Diane did not press Josh further. She felt his terse answers were a sign he did not want to talk much.

Josh wished his mother talked to him more. His short answers were a sign he didn’t know how to socialize well.

“What?” Josh asked on a Tuesday evening. He had smooth violet skin, a pointed chin, angular thin shoulders.

The television was not on. A textbook was open but not being read. A phone was lit up, a sharp thumb tapping across its keyboard.

“Come talk,” Diane said from the cracked door. She did not want to open it all the way. It was not her room. She was trying very hard. She had sold a tear to Jackie that day. It had felt good to have someone explicitly value something that she did. Also, expenses had been higher than usual that month and she had needed the money. She was, after all, a single parent.

“About what?”

“Anything.”

“I’m studying.”

“Are you studying? I don’t want to bother you if you are studying.”

“Ping,” the phone added.

“If you’re studying, then I’ll go,” she said, pretending she did not hear the phone.

“What?” Josh asked on some other evening. It was a Tuesday, or it was not a Tuesday. His skin was a pale orange. Or it was deep navy. Or there were thick bristles that plumed from just below his eyes. Or his eyes were not visible at all because of the shade of his ram-like horns. This was most evenings. This was the incremental repetition of parenting.

The television was not on. A textbook was open but not being read. A phone was lit up.

“How are you doing?” Diane sometimes said.

Sometimes she said, “What’s going on?”

Sometimes she said, “Just checking on you.”

“Josh,” Diane sometimes said, standing at his door, in the evening. Sometimes she knocked. “Josh,” she sometimes repeated following a certain amount of silence. “Josh,” she sometimes did not repeat following a second amount of silence.

“Dot dot dot,” Josh sometimes replied. Not out loud, but like in a comic book speech-bubble. He pictured other things he could say, but did not know how.

For the most part, I do not like taffeta, the house thought, and Diane shared that thought.

“Josh,” Diane said, sitting in the passenger seat of her burgundy Ford hatchback.

“What?” said the wolf spider in the driver’s seat.

“If you’re going to learn to drive, you’re going to need to be able to reach the pedals.”

The wolf spider elongated, and two of his middle legs extended to the floor of the vehicle, gently touching the pedals.

“And see the road too, Josh.”