“An orphan?” Mummy’s mouth opened wide. Her hands clutched the edge of the thali.

Foi scrunched her eyebrows. A ridge rose instantly between them.

Mummy looked down.

“Listen to me before you say no, Purnima. Girish is from our caste and was raised in the Sheth Tejpal’s orphanage right here in Mumbai. You know how careful they are to only take Modh Bania children in that orphanage.”

Most of the time I found out about a new marriage prospect only after Nimita and Mohini did. Today, I was the first one to hear. I poured a glass of milk and dumped a spoonful of milk masala in it. I stirred as slowly and quietly as I could.

“I’m sure he is from our caste. But an orphan! Nimita won’t have any family,” Mummy said to Foi.

“We’re not dead. And the fewer in-laws the better.”

“Still . . .”

“Would you rather he had strings of brothers and sisters to be educated and married? You don’t want Nimita to end up working like a donkey,” Foi said, picking a tiny stone out of her wheat. Her blue sari had slipped from her chest, revealing a saggy breast through her thin blouse.

Foi never wore a bra. She always complained that the elastic band suffocated her. On the other hand, Mummy would never dream of going without one. Even after having so many children, Mummy still had what she called a “single body,” and she was proud of it. She and our neighbor, Hema Auntie, categorized some people as “single-bodied” and other people as “double-bodied,” as if those double-bodied people had stolen someone else’s body and stuck it to their own. And then there were the people that they didn’t know how to classify, and so they argued whether so-and-so had a single body, or a double body. I guess those people had a body and a half.

As soon as I had turned twelve Mummy handed me my first cotton bra. Every evening when she went to the temple, I would run to the bathroom and peel it off as fast as I could. At that time my chest was as flat as my forehead, and I wondered why she insisted that I wear a bra. But Mummy had reasons for her rules. I didn’t always agree, but when I argued she got upset. It was best to leave the snake pit of her anger undisturbed.

“Without the family, how would we know what kind of a person Girish Mehta is?” Mummy asked.

“I’ve heard good things about him from many people at the orphanage. Just two weeks ago one of the younger students fell and broke his elbow. Girish took the boy to the doctor and stayed with him all afternoon.”

That seemed to satisfy Mummy. “Where does he live?”