“When was this?” Catharine swiveled her chair around to her computer and jerked the mouse back and forth in three equal swipes. The colorful dots and darkness faded, and Catharine clicked on her calendar. The tarantula retracted its exploratory leg.

“Tuesday.”

“Time?”

“Morning I think. I think it was a morning—”

“There’s nothing on my calendar that morning. We had an operations meeting that afternoon, but you wouldn’t have been at that. Nothing in the days around Tuesday. We had a staff meeting on Thursday, but Dawn was back that day. Dawn was only gone four days, and she had been calling in sick each day, Diane.”

Catharine turned back from her computer. The tarantula, still on her arm, turned with her.

“Have you talked to Dawn?” she said.

“Yes. No. Not in detail.”

“You should talk to Dawn.”

“I will. I definitely will.”

“Diane. You should also give yourself some time off. I want a healthy staff, a happy staff. I want you to take care of your migraines.”

Diane had never had migraines and wasn’t sure what Catharine was talking about. She thought that perhaps it was a different day than she thought it was, or that Catharine was not her boss but another person wearing a mask. Nothing seemed right.

“I will. I’ll take care of . . . them. And I’ll talk to Dawn.”

“Wonderful.” Catharine turned her chair back toward Diane again. “And, Diane.”

Diane, standing to leave, paused.

“Thank you.”

“No. Thank you, Catharine. Thanks for the . . . thanks for being patient. I was confused.”

“You are welcome.” Catharine’s fingers were together again, fitting neatly into the cleared triangle of her desk.

The tarantula had reached the armrest and was just dragging its brown bulk onto the desk. It pulled itself next to a photo of a young Catharine and a younger boy.

“Catharine, can I ask an unrelated question?”

“Any time, Diane.”

“What is her name?” Diane asked, pointing to the spider.

“Whose name?”

“Or his. I apologize. I shouldn’t assume gender.”

“Ah. Of course. This is a he,” Catharine said with a rigid smile, reaching her hand out in the direction of the tarantula. The tarantula stopped. It seemed to stare at Catharine’s hand. Or it could have just sensed motion above it and frozen.

Tarantulas are simple creatures, Diane thought, not knowing where the thought came from.

Catharine’s hand wrapped around the side of the picture of her and the boy. The tarantula brushed one leg against Catharine’s middle finger. She felt it but did not know what the feeling was and thus, like most things she does not understand, she ignored it.

“This is a photo of me with my son, Kim.”

It took Diane a moment to connect her mental narrative with the visible reality. But when she processed that Catharine was talking about the photo of the boy and not the tarantula, she understood clearly.

“I understand clearly,” Diane said.