Work is exhilarating. It demands all of Sofia’s focus. It helps her feel out into the edges of her skin, little electric jolts from head to toe. “It’s the same,” says Sofia. She is careful. Antonia is not outwardly judgmental but there was an awkward year between them when Sofia started and she wants badly to have it all: her friendship, her family, her Family. She finds herself being tactful, which she has never done before.

“And Julia?”

Julia is obsessed with bugs. She skins her knees; she collects moths in a jar. She flips through old copies of National Geographic sitting upside down on the sofa, so her hair hangs down to the floor and her feet kick absentmindedly near the headrests. Rosa is scandalized; her meager efforts not to show it only serve to accentuate the purse of her lips, the small disparaging shake of her head. “Julia is like a wild animal,” says Sofia. Julia still burrows into Sofia and Saul’s bed some nights, though she is always gone by the time they wake up. “She’s amazing,” says Sofia, though she is torn, as she always is, between the world in which Julia needs Sofia and the world in which Sofia needs herself. This is something Sofia has never been able to navigate smoothly, so she oscillates: coming home after Julia is asleep every night for a week and then taking her to Coney Island for the day, snapping at Julia about something small and then buying her the stuffed animal, the ice cream for dinner. Sofia marvels at Julia, but she is scared constantly: that she will lose herself in the love she feels, or that Julia will not reciprocate it and Sofia will have thrown her love into a void. She knows in her heart of hearts that working has not made her a worse parent; still, there are only so many unwritten expectations one can defy before questioning one’s own instincts.

“How’s Robbie?”

Robbie is sensitive. He is creative and full of love, but he is unstable in a way Antonia has never been unstable. He has not inherited Antonia’s even keel; he has her self-awareness, her expanding and generous consciousness for everything around her, but he has Paolo’s misery when things don’t go smoothly. The smallest setback can derail him. She feels like the heart of her family, the only thing holding it together.

“Tonia?”

“He’s fine,” says Antonia.

Silence descends. Antonia and Sofia chew their sandwiches. Antonia can feel herself shrinking under Sofia’s gaze, even as inside of her, cells divide, and she grows.