The Funeral at Our Engagement Party

After an eight-year courtship, Bill Whitney and Anne James are finally holding their engagement ceremony. But when Bill and his parents arrive at the hotel private room Anne's mother booked, they find it decked out as a memorial shrine: funeral wreaths, white cloth and black gauze, and a black-and-white photo of Anne's late father, Joshua James, on the altar table.

Sophie Finch, Anne's mother, who raised her alone by selling breakfast food, hands Bill three sticks of incense and three white cushions, demanding that he and his parents kneel and bow to her dead husband. She claims a guru promised the gesture would spare both families misfortune, and warns that refusing will bring three years of bloody disaster.

Bill wants to marry Anne, but he will not let his parents be humiliated. As relatives draw near and Anne pleads with him to give in, he must decide how far he can bend before the family he loves is broken.