I’m locked in the bedroom, settling amidst the unfolded clothes on the bed, my body a leaden thing. My hands are clapped over my ears but I can still hear the sounds of Persian domesticity. Pots bubbling. Knives on cutting boards. Female voices raised in argument. My mother-in-law, joined by an aunt-in-law and a cousin-in-law for dinner tonight. Even their kindnesses to me are hostile. They smile without using their eyes. They crowd me out of my own kitchen and into this bedroom. They tread in annoyance and rap on the door and demand “Are you okay?” in Farsi.

I keep sending them away with lies, again and again, until I’m almost incoherent with desperation. Because I’m not okay. Not even close.

“Salam!” a male voice rings in greeting.

My husband is home. The apartment erupts into banter. His mom and aunt and cousin are talking to him all at once. It seems to take him a long time to realize I’m not present. When he finally asks about me, they hush into dark murmurs.

Anticipating his disapproval, I rouse myself and tiptoe out of the bedroom. Saman is standing at the end of the short hallway, lit in the kitchen’s glare, hands on hips. I start to move toward him, then stop. Framed portraits of in-laws are watching me from the walls. My wedding ring originally belonged to his great-grandmother, who married into this family three generations ago. Her black-and-white visage considers me with a terrible sureness.

Light floods down the hallway as his bulk moves away. “You’re needed in the kitchen, Nooshin.” Coming from him it’s a reproach. A wife should know when she’s needed in the kitchen. Dutifully I stagger into motion, trailing after my husband.

All conversation ends when my sockfeet arrive on the tile. A gigantic pot of water is boiling on the stove. My mother-in-law is veiled behind the steam, dumping rice into the pot and stirring it with a huge spoon. Next to the sink my aunt-in-law is tenderizing veal cutlets with a wooden mallet, her bony arm a methodical blur, wham-wham-wham. My cousin-in-law appears to be rearranging the refrigerator more to her liking, stacking bottles and tupperware and jars and vegetables on the counter and replacing them again.

Every sideways movement of theirs, every half-turn of a head, is causing a hiccup of panic in my chest. I want them to stop ignoring me. I don’t want them to stop ignoring me. I –

“Make yourself useful, daughter-in-law!” In Farsi the words are a violence of disdain. My mother-in-law spits them out, pointing at the dining room table.

I scoop up an armload of plates — but I don’t set the table. Instead I flee her voice, propelled through the dining room and into the living room. Saman is riffling through today’s pile of mail. His profile is impassive as he flips through the Sports Illustrated that came.

“Is it okay if, um… If we…” I cradle the plates against my flat chest, noticing my mother-in-law is abandoning her pot of rice. Sidling into the dining room. Eavesdropping. I switch to whispered English. “We need to talk.”

“Right now?” His pockmarked face contorts in frustration, his hands begin to strangle the magazine. “Can’t it wait until after dinner?”

“Saman. Please.”

Glossy pages hurtle through the air, fluttering. He grabs my elbow and half-walks, half-drags me out of the apartment and into the hallway. Blandly matching doors recede in both directions. The only light is artificial, a dim glowing from recessed fixtures. It makes Saman’s swarthy skin even darker.

“Talk,” he commands.

“I can’t do this anymore.” I feel like I’ve waited five years to say it. Relief floods through me, and then a nervous giggly tension. There’s no going back.

Saman’s brow is furrowing into a scowl. It’s the same look he gives an empty sock drawer, the check engine light on the dashboard, anything that unexpectedly runs out of batteries. “You can’t do what anymore?”

“Um, well…” I’m wilting under his scrutiny. I want to say us — I can’t do us anymore! — but my courage is suddenly gone. “You know, just…this.” I shrug feebly.

“What are you talking about?”

“I feel like I’m in jail, Saman. I can’t even go on the computer. Why won’t you tell me the new password? You changed the password so I can’t use the computer at all — ”

“You would shame me by emailing that guy?” Anger is suddenly boiling in his eyes.

I should stop myself, but it’s useless. “I can’t talk to my family on my cellphone because you took it away, and I can’t buy anything with my cash card because you took that away too, and I can’t go anywhere in my car because you gave it to your mother!”

“Listen, wife! Listen to me — ”

“No, you listen to me for once — ”

“Shut up! In the name of God shut up!”

There’s a single loud slapping noise and I find myself looking blurrily down the hallway, the left side of my face aflame. The plates spill out of my arms and bounce across the carpeting. After a while I test my jaw in dull floating shock. Saman has never hit me before.

Chalky faces are jutting into the long expanses of hallway on either side. He glances back and forth self-consciously, bunching his shoulder muscles until his neck disappears. Few things are more humiliating to a Persian man than arguing with his wife in public. But a raised palm and meaningful nod — thanks for your concern, everything’s okay — are enough to make their apartment doors close again.

In a stupor I kneel and gather the fallen plates. One, for him. Two, for my mother-in-law. Three, for my aunt-in-law. Four, for my cousin-law. The last plate, mine, has settled between Saman’s feet. Groping for it I notice his loafers need polishing. Another chore on the checklist called “serving my husband”.

Above me Saman takes a deep calming breath, making the buttons of his oxford heave and stretch. “This must be the end of your craziness. I have no patience for it anymore.”

“I just want to be happy.”

“Happy.” The word thuds.

I try out a phrase I’ve been practicing in my head, in my notebook. “I want a husband who’s my best friend.”

Saman is pawing his face in abject frustration. “We do not have to be best friends. How many married people are best friends? We are husband and wife, Nooshin. Husband and wife!”

The silence between us elongates into a vast dragging emptiness. I settle onto my haunches and hug the dinnerware to my chest. He leans his bulk against the doorjamb. Somewhere a telephone rings endlessly, then quiets, then rings endlessly again.

Suddenly I’m hugging air. Saman yanks the plates out of my grasp and barges into the apartment, scattering the female relatives who were pressed against the door. It closes with a whooshing click and I’m alone in the hallway, sitting the way I always do, with one foot tucked protectively underneath me. Ghostly echoes drift past me, maybe real life conversations, maybe just televisions. A chemical-fresh smell wafts from the plush carpet. The distant EXIT sign is glowing steadily.