1. A is in love, still she breathes in the phone, with a married man who is teaching her to nurture her nurturing side. He has bought her a pot-bellied pot, soil, rocks, and a large plant. Today, he will teach her the sensual art of fertilizing roots. 2. Although he tells her she’s stupid and lucky to have any man, B clings to her guy. She suspects he’s cheating, tears through his closet, then carefully refolds his sweaters, pants, marries his socks. She asks me to send holiday cards to her parents’ house, one less lie to sift through, she says, before asking, “How’s A?” 3. See, for two months now I’ve dreamed myself in Cairo with a man whose face presses into itself like an accordion when he laughs. We drink tea, talk to children and pause five times during the day to pray, then make love. He never mentions his wife and six children in Durban. I never mention my lover in Binghamton. Every night I wake with my hand pressed into my mouth and hum a song that lulls my lover back to sleep. 4. After she discovered I could be honest on paper, my mother sent me a letter outlining my father’s affair with a sister from church. She said she’d never give her body to another man. She said nothing of the heart.