I massage the angles of my jaw, feel the knotted muscles of my face. I am grinding my teeth more. Adam has told me it sounds like nails dragging across a chalkboard. When I was younger, Mom tried rubbing my back before bed, reading me soothing stories at bedtime, and even had me treated for parasites. Nothing stopped it. After I fractured a tooth, Mom had a custom guard made for me. It doesn’t stop the grinding but has saved me from breaking more teeth. I try not to let Adam see me wearing it, which he thinks is vanity.

The doors open and I get off, jostled by people in a hurry to hit the gym or get home to a husband or to a teenager who favors television over homework. As I walk away from the station, the roar and clack of the train fades behind me. I did not pack an umbrella, which is enough to guarantee rain. The sky starts to drizzle. Cold droplets fall on my hair and stipple the concrete sidewalk. Though my wool coat is lined, I can almost feel the dampness through the layers. I move my nylon bag full of notes I still need to chart to my right shoulder.

I will get to them eventually.

My eyes stay on the rise and fall of the round toes of my flats.

Plenty of my colleagues live outside the city. They have cars and front yards and walk-in closets. I prefer the crowds, the small footprint. When I’m hungry for air and space, I take the train out of the city and visit Mom. We pick out zucchini and heirloom tomatoes at farm stands and stroll down the town’s Main Street. From her balcony, the sky looks like a page out of an astronomy book. I’ve shared a lot with her, breathing in the clean air.

I have not yet told Mom about Shair. If I were to tell her, she would be rational and protective of me, and I am determined not to let rational thought get in my way right now. I’m keeping too much to myself these days. I’ll fix this all soon.

I’ve been to this neighborhood before, once to find a sari for the wedding of a medical school classmate. As I wandered in and out of shops, Bollywood music floated into the streets, just as it had in Kabul. I peered into the window of a fried-chicken store and saw a man who was surely Afghan handing a white paper bag to a customer.

Decades ago, Horace Bullard, the son of a black plumber and a Puerto Rican mother, started the Kansas Fried Chicken franchise, one-upping the recipe of Kentucky Fried Chicken by adding a dash of Puerto Rican sabor. Rumor had it that he selectively sold his stores to Afghans because they’d taken up arms against the red flag of communism.