his mouth, but all that came forth was a single, pained groan.
"Say something," Mariam said.
Then Jalil did, in a thin, threadbare voice. "Goddamn it, Mariam, don't do this to me," he
said as though he was the one to whom something was being done.
And, with that, Mariam felt the tension vanish from the room.
As Jalil’s wives began a new and more sprightly round of reassuring, Mariam looked
down at the table. Her eyes traced the sleek shape of the table's legs, the sinuous curves of
its corners, the gleam of its reflective, dark brown surface. She noticed that every time she
breathed out, the surface fogged, and she disappeared from her father's table.
Afsoon escorted her back to the room upstairs. When Afsoon closed the door, Mariam
heard the rattling of a key as it turned in the lock.