The Piscine AgeMargita stood with her hands pressed against the screen door, looking out into the blackness of a cool summer’s night. The stars were out in their milky multitudes. Like tiny pearls, they glimmered behind the aluminum veil of the grid. She saw that they were especially profuse in the upper-right-hand corner where the mesh had begun to come loose, curling back on itself like the membrane of some hidden universe, exposing a secret triangle of space through which rogue particles of dark matter—to say nothing of the duskywing moths—could enter their home. She gazed a moment longer and then closed the door.
As usual, Ben was asleep in the bathtub.
“Wake up, babe. Wake up. How are you feeling?”
Ben responded with a deep, guttural yawn that seemed to go on for minutes. “Hey,” he
