The Glass Hasn't Tipped

The marigold is on my nightstand. I do not know why I kept it. A girl in a rented lehenga, maybe four, dropped it into my clipboard at the Tanvi roka and said sorry didi and ran on before I could tell her there was nothing to be sorry for. I have been thinking about her apology for six hours. I have been thinking about my brother's diagnosis for less time but it sits heavier. Still doing this na, didi? He sent a Mumbai Mirror feature on a wedding hostess. He did not need to write the question. The question was the link.

There is a message on my phone from a man I am supposed to call the fixer's cousin, though he is something else entirely. Karjat farmhouse, nineteenth of September, the same staircase, the same builder, Suresh at the gate, and if I decline, a clip drops on @karjat_staircase while the roka is mid-blessing. The Bandra clip. The one I fought the photographer's NDA over yesterday — the one I posted about last night like a war banner because I had nothing else to defend with. They are lending it back to me as a leash. Heena would call this leverage. My mother would say this is what she meant about Jaipur.

I let the landline ring twice. Teej is in two days. She wants the fast answer. I want to know why she needs to ask it twice.

I am not saying yes. I am not saying no. I am letting the glass sit on the edge and watching it not fall. The marigold is the only honest thing on my nightstand. The other glowing thing is a threat shaped like an invitation, and I have been accepting invitations shaped like threats since I was nineteen.