“Deportation. Visa blacklisting. Interference with your medical licensing through international regulatory channels. A formal inquiry into your professional conduct filed through diplomatic back channels. Casey, this man has the power to make your life extremely difficult.”
“Can he take away my hockey card collection?”
“What?”
“My hockey card collection. I've got a Gretzky rookie card that my dad gave me a month before he died. It's worth about four grand. If the Home Secretary of India can't take that, I think I'm good.”
I stare at him. He is not joking. He is genuinely, sincerely calibrating the threat level of the Home Secretary of India against the safety of his Wayne Gretzky rookie card, and the Gretzky card is winning.
“Casey. This is serious.”
“I know it's serious. Your mom invited a federal cabinet minister to dinner to intimidate your fake fiancé into leaving. That's incredibly serious. It's also...” He pauses, tilting his head, searching for the word. “Kind of impressive, maybe even flattering? Like, from a pure logistics standpoint? Most moms justgive you the silent treatment. Your mom called in the government.”
“This is not admirable!”
“I didn't say admirable. I said impressive. There's a distinction. Like the difference between a legal hook and a psychopath hook. Karan taught me that.”
I press my fingertips against my temples. My headache is developing a headache. I am in love with a man who is comparing my mother's geopolitical power play to a polo foul, and he is making me want to simultaneously scream and kiss him, and the Home Secretary of India is still downstairs drinking chai.
“Just... follow my lead at dinner,” I say. “Don't engage with Verma on immigration topics. Don't give him any information he could use. And for the love of God, do not do a magic trick.”
“Why would I do a magic trick at the Home Secretary?”
“Because you do magic tricks at everyone, Casey. You are constitutionally incapable of being in a room with a tense person without attempting to make a napkin flower or produce a coin from behind their ear.”
“That's not true. I have restraint. I showed tremendous restraint at the polo match.”
“You shoulder-checked my cousin's horse using a hockey technique.”
“That was athletic restraint. Totally different category.”
We go downstairs.
The dining room has been set for twelve. The heirloom silver is out, the crystal is catching the candlelight, and the flower arrangements are more elaborate than usual, which means Mother has been directing the staff with the focused intensity of a field marshal preparing for a decisive engagement. The room smells of Kavita's lamb biryani, which is, I will grudgingly concede, a masterwork of culinary engineering that has been known to reduce grown men to emotional vulnerability. If this is deliberate on Mother's part, she is playing a layered game.
Amitabh Verma is already seated. He is a large man, physicallyimposing, with a broad face, heavy eyebrows, and the kind of measured, authoritative stillness that comes from decades of operating in rooms where every word is recorded and every gesture is interpreted. He is wearing a dark suit with a subtle pinstripe, and he radiates power the way a generator radiates electricity: steadily, constantly, and with the implicit understanding that the current could be redirected at any moment.
Mother is beside him, radiant in a deep burgundy sari, her ever-present diamond catching the candlelight. She is laughing at something Verma has said, a light, musical, strategically deployed laugh that I recognize from thirty-three years of watching her operate.
Dev is still present, seated near the far end of the table, his expression carefully neutral as mother insisted he remained with us for a little longer, in her words. Rohan is beside him, for once not performing, his dark eyes watchful. Priya is across from me, her back straight, her notebook closed on her lap like a weapon she is keeping in reserve. Daadi is in her usual position, silver cane propped against the table, shrewd eyes missing nothing.
Kavita is circulating with the biryani. The aroma is staggering.
“Arjun! And this must be Dr. Welling.” Verma stands as we enter, extending his hand to Casey with the practised warmth of a politician who has shaken approximately four million hands. “Meera has told me wonderful things.”
“All exaggerated, probably,” Casey says, taking his hand. “She's biased. Mothers, right?”
Verma blinks. Then he laughs, a real laugh, surprised out of him, and I watch Mother's strategic smile flicker by approximately half a degree.
We sit. The biryani is served. Conversation begins with the careful, choreographed rhythm of a Kapoor dinner in the presence of a dignitary: light topics, compliments to the chef, observations about the weather. Verma is an experienced conversationalist, steering through pleasantries with the ease of a man who does this for a living, and Casey matches him beat forbeat, because Casey's superpower has always been making people feel comfortable, and apparently this extends to federal cabinet ministers.
They discuss cricket. Casey tells the IPL story from the overnight shift. Verma is, against his will, charmed.
They discuss medicine. Casey explains paediatric emergency care with the same warm, grounded clarity he uses with parents in the ER, and Verma, who has three grandchildren, leans forward with genuine interest.
They discuss food. Casey compliments the biryani with such specific, earnest enthusiasm that Kavita, who is hovering near the service door, clasps her hands together with the quiet satisfaction of a woman whose life's work is being properly appreciated.
Twenty minutes in, I am beginning to think we might survive this.