Naomi gets out of bed to use the toilet and every other day she can take a shower. Her fellow graduate students come over and what do you think they talk about when they’re not talking about linguistics? Thanh and Harper, probably, and how much Naomi is suffering. Does she confide in her friends? Tell them she thinks about keeping the baby? It was her egg, after all. That was probably a dumb idea.

Thanh keeps a toothbrush at Naomi’s apartment. Easier than running upstairs. Their building is full of old Russians with rent-stabilized leases. The women exercise on the treadmills in high heels. They gossip in Russian. Never smile at Thanh when he comes into the exercise room to lift weights or run. They see him go in and out of Naomi’s apartment. Must wonder. Sometimes Thanh works at Naomi’s kitchen table. One night he falls asleep on the bed beside her, Naomi telling him something about her childhood, the TV on. Naomi watches episode after episode of CSI. All that blood. It can’t be good for the baby. When Thanh wakes up, she is watching him. You farted in your sleep, she says. And laughs. What time is it? He checks his phone and sees he has no missed calls. Harper is probably still at work. He doesn’t like me very much, Naomi says. He likes you! Thanh says. (He knows who she means.) I mean he doesn’t really like people. But he likes you. Mm, Naomi says. He’ll like the baby, Thanh says. You should hear him talk about preschools, art lessons, he’s already thinking about pets. Maybe a gerbil to start with? Or a chameleon. He’s already started a college fund. Mm, Naomi says again. He’s good-looking, she says. I’ll give him that. You should have seen him when he was twenty-five, Thanh says. It’s all been downhill since then. Hungry? He heats up the phoga he made upstairs. His mother’s recipe. He does the dishes afterward.

He accidentally saw a text on Naomi’s phone the other day. To one of her friends. The short one. I AM HORNY ALL THE TIME. They should have used a donor egg. But that would have cost more money, and how much more money is there in the world? Wherever it is, it isn’t in Harper and Thanh’s bank account. They went through catalogs. IQs, hobbies, genetic histories. It seemed impersonal. Like ordering take-out food from an online menu. Should we have the chicken or the shrimp? Naomi and Harper have thick, curly blond hair, similar chins, mouths, athletic builds. So they decided to use Thanh’s sperm. Harper says once, late at night: he thinks it would be harder to love his own child.

Thanh wants to tell Harper about the text. Maybe it would make him laugh. He doesn’t. It wouldn’t.