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“¿Pelotearíais?”  
    “Callate tu boca.”  
    Amy glanced at both of them. “Be nice.”
    She took hold of Xavier’s hand and led him down the causeway. Xavier swung her arm as they walked. He waved at the botflies with his free hand.
    “Don’t encourage them,” Amy said.
    “I’m just saying hello.” The boy continued waving. “It’s not like I have my own series .”
    “Matteo and Ricci are making money for their baby,” Javier said. “You know that.”
    “So? Someday I’m going to iterate a baby. Shouldn’t I start saving up?”
    “You can start making money when you’re full-grown. You chose to stay a kid, so you have to play by kid rules.”
    Xavier shook Amy’s hand in his. “ She didn’t. She was still little when she ate Portia.”
    Amy paused. Her face remained blank. A stranger would have assumed she was simply staring into the island’s middle distance, surveying the black trees and listening to the thick hum of botflies. She caught him looking at her, and gave him a brittle smile over Xavier’s head. Then she rearranged her features, softened her smile, and knelt.
    “Attacking Portia was a mistake. I did it because I was angry at her for hurting my mother, and because I was scared that she was really going to do permanent damage.”
    “But she was doing permanent damage. I’ve seen the clip.”
    Amy shut her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, her mouth was a thin, flat line. “I don’t want you watching that again.”
    “I stopped when the failsafe warning came up–”
    “Good. But I still don’t want you to watch it again. Ever.”
    Xavier gesticulated. Javier sometimes wondered if his designers had worked from some stereotype about Latinos talking with their hands. He couldn’t seem to quit doing it, and neither could any of his iterations. “But you were so badass!”
    “I was not–”
    “Yeah, you were,” Javier said, quietly.
    Their eyes met. Xavier glanced between them. He tracked the line of their gaze. Amy broke it first. She turned to Xavier and held his hands.
    “Well, I certainly wasn’t very smart. I bit off way more than I could chew.”
    His youngest son had the decency to hold in his giggles for approximately three seconds before snerking through his nose. Amy shut her eyes and pursed her lips.
    “I just said that aloud, didn’t I?”
    “Yup!” Xavier punctuated his sentence with a five-foot standing jump. The kid was good, probably better than his older brothers. He landed like a superhero, a classic three-point pose, one knee and one fist plunging down into the black earth below. It was his favourite pose. He looked up at them, grinning. “You’re wrong,” he said.
    Amy stood up and crossed her arms. “Oh, really?”
    “Yeah, really. It was a good thing you ate Portia. If you hadn’t, you’d never have met Dad.”
    Oh, his son was very good. Amy looked a little stunned. Her mouth kept opening and closing. She obviously had no idea what to say. What a brilliant little tactician Javier had iterated. Thirteen was apparently his lucky number.
    “And if you never met Dad, I’d have been born in prison.” Xavier blinked at him, all wide-eyed innocence. “Right, Dad?”
    “Es verdad, mijo.”  
    “So it’s really good that you ate her. Otherwise I wouldn’t even be here.”
    Q-E-motherfucking-D, Javier wanted to say, but didn’t. Instead he caught his son’s eye and winked. His son winked back.
    “Thank you for reminding me,” Amy said. “And now, let me remind you of something: you’re not going near the boat, today.”
    Xavier’s mouth fell open. “Oh, come on …”
    “No humans. Period.”
    “But–”
    “ This isn’t a discussion. The island will tell me if you even come close, so don’t bother. ”  
    The boy looked at Javier. Javier shook his head softly. The boy rolled his eyes. “I’m gonna go work on my treehouse, now.” He peeled away from them and jogged his way into a jump.
    “Be careful…” Amy