I made my way out to the living room and just reached the stairs when a tearstained Laura launched herself at me.

“What’s going on?” she asked. She sounded stricken.

“I—I’m not exactly sure.”

“Oh god, oh god, oh god.”

My chest tightened.

“Hey, relax.” It was more for my sake than hers.

“Look—” She peered around and then dragged me into a downstairs guest room. Hers, I assumed from the mess and empty suitcases.

“I can’t understand Sinhala, obviously, but did you hear about the huge fight this morning?”

“There was a huge fight?” My pulse quickened as a choking sensation made its way into my throat.

“Yes! Oh god. It’s Aunty Fiona—she—she—well, she burst into Uncle Nihal’s office. And then she started screaming all this—well, I don’t know what it was. But she was so angry, and oh god.”

Was it working? Were they calling off the wedding as we spoke?

“And then, well, she ran downstairs, still screaming. And she was screaming at Uncle and Kaavi. I—well—I tried to talk to them, but they just asked me to wait in my room. I think they called Spencer and asked him to come over too. Oh god, I don’t even know why they would do that, because he showed about half an hour later, looking super upset. I just—” She wrung her hands. “Oh, I just don’t know what to do!”

So Spencer was here, in the house. I instinctively looked down at myself to check what I was wearing. A simple shift dress. Would he like that? But I shook myself alert. This wasn’t the time for knee-jerk reactions to my ex-boyfriend. I needed to focus.

“What do you mean? There’s really nothing for you to do, is there?” I hoped I didn’t sound happy about it.

I never really thought this plan would work. It sounded like something out of a middle-grader’s handbook. I think there might have been a Baby-Sitters Club book that had a similar plot. It was too simple. If I knew they’d call off the wedding because of this, I wouldn’t have lost so much sleep over plan B or plan C.

But Laura covered her face with her hands and started to cry.

“It’s my fault, you know. All my fault.”

“Um, what?”

“I didn’t want to, you know,” she sobbed. “All this is because of me.”

She was nearly hysterical. How self-centered could she even be?

“What do you mean all because of you?” I asked.

“Because.” She had started hiccuping now. “Because—” She threw herself onto her bed, facedown, Disney Princess style, and continued to wail.

But I heard a commotion outside and left the crying Laura in her room. The Fonsekas had all assembled in the pantry—Mr. Fonseka looked grave and defiant, Mrs. Fonseka had pursed up her lips but there was a sense of resignation about her, a pink-faced Kaavi held Spencer’s hand as he actively stared down at the floor, and Tehani looked puzzled. There were a few other people in the kitchen too—Fonseka relatives, no doubt, who were staying at the house for the wedding. Aunty Josephina’s absence was notable, of course, but Aunty Rajini from Mrs. Fonseka’s brunch sat right in front of the group, her arms crossed and her lips pursed as well. She lived in Sri Lanka, as far as I knew, so she wasn’t a houseguest. That’s a little strange—why would she be here at this time of the day? Especially since the Fonsekas didn’t really seem to be in the mood for visitors.