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jewelry, for fear it might
be ripped from her body in a dramatic mugging.
    Priyanka filed out of the airplane with the
others. She was a small woman, short and diminutive in every regard
and easily overlooked. She often went unnoticed in the crowds of
Bangalore. She looked like hundreds of women on the street, a
bright sari wrapped around her and her hair plaited to her mid-back
with a string of jasmine in it. She was thin and willowy and her
complexion was dark enough that Daksha Auntie rubbed lightening
creams on her face every night. Nothing about her stood out.
    Until she walked into Logan airport and
quickly lost sight of any other Indians. There were no saris here,
not even any salwar suits. The crowd of people around her were
dressed drably and all she could see around her was white and grey.
She tried to keep sight of one person from her flight, to figure
out where to go.
    They walked through a wide glass doorway and
all of a sudden there was a crowd of people holding signs. She
quickly spotted the one with her name written in Hindi script, but
it was lower than the others. She widened her gaze and realized the
man holding the sign was sitting in a wheelchair. Her first thought
was that he must be a servant or a driver, though who would use a
crippled driver?
    She pulled out the photograph of her groom
and compared them. Same strong jaw line, same hooked nose, same
shock of curly black hair, and same kind twinkle in the eye. It was
him. Strange for the groom to be the one to pick her up, she had
expected a sister or just a driver. The picture she held was only
of his face. Now she looked over the rest of him. He was dressed
neatly in a button shirt and slacks. He was small all around, but
his legs seemed frail even for his thin frame. He wore brown lace
shoes and his feet rested inches above the ground. Priyanka had
never seen a wheelchair like this one before, it was almost
artistic in its fluid lines.
    She had an urge suddenly to bolt, but she
squashed it. There was no where to go. She looked back up to his
face and saw that he was looking at her with an apologetic smile.
She walked towards him, no expression on her face.
    “Priayanka?” he said.
    She nodded.
    “I'm Deepak. I'm sorry to surprise you like
this. I know you weren't expecting the wheelchair.”
    “No,” she said. She would usually keep her
next thought to herself, but it seemed fair to shock him in return,
“I knew there must be a reason you petitioned to marry a loser like
me.”
    She was rewarded with his startled stare.
“You don't look like a loser,” he said eventually.
    “I guess you haven't looked at my
horoscope.”
    He laughed. “No, it's true, I don't put much
stock in those things.”
    “It spells tragedy for my husband.”
    “Ah, in that case, I guess my parents figured
I'd already had mine.”
    He laughed so freely that she found herself
joining in, though she hadn't meant to laugh about his
situation.
    “Anyway,” he said, “I know it's a shock, but
it's sort-of like Gandhari finding out that Driterastra was blind,
right?”
    Priyanka smiled again, she had always found
that story very romantic. “Are you secretly a king?” she
teased.
    “Better.”
    “Acha?”
    “Heart specialist with my own house.”
    “My aunt thought all her prayers paid
off.”
    “Yes, I suppose so. Did it excite you to
think of moving to America to marry a doctor?”
    “Little, little bit.”
    “I wish I could have been who you were
expecting.” He was quiet a moment, then said, “Shall we go get your
bag?”
    She walked slightly behind him and could see
the top of his head. As a short woman she had never expected to be
able to see the top of her husband's head. From this angle she
observed him more closely. The skin on the back of his neck was
smooth and the color of milked coffee. His ears were almost
entirely covered by thick black waves of hair. His shoulders rose
as he moved and his hands seemed to barely graze the rims on the
wheels with