And there it is: Sofia feels herself, again. Energy courses through her. Her fingers flex, her toes tingle. Thank God, she thinks. And then she reaches across the bed and hugs Antonia, wraps Antonia against her chest, presses her face into Antonia’s hair. “Thank you,” she says. Antonia’s hands are tangled up with her hands; Antonia’s eyes are on her face. “But I think I have to be alone with them. It’s the only way—I have to make them let me explain. If you’re there it will be too obvious—here is our daughter, the fallen woman, next to her friend who’s marrying the good Catholic boy, you know?” She does not know exactly what she will “explain” because the whole thing is murky to her, still, too—the steps that got her there, the way her life will change. But she is impatient now, ready to move. She has a plan. She has something she needs to do. The nervous energy threatens to drown her where she sits. She stands and turns to go. “Thanks,” Sofia says, again. She walks out of Antonia’s room.

“Sofia,” calls Antonia.

“Yeah?”

“Does Saul know?”

“No,” says Sofia, from near the front door of Antonia’s apartment.

—

Sometimes when they are alone Antonia wishes, fervently, silently, that Paolo would cross the expanse of sofa or table between them and seize her around the waist and peel the blouse from her shoulders, the skirt from her thighs. In the halfway space before she falls asleep, she can imagine the weight of his body; she fills with hot honey.

How thin the line is, Antonia realizes. How insubstantial the space between imagining and asking.

How easy it almost seems to cross over.

—

Sofia cannot bring herself to be sorry, but she is scared.

Some nights she lies awake and imagines hiding it. She spends sleepless hours designing baggy blouses, jackets with huge cowls, skirts that balloon out around her waist.

Sometimes she pictures herself and Saul and their baby, living wild in a cabin in the woods, or carrying tents on their backs like Indians. Saul would hunt for deer and she would gather acorns for flour and oysters to roast in the coals of their fires. They would dress their child in woven grasses. They would sleep curled into one another under the stars.

She fantasizes that her mother will embrace Saul and cry, and her father will clap him on the back and look at Sofia and be stern, but proud. They will plan a big wedding—outside, to be in plain view of both of their Gods, and Sofia will drape herself in jewels and silk and they will dance until sunrise.

She worries she will end up alone, baby strapped to her leaking breasts by an old scarf, hunting for pennies in the gutter.

She imagines it growing, but she can feel nothing.

—