I tried to dissuade her.

"Why not?" Mrs. Fry arched her feathery eyebrows in apprehension. Hers were so light they were barely visible. My mother often told me that eyebrows are the eyes' frames. A lovely frame draws attention to the subtle beauty of the eye and that was why it is necessary to darken them with airy strokes of a pencil.

"It's just, you know, greasy and spicy, and …"

"Jyoti!" My mother interjected.

"Actually, I am fond of international cuisine and would love to stay. If that is alright, Jyoti?" Mrs. Fry looked at me with genuine concern.

"Yeah," I shrugged my shoulders, "of course."

And so Mrs. Fry stayed for dinner. She told my mother how delicious the lentils and rice were, how exotic the taste, a veritable treat for her taste buds. As the evening went on, my mother's smile grew wider, blossoming from the attention. I felt uncomfortable with this white woman eating at our table, uttering appreciative murmurs throughout the meal and then praising the cooking again when leaving. I never really stopped to think about the taste or the quality of my mother's cuisine; meals were just something that I also took for granted.

The next night, when Mrs. Fry came over for dinner again I thought about our dinners: individual portions of fresh bread puffed with steamed air and coated with melted butter, seven spices in the curried yellow cauliflower, green lentils that had simmered since mid-afternoon, chicken cooked in creamy red gravy, and homemade yoghurt to cool the mouth from the medley of spices. These meals were rich, multi-coloured, flavourful, and took hours to prepare. I wondered then about the utility of spending hours for making one meal. I wondered whether Mrs. Fry's model was more sensible. And yet I wondered whether Mrs. Fry could derive pleasure simply from the taste of her meals, or if she viewed a meal as a pleasure in its own right. I considered the nature of Mrs. Fry's fare. Perhaps her dinner was largely two toned white and brown: potato and meatloaf; pasta and sauce; rice and meat; bun and hamburger patty; pizza dough and pepperoni. Perhaps she had salad, or steamed spears of broccoli or carrots on the side. For dessert, I wondered whether she opened a can of syrupy fruit cocktail, cut a slice of berry pie, broke a piece of chocolate off a bar, scooped out Neapolitan ice cream. How much simpler, without the fuss my mother usually put into preparing dinner.

All meals caused a commotion for my mother. When we went on school field trips, my mother packed up my lunch box to the point of busting. When I snapped the clasp open, out tumbled a sandwich, a pear sliced and peeled in four quadrants, an individual sized serving of canned fruit or pudding, a mini cup of juice and the thermos, instead of being filled with milk or pop or a crystal drink, would be steaming homemade soup. How I hated those meal times: kids would stare and I would take forever to finish. Lunch was a dreaded ordeal. I would still be drinking the soup when everyone else was running around playing. I resented that my mother could not simply pack a sandwich and perhaps a whole apple like everyone else. Eventually I learned to give things away, a cookie to someone, a slice of fruit to someone else. My classmates treasured the treats, and I was relieved to be unburdened from them. The soup I dumped into the toilet, when other kids were washing their hands before lunch. "What do you normally eat for dinner, Mrs. Fry?" I asked. It dawned on me that perhaps I preferred the Indian meals, that if I had a choice, I would pick my mother's cooking despite all the associated commotion.

"Ah, well I suppose it depends on what is available in the fridge," she offered me a smile.

"Yes, but generally, how long does it take you to cook dinner?"

My mother shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She reached under the table and pinched my leg.

"Oh, well not very. Sometimes I heat up a frozen dinner, or re-heat leftovers, or order Chinese. It is nothing really, nothing compared to this," Mrs. Fry's face flushed noticeably, but I continued.

"But say you could choose. Would you spend the time to cook like this? Or would you just throw something easy on the stove and be done with it?"

"I wish I knew how to cook like this."

"But pretend you did."

"Ah, that would be lovely indeed. But unfortunately I still wouldn't have the time."

"Jyoti, that's enough," my mother warned. Under the sharpness of her words, I heard her defensiveness, her vulnerability about having such time because she did not work outside the home. "It's alright." Mrs. Fry began. "I suppose it must be hard for you living in two worlds at once - the world of your family and the world outside around you. It seems to me that in your culture food is very central, a meal is an occasion to be enjoyed, a time to talk and laugh and share." Mrs. Fry gazed directly at me, "your culture is like the Europeans in this way."

And with that simple analogy to the Europeans, an immense relief swept over me. Mrs. Fry's understanding brought forth a choking, overwhelming emotion. Tears slid out of my eyes. I shoved them back, roughly pushing the tissue into my eyes. As if they were contagious, my mother began crying, in quiet small sobs. After a moment, Mrs. Fry began too, in loud and unabashed heaves. The three of us sat around the dinner table, salty tears spilling into food. And then we laughed finishing our meal as the setting sun streaked the sky. To me those vibrant bands of colour in the dusk were the bonds of our new found friendship.

A couple of weeks into my father's business trip, Mrs. Fry had become a permanent presence in our home. I hoped that none of my friends noticed her little brown Buick Skyhawk in the driveway or her yellow field of hair whisking around in the spring wind as she walked to the front door. My mother would greet us at the entrance. First she would sweep me into her arms and kiss me on the cheek, telling me to hurry to the kitchen where my snack was waiting, and then she would take Mrs. Fry's coat and say with open enthusiasm she had previously reserved for me, "So good to see you, Diane." They would kiss each other on the cheek, first one, then the other, and hold hands, ambling to the kitchen behind me. If I turned around, they released their mutual grip, but I would sometimes sneak a look at the mirror across the hallway and catch them looking at each other, their hands clasped. Embarrassed by affection that I had not witnessed between adults before, I would run downstairs with my snack and turn on the TV to drown out the sound of their laughter.

Every time my father left for a business trip for the next couple of years, Mrs. Fry moved in. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when I got up to go to the washroom, I looked down the hall to my parent's bedroom and invariably the door was shut. Often, I would tiptoe to the bedroom and hold a glass to the door, like I had seen on TV. I listened, expecting to hear something magical and dirty, something to confirm the fantastical theories that raced through my brain. I would stand with my ear pressed against the glass until my arm grew weary, and then I would silently retrace my footsteps to my room, deflated that all I ever heard was quiet laughter or whispered mumbled words or deep rhythmic breathing. Only once, maybe a few months after Mrs. Fry began sleeping over, did I think I heard something that excited and appalled me in the same instant. A moan, and then my mother saying Diane's name, but the sound was so faint, so muffled through the door, that I wondered if what I heard was real and not just my imagination. At the time, I felt triumphant at the discovery. The doubt, though, that I had made it all up gnawed at me. A burning sense of shame and mortification consumed me. I grew enraged by my suspicion and cheap tactics. On those nights, I was convinced my mind had played a trick on me, that it was all a mistake.

When I asked my mother why Mrs. Fry stayed, my mother answered that she liked the company. On occasion, when her visit became too lengthy, tedious, intolerable, I would lash out that I should be sufficient company, despite knowing that I was barely home. Guilt would consume me: I knew my mother was lonely, but it was uncomfortable and embarrassing with Mrs. Fry sleeping over. I lived in constant fear that someone at school would find out. My mother tried to comfort me. "Besides," she would say, "it is only a sleepover like you have with your girlfriends. Nobody can think anything bad about that."

I never mentioned the slumber parties to my father. I suspected he would not be pleased and this gave me secret pleasure during his whispered lectures. I knew something he didn't, and I donned it like an invisible shield to protect my head when I bowed to listen to him.

That evening, I dressed in a maroon velvet top. The front had a deep scoop neck that just hinted at cleavage. The first time Sanjay and I made out, he revealed that he liked my breasts, small but proportionate to my petite figure.

"They are well formed, quite a reasonable size," he said. Irritated, I advised him that standards were reasonable, people were reasonable, that the term reasonable belonged in the legal world, not in reference to my breasts.

"Of course, I'm sorry," he breathed into my neck. "Forgive me," and he kissed me clumsily, fumbling with his tongue. "I'm sorry," he repeated, staring into my eyes. "You are so beautiful, so mesmerizing, anything but simply 'reasonable,'" he smiled as an offering and I forgave him. That was the way Sanjay was, an extraordinarily bright man, unfamiliar with women, but with darling intentions. I wore a necklace his mother had given me when we had gotten engaged: a heart-shaped ruby set in an intricate fine design of gold and suspended on a 22k gold chain. Sanjay's mother told me the necklace was given to her by Sanjay's grandmother upon her engagement. The heart hung just above the point of the V of my shirt. When she saw me, my mother ordered me to change, but to keep the necklace on.

"Who knows," she said, "Sanjay's mother might begin to wonder how I raised you. She might even call off the engagement."

I suspected that if our relationship ended, I would miss him terribly, but in some dark corner of my heart I would also be relieved. In some ways he was everything I could hope for: handsome, intelligent, successful, understanding, even fun. But the sense that something more existed haunted at me during a few restlessness nights, but I would convince myself that this was an illusion, a mirage created by romantic-comedy movies and Bollywood love stories. As I started up the stairs to change, the doorbell rang. Thinking it was unusual for Sanjay's parents to be early, I opened the door.

"Come . . ." I stopped short. A woman of medium height stood on the porch. Her auburn hair was cropped into a flipped fashionable cut, and her silvery green eyes seemed luminous against her pale face, like bright marbles.

"Oh, hi."

"Hi."

"Actually, I wasn't expecting you. I guess you're the daughter, right? She asked intently, those marbles roving the surface of my face, over every cell, every crevice, every bump, as if she wanted to imprint each detail in her memory. "Jyoti, that's your name, right?"

The contrast between the throaty, husky voice and her pale frosted mouth surprised me and I took a step back. I nodded and then immediately regretted responding to this stranger.

"Listen, I know this must seem odd, that you don't know me, and I know your name and everything. But I have heard about you." Her voice faltered. "From your teacher. You know, Mrs. Fry?" she paused.

"Oh."

"Well, I thought this whole business had stopped, and then…" She cut herself off and pulled out a card. "Recognize this?" she waved a thick cream-coloured card.

I saw my and Sanjay's name embossed in dark gold calligraphy. "You have my wedding invitation?"

The lady nodded. "I don't understand how your mother has such audacity, to send this to Diane."

"Look, this isn't a good time." I felt anxious, desperate to get rid of this woman, as if I sensed something about her that would disrupt our lives, as if she could shoot those marbles out into our home and nothing would be the same. "I am sorry, I think you should go."

"Jyoti, did I hear the doorbell?" My father called from the hallway, his irregular heavy footsteps approaching.

"No, it's nothing," I responded over my shoulder. Turning back to the lady, I repeated, "I think you should leave…" and reached to shut the door but the woman darted inside and stood at the entrance.

"Listen, I'm sorry. But you want to hear what I have to say. Is your mother home?" She strained to look past me into the interior of the home. Without turning around she reached behind herself and pushed the door shut.

"Excuse me, I am Jyoti's father, Mr. Kumar. And who are you?" My father stood beside me and despite his growing frailty, I felt childlike, incompetent, callow.

"I don't mean to alarm you. My name is Jacqueline, hi. Sorry I should have introduced myself earlier." She extended her hand to me. After a pause, I took her palm and squeezed fiercely. Jacqueline winced, but released no audible reaction. "I'll get right to the point. I have been investigating your mother."

"What?" I said. My father quieted me with a single firm pat on my shoulder.

"Look, you must have the wrong house, this is 257 Greenshire Court. I am sorry," my father stepped forward to let Jacqueline out.

"No, no, Mr. Kumar, please let me finish. You don't understand. Jyoti," she turned to me. Jacqueline sighed and then inhaled slowly as if gathering strength to continue. "Listen, your mother, she has been with my partner. Mrs. Fry, my partner. They had an affair." She exhaled again deeply, and closed her eyes and shook her head as if shedding a burden. My father stood silently.

"I am sorry," Jacqueline said. The jingle of her silver dangling earrings awoke a flood of memories. They flashed through my mind, one by one. Mrs. Fry brushing my hair one morning in the bathroom, telling me it was soft just like my mother's. My mother showing Mrs. Fry how to cook Indian food: they were both standing at the stove, hips touching, laughing, and my mother leaning into Mrs. Fry, snuggling her head into the exposed curve of her neck. Mrs. Fry and my mother sitting side by side on the sofa, their legs wrapped under a shared blanket watching a Bollywood movie with subtitles. My mother pausing the movie every now and then to explain some nuance, some detail or tradition, and Mrs. Fry listening with an intent, adoring expression on her face. My mother's laughter from upstairs that rose above the raised volume of the basement T.V., carrying pure uninhibited pleasure in ripples that astonished and embarrassed me since I had never heard her laugh that way before. I knew instinctively that what this woman was saying was true, that she was confirming the suspicion I had held since that night when I listened through the door. "Please go," I stepped towards her, backing her into the door.

"I thought it was over. And then, in the mail I got this," Jacqueline said, pursing her full lips in a circle and again waving the card. "I am just terribly upset. I thought it was over. I can't live through this if it starts again. I don't know what to do. I came here because I need your help." Her chest heaved.

"What? This is crazy," was all I could muster.

"I know once you get married it will only get worse. At first Diane told me that your mother was just a friend; that she was lonely; but then it became something else. And then finally it stopped. And now this … this invitation." She broke into sobs and stuffed one hand into her suede jacket pocket, finally pulling out a light pink handkerchief.

She turned to my father, "Why did you neglect her Mr. Kumar?" My father crumpled onto the rosewood bench at the front door. He had re-finished the seat a few weeks earlier. I looked at him, his hands clutching his head. I noticed how much his hair had greyed recently, how many lines creased his hands. Could he also sense that this woman was telling the truth?

"I have proof, if you don't believe me."

"It doesn't matter," I whispered, spotting Sanjay's mother's champagne Lexus turn up the driveway. And at that moment whether my mother had had an affair with Mrs. Fry, whether my father neglected her, all of it, all the truth did not matter to me anymore. All I knew was that they were my family and I wanted them intact, preserved in the natural order, the way things had always been. "Diane and I, we were married years ago. In Amsterdam. Legally." The woman continued releasing these private details and I wanted to squeeze them out of our lives, return them to where they came from. I didn't want to know anything about her or her story. I heard the car door shut as Sanjay's mother walked towards the house.

"You have to go," I urged her, resisting the desire to shove her out of the door.

Jacqueline reached inside her square red purse, which matched her heels.

"Hello," Sanjay's mother chirped from behind Jacqueline. Her heavy frame bustled through the doorway, forcing Jacqueline further inside. "We have not met," she said, turning to Jacqueline. "Are you a friend of the family's?" Without waiting for an answer, she walked past Jacqueline and enveloped me. Nestled in the warmth of her pudgy arms, the realization that I loved Sanjay and I wanted to marry him engulfed me. This feeling was suddenly so powerful that it overrode my concerns about repeating the failings in my parent's relationship. All that mattered was that he loved me, that his mother loved me, that they were going to be my family and we would make it work, that our marriage could be different. We had choices and Sanjay and I would make the right ones.

"Hello beti ," Sanjay's mother said to me and then offloaded her ginger-coloured fur coat in my arms. She turned back to Jacqueline expectantly. "I am Sanjay's mother," she announced proudly.

"This lady is just leaving, Auntie."

"Jyoti," my mother called from upstairs. I heard the plunk-click of her heels from the back of her house as she made her way downstairs.

"There you are," Jacqueline exclaimed, pointing at my mother. "You think you can get away with this? You can't, you hear me. I won't let you destroy my life again."

"What is going on?" Sanjay's mother demanded.

"Get out," my mother ordered with a fierceness I had never imagined her capable of.

My father continued staring at the floor in silence. He picked up the umbrella resting in the Chinese vase at the front door and rapped the wooden tip lightly on the floor.

"I have proof," Jacqueline said, and her manicured hand dug into her purse. "Look," she ordered triumphantly. Jacqueline held out a stiff pulka in a Ziploc bag. The pulka looked a few days old and despite being partly eaten, I could tell it was once perfectly round. A seizing nausea gripped my stomach. She turned to me, "Who do you think made this? You think I know or Diane knows how to cook this? Your mother has the audacity to come over and cook in our kitchen when I am not around. They are careless, leave things lying around, throw things in the garbage, like I won't see." The tap-tap of the umbrella grew heavier.

"Call the police, Jyoti. Get this mad woman out," my mother ordered.

Sanjay's mother stepped beside my mother. "Oh, God, what is going on? Where is Sanjay?"

"Jyoti," my mother repeated sternly before taking Sanjay's mother's elbow and sweeping her away to the kitchen.

"I have more proof, if you need. Please, you have to believe me, you have to help me." Her tone switched into a higher range, she was now beseeching, vulnerable. Here." Jacqueline pulled out a small colourful pad from her purse and scribbled down a number, using the stiff pulka as a board. "Take this, and call me when you are ready to know." I ignored the yellow sheet she was offering. I didn't want to know. I didn't want anything to change.

Jacqueline again stretched her hand out to me, the paper dangling from her fingers. Stamped at the top of the sheet in bold rainbow letters was From Mrs. Fry.

"Remember this number."

I snatched it to have a closer look, but then changed my mind, and the paper slipped between my fingers and fluttered to the ground. The woman placed the pulka on the bench beside my father and then headed towards the door. "You have to believe me," she said without turning around. "You will think about it and realize that what I am saying is true." Then she opened the door and walked out. For a moment I stood speechless, and then I quickly slammed the door and flipped the lock. Between the wrought iron twists in the window of the door, I saw Jacqueline collapse over the roof of her car her body heaving and shaking with sobs. My father stood up and with the umbrella whacked the pulka off the bench with such force that it flew across the hall into the plant. "Come," my father said, looking down at me, his face strained. "You should finish making dinner. Sanjay will be here any time now."

"In a moment," I told him. He walked away down the hall with the same uneven heavy footsteps. Instantly, I realized that nothing had to change, my father had decided to continue as if nothing had happened; he would protect the fragile balance in our lives. My mother would never admit to anything. Sanjay's mother would avoid a scandal at all costs. Perhaps I had not been her first choice as a daughter-in-law, but I sensed that I, the idea of our marriage, and my parents had grown on her, weaved into the fabric of her life, and she was not about to shred it to pieces especially not at the cost of attracting the community's scorn. In the end, it was up to me to confront my mother, to force the truth into the open if I chose. And I didn't want to. I wanted my mother to have her escape, her friend, Mrs. Fry, whatever the nature of their relationship. The past didn't matter to me, for at that moment I believed that my marriage could be different. That somehow I would manage. Sanjay's face appeared at the window and he rapped on the pane lightly. I smiled and opened the door and hugged him warmly. "Perfect timing," I told him and at that moment breathing in his cologne and feeling the warmth of his body, I didn't want anything to change. I wanted to marry him.

"Really? I was speeding. I thought I was late."

"No, you would have been too early before. We were just finishing some stuff off."

"Oh, cool." He took off his coat, "Jyoti, what in the world is this doing in the plant?" Sanjay picked out the pulka.

"I was meaning to feed it to the birds, on our walk later." The words rolled out before I could even think about it. For the first time, I grasped the ease with which a facade can be drawn; the minimal effort it takes to conceive small lies to protect, to maintain, to preserve a fragile pretense in the face of an ugly harsh reality.

"Oh, ok," he said casually. "Man, I am starving."

"Good, we'll eat soon," I reassured him. I clasped his hand and led him down the hall towards the kitchen and our families' voices. "You know, Jyoti made the most lovely pulkas . Perfectly round," my mother said as I gather dishes to set the table.

"No. They were hardly round …" I began to correct her falsehood, but then I looked at them shuffling about the kitchen: my mother scooping the food into serving dishes, Sanjay's mother carrying the steaming dishes over to the table and Sanjay and my father joking around. Their movements familiar, their sounds reassuring, and I wanted to protect it all. "No," I started again, "they were hardly any trouble at all."

My mother lifted her head from the stove and caught my eye. I smiled. We understood.