The temporary rental in Portland smelled like someone else’s detergent and new paint.

Elena stood in the small bathroom on the second morning with the door closed and a test in her hand that she had bought at a pharmacy off the highway the night they arrived. The thick residual heat of the ultimate claiming under the old roof had faded. The lower marks under her sleep shirt were still dark, yellowing at the edges the way they always did when they were not renewed for a day. The tracking app was still on her phone. She had not logged anything since the study. She had not needed to. The...