We were all meeting at my grandmother’s house to make mango pickle. It was a yearly ritual and everyone was pleased that I had come to India at the right time. I regretted my decision dearly. If I had to pick a month, it should have been anything but blistering July. I was glad that Nick wasn’t there with me because he would have melted to nothingness in this heat.

I wiped my neck with a handkerchief and stuck it inside my purse. I probably smelled like a dead rat because I felt like one. My body was limp and the sun blazed down at eight in the morning as if in its zenith.

A whole day at my grandmother’s house scared me. The potential for disaster was immense. I had no idea how I was going to tiptoe around the numerous land mines that were most certainly laid out for the family gathering, as always. When I was young it hadn’t mattered much. I used to find a way to block out the bickering and the noise. But now I was an adult and I was expected to join in the bickering and contribute to the noise. I was hardly prepared for either. In addition, I had to break my not-so-good news to one and all-land mines would multiply.

It had just been three days, but I was already tired of being in India, at home, and especially tired of my mother. My father and I got along well, but when it came to taking sides between his children and his wife, Nanna knew which side his idli was smeared with ghee. According to him, Ma was always right.

When Nate and I were younger and fought with Ma, Nanna would always support her. His logic was quite simple: “You will leave someday,” he would say. “She is all I have got and I don’t want to eat at some cheap Udupi restaurant for the rest of my life. She is right and you are wrong-always, end of discussion.”