“Just listening to some, you know, music or whatever.” Which, of course, means noise music. He and Kiera and their friend Theo listen to this deconstructed sound on their headphones. To Cate it sounds nihilistic: well, of course—that’s the point of it. The kids go to noise concerts together. They follow a local duo, Japanese sisters called the Mexican Porno Nuns. When it’s Neale’s turn to take them to this or that venue, she wears earplugs and covers her head with a hoodie and stands in the back so she’s not an embarrassment to them. Joe would like to make noise music himself, but does not have an acoustically insulated studio where he could practice. He is second percussion chair in the school band. His noise music demonstration for the band director—opening pre-shaken pop bottles to a tape of a woodpecker—got him a respectful hearing, but he is still confined to triangle, tambourine, and maracas. To be played in sync with the rest of the band. “But really, do you need help down there?”

Cate watches him scrabble around in the cupboards like a raccoon.

Neale has her head back inside the cabinet. “No, I’ve got this little situation under control. You do your share. You catch bugs and take them outside without killing them. You handle the recycling. You keep your room not a total mess.”

He nods at the justice of this assessment, then takes a carton of milk and a box of doughnuts and heads back upstairs. Watching Joe come into himself makes Cate envy Neale. But Cate has never had the money or a partner willing to shoulder the burdens of parenthood. Her one husband, so far back now, was not interested. And now, at forty-two, she’d probably have to get fertility treatments or in vitro and wind up still single and fairly broke, but now with triplets. Or she could adopt, which would have the element of good deed to it, taking on someone who might need a break. But this would have the downside of responsibility for a complete unknown. The nature part would already be in place; her input would only be the nurture. Which seems more than she might be able to handle on her own; a solid partner in place would help, and she doesn’t have one of those. None of this keeps her from wishing now and then that she was having the experience of raising someone, the million small moments of guiding and being surprised by a child.

And she sees it as an inequity between her and Neale, a badge of maturity and wholehearted engagement with life that Cate lacks. She does have Joe in a peripheral way. She gets to enjoy the issues and problems and solutions around him, second-guessing Neale. Now she says, “Doughnuts? I thought you were going to stop buying those.”