When Naomi takes a breath, she thinks You’re breathing for two now, and the nausea this causes is strong enough to ripple through her body, shuddering her legs, making her grit her teeth. Or maybe it’s just regular old morning sickness.

The ceiling of the post office extends far above her, magnificent in its distance, haughty as the roof of a cathedral. But nearer to the ground, the air-conditioning seems to have broken, and the people around her are turning to liquid in their clothes: sweat pooling around a woman’s hairline, dripping off a man’s nose like oil. Naomi is the only one who remains dry. Naomi is the only one, she feels, who carries something portentous within her: a tiny flame, shrouded by the darkness of many layers of flesh.

Paul scribbled the address on the package just before thrusting it into her arms, and now she turns it over and over, examining the neat Os and sharp Ks. She doesn’t want to look at her phone like everyone else in line is doing. Doesn’t want to see what messages might be waiting there—Paul’s afterthoughts, ordering her to pick something up on the way back to his place. Eggs from the corner store where the workers leer at her without moving their faces. Milk from the bodega where the cat slinks around piles of unmarked boxes like a huge, greasy rat. All the familiar spaces where she has stood dozens of times, feeling her own decay creeping in around the edges of her consciousness, like the blackness that spreads from a backhanded blow. Buying the food and lugging it back to Paul’s massive apartment. Back to all those empty spaces that ring with silence. The smooth surfaces of chrome and quartz and marble that offer her no succor, no advice, nothing but her own wordless face.

On the package, Paul’s handwriting is cramped and precise. He has closed all his Os. Naomi once learned from a TV show that leaving Os open signifies uncertainty and unreliability on the part of the writer. But Paul is certain about everything. And, for better or worse, he is reliable.

Although it is true that he has not hit her since he learned she was pregnant with his child.

The air booms. A sudden blast shakes the floor and knocks Naomi off her feet. All around her is smoke. Plaster falling to the floor. Bodies falling too, all around her. Someone further inside the post office, unseen in the hot and cloudy darkness, is sobbing.

After she doesn’t know how long—one minute? Fifteen?—Naomi pushes herself to her feet and stumbles outside. Her hands are empty, her body white with dust. A thin, piercing whine fills her ears. Maybe her hearing has been damaged. Or maybe it’s the baby, screaming inside her.

Now she does take her phone out, and just as she lifts it, a message appears on the screen: I saw what happened stay where you are I’ve sent a car.

Of course he has. Now that she is a vessel. Now that she carries something of value to him. 

She walks down the street. The sidewalk is swarming with people, the avenues thick with cars, as though the blast has shaken them from their hiding places. People are shouting about bombs and terrorists. Paul texts her again: It’s red the license plate is 6ZEM167

There are no red cars in sight. Black, green, gray, yes, but no red. Not a single one. Red was the color of her favorite lipstick before Paul told her it was a slutty color and threw it—overhand, in a perfect half-circle—into the trash. Red was the color of the roses he used to give her, the ones that always died within a few days no matter how much “flower food” she poured into the vase. Their fragrance turning soft and rotten, blooming like fungus into a horribly exaggerated version of itself.

Someone shouts behind her. The sound is rough and ragged, making her think of stiff bristles, a wire fence. She remembers the Os again. Closed circles. Not even a sliver of space between the twin loops at the top of the letter. No gap for her to slip through. 

As she approaches the avenue, she sees a trash can and tosses her phone inside, overhand. It makes no sound when it lands. The trash beneath it is soil-soft, tender as the dead roses, swallowing up all noise.

The moment Naomi reaches the avenue, a black car sidles up to the sidewalk. Just like that. The driver’s face is unknowable, cast in shadow, but she senses that he is looking at her. She checks the license plate; it is not 6ZEM167. Definitely not.

She reaches for the handle to the backseat. The metal is so hot she can barely touch it. It’s as though the car has been waiting for her for hours, crawling through the streets like a slow and patient insect, drinking up the brilliance of the sun.

As soon as she steps into the car, recirculated air wafts over her, cool and clean, like the breath of some merciful god. She closes the door and settles back against the leather. As the car peels away from the curb, Naomi feels the string that connects her and Paul stretching further and further out, thinning to the breadth of a hair, a spiderweb, a strand of graphene. A new lightness settles in her, a buoying force like the opposite of gravity, turning her bones bird-light and hollow. The string is about to snap. She closes her eyes and waits to be carried away.