Dull torpid sleeplessness, and I’m urgently waiting on the nightstand clock. Willing the green digits to turn faster. Hurry up, hours. Drain away into morning.

I’ve been here a lot lately, adrift on our mattress, tracing shadow-patterns on the ceiling with a raised fingertip, listening to Saman drone and snort next to me. I just wish tonight’s insomnia was due to the dinner I botched, because that khoresht — lamb and vegetable stew — was certainly deserving of blame. Next time I’ll stop at a pinch of paprika. Happiness should be such simple restraint.

I want to ghost around the apartment, looking for distractions. Tidying the silverware drawer. Watching the satellite TV channels we get from the Persian Gulf. Trying to guess the secret new password on the computer so I can get online again. But Saman wants me here, miserably awake in bed, all night long. Any escape — even if it’s just to the living room — is a threat to his peace of mind.

Yesterday Nasrin called me on Saman’s cellphone. Apparently she and Mom were wondering how different my life has become, now that I returned home to my grateful husband. I admitted enthusiasm for all the changes I hoped to experience, a long walk of anticipation from the airport gate to the curbside pickup, searching the line of windshields for the man who was welcoming me home. But then I glimpsed Saman behind the wheel — slouching, aggrieved, resentful Saman — and I felt a sickening sensation of love nailed to contempt and futility. Of course, I didn’t tell Nasrin that. I just said I was a little disappointed so far. Behind her cheerful words I could tell she was disappointed too. The aftermath of my month in San Diego shouldn’t be so anticlimactic.

I debate whether to pass some time with my clip-on reading light. On the nightstand are Dr. Phil’s Relationship Rescue Workbook and our leatherbound Qu’ran with the buckle around it. Right now that kind of reading seems pointless. Saman doesn’t think our marriage needs any relationship rescue, and even the Qu’ran’s proscriptions seem to backfire.

I slide a hand between my thighs, testing the soreness. Saman was angry with me, a darkness that boiled into slamming. Not because I ruined dinner and we needed to order pizza instead, although that didn’t help. During the sex act I suggested being more adventurous. After all, the Qu’ran states that I’m a field for him to till, and he can till that field any way he wants. So why keep having sex the same way, every time, for five years? Above me his face was a slideshow of emotions — shock, then something like abject terror, and finally a cold harsh closing — and my voice went someplace far away. It hasn’t come back yet.