Sukoon

For eleven years Shabana could not sleep unless the door was locked twice.

Once was the lock. Twice was the chain, and then the handle pulled to check, and then — this is the part she never told anyone, including him — a return, about four minutes later, to check again.

She did this in Karachi and she did it in Toronto and she did it in the flat in Mississauga after the divorce, alone, where there was objectively nobody to be frightened of.

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She stopped in the third year with Adnan and did not notice for a further six months.