It was raining in LA when my flight left.  I stared down past a swept wing at the world shrinking into miniature.  Cargo ships turning into bathtub toys.  The traffic-choked highways disappearing into a thin scrawl of lights.  Craggy mountains becoming a dirty wrinkled blanket.  Then the oatmeal sky swallowed up my view, pelting the airplane window with rain, then sleet, then snow.  Everything – happy escape, my sister and her family, Tijuana and Nick and Canyon Sin Nombre – everything was gone, as if I’d only dreamed it.  A fevered dream of sights not really seen, places not really been.  And the fever finally broke.  I can wake up now.  It’s safe to wake up now.

Except I don’t.  I close my eyes and linger in the warm coffin of our bed, hovering between asleep and awake.  I experience vivid dreams-not-dreams that surge through my mind like waves, one after another.  I can interrupt them by opening my eyes, which I do whenever they became too poignant or frightening.  Soon I’m mostly staring at the ceiling.  The memories in my head are collapsing into the weeklong confrontation with Dad and Mom and Nasrin.  It wasn’t a visit, it was an intervention.  They pleaded and argued and finally just yelled.  Don’t shame our family by leaving your marriage.  Be a good wife and return to your husband.  Work through your marital problems with God’s help.  And in the end I surrendered, just like I always do.

Finally I roll onto an elbow and glance around the bedroom.  The nightstand clock tells me it’s late.  The kind of late that feels early.  I’m still on West Coast time.

My sleepshirt is bunched around my hips.  Beneath it I’m dull and sore.  It’s the only proof I have that Saman missed me.

His side of the bed is an empty riot of sheets.  I slide my bare feet to the floor and stumble after his presence, but the apartment is dim and quiet.  My husband is gone.  Already at work, I guess.  Part of me hoped he would linger, but the family business always comes first.

There is no pile of dirty dishes waiting in the kitchen sink.  It was an unpleasant surprise, discovering that Saman had thrived on fast food and the occasional meal at a relative’s house.  My cooking and dishwashing skills weren’t even missed.  So much for believing he couldn’t live without me.

I nibble around the mold on a block of Tabrizi white cheese and eat sweetened sarshir cream directly from the container.  There’s nothing else for breakfast, except for butter and a tin of strawberry jam.  All the once-fresh vegetables are right where I left them in the fridge, gone bad and discolored now, and the lavash – a traditional flatbread – has turned rock-hard.  My day is already aligning into familiar ruts, like grocery shopping.

Except I can’t go grocery shopping.  Not by myself, anyway.  I’m stuck waiting for Saman or one of his relatives to take me to the supermarket.  He confiscated my car keys, my cash card, and the phone that was already cancelled.  I stare at its empty recharger cradle on the countertop.  Tucked underneath the cradle is a list of do’s and don’ts.  The do’s are short and limited to domestic chores within the apartment.  The don’ts are so long I lose track of everything I’m not supposed to do.

Wandering the apartment aimlessly, I tell myself that Saman is behaving the only way he knows how.  Controlling me the same way his family controls him.  Love with strings attached.  His job is courtesy of the family business, and the cars in our parking spots were bought at steep discount from an uncle, and even the modest diamond in my wedding ring was financed with a family loan.

Padding over to the drapes, I fumble along the sides – left? no wait, right – for the cord that reveals a high-rise picture window.  The view is bleak this time of year, as if winter is stealing in and the city is quietly besieged.  Steam bleeds into the cold morning air in giant plumes.  Downtown is a huddle of skyscrapers dwarfed by the prairie sky.  The blanched lip of Arrowhead Stadium rises above a sluggish ribbon of water.  This cityscape seems just as alien to me as San Diego did.  I’ve only spent a month in both places.  Neither feels like home.  Nothing feels like home.

Mom and Nasrin say it’s easier after your first child.  Then you’re not just a wife anymore.  Then you’re a mother too.  Your husband and his family treat you differently – better, I presume – and your life has a focus richer than the hamster wheel of housework.

Maybe I’ll get there with Saman, maybe I won’t.  But I’m starting with a simple request – I want him to take the Relationship Health Profile Test from Dr. Phil’s Relationship Rescue book.  The relationship health scale:

  • If your score is below 11, then your relationship is well above the norm and may have isolated areas in which you can improve.
  • If your total score is between 12 and 19, then your relationship is probably about average (which is not great) and certainly needs work.
  • If your total score is between 20 and 32, then your relationship is seriously troubled and you may be living an “emotional divorce.”
  • If your overall score is above 32, it is likely that your relationship is in extreme danger of failing.

My overall score is 47, way past the extreme danger of failing.  But I told Saman my score is only 21.  A seriously troubled relationship, nothing worse.  I know it’s a sin to lie to my husband, but I just hope his score is low too.  Genuinely low.  Maybe one of us will have the glimmer of a happy marriage.