“Come inside,” he says, but of course she can’t hear.

A small prick of shame, like the shock of touching a car door in the dry winter air: here is his wife taking her clothes off in public. But no one is on the beach, and he’s too cold and frightened to care. To warm himself up, he pulls his arms out of his sleeves and into the body of his coat.

He walks to the edge of the lake, his boots leaving tracks in the thick, wet mixture of snow and sand. The air smells woody and wet, and someone must be burning a bonfire somewhere because he smells smoke. He turns toward the parking lot and squints to the left and right, searching for a lit fire, smoke, evidence of other humans sharing this beach with them.

He looks back to the lake. She has reached the sandbar about a hundred yards from the shore, and the water is at her waist.

He drops his coat onto the sand and wades into the water. It is so cold it might as well be a block of ice. He presses on. His jeans and long johns are so heavy. The water stings like peroxide on a wound.

Behind him someone is yelling. “What the hell! It’s fucking cold.”

Muneer looks back to the shore. A man has appeared out of nowhere, walking along the beach holding a metal detector out like a blind man’s white-tipped cane.

“What the hell are you doing?” the man says. In his other hand, he holds a rusty tea tray—an odd thing to have found on the beach.

Muneer turns to his wife. She hasn’t moved from the sandbar.

When he reaches her, her body is purple. He lifts her. He isn’t sure he can reach the shore. Next he remembers, they are lying on the cold, cold ground.

The man is standing over them. He wears a ski mask, folded up to reveal a face that resembles Johnny Carson with a salt-and-pepper beard. His metal detector and tea tray lie on the ground, and he’s holding Muneer’s coat and a sand-colored blanket—pilly and rough, but better than nothing. He hangs the coat on Muneer’s head by the hood and wraps the blanket around Muneer and Saeedah. They are too cold to warm each other.

“Do you need a ride?” the man says, picking up his things. He dangles the tea tray from one hooked thumb. “You’re not from here, are you?”

Muneer rubs Saeedah’s hands between his. He rubs her feet, her arms, her legs. She’s made of chilled rubber, not flesh and blood.

“No, thank you,” Muneer says. He doesn’t think the second question deserves an answer. “Can we keep the blanket?”

The man shakes the tray in lieu of a nod and continues down the beach.