I sat down on an ornate and uncomfortable wooden chair across from my mother who was resting her feet on the large, ostentatious coffee table centered in the drawing room.

“What should I wear?” I asked. I was here for two weeks and had promised myself I’d do exactly what my mother wanted me to do. Maybe that, I thought, would help ease the blow when I landed one right there where her heart was.

“The yellow salwar kameez.” Ma’s eyes gleamed. She probably thought I had changed. Never as a teenager had I asked her what I should wear when we went to visit relatives.

“Which yellow one?” I asked, slightly annoyed because it felt like surrender.

“The one with the gold embroidery.” She picked up a newspaper to fan herself.

I gaped at her. The yellow one with the gold embroidery was made of thick silk. Was the woman off her rocker?

“It’s too hot, Ma,” I argued lightly. “Why don’t I wear a cotton one?”

She agreed, but grudgingly. This was her chance to show her American-returned daughter off. But she couldn’t really show off. I was unmarried, I was twenty-seven, and sometime soon she was going to find out I was living in sin with the foreigner I intended to marry. Life would have been easier if I had fallen in love with a nice Indian Brahmin boy-even better if I hadn’t fallen in love at all and was ready to marry some nice Indian Brahmin boy my parents could pick out like they would shoes from a catalog.

I hadn’t planned on falling in love with Nick. We met at a friend’s house. Sean was a colleague and a friend and his sister was Nick’s ex-girlfriend and now “just a good friend.” As soon as Nick said, “Hello,” I knew he was trouble. I had never before found an American attractive-well, besides a young Paul Newman and Sean Connery, and Denzel Washington-but no one in real life. I think most Indian women are trained to find only Indian men attractive; maybe it has something to do with centuries of brainwashing.