My Sister's Groom

Asha Arora is twenty-five, a speech-language pathologist, and the sister who sets out the chairs and stands at the edge of every photo. Tonight her family in Parsippany, New Jersey, is marrying off its pride: her elder sister Tanvi, to Dr. Ishaan Bhasin, a heart surgeon from one of the most respected Indian-American families in the state. The baraat is in the parking lot. The bride's room is empty. On the mirror, a note: 'Papa, forgive me.' Papa asks nothing of his younger daughter, but everyone looks at her. An hour later Asha is the bride, on her own terms and by her own choice, beside a man who wanted neither sister. Then she finds a $150,000 deposit slip in Tanvi's room, a check from a heart foundation's charity fund, and her new husband's signature on it. Why did Tanvi run? And who paid her to? The bride changed. The question didn't. This is a work of fiction; its people, hospital, businesses and events are invented, and its legal and medical details are simplified for the story.