Sofia knows there is nothing to be done, but she is sure Antonia will know what to do. Or rather: Sofia is sure that in Antonia’s eyes, she will feel like herself again.

She picks up the phone. She says, “I need to come over.”

Chapter 13

Are you sure?”

Sofia nods, hands in her lap. She is sitting on Antonia’s bed, in Antonia’s musty apartment, familiar as an old coat. Her knees are touching Antonia’s knees. “I’m sure. I mean, I’m as sure as . . . it’s been two and a half months, Antonia. I spent every morning in January kneeling on the bathroom floor.” She shrugs. “I’m sure.”

“But . . .” Antonia sits now, quietly next to Sofia, in reverence of the crisis at hand. “How?”

Sofia raises her eyebrows.

“I mean, I know how. I guess . . . when? No, I know when.” Antonia is silent for a moment, and then asks, “Where?”

“In his room, in December.”

“Wow. Sofia, wow!”

“I know,” says Sofia.

“You’re not married,” says Antonia.

“I know,” says Sofia.

“Oh, Sofia, he’s Jewish!”

“I know.” Sofia turns to look at Antonia, and her features are small and scared inside her big, white face. “My parents don’t even know that he and I—that we—my father works with him every day. Antonia, I think he’ll kill him.”

“I’m sure he won’t,” says Antonia, and puts her arm around Sofia’s waist. She is not at all sure, but she knows that the immediacy, the permanence, and the incontrovertible existence of the third life in the room with them means that everything has to be okay. It has to work out. Sofia and Antonia, playing make-believe, had always assumed there was nothing they couldn’t tackle together.

“I can come for supper,” Antonia says. “Do you want to wait and tell them then?”