“Max, did you know that Einstein called nuclear weapons his regret?”

The line is silent, as though we’re haunted by the splitting of atoms.

“What did you think of my email?” Rose finally asks.

“Well, it got me thinking.” Rose likes me to think. But in truth, at this moment, my mind is a mushy whiplashed mess of culture, sex, and relationship shock.

“And?”

“And—I want to have babies with you,” I say, cringing at how insipid that must sound to Rose. For a moment, I feel like I’ve lost my breath, like I’ve been punched in the gut. I love Rose. Her pigheadedness, her strength, the way she can be so deeply committed. We balance each other out. A yin-yang of her strength and my flexibility. Her steadfastness, my fickleness.

“Yes, I understand,” Rose says. I don’t know what she means, but her tone is calm, almost sweet.

“Rose, we’ve been together six years. We’ll be great parents, you know?”

“But there’s more to it than that.” A tender quality to Rose’s voice makes me ache for her, for her coarse red hair and cantankerous laugh and the focus on her face as she makes homemade matzo ball soup.

I want her to say: Hang up the phone, baby, get on the next plane, and dive into my arms.

But what she says is this: “Go to Hiroshima. Just go.”

“Rose wants me to go to Hiroshima.” Once again, in bed with Yuka, I bring up Rose. But Yuka doesn’t seem to mind.

“And do you want?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I know what happened. The suffering is just too much. Have you ever been?”

Yuka pulls the covers up over her shoulders. The traffic outside pulses by, engines droning, bike bells ringing.

“Yes.”

“What’s it like?”

“Like beautiful city. With people and nature. Many flower, garden, waterfall. Many river, nickname City of Water.”

“Sounds like you know it well.”

“Yes. I have family live nearby prefecture.”

I reach over and nestle my head into Yuka’s neck. She touches my hair. I wonder if Yuka had relatives there when the bomb was dropped. I’m too afraid to ask.

“And you visit your family?”

“Yes, sometime.”