The intoxicating aroma of curry wafts through the modest apartment, leaking through the open windows to remind the neighbors that it is lunchtime. Anita stirs the steel pot violently, splattering the spicy sauce on the tiled walls. A faded price tag is stuck to the side, damp with steam. Anita's mother had gifted her the vessel when she got married. Married to the man who had been chosen for her.

She had been saving the pot for her daughter, just as her mother had done for her. But she didn't deserve it anymore.

Dulip saunters into the kitchen, his features haggard. "Curry, again?"

"Nobody is forcing you to eat it."

He sighs, heading back to the living room. "Just hurry up, please? I'm starving." A few seconds later, the chatter of cricket commentators reaches Anita's ears.

She grumbles under her breath, lifting the pot off the stove and roughly ladling out the curry onto two plates of boiled rice. Her hand automatically reaches for a third, but she stops in time, clenching her fist and drawing it back.

"Food!" she yells, slamming the plates on the table before pulling out a chair and attacking her rice. A few seconds later, her husband switches off the TV, drowning the house in silence, and takes the seat beside her.

They drown themselves in the monotonous sounds of chewing and clattering cutlery, but it does a poor job of replacing the laughter they're used to.

Anita glares at the wall. There are patches of discoloration where once a series of photographs hung. Now those picture frames are in a box, under their bed.

"You have to accompany her and the boy's mother to buy the dress, don't you? When are—?"

He's cut off by a humourless chuckle. "I have to? I don't have to do anything."

"Anita—"

"Dress?" Anita's rage is palpable. "You want me to fake a smile while she tries on white dresses to match her white husband? While her mother-in-law jabbers away in her incoherent accent?"

"You can't—"

"I can't what, Dulip? I can't feel upset that my daughter is disgracing the family? How will we even hand out the invitations? How can we tell people that our daughter was gallivanting around with her white-washed boyfriend when we sent her abroad to study?"

Dulip pushes away his plate, heading to the sink. Anita notes the tension in his jaw. "You can kick and scream all you want, but this is happening." Then in a softer tone, almost to himself, he adds, "I miss her."

Anita scoffs. "Well, I don't."

But she knows it's not true. A fact proved by the 4x6 photograph hidden in her pillowcase of a petite dark-skinned girl hugging the arm of a tall, pale man, toothy grins on display as they tossed their graduation caps in the air.

The house was different without her, and it would never be the same again.