“Well then, comprehensive, since we’re doing this.”

The exterminator makes another mark on his clipboard and picks up his tool kit. He gestures toward the kitchen table. “May I?”

“Oh, of course, come in,” her mother says as the man sets his clipboard on the table among Isabelle’s textbooks and worksheets. “Is all that in your way? Isabelle.” She looks at Isabelle and points her chin toward the table.

“It’s fine,” the exterminator says, setting his tool kit on the floor again and crouching to dig through it for whatever he first needs.

“Isabelle.” Her mother says her name firmly this time; Isabelle does not lift her eyes from the exterminator. Maggie enters into view, comes up to sniff the man, and Isabelle watches with clenched teeth as he runs his dirty fingers through Maggie’s fur. “Isabelle,” her mother says again, but the exterminator is standing up now, his clipboard again in hand.

“Should I start in here?”

“Ah, sure,” her mother says, an edge of exasperation in her voice.

Isabelle glances quickly at her mother, leaning now against the fridge, and then back at the exterminator, who has opened the cabinet beneath the microwave where Isabelle’s cocoa sits still unwarmed. He pulls out the pots and mixing bowls from the cabinet’s shelves, and over the clatter Isabelle can just hear her mother ask the man if he’s found many pests in his rounds so far today.

“What’s that?” he asks, pulling his head from out of the cabinet.

“How have you found the building today, bug-wise?”

“Eh,” the exterminator shrugs. “It’s the city, you’re always going to find something, roaches, fleas—plus you’ve got a dog, so that ups your chances.” He pulls the flashlight from his belt and ducks back into the cabinet. “Looks okay in here.” His voice is muffled. “But what I’m going to do”—and here his hand reaches again toward his belt and pulls from it a spray bottle with a thin straw attached—“is I’m gonna put a little of this gel we use along the seams.” Isabelle can hear the hiss of the bottle as he applies the gel. His shirt is starting to come untucked in the back, and Isabelle can see hairs curling over his pant waist, dark and wiry. She looks from the exterminator to her mother, who is standing with a hand on her hip and her head tilted to the side as if, Isabelle thinks, she were really interested in what is going on, as if she really cared. “Just,” he says, pulling his head out of the cabinet again, “as a preventive measure.”

Her mother nods. “Whatever you say,” she says.