After they’d gone, Joey said, “Your mom wears a silk dress to watch TV.”

Leo grinned. “My mom wears a silk dress to take out the trash.”

They bounded down the stairwell and then out into the alleyway across which lines were strung with drying laundry that functioned doubly as address panes. The shopkeeper who owned Papagiorgis with the rainbow pillowcases. The old man who smoked cigars on his stoop with the light-blue undershirts.

“Shit.” Leo froze mid-stride toward his bike. “I forgot the sandwiches.”

“I’ll go.” Joey reached back for the doorknob. “Anyway, I wanna go to the bathroom.”

“Okay, grab us some beers too? Let’s have fun today.”

“Fun sounds…fun,” said Joey, but she hovered there awkwardly, not moving. She felt weird taking beers out of Leo’s parents’ fridge. Not like Rand and Maisy would care, but still.

“Okay, I’ll come too,” said Leo, following the way her mind had devolved.

Such an innocuous plan. If only she’d just agreed to go up herself and grab those damn beers.

When they walked into the apartment, the shadows of Maisy and Rand bounced on the wall of the living room visible from the kitchen island.

“It sickens me,” Joey heard Maisy say, “all those Polish women who would have had the ability to choose what took place in their own bodies. And now they’re saddled with motherhood, even if they don’t want it. You weren’t the one who had to make the choice, Rand. Leo wasn’t even a year old.”

Itchy from the tension, Joey opened her mouth to make their presence known, but Leo put his finger to his lips. Joey stilled against the fridge.

“I’m just saying, Mais,” said Rand, in that monotone way he had, never riled up, never affected by anything anyone said, positive or negative alike. “That doctor was an idiot. She wasn’t even set up for operations—”

“Abortions, Rand. You can call them abortions.”

They were talking about abortion? An awful premonition swept over Joey. She vaguely remembered something her mother had mentioned the other day. A female doctor had boated to Poland, where abortion was illegal, to set up a floating operation room for women to get abortions. Apparently something had gone awry, and the doctor hadn’t been allowed to proceed. Was that what they were talking about?

“Fine, abortions. The fact is, it was all sensational. This woman—a gynecologist is she? Well, I’d call her a drama queen. What, are the Poles going to decide to legalize abortion because of her stunt?”

Joey motioned her head to the sandwiches on the counter where Leo had left them. Through the Saran Wrap, she could see that Leo had sliced them on the diagonal. Leo shook his head and pressed a hand against the wall done in pale-yellow sponge paint.