Chapter 23
Meera's Gambit
Arjun
My mother has invited the Home Secretary of India to dinner.
I discover this fact approximately forty-five minutes before the dinner itself, when Priya storms into the guest suite without knocking, finds me adjusting my cuffs in front of the mirror, and says, with the flat, controlled fury of a woman who is approximately three minutes from committing a crime, “Amitabh Verma is downstairs.”
I stop adjusting my cuffs. “I'm sorry?”
“Amitabh Verma. The Home Secretary. Of India. The man who controls immigration policy for one-point-four billion people. He is in the drawing room. He is drinking Mother's chai. And Mother is sitting next to him looking like a woman who has just played her best card.”
I look at Priya. Priya looks back at me. The mirror reflects two Kapoors staring at each other with the shared, bone-deep understanding of siblings who have watched their mother escalate from social manoeuvring to geopolitical warfare and are no longer surprised, only weary.
“She's threatening him,” I say.
“She's threatening both of you. Casey is a foreign national on a tourist visa.
Verma controls immigration enforcement. Mother has just seated the two of them at the same dinner table and if you think that's a coincidence, you haven't been paying attention for the past thirty-three years.” Priya crosses her arms. “She's telling Casey, without saying a single word, that the Kapoor family has the connections to make his life in India very uncomfortable, and that if he has any sense, he will reconsider his position.”
“His position being engaged to me.”
“His position being in the way of her plans.” She pauses. Her expression softens from fury into something more complicated. “What are you going to do?”
“I am going to go downstairs and have dinner with the Home Secretary of India,” I say, “and I am going to ensure that Casey is not intimidated by a politician my mother has imported as a prop.”
“Casey doesn't get intimidated by anything. He got crosschecked by a six-foot-five defence-man in the OHL playoffs and got up laughing.”
“How do you know that?”
“We talk, Arjun. Some of us communicate with our sibling's partner like normal human beings.” She straightens my collar with a sharp, precise tug.
“Go. And if Mother tries anything, I'll be at the table.
Daadi will be at the table. And Kavita has made the lamb biryani, which means everyone will be in a good mood, which is either deliberate on Mother's part or a tactical error, because Kavita's biryani makes people sentimental, and sentimental people do not support deportation threats.”
Casey is in the bathroom when I relay the situation.
He is brushing his teeth, wearing his navy kurta, his blond hair still damp, and he listens to the entire briefing with his electric toothbrush in his mouth and an expression of such profound, unflappable calm that I briefly wonder if he has misunderstood the severity of the situation.
“So your mom invited the guy who runs immigration to dinner,” he says, spitting toothpaste into the sink with the casual efficiency of someone who is not remotely concerned about geopolitical threats to his visa status. “To, like, scare me.”
“To imply that your continued presence in India, and potentially your Canadian medical career, could be complicated if the Kapoor family chose to leverage their political connections.”
“That's wild.” He rinses his toothbrush.
He puts it in the holder. He turns to me with those steady blue eyes and a smile that is so completely, serenely unbothered that it is either the bravest thing I have ever witnessed or evidence of a fundamental inability to process danger.
I cannot decide if this makes me more irritated by him or attracted to him at this point in time. “What's the worst that could happen?”
“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 just give 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, physically imposing, 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 for beat, 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.
Then Mother makes her move.