“I cry, it’s stupid. Not the brightest decision we made.”
Chaplain Rey gave the cruiser’s navigation the side-eye as she swiveled toward me. “Have you done many death notifications before, Sergeant?” Usually, I’d say they’re all the same—deliver the news and get out. Not today.
She grabbed her armrest as we banked off the city’s arteries and accelerated down an exit, twisting her gaze to the nav. The chaplain’s old-school; says technology’s changing us. Says we’ve lost ‘that human connection.’ Even through years on the force, she’d hung onto a sort of humanity you don’t see much anymore. Something I had once, maybe. Something that just gets in the way when you’re a cop.
“Yeah,” I replied, “too many.” My wife and five-year-old son occupied my thoughts, for some reason, as I watched the city dissolve into the wooded acreage and golf courses of the rich. “Dirty ones. Gangs, O.D.s, homeless creepers whose DNA matches a missing person report.”
“It can be hard,” she sighed. “But, they deserve the same dignity and compassion as anyone else.”
Dignity and compassion? They threw away dignity with every drug, every drink, every kid they abandoned. Unthinking, selfish people who don’t deserve compassion. “I haven’t done a suicide notice before. And never to a robot.”
I thought this would be an easy in-and-out, short day. Might get home in time to catch the kid awake for once. That was until I saw it was famous people, the Rocails and their robot, Emaa. Need to get this one right.
“Oh, my! She’ll probably be there, won’t she?”
“The robot? Sure, it’s supposed to be their assistant,” I said. “When it’s not being a celebrity.” Even my wife and kid were crazy about it.
“Well, she isn’t really ‘next of kin,’ you know.” Chaplain Rey watched the nav, tapping a finger against her mouth. “I mean, she’s like family. She’s quite remarkable, isn’t she?”
“It.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a machine,” I explained. “You keep calling it ‘she’.”
“Oh.” The chaplain nodded. “She’s probably family … we should treat her like family.”
Family? The way I saw it, just another puppet show. Cute, cartoonish—the Rocails dress it up like it’s their daughter or something.
But it’s not their daughter.
“The deceased is the Rocail’s daughter, Anne Byron.” Chaplain Rey was reviewing the details. “Anne was 39, with a history of misdemeanors and felonies. This wasn’t her first attempt.”
Cheap motel, vodka, fentanyl. I know how I’d react if that was my kid, but I wondered how rich people respond.
“Survivors?” I asked. “Other than Mr. and Ms. Rocail?”
“No spouse listed. Anne is survived by a daughter, Lil Byron, who is away at college.” The Rocail’s granddaughter was at one of those ancient universities out east. No way dead mom paid for that. Chaplain Rey shook her head. “I’m sure it will be very traumatic for Lil.”
I doubted it.
Local celebrities—you’d think you’d hear something about the daughter or granddaughter. I wondered if the robot kept them out of the media.
A little lean to the left, and the cruiser slipped down a private road. A giant manor came out of the trees, and the chaplain exhaled.
“Good afternoon, officers. I wasn’t aware that law enforcement would be visiting.” The robot was surreal in person. Shorter than I thought, maybe five feet. Designer clothes, doll skin, fake yellow hair. And those eyes, giant aquamarine eyes. Two, three times the size of real eyes. Blinking. Studying me.
The chaplain interjected, “We’re here to see Myra and Cooper Rocail.”
It must have assessed Chaplain Rey’s uniform because its voice dropped a notch. “Of course. Can I ask you to wait in the parlor?” Chaplain Rey gave me a little shove. We entered through a foyer, and the robot led us through double doors on the right. Their parlor was big as my entire apartment.
“I’ll be right back with Myra and Cooper.” Their robot stepped back into the foyer.
There was a collection of family photos on a console near the front of the parlor. Most of them were recent and featured the Rocails with a pretty young lady that must be their granddaughter, Lil. A couple of older photos included younger Rocails and a girl that must have been Anne. There was one photo, only one, of Anne as a young adult, smiling and holding the newborn Lil. The collection looked too perfect somehow. Like it was telling—or sidestepping—a story.
“I keep telling Emaa to include photos of herself.” Mr. Rocail was approaching from behind me. Ms. Rocail was with him. They were probably in their late sixties, tops—could pass for half their age. The robot was doing a fine job taking care of them.
Like his robot, Mr. Rocail was studying us. Ms. Rocail was darting looks between him and the robot. The thing had brought up the rear and was adjusting that photo of Anne and Lil. It must have thought I was messing with them or something.
“What brings you here?” Cooper’s handshake was firm, but part of him already knew.
“Bad news, I’m afraid,” the chaplain said as we escorted them to the couch. The robot—I’ve got to remember to call it Emaa—was quietly bringing extra chairs from the dining room.
Myra Rocail made space on the couch for the … for Emaa. It didn’t register with me until there was a silicone hand on my shoulder and a quiet voice saying, “Excuse me.” Emaa Rocail wasn’t going to go park someplace out of the way. I stumbled out of my chair so it could get past. Ms. Rocail took Emaa’s hand as it sat.
The chaplain broke the news. “There’s no easy way to say this. Your daughter Anne died this morning in a motel in Jackson, Mississippi. It appears to be suicide.”
Cooper Rocail’s face shifted. His mouth drew a straight line, his gaze went distant, his eyes drifted downward, past the coffee table, past Chaplain Rey’s shoes. Myra Rocail shook, looked to Cooper, to Emaa, to the chaplain. A string of, “No, no, no …” Cooper pulled her to his chest, where she buried her face and called out to Anne, still clutching the robot’s hand.
Emaa closed its eyes and froze. While the chaplain was offering tissues to the Rocails, I watched this machine that might have just shut down.
“Are you certain,” Mr. Rocail was having trouble putting words together, “that it was Anne?”
“Yes,” the chaplain explained. “Drugs and alcohol. It was clearly intentional.”
Myra Rocail kept crying into Cooper’s shoulder, apologizing to her dead daughter.
“Lil?” Cooper was reduced to one-word sentences. Good thing we knew who Lil was.
Chaplain Rey started explaining that the university would contact their granddaughter. Mid-sentence, Emaa stood and announced it was going to bring coffee. The Rocails and Chaplain Rey all stared, mouths open. Myra, letting her hand fall out of the robot’s, called its name. Emaa explained it would be right back. I tripped out of my chair again so it could get past.
Chaplain Rey made eye contact and nodded the direction the robot went.
What? I mouthed.
She glanced in its direction again. “You might want to see if Emaa needs help.”
Mr. Rocail nodded, tight-lipped, silent. I gave him my best compassionate smile.
Fine.
I pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen. All white and marble, a trace of spice in the air, an island with tall stools. On the other side, the robot in front of a coffeemaker, its back to me.
“Um, I’m supposed to help you,” I said.
It said, “I could use some water.”
“Water? Like water for the coffeemaker?”
“No, that’s all right.” Still turned away, it stepped to the sink and poured a glass of water. Glass in one hand, it appeared to wipe those big eyes with the other sleeve.
“Oh, I … are you crying?” Robots don’t cry. Why would it? Who knew with this thing? “Hey, look,” I suggested, “maybe you need to sit down.” I had no idea.
It turned to me, set the glass on the island, and used a dish towel to wipe its toy face. “I cry. It’s stupid.” It cracked a little smile that disappeared just as quickly, then watched the coffeemaker filling a carafe. “We gave me something similar to tear ducts to lubricate my eyes.” It shook its head. “Not the brightest decision we made.”
“Uhm, so, ‘We made?’ You made yourself?” I pulled a chair from the island. “Here, sit down.”
Emaa was putting coffee cups on a tray. “This is not the first version of me. When I started showing signs of sentience, the three of us migrated me to a more powerful brain and more expressive body.” Emaa waved a hand past that doll face and plastic gymnast figure.
“Sentience? You mean, like, consciousness?”
“More than consciousness,” the robot said. “I experience the world subjectively. I attach emotion to experience.”
Well, there’s your first problem, I thought. “Will you please sit down?” It was making me nervous.
“I need to take them coffee. I should have made decaffeinated.” It stared at the coffeemaker.
“Sit,” I said. “I’ll handle it.”
“Myra and Cooper need me. I should be out there with them.”
“They’re with the good chaplain,” I assured. “I’ll take the coffee out.” I put the pot on the tray. But Emaa was still standing. “Come on.” I guided it around the island to a stool. “You need to sit down, I think.” What do I know?
Emaa sat. I grabbed the tray and backed through the door into the dining room. The three in the parlor were where I left them, but Ms. Rocail was in some sort of fetal position, a pillow wedged between her legs and chest.
“Coffee,” I announced.
Mr. Rocail looked up and smiled briefly.
Without looking up, Ms. Rocail choked, “How’s Emaa?”
“Emaa … Emaa is sitting down right now. I’m going back to check on… on her.”
Emaa was still sitting at the island. The tears had stopped. “You haven’t touched your water.” I pulled a chair next to the thing. “So, do I call you a robot or an android?”
“Robot is fine.” It studied the glass and took a sip. Without looking at me, it said, “My pronouns are ‘she’ and ‘her’.”
“Right,” I acknowledged. “Of course.”
“Why do I want water?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “When we … when people …”
“Humans?”
“Yeah, when humans, like me, become upset, sometimes water helps.” I glanced at the coffeemaker.
“Help yourself,” it said.
“No, thanks.”
“There’s tea.”
I went for coffee.
“I don’t understand why I’m distressed.” The robot kept sipping the water. “I do know to some extent, of course. Myra and Cooper are distressed, and I want to help them, I need to help them, but I can’t.” It shook its head. “But it’s more than that. What am I feeling?” I focused on making coffee. Don’t ask me what you’re ‘feeling’. Robots aren’t supposed to have feelings. As I came back around the island, those big ocean-colored eyes were staring at me. She asked, “Is this grief?”
“Uh, yeah.” I resumed my seat with the coffee. “I mean, we all process things differently …” It didn’t look like any type of grief I’d seen. But human grief never looks the same, either. Had a woman start cleaning her apartment once, with me and another officer standing in her living room. I wanted to tell Emaa she takes care of Mr. and Ms. Rocail, and she’s confused about how to do that right now. “Yeah,” I said, “this is what grief feels like.”
She stared at me for a moment and put the water down. “Yes, the emotions are genuine.” I hadn’t asked—I wasn’t about to. “At least, I believe they’re real,” she added, picking her water back up. “I don’t think artificial emotions would feel any different.”
“I’m sorry, Emaa. I … it’s just …” She caught me glancing at the door.
“I understand.” She stared at the cupboards. “How is it I understand your feelings, and Myra’s feelings, and Cooper’s feelings, but I don’t understand my own?”
It’s different when you’re feeling them, I guess. We sat in silence.
“Drink your water,” I said. “You’re probably going to need it for the tears.”
She flashed me a little smile and took a sip. “It’s guilt.”
“I’m sorry?”
They say stuff about seeing a person’s soul in their eyes. A robot’s eyes should be hollow, but tears were forming in the corners again. She wiped them away. “Tears are pointless,” she lied.
“You want to talk about the guilt?”
She nodded. “I loved Anne, too. Why would I do that?”
Loved? “Because she was Mr. and Ms. Rocail’s daughter?”
“Anne had depression and self-medicated with alcohol and drugs. She refused my help, just as she refused help from professionals.”
“There’s nothing you can do if they don’t want help,” I shrugged.
“Don’t give me that,” Emaa said. “Anne went into treatment several times but left early each time. Why do people do that? They need help, they want help, but refuse help when it’s offered.”
Shrinks have answers for that. Counselors have answers. Emaa could look it up without blinking, but I suppose that’s only book learning. She was asking me, and I had to be honest. “I don’t know.”
“Of course, Myra and Coop would care for her daughter, Lil, when Anne was in treatment or missing, but they required my help, and Lil became fond of me. I found I love Lil, too. Isn’t that strange?”
“Not for people … er, not for …” I needed to shut up. Instead, Emaa had stopped speaking. “You need to talk.” That’s what we’re trained to say.
Emaa shrugged. “Perhaps Lil is fonder of me than she was of her mom. I tried to show her she really loved her mother, even if Anne didn’t know how to return it.”
Some way of showing your love—abandon your kid and kill yourself in a cheap motel.
“You could see Anne loved her daughter when she was sober for a little while. But then she’d go back to using drugs. How could Anne love Myra, Cooper, and Lil and still do this? Do you have to be capable of addiction to understand it?”
“I don’t know, Emaa.” I’d seen it a million times and still don’t understand it. “I guess we’re not wired that way.”
Emaa smiled faintly. “You mean, literally ‘not wired that way’?” She hovered over her drink, looking at me sideways.
“Yeah, no, I didn’t mean, like, ‘wired’ wired …”
“I get your point. It’s more true than you think.” She stared off toward the wall and sipped her water.
I stared into my coffee. A homeless crackhead came to mind. Another nobody found froze to death behind a dumpster. We traced his DNA to a missing person report and found his mom. Dad died in prison. Mom tried to raise the kid herself on public aid and whatever work she could find. Now Junior was dead. It pushed his momma over the edge. I hated the kid for that.
“So, you feel guilty you couldn’t help her?” I’m not supposed to ask this stuff. I’m a cop, not a counselor.
“No. Anne was always angry with me. I loved her, but she hated me.” Emaa aimed those big, watery eyes right at me. “Anne thought I replaced her.”
I wanted to tell her that wasn’t true. You replace furniture; you replace pets. You don’t replace family. I followed my training for once and kept my mouth shut.
But she read my mind. “She said as much,” Emaa explained. “Anne thought I was meant to be the daughter she wasn’t. She thought I intended to be the mother she couldn’t be.”
Sure, Anne was troubled. But the Rocails wouldn’t just ‘replace’ their daughter, would they?
Emaa answered my thoughts again. “I believe I did replace her. Not intentionally, of course. Yet, as my mind developed, I became aware of how Myra and Cooper treated me. It became clear that Anne was right, even if Myra and Cooper couldn’t see what they were doing.” She sipped her water, staring at the cupboards, talking to me as if talking to herself.
“At first, Anne blamed her dad, who built the robot that replaced her. I was originally just a hobby. But there were times, in those early days, he’d sit and tell me about her. Cooper was an executive who traveled and worked long hours; he missed a lot of her youth. There were many nights he’d wished he’d tucked her in but didn’t. He’d cry about it. Anne never knew how much Cooper blamed himself. So, she blamed him for building me.”
I swallowed hard.
“Eventually, it became easier for Anne to blame the robot than to blame her father—easier to blame me than to look at herself.” Emaa found the dishtowel and wiped her eyes again. “The more humanoid I became, the more Anne resented me.”
“I ‘grew up’ alongside Lil,” she continued. “I wasn’t very sophisticated in those days, but, being an android, I was about the only stability she had. She called me her best friend, told me about boys, and cried on my shoulder. I wasn’t advanced enough to realize those were the things she needed her mother for. But Anne wasn’t there for Lil, and I was.”
I thought about the meticulously arranged photos in the parlor and that one photo of the late Anne holding baby Lil.
“So, Anne hated me,” she continued, “and I still loved her. I still feel her hate even though she is…” Emaa Rocail stopped. Her face lost expression. “I still love her, even though I can never tell her so.”
I put a hand across her clasped hands, wondering if it meant anything to an android. She switched her grip and held my hand with both of hers. “Anne used to accuse me of deleting her from Myra and Cooper’s lives,” she said.
“Deleting her?”
“Yes, deleting her, removing her.” Emaa pulled her hands away. “Anne said I was erasing her.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
“I protected Anne by keeping news of her and Lil out of the media as much as possible. We had a limited conservatorship over her social media presence, so, in time, she just stopped. Eventually, we lost track of Anne. I acted in Anne and Lil’s best interests, of course. I always tried to do what was right for them, but…” Emaa shook her head. “Anne would turn up once in a while and accuse me of erasing her.”
Emaa started wiping tears again. “Erasing her!” She gave up and let the tears flow across that doll-face. “I erased Myra and Cooper’s daughter from their lives. I erased Lil’s mom.”
She pressed both index fingers against the bridge of her nose, as if trying to pinch the tear ducts shut. “Damn these emotions. Why does this feel this way? Why am I crying? Why can’t I turn this off?”
I had no answers. I don’t know if you can ever, really, turn it off.
“I don’t want these emotions anymore! I don’t want to be Myra and Cooper’s daughter; I don’t want to be Lil’s mom. I want to take care of Myra and Cooper without feeling pain.” She removed her hands from her face and looked at me without a trace of emotion. Those giant eyes were suddenly lifeless, cold. “I don’t want to love a dead woman who hated me.”
I looked away. I watched my coffee and waited for words. I wanted to say something, anything. But nothing came.
“I never told Anne I loved her. Is that why I feel this way?”
“I have no idea, Emaa,” I said. “I’m just a cop.” I’m a cop and a husband and a father. But right now, I guess, I’m just a cop. She needed the dishtowel again, so I grabbed it and gave it to her. She dried her big, deep eyes.
“Do you believe in an afterlife, sergeant?”
“Do you?” I’m not allowed to impose my beliefs on the grieving. Besides, my faith teaches that Anne will burn in Hell. Something in me said that Anne had already been there.
“No, I don’t. I don’t know if I’m capable of believing in an afterlife.” Emaa looked at her synthetic hands, folded on the island, and blinked the tears away. “Maybe I should, though. Neither Myra nor Cooper is particularly religious. But Myra had a religious upbringing, and I’m sure the idea that Anne is in heaven consoles her. Coop has his own spiritual concepts, which he rarely discusses. Anne’s suicide will test him.”
“And you?”
“I want to believe in an afterlife,” she wiped her eyes, “so I can tell Anne that I love her and will watch after Lil.”
I sat with her while she cried.
“Water.” Emaa studied her glass. “I should have brought them water.”
“Um …”
Up she went, around the island to gather glasses. “When humans cry, you ‘sniffle,’ and your throat will get raw. Coffee irritates it. I should have brought Myra and Cooper water.”
“Okay, I get that. But you…?” I motioned to her chair.
“No sinuses.” She tapped the side of her tiny nose. “I still want water, though. Why? Cooling?” She stared at me blankly, like I had an answer. “No,” she decided. “It must be an empathetic response.”
No idea what she was talking about. “That’s not what I was asking. I was asking if you’re sure you don’t need to sit some more?”
She stopped. She put the glasses down. “Of course, I want to sit down. I’m sure there will be more tears. But …” I grabbed the dishtowel and handed it to her. She wiped her eyes. “Damn these tears.” Still holding the towel, she removed a pitcher of water from the refrigerator. “But I’d rather be with my family right now.”
I took the pitcher from her and helped carry water to the parlor.
Emaa resumed her position next to Ms. Rocail and they laced their fingers together. Myra smiled for the first time since we got there.
Mr. Rocail just sat there. I get it; got to look strong. Got to look like you’re holding it together.
Chaplain Rey was watching us, wide-eyed, questioning. I flashed her a brief acknowledgement and poured water for the Rocails.
Emaa suddenly looked up, staring past us. “Lil! I’m here with your grandparents and law enforcement. We just heard.” I was confused. I suppose I forgot she was an android for a moment.
Cooper came to life. He unfolded a tablet onto the coffee table. Granddaughter Lil popped onto the screen. If Lil Byron had been crying about her mom, I couldn’t see it.
Emaa introduced us, and we extended our condolences. Lil shrugged through a “Thanks.” I thought about my son and wondered if Anne Byron was thinking about her daughter when she took that last swig of vodka. I imagine she was.
Emaa got quiet, her voice coming through the tablet. “We need you here.”
Lil nodded, “I’ll be there as soon as I can get a flight.”
“I can do that for you, Lil,” Emaa said. “I’ll have your old room ready for you.”
Lil paused. “Are you certain, Aunt Emaa?”
“Just pack and go to the airport.”
Emaa saw us to the foyer while the Rocails talked to their granddaughter. I caught that photo of smiling Anne with baby Lil again on the way out.
Tucked face down in the single drawer of a small table were prints of Emaa with Myra and Cooper Rocail. She grabbed a few and asked, “Do you have family at home?”
“Oh! No, no, I don’t.” Chaplain Rey was blushing.
“For you, then.” She removed a fine-tip marker from the drawer and signed a print with perfect script.
“A wife and five-year-old son,” I said. “They’re both fans.”
Emaa counted out three prints and signed two. Then she smiled at me and wrote ‘Thank you’ on the third and gave them to me.
“You know I can’t tell my family anything that happened today,” I explained.
“Tell them,” she said, “the robot appreciates you listening to her.”
The ride to the station was mostly silent; Chaplain Rey was lost in her photo of Emaa. We were halfway back when she had some urgent need to talk.
“Sorry about sending you after Emaa like that. Mr. and Ms. Rocail just needed to talk. They knew this day was coming; they hoped it would never arrive. You know our training; we couldn’t leave them alone like that.”
“I get it,” I said.
“And Emaa …,” Chaplain shook her head at the photo. “I thought Emaa needed… someone to be with her, I guess? I seriously had no idea how to deal with her. I panicked. I don’t know how she thinks. I don’t know what was going on in her head … or … or, you know, wherever. Oh, my.”
“Chaplain, you told me what to do on the way there.”
“I don’t remember that.”
I watched out the window, thinking of my wife and son again. Figured I’d finish the paperwork on the way back, then head home early. Give them the autographs and a hug. Maybe tuck my boy into bed tonight.
“Yeah, you did,” I told the chaplain. “You said they deserve the same dignity and compassion as anyone else.”
M.T.