“Only if you have time,” her aunt said, putting another bag on the cutting table.
Meena looked inside. Green silk, matching lining, a packet of buttons.
“For the wedding?”
“For the morning prayers. Something simple.” Her aunt pinched the material between two fingers. “You know what suits me.”
From the kitchen, the pressure cooker whistled. On Meena’s phone, her daughter had sent an article about healthy boundaries. Above it was a request to courier the blue cardigan she had left behind.
Meena checked the clock.
Setting boundaries with family was something she meant to get better at after the wedding.
“Leave it,” she said at last.
Her aunt smiled and went to check the cooker.
The previous week, Ritu had arrived with three lengths of fabric and a box of Meena’s favorite coconut biscuits.
“Two blouses and the yellow suit,” she said. “Tell me your proper rate.”
“For you? Half.”
“Meena didi.”
“My wedding present. And pockets in the suit, otherwise you’ll spend your own haldi asking people where your phone is.”
Ritu laughed, then hugged her from behind, pressing her cold nose against Meena’s neck.
Meena had stitched her cousin’s first party frock. Bottle green, with a silver belt. Ritu had insisted on sleeping in it and cried when an embroidered flower scratched her cheek. Meena still had the leftover fabric somewhere.
Now Ritu stood before the mirror, holding maroon silk against herself, pushing her hair off her shoulders.
“You’ll come early on Saturday, won’t you? Before everyone starts telling me how to sit.”
“If I’m still sewing your clothes, I’ll come with the machine.”
They laughed. Then Meena wrote three items in her notebook, drew a line beneath the total and halved it.
She had six other orders to finish that fortnight. As long as everyone arrived on time for fittings, however, she could manage.
The sewing room had once been her daughter’s bedroom. A narrow bed remained against one wall, its mattress stacked with parcels. Meena’s husband had fitted shelves above it and screwed a long wooden ruler to the edge of the cutting table.
When she had two orders a week, family expectations had been easier to accommodate. Now her work paid the electricity bill and most of the groceries. Last summer, it had paid for a new refrigerator. Still, relatives who called at eleven often asked, “Were you sleeping?”
Even so, she usually laughed. After all, these were people who had brought her meals when she was ill or sat beside her through her mother’s operation. Explaining her working hours to them felt unfriendly.
Back in the sewing room, Meena put her aunt’s green suit on the bed. To make space, she moved Mrs Sethi’s parcel.
On Friday, another cousin brought a blouse whose hooks needed shifting.
“I would have gone to the market, but you’ll do it properly.”
Although the repair took twenty minutes, the cousin stayed for an hour and left with a promise to send photographs.
Two days later, Ritu came for her fitting with her mother and an older sister. Meena had planned forty minutes, but they stayed until lunch.
At first, Ritu seemed delighted with the maroon blouse. It fitted beautifully. After turning before the mirror, however, she opened a photograph on her phone.
“Would these buttons work down the back?”
Meena examined the tiny fabric buttons, each held by its own loop.
“But I’ve already finished the hook fastening.”
“Oh. Then leave it.”
Ritu looked at the photograph again.
“Let me see,” Meena said.
Afterwards, she would remember that Ritu had given her a chance to refuse.
Meanwhile, her aunt asked for less chilli in the potatoes, and her older cousin wanted to know where Meena kept the tea leaves. By the time everyone left, the afternoon light had moved off the cutting table.
Before returning to work, Meena washed the cups. Otherwise, a sticky ring on the table would bother her all evening.
At nine, her husband found her unpicking the maroon blouse.
“Weren’t you doing the cream suit today?”
“Tomorrow.”
He stood beside the door, rubbing his wet hair with a towel.
“Come and eat.”
“Two minutes.”
Eventually, he brought her plate in, twenty minutes later.
Yet she resented him briefly for seeing her dinner as an interruption she would not make for herself.
The following evening, her daughter called from Pune.
“Did you read what I sent?”
“Your cardigan is packed.”
“The article, Ma.”
Meena wedged the phone between her shoulder and ear. “But I haven’t had time.”
“It’s about valuing your time.”
“Then it should be shorter.”
Her daughter laughed. Meena smiled, guiding the cloth under the needle.
“You sound tired.”
“Wedding work.”
“You know, standing up for yourself is allowed before you’re completely exhausted.”
“Have you had dinner?”
Her daughter allowed the change of subject.
Later that evening, Meena thought about the article. She disliked the expression people pleasing when her daughter applied it to her, because it made affection sound foolish. After all, she liked remembering who wanted loose sleeves and who hated a label touching their neck. Besides, she liked being the person Ritu trusted with a blouse she would wear in every wedding photograph.
What she disliked, however, was hearing her husband answer the door and say, “Yes, she’s here,” without asking who wanted her or why.
On Tuesday, Mrs Sethi arrived at four to collect the cream suit.
As soon as Meena heard the knock, she recognized it. Two quick taps, then a pause.
The suit was still in pieces.
“Five minutes,” Meena called, although five minutes could do nothing useful.
Mrs Sethi stood in the doorway wearing her office identity card. She had come straight from work. A folding shopping bag hung from her wrist.
“Shall I try it once?”
Meena put down the maroon blouse.
“I’m sorry. It isn’t ready.”
“Oh.” Mrs Sethi looked towards the bed. “You said Tuesday.”
“There’s a wedding in the family. Everyone keeps bringing things.”
Mrs Sethi waited.
“My train is tomorrow morning,” she said. “I told you.”
“I remember. Your sister’s retirement.”
“Yes.” She folded the empty shopping bag into a small square. “Why didn’t you call me?”
This time, Meena had no answer that she wanted to give.
For a moment, she wished Mrs Sethi would be unreasonable. Then she could feel offended instead of ashamed.
“I’ll bring it tonight,” she said. “By nine. You can try it while I’m there.”
“Will it be properly finished?”
“Yes.”
After she left, Meena sat down on the edge of the bed. Her aunt’s green silk slid onto the floor.
She picked it up and folded it carefully.
She had spent the week feeling that she was being taken for granted. Yet Mrs Sethi had done nothing except trust a date Meena herself had offered.
Meena opened her notebook. Beneath the original three items, she listed everything else. The buttons. The altered blouse. The green suit. Two more parcels her aunt had mentioned bringing tomorrow.
She could already hear the objections to refusing them. After all, weddings happened once. Family relationships mattered more than money. Besides, nobody was asking her to do anything very difficult.
Even so, she put an estimated time beside each item.
Until now, setting boundaries with family had seemed likely to cause an argument. Looking at the hours in her notebook, however, she could see an argument coming anyway. Someone would be disappointed, whatever she chose.
So she called Ritu.
“Can you come tomorrow at eleven? By yourself. We need to settle the remaining work.”
“Is something wrong with the blouse?”
“The blouse is fine.”
That evening, her husband drove her to Mrs Sethi’s flat. Meena carried her small alteration kit upstairs. One sleeve needed taking in slightly, so she did it at the dining table while Mrs Sethi packed medicines into a handbag.
When Meena offered to reduce the bill, Mrs Sethi shook her head.
“Next time, just tell me.”
On the drive home, Meena watched the shuttered shops pass. She would remember those words whenever she thought about self-respect, though they had been spoken by somebody who only wanted to finish packing.
Ritu arrived the next morning carrying two paper cups of tea.
“You sounded serious.”
“I was.”
Meena cleared a place for the cups. Earlier, she had rehearsed this conversation while brushing her teeth. In the bathroom, her assertiveness had sounded convincing. Yet, with Ritu sitting opposite her, she wanted to ask whether she had eaten breakfast.
She opened the notebook instead.
“Your three outfits will be ready on Thursday, as promised. The buttons are almost done. But I can’t take the other parcels, and your mother’s suit hasn’t been started.”
Ritu looked at the green bag.
“She thinks you’re making it.”
“I know. I said I would, so I’ll speak to her.”
“Could it be very plain?”
Once again, Meena felt herself calculating. If she cut it tonight, skipped the facing, used a ready-made border…
“I haven’t got the time.”
Ritu turned her cup between her palms.
“But you should have told us there was so much other work.”
“I should have.”
“Every time I asked, you said it was fine.”
“Yes.” Meena pressed her thumbnail into the notebook’s cardboard cover. “Yesterday a customer came here for a suit I’d promised her. I hadn’t sewn a stitch. I can’t do that again.”
Ritu went quiet.
“Are you charging more for mine?”
“The price we agreed stays. But any new changes will cost extra. I’ll tell you before I do them.”
Ritu nodded without looking up.
Meena wanted to tell her not to look so hurt. Instead, she took a drink of tea. It was already lukewarm.
“I wasn’t trying to get free work,” Ritu said.
“Of course you weren’t.”
“It’s just that you always seemed to enjoy making my clothes.”
“And I do,” Meena said. “Besides, you have to wear that yellow suit so I can see whether the pockets sit properly.”
Ritu smiled a little, then wiped a drop of tea off the table with her thumb.
“Then I’ll take Ma’s fabric. There’s someone near our house. She might manage it.”
“Let me call your mother first.”
The call lasted twelve minutes. At first, her aunt offered to help with lunch. Then she suggested leaving out the lining. When Meena still refused, she said, “You could have told me earlier.”
Meena agreed.
Afterwards, she sat with the phone in her lap. Even now, she couldn’t tell whether setting boundaries with family would get easier or simply make her better at bearing the silences that followed. Eventually, Ritu asked for a pair of scissors to trim a loose thread on her kurta.
After that, they finished their tea together. Neither mentioned the wedding again.
On Thursday, Ritu collected her clothes. She tried on both blouses, checked the suit’s pockets and paid the amount in the notebook. Before leaving, she picked up the discarded maroon scraps.
“Can I take these? For covering the bangles box.”
“Of course.”
Meena almost offered to cover it herself. Instead, she bit the inside of her cheek and found a bag.
Apparently, learning to say no was going to involve noticing how often she volunteered.
On Saturday, she reached the wedding hall with her hair still damp beneath her bun. For once, her own blouse had its hooks in the right places.
Her aunt’s green suit had been stitched elsewhere. Although the shoulders were a little wide, Meena looked away before her hands could begin measuring the adjustment.
At lunch, however, an older relative leaned across the table.
“I hear you’ve become very professional these days.”
Meena set down her spoon.
“People have to book appointments now?” the woman added, smiling.
Meena could have explained the unfinished cream suit. She could have described the hours that went into those tiny buttons. Instead, she asked for the bowl of raita.
The remark bothered her through dessert. She wished her self-worth were less susceptible to somebody speaking over a plate of rice. She also wished the woman had noticed how neatly the maroon blouse fitted.
Meanwhile, across the hall, Ritu was posing with her new husband. As an assistant held up a reflector, someone called for the cousins.
Meena stood, then glanced towards the washbasins. For a moment, she considered washing her hands and slipping outside for a few minutes.
“Didi!”
Ritu was beckoning.
Meena wiped her fingers on a paper napkin and went over. A stool stood beside the platform. She stepped around it, careful of the hem of her sari.
“Here,” Ritu said, making space beside her.
As Ritu turned towards the photographer, Meena caught sight of a loose loop on the back of the blouse.
“That button,” she whispered. “After the photograph, remind me.”
Ritu reached for her hand and pulled her closer.
“After,” she agreed.
