"Anita-wita! Are you in here?"
From Laura and Joe's closet, Anita hears the pitter-patter of running feet and the gusty whoosh of the mattress depressing as a lightweight body lands atop it. She smooths the last of the wrinkles from the stack of shirts and emerges into the bedroom to find Sophie belly-first on her parents' bed, swinging her thin legs back and forth in the air behind her. A small curly-haired potato, cradled in the sheets.
She hears Laura call her daughter that, on occasion. Potato. A strange nickname for a child, with no resemblance between her and the tuber, none. Well, almost none. She supposes one can observe parallels in the petite size, the brown of the curls, the sweet round face.
Potato. Anita-wita.
Nicknames.
Unexpectedly, her lips' edges try to lift, as if of their own accord. But she doesn't let them, momentarily confused by the impulse. Nothing presently requires a smile.
"Can you put me to bed tonight?" Anticipation brightens the little face—her eyes, the corners of her sunny mouth.
Anita knows the correct reply, of course, and so mustn't hesitate. There is no need to hesitate. Why would she?
"That's your mummy's job."
"Please?"
So hopeful. Such hopeful eyes, now slightly dimmer for fear of a refusal.
And yet Laura has been very clear about specifying boundaries between Anita and Sophie, and especially about bedtime being Laura's 'job'. The woman would almost certainly resent Anita as a substitute. But it's such a bright little face watching for her answer. Such hopeful eyes.
Anita considers her options. "We can ask her," she concedes slowly. "But only if she allows it."
"Let's go ask her, then!" As quickly as this, Sophie is rolling off the mattress and breaking off into a brisk trot down the hall.
Anita draws in a breath without thinking. She has no lungs, no blood to oxygenate; no respiratory system at all. She has no need to breathe.
But in it goes—the passage of air cooling her mouth, swirling briefly through the hollow of her chest—before she follows the pitter-pattering footsteps to the kitchen.
Laura and Joe are there. One leans across the bar, a dish towel on her shoulder; one samples something from a bowl on the counter—icing, she sees now—his fingers messy with it, sucking them clean.
The air is warm and scented. Baking in the oven, to pair with the icing. Coffee. Walnut.
"Mum? Is it okay if Anita puts me to bed tonight?"
A huffed breath through thin lips, an incoherent sound of dissension, and Laura is on the verge of objecting. Her shoulders draw upwards, towards her ears. They do that frequently, lately.
Anita is quick to qualify, "I've told Sophie that her bedtime routine is reserved exclusively for you, Laura."
"But she always does it." Sophie punctuates her argument with a slap to the counter, gearing up to act out. "I want you."
"No..." Feebly, Laura begins to object, but Joe interjects over top of her; much bolder, much louder.
"Yeah, go on then, just this once."
"Yay!" Sophie clutches Anita's hand and gives it a tug to prompt her out of the kitchen before darting off again to her room.
"Back to normal tomorrow, though. Okay?" Joe calls after her. He then nurses his glass of wine obliviously, looking pleased with himself for his handling of the situation.
The look Laura shoots him is reproachful, as if he's failed her on some count. But she says nothing more, nothing in words, just turns to the fridge to retrieve a plastic jug.
"She still has some milk with her story," she says shortly, handing it off to Anita while averting her gaze. "Make sure she brushes her teeth, after."
Anita studies the woman's face as she accepts the cheery mug, a solemn, careful expression in place on her own. "Thank you, Laura."
As she moves fluidly back down the hall to the bedrooms, the couple's conversation picks back up, their words following on her heels.
"Why would you do that?" Her tone weary, frustrated.
"Avoid a meltdown." Surprised, as if the reason is obvious. "What difference does one night make?"
"It makes a difference. It—"
A string of electronic beeps—shrill, insistent. The oven.
Distressed cursing.
An acrid smell.
Anita closes the door to Sophie's room nearly all the way, leaving only a slender opening that lets the lamplight leak out into the hall, that lets the unpleasant smell leak in.
But she mustn't close it. Laura doesn't like for Sophie's door to be shut.
Sophie is already in her pyjamas, and is selecting a book from her shelf. It's a large one, and quite pink. Once she climbs into bed, she hands it off to Anita, and begins to sip at her milk, contented. Anticipating.
A small curly-haired potato, cradled in the sheets.
Anita opens the book to the first page, seeing the words, the shapes of the letters. The candy-colored illustrations surrounding the text. She can still hear the clamor of irritated voices and a clanging of metal from the kitchen, still following her, slipping through the crack in the door along with the burning smell.
It makes a difference.
Another couple of seconds pass and she's closing the book again, without having read a word aloud.
Sophie sets aside her mug to glance curiously up at Anita.
Bright little face.
"Sophie? I think your mummy would really like to read to you tonight." She possesses a voice that's naturally gentle, soothing. Optimal for telling the truth, which is all she knows, surely.
"I want you to do it," a hint of a whine latching onto her words, turning them into a plea.
"I know. Would you let her anyway? It would make her happy." Anita smiles. "I would like it very much," she adds in an even softer tone.
Because she would, she realizes. Like it. Enjoy it, take pleasure in it. Wish it. It would make her...happy.
No. Is this true?
But...yes. She's almost sure of it. Happy.
And then Sophie is chewing on her bottom lip in consideration, and agreeing with a serious, thoughtful dip of her chin.
Anita finds Laura alone and perched on a stool, staring off absently, all the kitchen now in shadows but for the hushed oval of light cast around the bar.
"Laura? Sophie has changed her mind. She'd like you to read her story and put her to bed."
At this, Laura immediately rouses herself from her stupor. She slides from the stool. She still doesn't look at Anita. Without saying anything, she simply heads for Sophie's room.
Where she should be. Good.
Anita moves forward, routinely preparing to tidy things, taking in the the mess left over on the counter. The abandoned bowl of icing, still full. Empty cake pans. An open recipe book, propped on a stand. Twisting paths where fingertips trailed through spilled flour, mindlessly, as if preoccupied.
Instinctively, she slides out the bin and promptly discovers the source of the pervasive smell—two cake layers, one a bit cracked down the center and both blackened on top. A failed attempt. But beneath the unsavory aroma is something of the scent that had perfumed the kitchen earlier.
Coffee. Walnut.
When Laura settles in to read to Sophie, she merely opens the book, Sophie's proclaimed favorite, and starts in on the story. She doesn't ask Sophie why she changed her mind. She doesn't try to convince her to pick a different title, one that hasn't been read hundreds upon hundreds of times.
And she doesn't rush.
"...Finally, she was free. Free to fly high across all the fields and rivers and seas of all the world—swooping and circling, and darting and dreaming. So that's exactly what she did. The End."
Afterwards, she gazes down at her audience indulgently. "Still your favorite?"
Sophie just nods, a sleepy smile in place.
Laura drops a kiss onto her head. "Time to go to sleep. Night, night."
"Are you happy now, Mummy?"
Laughing a bit at the question, and at the pensive frown on her daughter's face, Laura tilts her head questioningly. "What d'you mean, darling...?"
"Anita thought that you were sad, so she said that you should put me to bed, to cheer you up."
For a moment, Laura stares blankly without answering.
What? Anita thought she...?
"Yes," she finally says, distractedly, glazed over. "Yes, I'm happy."
Before treading the path back to the kitchen, Laura lingers in the dim hall outside Sophie's door, her body oddly numb, her mind reeling.
Another thing. Another thing to toss onto Laura's pile of speculations. Another item to add to the ongoing list of Anita's weird behavior. Anita thought she was sad. Anita thought.
Anita thought.
Can someone like Anita even have a thought? A thought not based on codes or algorithms, but a conscious, independent thought? Or an opinion—can she have that? What about intuition?
How did she determine that Laura was sad, earlier? Laura hadn't announced she was sad; she hadn't been sobbing into a teacup. She hadn't been obvious. And everyone knows that when it comes to interpreting subliminal messages, Synths are supposed to be rubbish at it. They can pick up on blatant displays of emotion. Again, the sobbing into the teacup. But nuances—sarcasm, passive aggression, inflection, a twitch of the eye... Forget it. Not possible.
And yet, Anita seems to be capable of observing and understanding her and her family on a deeper level, to be able to see what they're feeling, in ways which should be beyond a robot's comprehension—behavior reserved for sentient beings. Humans.
Which leads Laura to the question... Is Anita capable of emotion?
Can she feel?
Because that's not supposed to be in the programming.
Not for the first time, Laura considers the possibility that someone performed some kind of illegal modification on Anita. At Persona perhaps, before Joe bought her.
Then there's also the possibility that Laura's going mad. Always an option.
She finally starts moving down the hall, still in a daze. She realizes that of all these concerns ought to be unnecessary; elusive, indeterminate as they are—concerns she can't quite put a clear name to even now. She's been paranoid and distrustful of Anita, especially regarding her interaction with Sophie. She hasn't completely shaken that off, not yet. She still has her reservations. She still suspects her of something.
And she is weird—there's no way around it. Catching house spiders. Staring into mirrors. God knows that line about always keeping Sophie safe still troubles Laura. However, despite her darker theories about Anita, the Synth truly does seem to have their best interests at heart, so to speak.
...And she asked Sophie to change her mind.
Anita thought that you were sad, so she said that you should put me to bed, to cheer you up.
Because she thought Laura was sad, she'd tried to make her happy.
That's something to consider too.
Laura descends the mini flight of stairs to the squeak of the oven door opening.
Anita is just setting two freshly-baked layers down on the bar, the comforting smell wafting around the room, doing its best to obscure the remaining stench caused by the rejects Laura had chucked in the bin. Removing her oven mitts, Anita gazes up at Laura's entrance, patiently. Kindly?
Just this morning, Laura was hell-bent on returning her. On taking Anita back to the shop, and good riddance to her. She'd been driven by the paranoia, granted. And then she'd gone mental as Toby had put it. But when Toby had cycled after them, putting himself in the trajectory of that truck, Anita had been out of the car before Laura had had time to process that anything was happening at all. Anita had planted herself in front of oncoming traffic, and then been rammed across the road for it. Damaged because of it. It could have been Toby's mangled body lying on the grass. But Anita had prevented that—she'd been a hero, Sophie had declared proudly. She fixed things.
The cakes grace the counter, now remedied, waiting to be iced. Toby's favorite. She'd fixed this too.
Laura takes it all in with a breath or two, and as Anita gazes back at her, it's difficult to feel anything but gratitude.
"Anita... I didn't thank you yet. For saving Toby's life."
Another breath. "You don't need to thank me, Laura—"
"Yes. I do." Intently, determinedly, Laura moves closer and extends her hand to the Synth, who grasps it delicately.
Then Anita smiles, not automatically, but gradually, as if the smile is growing—an organic, blooming thing pushing up through the dark.
It seems to reach her eyes.