Sailor is unflapped by these spasms; if he has to go past the hand to get the candy, he will. Cate gets him to move around to her other side and puts the bowl between herself and Neale and he simmers down. Being part Lab, he’s in general a laid-back guy. He leans against Cate, watches the action, plots how to get back around to the Snickers.

When the spider-kids have squealed at the scary bowl, taken candy bars, and begun their retreat toward the sidewalk, Cate, holding the bowl, says, “Just think. This was someone’s job. She got home from the casting call and told her husband, ‘Honey, I got a gig today.’ And he said, ‘Oh baby, that’s great. What’s the play?’ And she said, ‘Well, I won’t be on a stage, it’s more of a dramatic-narration thing.’ ”

“ ‘But with a big impact on the audience,’ ” Neale says.

Neale goes inside, then brings out a couple of Coronas. They each eat a fun-size Snickers. Sailor gets a Milk-Bone, then Neale says, as she does quite often, “I’m a terrible parent.” This time it’s about Joe’s lunch. He’s been getting the one they sell at school. “He insisted. It’s apparently social death if you bring a sandwich in a bag from home. I never thought to ask what the school served. I guess I was thinking of the old cafeteria with ladies in hairnets ladling out vegetable soup, but now it’s premade meals, and I asked if they offered vegetarian options and he gave me the look of welcoming me to the planet, and so I gave in and now I just pay for the lunches at the beginning of the week. Then he started getting zits and I asked if the lunches had any fried foods in them. He said a better question would be if they had any unfried foods. Like yesterday it was fried chicken tenders. What are those even? Chicken rectums? The vegetable was fries and the dessert was fried apple pies. I’ve got to figure out some other way. Maybe I fix him a lumberjack breakfast and he just brings an apple for lunch, then I fix something intensely nutritious for dinner. Something with kale. Why didn’t I twig onto this sooner? I know why. Because just handing over the lunch money was the path of ease and ignorance.”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Cate says, and brushes her two knuckles across Neale’s cheek.