Your body is sore, like you’ve just washed up onto the shore. Across from you the grandfather clock ticks away, its stern and melancholic face admonishing you for losing track of time.

  You look up into the clear day, nothing but blue, and maybe this is all you need, the high-vaulted sky rising eternally. You breathe, air moving in and out. You are apart from this world and vulnerable to it.

  * * *

  Near the end of the manuscript are seventeen names listed. The same as the number of first-year medical students. Loss cut through reality like a knife. You picture them standing side by side in camouflage, hair shorn, skeletal, raising their guns.

  * * *

  You chat with Socrates. After he rambles about the baby’s bout of diarrhea, he asks you how you felt after watching the clip.

  It was like an exorcism, you say.

  You stare at the sad flower drooping next to him, the sky still an unforgiving gray. Socrates doesn’t keep in touch with many students, and you can imagine a day when you both won’t bother to say hello. It’s easy to disentangle yourself from the lives of others.

  It’s a fluke, us meeting and me translating this text.

  He sighs and collapses his shoulders, and for a moment it looks like he’s given up, but then he says, You might not remember your eighteen-year-old self, but I do.

  It’s the first time he has really referred to that time, when you couldn’t get out of bed, burst into tears between classes, fell asleep in bathroom stalls. He pats down his shirt, and you adjust your face.

  Pasalai, you say, it’s a good word.

  Do you remember the report you wrote about the manuscript many years ago?

  No.

  I saved it, he says, and proceeds to read it as you cover your face. I do not know what a failed vision created by a group of girls clarifies within me, but one day I will.

  You nod, letting the words of your past self sink into your future self.

  It’s not every day a student like you comes along. It’s like winning the lotto, he says, then lowers his voice as the baby begins to trill. We must think of a title. Can’t keep it marked with an x.

  After he insists, you read your latest edits. It comes out smoother than you expect, and when you finally look up, after what feels like a lifetime, you see two faces staring at you, one small and serious, dribbling to his neck. The resemblance is striking, your cheery grandfather teacher and the baby with an old man’s face.

  Radical Compassion for You and Me? he says.

  For an hour, the two of you brainstorm ideas. You don’t necessarily care what comes of it, but you enjoy being this random generator of titles. In the Time of Love and War. Girlhood and Other Deaths. Beside Ourselves with the Ancient Love of Glory.

  * * *

  The house is nearly inside out. Along with the furniture—the couch, grandfather clock, recliner, coffee table, bookshelf, cabinets—are boxes of clothes, shoes, kitchen supplies. The packing is done by collecting like items together. With your mother’s logic, you have put the cleaning supplies with Mrs. Ahmed’s cosmetics because they both deal with surfaces. The order doesn’t really matter, as most of it will be donated or tossed. You question if you should disassemble Mr. and Mrs. Ahmed’s bed, since you hardly use it, but Sal wants to include it as part of the exhibit, and you imagine people walking inside while you’re fast asleep, a projector casting your dreams on the wall for others to admire. Good thing you don’t sleep. She plans to remove everything from the bathroom except for two toothbrushes, so the experience feels distilled and lived-in.

  The exhibit still feels unfinished. There’s a hole in the wall, right next to the kitchen, and it might be purposefully done, a figurative gesture of escape, or maybe an opening to a new life with Judith. You don’t mention it.

  You put on one of Mrs. Ahmed’s cotton kurta tops and then Mr. Ahmed’s favorite wool sweater. You find a glittery scarf, the owner unidentifiable, and begin layering as much as you can—spring jacket, rain jacket, winter jacket, earrings, bangles, baseball cap, winter hat, leggings, trousers, ankle socks, winter socks—and sit among the objects in the yard like a scarecrow. You manage to frighten a few squirrels.

  * * *

  He didn’t pass by the oak tree. I waited for a few hours, Rosalyn says, and you put a hand on your cousin’s forehead to check if she’s feverish. Since she lost her job, she’s been wandering around, looking for someone she first saw on TV.

  It was only a matter of time before V. F. caught her. She wasn’t so much toeing the line as fully crossing it. Replicating memories while V. F. was still in the lab, sometimes when he was standing right next to her and talking to her but really to himself. Maybe it was out of kindness or some unexpressed feelings he still held for her, but he didn’t press charges. He might have even offered her another chance. No matter what, she would have still eventually quit, she tells you. It was time. In the basement, she still has a thriving archive of memories for some inconceivable purpose. Memory for memory’s sake.

  Do you still see that memory? you ask.

  It’s fading.

  There was a Cheeze she knew before the memory, and then after the memory, and there was no way of going back to the before when everything was possible and amorphous. He solidified in her mind. If she found Cheeze, she might kill him, or he might kill her, or they might both strangle each other lovingly. It was only a hair strand of what really happened, but inside its root, along with compassion hid suffering. The blood price. You think of Cheeze spreading sunflower-seed butter on a slice of toast and then licking the knife.

  * * *

  When you felt miserable, your mother would point to someone walking down the street and tell you their story like they were old friends. Then it was your turn to point to someone and talk about their life. The two of you would go back and forth until you leapfrogged your way out of sadness, one human at a time. It felt like another one of your mother’s homeopathic easy fixes, but years later, you’re still trying to do it from the inside out, imagining yourself through the eyes of a stranger who is much more willing to tell a kinder story.

  * * *

  The interview happens on a Saturday evening, but you decline to accompany Judith and Sal to the studio. Judith insists you come by pulling on your arm, saying the two of you could be godsibbing throughout the filming, but you say you’re not feeling well. Before they leave, you wish Sal good luck and she gives you a big smile that swallows you like a wave. Later with Rosalyn, you watch the show live on TV. The host is Angela Fernandez, known for wringing tragedies for any residual feelings. She is recounting Mr. and Mrs. Ahmed’s accident to the audience, including the gory details of their sprawled bodies. The camera doesn’t focus on Sal’s reaction. Instead, it pans out as the woman and toddler appear on the other side of the stage. They are dressed in plain clothing, and you think this is a strategy to allow the viewers to project themselves more easily onto the mother and baby duo rather than onto Sal, who is wearing a bulky, sequined blazer. When they are first seated, the camera switches over to Sal for a reaction. There isn’t any, so Angela begins to prod.

  Are you happy to see these two right now?

  Not really.

  Would you rather this young woman and her child had died?

  No.

  Would you rather have your parents alive?

  Yes.

  Angela turns to the woman named Carol and the little one, Peaches. Carol, a receptionist, lives with her boyfriend, a waste manager. They have been dating for four years and hope to get married soon.

  Are you happy to be alive?

  Of course!

  If you had a chance to switch places with Mr. and Mrs. Ahmed, would you?

  She pauses and looks at the toddler in her arms, sucking a strand of hair. Oh dear, well I wouldn’t want them to die, either, but I have to think of my child and be here.

  You think the cars made the right decision?

  She nods hesitantly. I really don’t see any other decision that could have been made, given the circumstances.

  Sal snorts and her face finally comes alive. You don’t think there is anything wrong with the calculation? That certain lives are automatically valued more?

  I have a baby. That’s really all it comes down to.

  So if it was you and another adult, the AI would have made the same calculation?

  I’m sorry about the loss of your parents. I really am, but it’s all chance. Wrong place at the wrong time.

  This is not hypothetical. It’s the world we live in. Who gets killed is no accident.

  My child needs me.

  And I need—

  Sal looks over at the camera, and she’s melting, speaking too honestly. Angela senses an opening and asks, Do you see yourself ever becoming a mother?

  What? Sal says, shrinking. I don’t know.

  I think what Carol is referring to is a mother’s instinct.

  Angela hands the toddler over to Sal, and she doesn’t know what else to do but accept the smiling thing, which tries to grab her nose.

  Isn’t that love? Angela says.

  For a moment you think that Sal might actually slam the baby against the studio floor and reenact some slanted form of justice, but she only stares at the baby and murmurs a few words.

  Carol doesn’t take Peaches back. She actually seems relieved not to have the toddler by her side. She’s sweating profusely and pats her face with the sleeve of her shirt that’s turning translucent. With the sleeve rolled up, you can see red splotches on her arm. The material is cheap and synthetic.

  Who does Peaches look like? Angela asks. More like you or your fiancé?

  Neither.

  Oh.

  A man attacked me. The baby looks like that man.

  She says it all so matter-of-factly that you almost forget to react. Angela is not prepared for her carefully laid-out path to become undone so quickly by such an off-handed, seismic response. She uses all her strength to collect herself and directs her energy to a short segment about the self-driving car industry before returning to the interview. Sal holds Peaches very carefully in both arms as Carol watches.

  I like your jacket, Carol says.

  Thank you.

  * * *

  Once, while watching a news story about a hospital mix-up—two baby boys given to the wrong parents, a mistake that was only discovered eighteen years later—your mother turned to you and said she would have been happy to find out that you weren’t her real daughter. She patted your cheek and you felt yourself floating in a basket down a river. At shopping malls, whenever you got lost, you would become frantic, looking for your mother everywhere, afraid she had taken another young girl home to play your part.

  The summer you turned twelve, you and your mother took the bus all the way to Ohio. You sat next to an elderly woman who was so cold that she wore three sweaters and didn’t mind when you fell asleep on her because of body warmth. Your mother sat next to a teenager who couldn’t stop chewing gum, blowing zircon bubbles to match his pimples. Whenever you peeked above your seat, your mother would make a troll face and you’d laugh. She did this for hours until the break, and somewhere in Pennsylvania, you both sat outside and ate the tuna sandwiches she’d prepared. She’d only eaten a bite when she saw a woman wobbling by, hair hanging off her head in strings, her eyes cloudy. She wore a cloth sack. The woman was talking to herself, and your mother ripped off her bite mark and gave the rest of the sandwich over to the lady. She might not even like tuna, you said, and ate yours quickly, before she’d have the chance to give away yours as well.

  Your mother didn’t eat anything else and didn’t complain when you reached the motel at night. She drank only two glasses of water, and after changing into your nightclothes, you stayed up playing cards together on white sheets. You had played with Sal, so you knew the rules, how to slap the cards, look up, and win. She managed only two games before falling asleep, her mouth open a crack so you could hear a little troll inside her, wheezing. You slid close to her, counting her breaths against your cheek.

  In the morning, at a nearby diner, you ate pancakes and your mother spread the butter into a happy face. She drank coffee, ate a grapefruit with yogurt, and asked you if Ohio felt like home. You shook your head and she smiled while you finished the entire stack and then asked for a sundae.

  You were both too dressed up for the diner, wearing skirts and blouses usually saved for very special occasions. Looking back on it now, you’re not too sure what was exceptional about the trip, besides it being your first with your mother. She was an expert at tinkering around with vending machines and stripping motel beds to the cleanliest layer. As you walked all over town with your mother, you remember pausing across the street from a yellow house. She stared at it, giving it a good once-over.

  Do you like it? she asked.

  I guess it’s nice.

  It looked ordinary to you, nothing spectacular, but you could tell your mother was enamored with it so you spoke more firmly. It’s the best!

  But when you truly gazed at it with your own pair of eyes, the yellow paint looked like a coffee stain and the lawn was overgrown with dried patches. Still you could see a bicycle flashing in the yard and the colorful carved gourds peeking from the porch.

  Your mother stepped into the street, and it seemed like you both were going to walk across and say hello, but the door opened before you and your mother could make it across that infinite distance. A woman stood on the porch with her hand above her eyes to block the sunlight. The spell was broken and your mother was pulling you as far as she could from the house. You complained that your feet hurt and you both sat on the curb, eating the ginger rock candies you packed especially for this trip. They tasted sour from all the sweat in your pocket. You stuck out your tongue and she did too. Her tongue was green and yours was purple. The two of you might not have even looked like mother and daughter, your mouths open, shrieking colors. You both stayed for an extra day in Ohio before heading back to New York, and you returned only many years later for her funeral, when you and Bobby bowed to a mighty river to pour out her ashes.

  You were her blood child, so motherhood was always slightly acidic and selfish. She looked at you and saw herself—you don’t think your mother knew how to reconcile loving you.

  * * *

  You meet Ricky at the bar, and the first thing you notice is his hair, which has grown out and reaches his shoulders. I’m going to join a band, he jokes as he slides into the seat across from you. He orders a burger and you’re fine with just soda water, and it’s almost like nothing has changed.

  Here I thought you fully disappeared, you say.

  You can’t get rid of me that easily.

  You want to ask him about his dreams, but instead you say: Lucille has moved to your desk and created a mini ecosystem.

  He clicks his tongue and raises his hands behind his head. Ah, the worker is so easily replaced.

  In the bar, there is a slight commotion, someone has spilled their drink and refuses to pay. He’s foaming as someone calls the manager. You both eagerly watch the incident like it’s on the TV. Almost unconsciously Ricky touches his shoulder, the right one, and you remember the airy feel of your fingers. He catches you looking and puts his hand down.

  I couldn’t keep working there, he says finally.

  Was it eating you up?

  He grins and swipes his hand through his hair. That’s one way to put it.

  When his food arrives, you watch him eat. He chews slowly, like he’s collecting his thoughts. Neither of you says anything. Halfway through his burger, he puts it down and looks at you.

  There was a girl I met in college, he says. I was a senior and she was a sophomore. We dated for three years. She was a physics major and really brilliant in this effortless way that could make people jealous, but she was kind and never wanted to compete. She made pancakes for her housemates every weekend. People really liked her, and out of everyone, somehow, she liked me. I could never understand it. We had the same awful taste in music and weird sleeping habits, and maybe that was enough? I was pretty mediocre in school and didn’t have any great ambition. Unlike me she knew she wanted to specialize in quantum, work in some institute in Switzerland. The way she said it, you just knew it was going to happen. She had traumatic things occur in her past, but she was perpetually optimistic. Like she’d wake up early to feed stray cats, believing they had a special connection to the spirit world, and I’d watch her from bed as she disappeared into the street, calling out strange names. About quantum, she had a very romantic interpretation of it, often bringing it up in our relationship. Like not making plans and waiting for things to reveal themselves. She said we needed to channel superposition, that harnessing uncertainty is power. Other times she’d say we were entangled like two particles that were separated but part of each other, and we were lucky because most people spend their whole lives trying to cross that distance to find their missing halves. She visited my family a few times during the holidays, and my family loved her, and she’d spend more time with them than even with me. I only knew her father worked in exports and liked to drink nettle tea to fight off illnesses. She never spoke about her mother. One winter we took a road trip to Canada, driving from Albany to Montreal to Guelph. She said it was the happiest time in her life. She saw a moose for the first time on a snowy hill. It was as if we were already married, and I think it must have scared me, how strongly she felt and how my feelings would never match hers. When we returned back home, I broke up with her.

  He pauses and then drinks some water. He seems winded, and you wait but he doesn’t go on. Like he’s lost in some other dimension.