Icicles hang like legs of lamb from the eaves of their rental house, and six-foot-high, coal-black snow piles obscure the sidewalks. Standing outside this short time he finds himself shivering despite his long johns, wool socks, fur-lined boots, a turtleneck under a sweatshirt under a down coat. His toes feel like marbles. His breath leaves his body like a storm cloud.

He leaves her shoveling. His fingers stick to the ice-cold doorknob as he opens the unlocked front door. She says it’s the heat of shoveling that made her shed her outerwear, but every day she forgets her hat and gloves, her scarf. This is not the first time she’s ventured into the northeast Ohio winter with no coat.

“Jinn take her,” he mumbles as he shoves his way inside and slams the door.

The foyer’s warmth soothes him, until he sees her gloves like shriveled leaves on the floor. Her scarf winds its serpentine way to the door, as though she took the time to spell her first initial with it as she left. Her stiff knit hat is propped beside the gloves.

He drapes her coat over his arm, turns the porch light on, and again steps outside. Bundled in snow and night, the world looks smaller and snugger than usual.

Saeedah has moved to the driveway—but when he gets nearer, he fears her shovel, the way it slices through the snow, the way she seems to be keeping him at a distance with the purposefulness of her shoveling. With a deep sense of futility, he holds the coat open while she digs the driveway clean, the sound of her scraping ice echoing along the dark street. Someone else is shoveling somewhere, too. When she gets to the car, she opens the door, reaches in to turn it off, and removes his keys. He comes down the steps. She gives him the keys. He keeps the coat. She goes back to shoveling.

Back in the house, he folds and stacks Saeedah’s things and sits in the lawn chair she has placed by the door to take off his boots. He tells himself he has stopped being angry that Saeedah won’t take care of herself, or let him take care of her. She’ll do what she does, no matter the consequence. His mother told him so, before he and Saeedah were engaged.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He tugs his first boot so hard he nearly falls off the chair.

Jinn take her.

He heats leftover lentil soup over the stove, ladles it into a bowl, squeezes a little lime into it, leaves it on the table for Saeedah, and goes to bed without eating. He’s not hungry.

Every day lately, including these seconds before sleep, is as tension-filled as a final exam. Tonight, as usual, he’s wide awake for an hour, listening for her, hearing nothing, not even the door slamming shut—did she ever come in?