“I get it,” Priti offers kindly.

She doesn’t get it at all, and I don’t have the heart to tell her that. I lean over to the box of tissues sitting on the bedside table and pluck one out. I wipe at her hands softly, dabbing so that only the glob of henna and any smudged parts are wiped away while the rest of the design remains untarnished.

“We don’t have to keep—”

“I want to.” I pick up the henna tube again. We both settle into the bed. There is something calming about the henna, something familiar and real and solid. It makes me forget about everything else, at least for a few minutes.

Though Priti’s hand still trembles as I work away, I manage to finish her palm without any more incidents. I come away with a small smile on my face as Priti examines her hennaed hand, holding it up in front of her with some admiration.

“You know what?” she says. “You’ve definitely gotten better at this.”

“I know.” My smile widens. Priti nudges me with her non-hennaed hand.

“Don’t get too cocky now.”

“Okay, well. The other hand.” I hold out my hand with the henna tube, waiting for her to stretch her other palm out to me.

She groans. “Can we take a break? I need to stretch my legs.” She’s taking a million photos of her outstretched hand, no doubt to put up on her Instagram. That gives me a slight jolt of happiness—that my handiwork has been deemed Instagrammable by my little sister, aka my second worst critic—but it doesn’t distract me from my work.

“Priti, the wedding is in a few days. If I don’t get it done now, the color won’t set properly. You know that.”

“Fine, fine, fine,” she huffs. “But don’t get mad if I can’t sit still.”

I will get mad. She knows that and so do I. But we begin on her right hand anyway.

The wedding hall is gorgeous. It’s the first wedding I’ve been to outside of Bangladesh, and I didn’t know what to expect. Summer weddings in Bangladesh are one of two things—beautiful, expensive and luxurious to the point where you don’t even realize you’re in a country where it’s 104 degrees out, or so hot that the thought of dressing up in your nice clothes and putting on a full face of makeup makes you want to commit some serious atrocities.

And they’re abundant. During one summer visit to Nanu’s house, we had to go to fifteen different weddings. Half the time we didn’t even know the names of the people getting married, much less how they were related to us.