“I’ll be back by second sunset!” She says this as if she isn’t naked but for a pair of prosthetic antennae. Our waxy apartment is small enough that I can reach over from the kitchen to keep the door closed.

“Where do you think you’re going like that?”

“What’s wrong?” Her antennae betray that as a rhetorical question. She’s trying to push me. She could leave and strip outside, but she wants to fight. She’s me minus 15 years, plus a few million light-years.

“Come on!” I plead. “I can live with the antennae. But this? You’re not one of them!”

“No one wears clothes here! It’s too damn hot! If you hate this place so much, why did you bring us here?”

“You know goddamn well why. I want you to go to the best schools and I need a good job to give you a better life.”

“So the money’s okay, but not the culture? I’m the one who is giving us a future, but only if I can fit in!” She got dressed in an angry huff. “There. Can I go now?”

I open the door without a word, knowing she’ll shed her humanity anyway.