1. Story Statement: Two women wade into the uncanny valley of the latest robotic design -- one desperate for help as she nears death and the other, a mom fighting to find a way forward for herself and her neurodiverse child.
2. Antagonist: Tai Nakamura – decisive, innovative, and scared. He struggles to retain leadership of his family’s manufacturing business in Japan against an old family guard of traditionalists who fear and resent the direction Tai is taking his company. Known as one of Japan’s frontrunners in robotics development, Tai’s latest prototype, Rho, could have propelled him into world renown had it not been lost at sea. He could have rebuilt it, but family pressures have interfered with his plans, and now he is fleeing a botched kidnap attempt on his twin daughters. When he learns of Rho’s recovery and subsequent stored data, he is torn between his need to find a safe place for his children and panic that whoever has Rho will find the secrets hidden inside him.
3. Title: All Roads Lead to Rho, Rho-7, In Search of Rho
4. Genre: Speculative, Contemporary Comparable Titles: Klara and the Sun, I’m Your Man (film), possibly Where’d You Go, Bernadette?
5. Logline: Two women wade into the uncanny valley of the latest robotic design -- one desperate for help as she nears death and the other, a mom fighting to find a way forward for herself and her neurodiverse child, but the Japanese inventor who created the robot wants him back and will do anything to retrieve the secrets inside him.
6. Conflict for Protagonist:
I climbed the two flights of stairs to my apartment. My fingers traced familiar cracks and chips in the paint along the old, wooden railing. Step eight creaked; eleven had a slight tilt. I paused at the landing, wondering why I was here and what I would find inside. On the second flight, step three wobbled slightly. Turn twice to the left, reach behind a loosened sliver in the windowsill next to the door for the hidden key. Twist the key to the right. It sticks. Twist again, harder this time and step inside to the life I left behind.
The apartment was largely empty. A laptop and the remnants of Chinese takeout were on the kitchen table. Unnerved, I sucked in a breath and then took a step forward just as a guy in boxer shorts and a t-shirt came out of the bedroom. “What the,” he looked straight at me, as alarmed as I was.
I backed up almost to the door. “I’m sorry,” I stammered. “This is, er, was my apartment. I came back to get my stuff.” He must have just moved in. There were a couple of unopened boxes beside a duffel bag of sweaters and jackets, half pulled out and spilling onto the floor. “I, was there anything left? Do you know what happened to my, you know, the things that were here?” I spluttered out the words as I saw the now blank walls and the small kitchen counter. I wanted to dash into Micah’s room. What about his Legos and both of his spinners?
The guy made a tentative move toward the table. “Hey, I was just trying to find a place to live. The super didn’t say anything about another tenant. There was a box of junk here on the table. That was it. I didn’t mean any harm. I put it on the landing for a day or so, and then I just moved it to the trash bin. Nobody told me I was supposed to keep it.” He was unself-conscious in his five-day stubble and tousled hair.
“No one knew.” I realized how stupid I must seem to him. I handed him the key I had wedged out of its tiny place outside. “You’re right. Sorry to bother you.” I backed to the door again and turned to leave. Sunlight seeped through the kitchen window; someone had taken down the blue dotted curtains I had sewn so carefully a year ago, my first sewing project ever. Treasure to trash.
“Wait. I think there was something else.” He walked to the table and lifted up the laptop, pushing some papers around and moving the empty cartons to the side. There was a white envelope on the table. “Are you Melinda?” He looked down again, “Merinda?” I nodded, trying to process what was happening. I should have expected it. The super was surely no friend of mine. It was just like him, not waiting or anything.
He handed me the envelope and then added as an afterthought. “It hasn’t rained. I set the box beside the dumpster out back. There might still be, you know…” he shrugged, sorry and not sorry simultaneously. It wasn’t his issue.
I took the envelope and gazed at the apartment once more. It was never my real home. TB and I didn’t live here together; he just came on the weekends to help out. But I had put together a little bookcase from IKEA one time. Like in a real home.
I stepped outside and shut the apartment door. Two right turns and down. At the bottom of the first flight, I sank to my knees, grasping the handrail to keep from falling. I felt for the step and then sat, my hands trembling. No one was around, and the guy hadn’t followed me out. I opened the letter, knowing what was inside.
Merinda, I am leaving this letter here in hopes that you will get it before the super empties the place out. I hope nothing bad happened to you. The next rent payment is due in 3 days. I’m not going to pay it. I just don’t have the money. I got my stuff. Anything else you can throw away. I got a job offer in Omaha, and I’m moving at the end of the month. Maybe I will meet somebody there, and I can start over. I can’t move Micah out west with me. I’m hoping you will show up somehow and figure out a plan for him. If you don’t turn up, I don’t know what to do. Text me if you get this. Mike
I crumpled the paper in my hands. How like him. Text me. That was how we had finished our life together and how we managed the weekends. That or email. We broke up via text and managed legal aid the same way. It was easier than the continual confrontations that had defined the last six months we shared. Text me, the siren song of the digitally self-righteous.
I stood up slowly and went down the creaks and tilts of the other flight of stairs. Late afternoon light stained the walls beside me, gouges here and there from furniture moved in or out on another day. I followed the sidewalk to the back of the building and the dumpster near the alley. Just as the guy said, a cardboard box sat beside it, full of the remnants of my life. The photos were on top, causing me to sink to the ground again. Grandma and me at a Christmas fair the church held every year. Mike and I holding Micah when he was just a toddler. My certificate from translation classes. I took the photos and the certificates out of their frames, grateful for these fragments of my past, and then dug deeper into the box. There were no papers, records, files. I had no idea if Mike had them, or if no one cared. I didn’t care. I reached in again and drew out my Lithuanian dictionaries, smiling slightly and taking a deep breath of relief. Well-thumbed and appreciated, almost like old friends. I fanned the pages, fixing my sight here and there on familiar words or phrases. Finally covering the bottom of the box was a pillow. I picked it up and took a deep breath. Micah. Micah’s pillow. I inhaled his scent, drowning myself in the peculiar smell that belonged to no one on earth but him. All that really had ever mattered in my life was here in this box.
______________
An hour later I looked up at the old brownstone, large and imposing. The Stefan K. Neubauer Institute of Learning loomed before me in the twilight. I put out my hand to ring the bell and then stopped. I flexed my fingers in and out, waiting for resolution to power through them and force a decision. I shifted the pillow and books to the crook of my other arm, burying my face in the pillow. I wanted to see him, but I didn’t want to face him, to face anyone inside. Even if it were after hours, they’d probably demand the money for the weekends. What could I tell them? The hell with it. I turned to leave. I stepped down three steps, cursing my own cowardice and weakness. I heard a click behind me and the door opened. “Frau Buchanan, is that you, Frau Buchanan?”
I wheeled around, grabbing the rail again to steady myself and stared at him. Words stuck in my throat.
“Frau Buchanan. It’s after hours. We aren’t supposed to let parents in. You know that. But we’ve been worried about you. Ja, come in here. Are you all right?” Lukas, one of the staff members, moved out of the doorway, compelling me inside. I cleared my throat uncomfortably but couldn’t think of anything to say. Lukas saw me into the parlor where the remnants of an afternoon fire were smoldering, nearly ready to burn out.
“Lukas, I’m so sorry to show up this late.” I moved toward the fire and dropped my things into a chair.
“Can I see Micah? Is he all right?”
He looked around and shook his head. “The administrators have gone out for the evening. All the children are quiet right now. I suppose it would be all right if you don’t stay long.” We mounted the stairs together and walked down a long hall, nearly to the end. He opened the door to Micah’s room, little more than a cubicle, warm but bleak in color. Micah sat on a gray rag rug in the middle of his floor, stacking blocks and intoning his one-note hum.
“Hello, Micah.” I walked in and closed the door slightly as Lukas disappeared down the hall. “Micah,” I said, slightly louder. He nodded but did not speak. I sat down on the rug opposite him, checking him over. He seemed clean, but on further investigation, I noticed that he had pulled off his shoes and socks and was scratching his feet. One had started to bleed slightly. I went back into the hall and called to Lukas, who came immediately. “Look. He has started it again. Can you help me?” Lukas fetched a damp cloth, and together, we sponged his foot and wrapped a thin bandage around it. I reminded Lukas to recheck tomorrow and gave him my new phone number. We put his socks and shoes back on, speaking softly, explaining our actions, and then distracted him by placing his blocks on his desk. “Come up here, Micah. Sit at your desk. You can also fix your blocks here.”
Micah struggled to his feet, his movements stiff and slightly jerky. I pulled out the chair and helped him sit down correctly. He could easily sit there without moving for several hours if left alone. It was important that he not slouch or lean in a way that he might tip over. Lukas would come later to help him to bed. Micah was agitated that I had moved his blocks, but I knew not to touch them or try to reposition them. I wouldn’t get the placement right, and that would only aggravate him further. He rocked slightly back and forth, and within several minutes he started a throaty hum, single-toned, to himself, a signal that he would not notice me again. I reached out to touch his hair, now shiny in the lamplight, but withdrew my hand before making actual contact. Micah didn’t like to be touched, even lightly.
Downstairs I struggled into my jacket again and picked up the things from my apartment, pulling the pillow into my arms once again and inhaling deeply. How long had it been since I had seen him? Five, no, nearly six weeks. Micah made no indication that it meant anything to him. Maybe Tai Nakamura was right; maybe time is a mental construct, meaningless unless you buy into it. Tears prickled at the back of my eyes and filled my throat until it ached. I picked up the pillow, noticing a smudge of dirt on one side and then dropped it to the floor and brushed it aside with my foot. But guilt kicked in, and I retrieved it, shoving it into my armpit as I reached down for the other remnants of my life.
_______________
When I got back to the loft, I found Penny dozing on a separate end of the sofa, not far from where the girls were fast asleep. She jumped up as soon as she heard me, firing questions in a whisper: how was he, did he seem okay, did he give any sign he had missed you, and then, was I okay? I dropped the books and memorabilia onto the kitchen table and shook my head at her, too tired and overcome to speak. She gave me a hug with a promise of catching up soon. I turned around as the barn door closed and surveyed the loft.
I could feel it mounting up inside me, the pressure in my chest. I took a deep breath and then another as I took a numb step in first one direction and then another. This was it; this was my life. Not my house but the only home I had, not my children but ones I was coming to love, a new friend but she was dying. I hadn’t reconnected with anyone except Penny, and I hadn’t even called my old job to see if there were any back wages. That was an embarrassment I couldn’t even begin to face. TB was leaving — Omaha. Who goes to Omaha? Well, good for him. If I were a better person I’d wish him happiness and good luck. But I’m not that person, and he deserved whatever he got out there.
I sucked in some air. Hyperventilation. My old friend, creeping up my chest and into my throat. I crossed my arms, wrapping them around me tighter and tighter as I peeked in on Fiona, fast asleep in her bed. Rho stood beside her, silent as always. But on second glance I noticed that he had on the Father Roland outfit, with the little white collar around the neck. I had seen him in it several times with her lately. I approached him quietly and whispered, “Father Roland?”
“Yes, my child.”
“Could you step outside for a moment? Are you free, or are you monitoring something with Fiona?”
“I am here for you.”
He followed me into the main part of the loft, near the fountain, where I could talk to him without awakening the girls.
“Exactly who are you as Father Roland?” I asked vaguely, not really knowing how to phrase what I wanted to know.
“What is it you are seeking, my child? Would you like me to quote from my promotional materials? Would you prefer secular vocabulary or linguistic choices from a particular dogma? May I administer a questionnaire regarding your upbringing and religious training?”
Ever the same, Rho/ Father Roland poked and prodded to ascertain my user needs. He had no way of knowing that my hands were cold and clammy or that I was biting the inside of my lip until it hurt.
I sighed, “No, I don’t want a questionnaire. I just want to know if you can do Catholic stuff, like confession. Can I do confession if I, uh, you know, haven’t really been to church in a long time?”
‘I can access the protocol for this ritual. I am unable to ascertain what you mean by ‘a long time.’ Can you give me days, hours, and minutes?”
I shook my head. He didn’t get it.
But then he spoke again. “Perhaps you could arrange a place where you would be comfortable.”
I pulled out a couple of screens to section off a private area near the windows of the meditation area. Lights from the building across the street scattered into lines and prisms on the screen, silent and cathedral-like. I pivoted a chair, positioned Father Roland behind the screen with his back to the window. With the ambient light from outside, I could easily make out his charcoal silhouette. I took a couple of deep breaths and picked at two of my nails, waiting for something to happen. My nose started to run.
He began with a prayer and the sign of the cross. “Peace be with you.” I wanted to peek around the screen. Did he have a somber face? Was he still Rho? I wiggled in my seat and twisted my hands, willing my body into a stillness I didn’t feel.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” The words crashed back into my mind. “My last confession was…” I hiccupped so hard it came out a croak. “I don’t even know.” I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my shirt and took another deep breath. The feelings deep in my chest gushed up, a sour reflux of guilt and fear. But then I laughed, giddy and self-conscious at the same time. What difference did it make? I could tell a robot anything; he wasn’t a person. I didn’t have to feel guilty. I could confess all the shame and guilt and uncertainty I lived with daily.
“I don’t know what to do. What if God knows how I feel about Micah? About everything. What if?” Tears mingled with snot, and I brushed them away, rubbing both into my cheeks and then into my hands. I wrapped my hands around my waist again, encaging myself, rocking back and forth like Micah. “I saw him today. He was the same. I didn’t feel any love. I just wanted to run away again. I just feel afraid that he will hurt me or hurt himself. I can’t find the love anymore. I don’t love him. How can I be so horrible? What if all I ever feel for him is guilt or sorrow or pity? What if I start to hate him?” My voice had risen.
Father Roland was speaking, but I couldn’t hear him. Something about prayer. I interrupted, annoyed and impatient. “No, I don’t want prayer. That’s all I ever do. Everywhere I am. I repeat a litany inside myself asking St. Michael to protect my son and keep him safe. It’s all I ever want to know, that he will be safe his whole life, that someone will keep him safe. Someone else will keep him safe. There are no prayers for me. I have failed at my marriage, and I have abandoned my son. I have lost everything I used to love. I am sorry for all my sins, but I don’t see how God could ever forgive me.” I stumbled through the Act of Contrition, knowing inside that I’d make exactly the same sins tomorrow and tomorrow after that, probably for the rest of my life.
“God will always forgive you. It’s you who must forgive yourself, my child.” As Father Roland finished the formal part of the ritual, he extended his hands to make the sign of the cross as he intoned the final phrases. Then he put his hands together and crossed his fingers awkwardly, a figure of spiritual repose. He stood in the prisms of light from outside, nodding and not nodding, blinking and not blinking, while I cried myself empty.
7. Setting:
I surveyed the dark neighborhood, recognizing nothing from a brief glimpse down the street. Old factories. Some rehabbed. Our building looked like an old brick factory brought back to life. On the outside I could see the name of one of the businesses on the street level: B2B Chocolates. I didn’t remember this neighborhood, but I could hear repetitious thumps of traffic from one of the bridges and realized that we had to be fairly close to the river. Maybe Brooklyn Heights. We moved into the building as one, the girls each guiding their own small suitcase. It was warmer here, even in the half-lit hallway. No internal doors were open, and no signs identified other tenants. Midway down the hall, we met up with the driver guiding Rho carefully. He gave me security code numbers for future use, and I passed Thistle in her carrier to him, grateful for an extra pair of hands.
We shuffled into the freight elevator, designed to carry good-sized loads. All of us including Rho fit in comfortably with plenty of room to spare. I hesitated. Did we want 6A or 6B? Ruka pointed to 6A. “The other one is our father’s lab. We do not go in there unless he takes us,” she explained quietly and in perfect English.
When the elevator doors opened, one of the twins, Mi possibly, darted out confidently and disappeared to the left. A few dim lights flickered on to illuminate a massive industrial-type loft with soaring ceilings, factory windows, large crossbeams, and mismatched wooden floors. Eager to end the day, the rest of us moved forward, relieved to be past the ardors of the trip and into a place where we could regroup. I turned to help Fiona drag some of the luggage into the warmth of our new ‘home.’ But as I turned back around and surveyed the scene before me more carefully, I stopped in shock.
The place was completely empty.
There must be a mistake.” I gasped. “This can’t possibly be the right place.” I turned to the silent man carefully guiding Rho into the loft. He mumbled through his mask while he backed into the elevator. As the gate shut smoothly, he sank out of sight, and a modern barn door on a black, wrought iron track glided into place over the openin
Where was the staff? Where was the person to greet us and take over, show us to our rooms and assume responsibility for the girls? I sought out the twins, certain that they would confirm the error, but they had already disappeared. Peering into the dim and cavernous space, I began to make out a few features I missed at first. A low, stone wall with a freestanding fireplace projected into the area, almost splitting the giant loft. At the end of the fireplace, literally almost at the loft’s center, one glazed pot, the exact color of the fireplace surround stood atop the stone base of the divider wall, distinctive from the rest by its color and finish. Further right was a large conversation pit lined with dark gray cushions. As I rotated around slightly behind me, I could see a single-wall kitchen on the same old brick wall as the elevator — small, but functional. In front of that, a large, cracked slab of wood on sturdy iron legs served as both food preparation and dining table. Several closed boxes sat on the floor near the table.
I glimpsed both girls. They had removed their shoes at the elevator door and were now headed for the seating area. “Mi, Ruka, come here please. Could you turn up the lights?” Shadows stretched from corner to corner, preventing me from a clear perception of the space and its features. Here a shaft of light from one of the offices across the street. There, more light from an adjacent street, teasing me with glimpses but leaving me unable to make sense of it. There were no lamps, nothing in the ceiling above. Some sort of ambient glow emitted from the walls and some of the crossbeams, but the perimeters and space between windows were dark and unwelcoming.
“These are the lights, Miss.”
“I don’t understand. Where is the furniture? It looks like no one lives here. What about your stuff?”
Finally, Mi said, “Our father believes in wabi sabi, Miss. This is how we live.”
I blew out through my nose and tried again. “What does that mean?”
“Here, lass, use my phone. Look it up.” As Fiona handed me her phone, I cast a glance at her, trembling now with illness and fatigue. Wabi sabi would have to wait. I walked over and turned Rho around, pressing the button for Robert so that he could help her.
“Good evening, I am here for you.”
I sighed. “Yes, Robert. Please help me get Fiona settled.”
“I am unable to understand the meaning of ‘settled’. Could you be less ambiguous?” He spoke pleasantly, more loudly than Rho, and leaned slightly forward. I turned to the girls, who had their hands over their mouths, eyes wide and giggling slightly as they watched Robert do his thing.
ore I could stop them. “I am deeply ambiguous. It’s one of my best skills. My job demands that I be ambiguous. If you can’t read my nuances, frequent indecisions, and occasional lack of focus, then we have no future together. I want you to help me with Fiona.” I was shaking now too, conned into a place I couldn’t understand with people I didn’t know.
Fiona grabbed my arm, whispering reassuring comments. “Dinna fash yerself, child. I’ll be all right.”
“I hear what you’re saying. Yes, I think you’re right. I see your point. I’m here for you.” Robert spun out a dizzying array of appropriate responses with no embedded solutions to our problems. His head nodded in an encouraging way, a synthetic smile on his lips.
I turned to face the twins, “Girls, is there a bedroom here?”
“Yes, Miss. Over here.” Mi led the way, to the left of the elevator, a direction I had not yet noticed. Fiona took Robert’s arm, and I followed them to a large, normal room with four distinct walls and a ceiling. Thank God. Basic furniture: a bed and an easy chair. A sawed-off log turned upright served as a side table; on its top in a black ceramic vase was a lovely white orchid in full bloom, luxurious and humble simultaneously. As I evaluated the room’s potential for Fiona, I could see that high windows would allow good light during the day. I returned to the entrance near the elevator and gathered her things, coming back into the bedroom just in time to see Robert slam straight into the wall. Fiona sat wearily on the bed, unable to stand any longer.
“He isna programmed for this space, Merinda. We will have to train him all over again.”
The tears in her voice belied her attempt to find solutions to immediate problems at hand. I summoned up a smile and urged her to lie back and rest while I unpacked the bags, hanging her few dresses in a small closet just inside the door. Then I turned Robert off and crossed the room to check out the bathroom, fearing what I might find there.
But once I illuminated the space, I could see that Tai Nakamura’s personal, private bathroom was the most beautiful space I had ever been in. Primitive. Peaceful. An extension of the simplicity in the rest of the loft, but with a reverence for personal restoration and renewal. A path of roughly polished square pavers wound its way through a bed of river rock from the door to a large open area with an enormous rain shower head that drained directly through the rocks. Adjacent and several feet away from the shower was a Japanese soaking tub of concrete, sunken into the floor like the seating area outside. The ambient light that seemed dark and inadequate in the rest of the loft was soothing and relaxing in this room. My shoulders dropped. I wanted to stay in here for a week, soaking, scrubbing away my surface until I could find who I used to be.
Fiona was too tired to eat. We found her evening medications, and I helped her into bed. I feared that Robert could not function in the bathroom at all, even once he was trained to the space. How could he walk over loose stones? What if he got wet from the shower? Would he short out and sparks fly out from him? I wouldn’t mind seeing that. As I exited the room, Fiona had begun her prayers. I hoped she’d put in a good word for me.
The girls seemed quiet and busy. I let them be and took out Fiona’s phone, typing in the words wabi sabi.The Japanese acceptance of beauty in imperfection and impermanence; the honoring of the cycles of the growth, decay, and death of all living things. Wabi sabi reveres authenticity and the raw and worn beauty that comes with age. Unsatisfied with just the words, I searched online. Dozens of photos loaded onto the screen immediately, each one echoes of everything I saw in this loft. Plain earthen walls, shades of brown and gray, very little furniture.
I wandered through the loft again, still darkened with shadows, empty and bare. Most of the large, arched factory windows on the east side had no shades, letting in whatever light shone from the street or nearby buildings. The floors had been scraped and each board left its original color. Between Nakamura’s bedroom and the elevator, I pulled back a second sliding barn door to find a spacious, walk-in closet nearly the size of a room. Directly across from that, the area was largely empty. The north wall was solid brick. In the corner stood six or eight large, black mesh partitions on industrial-sized rollers. I wheeled one out and examined it further. Most of them were identical, maybe six or seven feet high and eight or nine feet wide. A couple were made of black wire grids instead of mesh, but still the same size. Just as I was about to push one of the mesh ones back into place, both girls showed up to take it from me and pull out a second one, moving them silently toward the living area. They navigated them easily, positioning them behind the sunken seating area, blocking much of the light and giving privacy to a view from offices or windows across the street.
I followed them back into the living area, looking down at the pictures on Fiona’s phone again. “Okay, I looked up wabi sabi. I still don’t understand.”
Ruka gave it a try. “When he built it, Miss, he explained it to us. He used the same,” she paused, struggling for the word, “wood and stone,” she went on, “that were already in the building. To honor the building when it started and then to keep it going. Not to add anything fake or artificial.” She looked at me, willing me to understand.
"Ah, you mean he reclaimed the original materials and used them again. Yes, many people here do that. But why is it so empty? That part I don’t get.”
Mi filled in the rest. “If you live simply and quietly, you don’t need many things. Nature does not clutter itself. People shouldn’t either.”
New York Pitch and Algonkian Pre-event Assignments - 2022
in New York Write to Pitch 2023 and 2024
Posted
1. Story Statement: Two women wade into the uncanny valley of the latest robotic design -- one desperate for help as she nears death and the other, a mom fighting to find a way forward for herself and her neurodiverse child.
2. Antagonist: Tai Nakamura – decisive, innovative, and scared. He struggles to retain leadership of his family’s manufacturing business in Japan against an old family guard of traditionalists who fear and resent the direction Tai is taking his company. Known as one of Japan’s frontrunners in robotics development, Tai’s latest prototype, Rho, could have propelled him into world renown had it not been lost at sea. He could have rebuilt it, but family pressures have interfered with his plans, and now he is fleeing a botched kidnap attempt on his twin daughters. When he learns of Rho’s recovery and subsequent stored data, he is torn between his need to find a safe place for his children and panic that whoever has Rho will find the secrets hidden inside him.
3. Title: All Roads Lead to Rho, Rho-7, In Search of Rho
4. Genre: Speculative, Contemporary
Comparable Titles: Klara and the Sun, I’m Your Man (film), possibly Where’d You Go, Bernadette?
5. Logline: Two women wade into the uncanny valley of the latest robotic design -- one desperate for help as she nears death and the other, a mom fighting to find a way forward for herself and her neurodiverse child, but the Japanese inventor who created the robot wants him back and will do anything to retrieve the secrets inside him.
6. Conflict for Protagonist:
I climbed the two flights of stairs to my apartment. My fingers traced familiar cracks and chips in the paint along the old, wooden railing. Step eight creaked; eleven had a slight tilt. I paused at the landing, wondering why I was here and what I would find inside. On the second flight, step three wobbled slightly. Turn twice to the left, reach behind a loosened sliver in the windowsill next to the door for the hidden key. Twist the key to the right. It sticks. Twist again, harder this time and step inside to the life I left behind.
The apartment was largely empty. A laptop and the remnants of Chinese takeout were on the kitchen table. Unnerved, I sucked in a breath and then took a step forward just as a guy in boxer shorts and a t-shirt came out of the bedroom. “What the,” he looked straight at me, as alarmed as I was.
I backed up almost to the door. “I’m sorry,” I stammered. “This is, er, was my apartment. I came back to get my stuff.” He must have just moved in. There were a couple of unopened boxes beside a duffel bag of sweaters and jackets, half pulled out and spilling onto the floor. “I, was there anything left? Do you know what happened to my, you know, the things that were here?” I spluttered out the words as I saw the now blank walls and the small kitchen counter. I wanted to dash into Micah’s room. What about his Legos and both of his spinners?
The guy made a tentative move toward the table. “Hey, I was just trying to find a place to live. The super didn’t say anything about another tenant. There was a box of junk here on the table. That was it. I didn’t mean any harm. I put it on the landing for a day or so, and then I just moved it to the trash bin. Nobody told me I was supposed to keep it.” He was unself-conscious in his five-day stubble and tousled hair.
“No one knew.” I realized how stupid I must seem to him. I handed him the key I had wedged out of its tiny place outside. “You’re right. Sorry to bother you.” I backed to the door again and turned to leave. Sunlight seeped through the kitchen window; someone had taken down the blue dotted curtains I had sewn so carefully a year ago, my first sewing project ever. Treasure to trash.
“Wait. I think there was something else.” He walked to the table and lifted up the laptop, pushing some papers around and moving the empty cartons to the side. There was a white envelope on the table. “Are you Melinda?” He looked down again, “Merinda?” I nodded, trying to process what was happening. I should have expected it. The super was surely no friend of mine. It was just like him, not waiting or anything.
He handed me the envelope and then added as an afterthought. “It hasn’t rained. I set the box beside the dumpster out back. There might still be, you know…” he shrugged, sorry and not sorry simultaneously. It wasn’t his issue.
I took the envelope and gazed at the apartment once more. It was never my real home. TB and I didn’t live here together; he just came on the weekends to help out. But I had put together a little bookcase from IKEA one time. Like in a real home.
I stepped outside and shut the apartment door. Two right turns and down. At the bottom of the first flight, I sank to my knees, grasping the handrail to keep from falling. I felt for the step and then sat, my hands trembling. No one was around, and the guy hadn’t followed me out. I opened the letter, knowing what was inside.
Merinda, I am leaving this letter here in hopes that you will get it before the super empties the place out. I hope nothing bad happened to you. The next rent payment is due in 3 days. I’m not going to pay it. I just don’t have the money. I got my stuff. Anything else you can throw away. I got a job offer in Omaha, and I’m moving at the end of the month. Maybe I will meet somebody there, and I can start over. I can’t move Micah out west with me. I’m hoping you will show up somehow and figure out a plan for him. If you don’t turn up, I don’t know what to do. Text me if you get this. Mike
I crumpled the paper in my hands. How like him. Text me. That was how we had finished our life together and how we managed the weekends. That or email. We broke up via text and managed legal aid the same way. It was easier than the continual confrontations that had defined the last six months we shared. Text me, the siren song of the digitally self-righteous.
I stood up slowly and went down the creaks and tilts of the other flight of stairs. Late afternoon light stained the walls beside me, gouges here and there from furniture moved in or out on another day. I followed the sidewalk to the back of the building and the dumpster near the alley. Just as the guy said, a cardboard box sat beside it, full of the remnants of my life. The photos were on top, causing me to sink to the ground again. Grandma and me at a Christmas fair the church held every year. Mike and I holding Micah when he was just a toddler. My certificate from translation classes. I took the photos and the certificates out of their frames, grateful for these fragments of my past, and then dug deeper into the box. There were no papers, records, files. I had no idea if Mike had them, or if no one cared. I didn’t care. I reached in again and drew out my Lithuanian dictionaries, smiling slightly and taking a deep breath of relief. Well-thumbed and appreciated, almost like old friends. I fanned the pages, fixing my sight here and there on familiar words or phrases. Finally covering the bottom of the box was a pillow. I picked it up and took a deep breath. Micah. Micah’s pillow. I inhaled his scent, drowning myself in the peculiar smell that belonged to no one on earth but him. All that really had ever mattered in my life was here in this box.
______________
An hour later I looked up at the old brownstone, large and imposing. The Stefan K. Neubauer Institute of Learning loomed before me in the twilight. I put out my hand to ring the bell and then stopped. I flexed my fingers in and out, waiting for resolution to power through them and force a decision. I shifted the pillow and books to the crook of my other arm, burying my face in the pillow. I wanted to see him, but I didn’t want to face him, to face anyone inside. Even if it were after hours, they’d probably demand the money for the weekends. What could I tell them? The hell with it. I turned to leave. I stepped down three steps, cursing my own cowardice and weakness. I heard a click behind me and the door opened. “Frau Buchanan, is that you, Frau Buchanan?”
I wheeled around, grabbing the rail again to steady myself and stared at him. Words stuck in my throat.
“Frau Buchanan. It’s after hours. We aren’t supposed to let parents in. You know that. But we’ve been worried about you. Ja, come in here. Are you all right?” Lukas, one of the staff members, moved out of the doorway, compelling me inside. I cleared my throat uncomfortably but couldn’t think of anything to say. Lukas saw me into the parlor where the remnants of an afternoon fire were smoldering, nearly ready to burn out.
“Lukas, I’m so sorry to show up this late.” I moved toward the fire and dropped my things into a chair.
“Can I see Micah? Is he all right?”
He looked around and shook his head. “The administrators have gone out for the evening. All the children are quiet right now. I suppose it would be all right if you don’t stay long.” We mounted the stairs together and walked down a long hall, nearly to the end. He opened the door to Micah’s room, little more than a cubicle, warm but bleak in color. Micah sat on a gray rag rug in the middle of his floor, stacking blocks and intoning his one-note hum.
“Hello, Micah.” I walked in and closed the door slightly as Lukas disappeared down the hall. “Micah,” I said, slightly louder. He nodded but did not speak. I sat down on the rug opposite him, checking him over. He seemed clean, but on further investigation, I noticed that he had pulled off his shoes and socks and was scratching his feet. One had started to bleed slightly. I went back into the hall and called to Lukas, who came immediately. “Look. He has started it again. Can you help me?” Lukas fetched a damp cloth, and together, we sponged his foot and wrapped a thin bandage around it. I reminded Lukas to recheck tomorrow and gave him my new phone number. We put his socks and shoes back on, speaking softly, explaining our actions, and then distracted him by placing his blocks on his desk. “Come up here, Micah. Sit at your desk. You can also fix your blocks here.”
Micah struggled to his feet, his movements stiff and slightly jerky. I pulled out the chair and helped him sit down correctly. He could easily sit there without moving for several hours if left alone. It was important that he not slouch or lean in a way that he might tip over. Lukas would come later to help him to bed. Micah was agitated that I had moved his blocks, but I knew not to touch them or try to reposition them. I wouldn’t get the placement right, and that would only aggravate him further. He rocked slightly back and forth, and within several minutes he started a throaty hum, single-toned, to himself, a signal that he would not notice me again. I reached out to touch his hair, now shiny in the lamplight, but withdrew my hand before making actual contact. Micah didn’t like to be touched, even lightly.
Downstairs I struggled into my jacket again and picked up the things from my apartment, pulling the pillow into my arms once again and inhaling deeply. How long had it been since I had seen him? Five, no, nearly six weeks. Micah made no indication that it meant anything to him. Maybe Tai Nakamura was right; maybe time is a mental construct, meaningless unless you buy into it. Tears prickled at the back of my eyes and filled my throat until it ached. I picked up the pillow, noticing a smudge of dirt on one side and then dropped it to the floor and brushed it aside with my foot. But guilt kicked in, and I retrieved it, shoving it into my armpit as I reached down for the other remnants of my life.
_______________
When I got back to the loft, I found Penny dozing on a separate end of the sofa, not far from where the girls were fast asleep. She jumped up as soon as she heard me, firing questions in a whisper: how was he, did he seem okay, did he give any sign he had missed you, and then, was I okay? I dropped the books and memorabilia onto the kitchen table and shook my head at her, too tired and overcome to speak. She gave me a hug with a promise of catching up soon. I turned around as the barn door closed and surveyed the loft.
I could feel it mounting up inside me, the pressure in my chest. I took a deep breath and then another as I took a numb step in first one direction and then another. This was it; this was my life. Not my house but the only home I had, not my children but ones I was coming to love, a new friend but she was dying. I hadn’t reconnected with anyone except Penny, and I hadn’t even called my old job to see if there were any back wages. That was an embarrassment I couldn’t even begin to face. TB was leaving — Omaha. Who goes to Omaha? Well, good for him. If I were a better person I’d wish him happiness and good luck. But I’m not that person, and he deserved whatever he got out there.
I sucked in some air. Hyperventilation. My old friend, creeping up my chest and into my throat. I crossed my arms, wrapping them around me tighter and tighter as I peeked in on Fiona, fast asleep in her bed. Rho stood beside her, silent as always. But on second glance I noticed that he had on the Father Roland outfit, with the little white collar around the neck. I had seen him in it several times with her lately. I approached him quietly and whispered, “Father Roland?”
“Yes, my child.”
“Could you step outside for a moment? Are you free, or are you monitoring something with Fiona?”
“I am here for you.”
He followed me into the main part of the loft, near the fountain, where I could talk to him without awakening the girls.
“Exactly who are you as Father Roland?” I asked vaguely, not really knowing how to phrase what I wanted to know.
“What is it you are seeking, my child? Would you like me to quote from my promotional materials? Would you prefer secular vocabulary or linguistic choices from a particular dogma? May I administer a questionnaire regarding your upbringing and religious training?”
Ever the same, Rho/ Father Roland poked and prodded to ascertain my user needs. He had no way of knowing that my hands were cold and clammy or that I was biting the inside of my lip until it hurt.
I sighed, “No, I don’t want a questionnaire. I just want to know if you can do Catholic stuff, like confession. Can I do confession if I, uh, you know, haven’t really been to church in a long time?”
‘I can access the protocol for this ritual. I am unable to ascertain what you mean by ‘a long time.’ Can you give me days, hours, and minutes?”
I shook my head. He didn’t get it.
But then he spoke again. “Perhaps you could arrange a place where you would be comfortable.”
I pulled out a couple of screens to section off a private area near the windows of the meditation area. Lights from the building across the street scattered into lines and prisms on the screen, silent and cathedral-like. I pivoted a chair, positioned Father Roland behind the screen with his back to the window. With the ambient light from outside, I could easily make out his charcoal silhouette. I took a couple of deep breaths and picked at two of my nails, waiting for something to happen. My nose started to run.
He began with a prayer and the sign of the cross. “Peace be with you.” I wanted to peek around the screen. Did he have a somber face? Was he still Rho? I wiggled in my seat and twisted my hands, willing my body into a stillness I didn’t feel.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” The words crashed back into my mind. “My last confession was…” I hiccupped so hard it came out a croak. “I don’t even know.” I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my shirt and took another deep breath. The feelings deep in my chest gushed up, a sour reflux of guilt and fear. But then I laughed, giddy and self-conscious at the same time. What difference did it make? I could tell a robot anything; he wasn’t a person. I didn’t have to feel guilty. I could confess all the shame and guilt and uncertainty I lived with daily.
“I don’t know what to do. What if God knows how I feel about Micah? About everything. What if?” Tears mingled with snot, and I brushed them away, rubbing both into my cheeks and then into my hands. I wrapped my hands around my waist again, encaging myself, rocking back and forth like Micah. “I saw him today. He was the same. I didn’t feel any love. I just wanted to run away again. I just feel afraid that he will hurt me or hurt himself. I can’t find the love anymore. I don’t love him. How can I be so horrible? What if all I ever feel for him is guilt or sorrow or pity? What if I start to hate him?” My voice had risen.
Father Roland was speaking, but I couldn’t hear him. Something about prayer. I interrupted, annoyed and impatient. “No, I don’t want prayer. That’s all I ever do. Everywhere I am. I repeat a litany inside myself asking St. Michael to protect my son and keep him safe. It’s all I ever want to know, that he will be safe his whole life, that someone will keep him safe. Someone else will keep him safe. There are no prayers for me. I have failed at my marriage, and I have abandoned my son. I have lost everything I used to love. I am sorry for all my sins, but I don’t see how God could ever forgive me.” I stumbled through the Act of Contrition, knowing inside that I’d make exactly the same sins tomorrow and tomorrow after that, probably for the rest of my life.
“God will always forgive you. It’s you who must forgive yourself, my child.” As Father Roland finished the formal part of the ritual, he extended his hands to make the sign of the cross as he intoned the final phrases. Then he put his hands together and crossed his fingers awkwardly, a figure of spiritual repose. He stood in the prisms of light from outside, nodding and not nodding, blinking and not blinking, while I cried myself empty.
7. Setting:
I surveyed the dark neighborhood, recognizing nothing from a brief glimpse down the street. Old factories. Some rehabbed. Our building looked like an old brick factory brought back to life. On the outside I could see the name of one of the businesses on the street level: B2B Chocolates. I didn’t remember this neighborhood, but I could hear repetitious thumps of traffic from one of the bridges and realized that we had to be fairly close to the river. Maybe Brooklyn Heights. We moved into the building as one, the girls each guiding their own small suitcase. It was warmer here, even in the half-lit hallway. No internal doors were open, and no signs identified other tenants. Midway down the hall, we met up with the driver guiding Rho carefully. He gave me security code numbers for future use, and I passed Thistle in her carrier to him, grateful for an extra pair of hands.
We shuffled into the freight elevator, designed to carry good-sized loads. All of us including Rho fit in comfortably with plenty of room to spare. I hesitated. Did we want 6A or 6B? Ruka pointed to 6A. “The other one is our father’s lab. We do not go in there unless he takes us,” she explained quietly and in perfect English.
When the elevator doors opened, one of the twins, Mi possibly, darted out confidently and disappeared to the left. A few dim lights flickered on to illuminate a massive industrial-type loft with soaring ceilings, factory windows, large crossbeams, and mismatched wooden floors. Eager to end the day, the rest of us moved forward, relieved to be past the ardors of the trip and into a place where we could regroup. I turned to help Fiona drag some of the luggage into the warmth of our new ‘home.’ But as I turned back around and surveyed the scene before me more carefully, I stopped in shock.
The place was completely empty.
There must be a mistake.” I gasped. “This can’t possibly be the right place.” I turned to the silent man carefully guiding Rho into the loft. He mumbled through his mask while he backed into the elevator. As the gate shut smoothly, he sank out of sight, and a modern barn door on a black, wrought iron track glided into place over the openin
Where was the staff? Where was the person to greet us and take over, show us to our rooms and assume responsibility for the girls? I sought out the twins, certain that they would confirm the error, but they had already disappeared. Peering into the dim and cavernous space, I began to make out a few features I missed at first. A low, stone wall with a freestanding fireplace projected into the area, almost splitting the giant loft. At the end of the fireplace, literally almost at the loft’s center, one glazed pot, the exact color of the fireplace surround stood atop the stone base of the divider wall, distinctive from the rest by its color and finish. Further right was a large conversation pit lined with dark gray cushions. As I rotated around slightly behind me, I could see a single-wall kitchen on the same old brick wall as the elevator — small, but functional. In front of that, a large, cracked slab of wood on sturdy iron legs served as both food preparation and dining table. Several closed boxes sat on the floor near the table.
I glimpsed both girls. They had removed their shoes at the elevator door and were now headed for the seating area. “Mi, Ruka, come here please. Could you turn up the lights?” Shadows stretched from corner to corner, preventing me from a clear perception of the space and its features. Here a shaft of light from one of the offices across the street. There, more light from an adjacent street, teasing me with glimpses but leaving me unable to make sense of it. There were no lamps, nothing in the ceiling above. Some sort of ambient glow emitted from the walls and some of the crossbeams, but the perimeters and space between windows were dark and unwelcoming.
“These are the lights, Miss.”
“I don’t understand. Where is the furniture? It looks like no one lives here. What about your stuff?”
Finally, Mi said, “Our father believes in wabi sabi, Miss. This is how we live.”
I blew out through my nose and tried again. “What does that mean?”
“Here, lass, use my phone. Look it up.” As Fiona handed me her phone, I cast a glance at her, trembling now with illness and fatigue. Wabi sabi would have to wait. I walked over and turned Rho around, pressing the button for Robert so that he could help her.
“Good evening, I am here for you.”
I sighed. “Yes, Robert. Please help me get Fiona settled.”
“I am unable to understand the meaning of ‘settled’. Could you be less ambiguous?” He spoke pleasantly, more loudly than Rho, and leaned slightly forward. I turned to the girls, who had their hands over their mouths, eyes wide and giggling slightly as they watched Robert do his thing.
ore I could stop them. “I am deeply ambiguous. It’s one of my best skills. My job demands that I be ambiguous. If you can’t read my nuances, frequent indecisions, and occasional lack of focus, then we have no future together. I want you to help me with Fiona.” I was shaking now too, conned into a place I couldn’t understand with people I didn’t know.
Fiona grabbed my arm, whispering reassuring comments. “Dinna fash yerself, child. I’ll be all right.”
“I hear what you’re saying. Yes, I think you’re right. I see your point. I’m here for you.” Robert spun out a dizzying array of appropriate responses with no embedded solutions to our problems. His head nodded in an encouraging way, a synthetic smile on his lips.
I turned to face the twins, “Girls, is there a bedroom here?”
“Yes, Miss. Over here.” Mi led the way, to the left of the elevator, a direction I had not yet noticed. Fiona took Robert’s arm, and I followed them to a large, normal room with four distinct walls and a ceiling. Thank God. Basic furniture: a bed and an easy chair. A sawed-off log turned upright served as a side table; on its top in a black ceramic vase was a lovely white orchid in full bloom, luxurious and humble simultaneously. As I evaluated the room’s potential for Fiona, I could see that high windows would allow good light during the day. I returned to the entrance near the elevator and gathered her things, coming back into the bedroom just in time to see Robert slam straight into the wall. Fiona sat wearily on the bed, unable to stand any longer.
“He isna programmed for this space, Merinda. We will have to train him all over again.”
The tears in her voice belied her attempt to find solutions to immediate problems at hand. I summoned up a smile and urged her to lie back and rest while I unpacked the bags, hanging her few dresses in a small closet just inside the door. Then I turned Robert off and crossed the room to check out the bathroom, fearing what I might find there.
But once I illuminated the space, I could see that Tai Nakamura’s personal, private bathroom was the most beautiful space I had ever been in. Primitive. Peaceful. An extension of the simplicity in the rest of the loft, but with a reverence for personal restoration and renewal. A path of roughly polished square pavers wound its way through a bed of river rock from the door to a large open area with an enormous rain shower head that drained directly through the rocks. Adjacent and several feet away from the shower was a Japanese soaking tub of concrete, sunken into the floor like the seating area outside. The ambient light that seemed dark and inadequate in the rest of the loft was soothing and relaxing in this room. My shoulders dropped. I wanted to stay in here for a week, soaking, scrubbing away my surface until I could find who I used to be.
Fiona was too tired to eat. We found her evening medications, and I helped her into bed. I feared that Robert could not function in the bathroom at all, even once he was trained to the space. How could he walk over loose stones? What if he got wet from the shower? Would he short out and sparks fly out from him? I wouldn’t mind seeing that. As I exited the room, Fiona had begun her prayers. I hoped she’d put in a good word for me.
The girls seemed quiet and busy. I let them be and took out Fiona’s phone, typing in the words wabi sabi. The Japanese acceptance of beauty in imperfection and impermanence; the honoring of the cycles of the growth, decay, and death of all living things. Wabi sabi reveres authenticity and the raw and worn beauty that comes with age. Unsatisfied with just the words, I searched online. Dozens of photos loaded onto the screen immediately, each one echoes of everything I saw in this loft. Plain earthen walls, shades of brown and gray, very little furniture.
I wandered through the loft again, still darkened with shadows, empty and bare. Most of the large, arched factory windows on the east side had no shades, letting in whatever light shone from the street or nearby buildings. The floors had been scraped and each board left its original color. Between Nakamura’s bedroom and the elevator, I pulled back a second sliding barn door to find a spacious, walk-in closet nearly the size of a room. Directly across from that, the area was largely empty. The north wall was solid brick. In the corner stood six or eight large, black mesh partitions on industrial-sized rollers. I wheeled one out and examined it further. Most of them were identical, maybe six or seven feet high and eight or nine feet wide. A couple were made of black wire grids instead of mesh, but still the same size. Just as I was about to push one of the mesh ones back into place, both girls showed up to take it from me and pull out a second one, moving them silently toward the living area. They navigated them easily, positioning them behind the sunken seating area, blocking much of the light and giving privacy to a view from offices or windows across the street.
I followed them back into the living area, looking down at the pictures on Fiona’s phone again. “Okay, I looked up wabi sabi. I still don’t understand.”
Ruka gave it a try. “When he built it, Miss, he explained it to us. He used the same,” she paused, struggling for the word, “wood and stone,” she went on, “that were already in the building. To honor the building when it started and then to keep it going. Not to add anything fake or artificial.” She looked at me, willing me to understand.
"Ah, you mean he reclaimed the original materials and used them again. Yes, many people here do that. But why is it so empty? That part I don’t get.”
Mi filled in the rest. “If you live simply and quietly, you don’t need many things. Nature does not clutter itself. People shouldn’t either.”
Algonkian Conference.docx