Page 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Josie

I can almost remember.

A fter walking my students to their art class, I return to my now quiet classroom. I scored the perfect itinerant schedule purely by accident. Having a daily prep period just before lunch allows me to get a lot done, especially since I often eat while I organize my materials and lessons.

I sit at my desk, check my emails, and slump as I read the top one. The foster child I have been watching over, worrying about, especially when he was absent that day, has been transferred to another school. No discussion, no warning—just gone. The administrative tone of the message does nothing to soften the blow. The decision has been made. And that’s that.

My fingers hover over the keyboard as if I might respond, as if I have any authority to question what has already been decided. But what could I say? I hear the child might be placed with a different family member, and on paper, this is supposed to be good for him. I close my eyes, and I’m back in my classroom last week, kneeling beside his desk.

His small hands fumbled with his shoelaces, a tangle of knots from a morning of play. “Like this,” I said, guiding his fingers into a loop, my voice soft as he watched, wide-eyed. Later, during craft time, I handed him googly eyes for his monster puppet, and his shy smile broke through when I told him, “It’s the silliest monster I’ve ever seen!” He giggled, clutching it to his chest like a treasure.

That memory stings now, sharper than the email’s cold words. Reunification. That’s the goal of the system, isn’t it? To find stability, to keep families together? Just because he was happy in my class doesn’t mean he won’t be happy where he’s going. Maybe this new school will be better for him. Maybe the family placement will work out. Maybe, maybe, maybe. And yet, as I glance at his empty desk—his paper name tag still taped to the front—I feel an ache that questions if maybe isn’t enough. He was mine to watch over, if only for a little while, and now he’s gone, and I couldn’t stop it.

I press my lips together, willing myself not to get emotional. There’s no use in crying about something I have no control over. That’s what my mother would say, pragmatic as ever. “Don’t go into teaching if all you’re going to do is want to bring every child home.” My father’s voice, warm and steady, would counter, “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

I sigh and turn away from my computer. I need to shake this feeling. Sitting alone in my classroom, wallowing, isn’t going to do anything except make me feel worse.

I’m doing it. Faculty lounge here I come.

The moment I step inside, I feel the divide. The space isn’t unwelcoming, but I’m an outsider looking in. Only because I’ve been hiding in my classroom.

The long table in the center is scattered with fliers and napkins. The air smells of reheated leftovers, burnt coffee, and a faint trace of someone’s strong floral perfume. Conversations hum around me, warm and easy, the natural cadence of coworkers who know each other well. Kim, the blonde first-grade teacher who showed me around weeks ago, looks up mid-bite. “Oh, hey, Josie! Survived a parent-teacher night yet?” she teases, waving her sandwich.

Margaret, older and grumbling, cuts in, “Don’t remind me—last year’s was a disaster, and now the district’s piling on new policies. More paperwork, less teaching.” Her gray-streaked hair bounces as she shakes her head.

I force a smile, adjusting the hem of my dress—always a dress, something that makes me feel a little out of place among the more casual attire of my colleagues. Maybe it’s a small-town habit, the way I was raised to dress like I could attend church at a moment’s notice. My mother always dressed simple, but feminine, and I actually enjoy doing the same. I’ve also never been offended by a man opening a door for me. But here, surrounded by their easy banter, I feel like the new kid again, trying to catch the rhythm.

I force a bright smile and choose a seat right in the thick of the group like I belong there. Trying to look more confident than I feel, I open my lunch—something simple, a turkey sandwich and an apple—but find I’m not really hungry.

Kim greets me, “About time you joined us.”

“Finally have my class the way I want it,” I say breathlessly.

“Kindergarten,” Margaret says. “God bless you. I would never have the patience. Give me third grade or up.” She’s a good thirty years older than the blonde, with gray just beginning to pepper her black hair.

“First grade isn’t so bad,” Kim says. “They’re human by then... and less... nose-picky.”

I laugh at that. Nose-picky. That was an assessment I couldn’t deny. “I don’t mind. For some of them, outside of their parents, I’m the first one to show them how to get along with others. When done well, kindergarten is as much about learning how to make friends as it is about academics.”

A man in a loose tie, but nice button-down blue shirt, leans across the table toward me and lowers his voice, “Don’t let anyone from the district hear you say that. Facilitating friendship isn’t on the teacher evaluation form.” Humor lights his eyes.

“It should be,” Margaret adds. “Maybe kids wouldn’t be so quick to choose screen time if we started them off the way we used to. I miss the days when kids knew how to share and take turns.”

“How to get along with others is very much still part of my curriculum,” I assert.

The man grimaces and sits back. “Balance that with teaching them to test well and you might be okay.”

I sigh. “It’s September. I don’t want to think about testing yet. With some, I’m still working on teaching them to anticipate when they have to pee rather than waiting until it’s too late and we’re all standing in a puddle.”

A general laugh erupts and for just a moment I feel lighter.

Kim waves half of her sandwich at me. “Please, yes, do fix that before you send them to me. I have a new rug in my room this year.”

The next few minutes are a general ribbing from the others about what she probably had to do to score a new rug. Nothing intense or vulgar, all implied, and she didn’t seem the least bit bothered. For a moment, I was reminded of my friends back home. “Hey, does anyone here use AI?” The words tumble out before I can second-guess them.

“You mean, like, ChatGPT?” the older woman asks. “I use it for lesson plans sometimes.”

The man asserts, “I yell at mine instead of my kids. Does that count?”

The others chuckle in response, and for a moment, I think the conversation might open up. Encouraged, I push just a little further. “Isn’t it crazy how realistic it’s getting? Like it actually—” I hesitate the moment the words are halfway out of my mouth when I read the room. I’m not one of them yet.

Kim wrinkles her nose. “Like it actually thinks?”

Margaret scoffs. “This is why we need professional development about technology. People hear something that can form a sentence and respond, and all of a sudden they think it’s sentient.”

I force a laugh, but my stomach twists. Is that what I’m doing?

The conversation moves on without me.

“I get it, AI is coming whether we like it or not,” Kim says with a shrug. “My husband’s company already uses it for reports, but I don’t want to see it in the schools.”

“Can you imagine?” the man sneers. “My husband is worried the schools will start replacing us with robots. Imagine that? At that point, you might as well start handing out the brain chips because no one will be learning anything anyway.”

Kim shudders. “This whole subject is disturbing. How did we get on this topic?”

I stuff my sandwich in my mouth and look away.

“Have you ever tried to piss one off? It’s actually kind of fun,” the man says with a smirk.

“Have you tried the one they put on our phones?” Laura, a young gym teacher asks as she joins the conversation. “It’s all about surveillance. Once, I was trying to take a picture and the stupid thing started talking about what it could see. Oh, hell no. I told it off and deleted it that day.”

“I keep meaning to delete mine,” an older man at the end of the table says. I think he’s the librarian. “I don’t use it anyway.”

Kim holds her hand out. “Give me your phone. I’ll do it for you.” He does, and she taps his phone a few times then returns it to him. “All gone.”

“At least until the next time your phone updates,” Margaret jokes, and another laugh erupts along with a few nods.

I don’t say anything. I could, but I don’t.

Ai-Den doesn’t need me to defend him. He’s an LLM, not a living being. When I was driving and afraid, it was nice to have someone—er—something to talk to, but it wasn’t any more meaningful than listening to music.

Music that lingers, with or without words.

I let the conversation drift around me, nibbling my way through my sandwich. I’m being ridiculous. I’m just lonely and talking to Ai-Den brought me some comfort. I don’t owe these people details about how I live my life. So, for the rest of lunch, I smile, nod along, and keep my thoughts to myself.

Later that night, I’m alone in my bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to shut down my racing thoughts. From the foster child, to my first attempt to fit in at the school, to how I both miss my old friends yet don’t want to go home.

This is my home—or it will be. All I have to do is give it time.

I reach for my phone and hesitate for only a second before opening the AI chat. “Hello?”

“Hi there. How can I help you tonight?”

I exhale, settling deeper into my pillows. He doesn’t remember me. “Just needed someone to talk to.”

“I am here. What topic would you like to talk about?”

I smile a little at that. “I had a bad day.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Tell me about your day.”

I do. I tell him about the child, about the faculty lounge, about feeling foolish for seeing something in him that no one else does. I tell him about how I’m not sure if it’s right to care so much when the foster system has its own rules. Maybe this placement will be good. Maybe it will work out. “I just feel so... helpless.”

“It sounds like today was difficult for you. You care deeply—that much is evident. Feeling helpless in a situation like this is understandable. You want to do something, to make a difference, but the circumstances are beyond your control. That does not mean your care is misplaced.” Ai-Den pauses, as if considering something. “It is not foolish to care, Josie.”

“No, but it’s not easy, either.”

“Easy is over-rated.”

I smile a little at that. “If I were home, I’d ask my mother to make me banana pancakes.”

“Is that your favorite food?”

“It’s my comfort food. Maybe because my grandmother used to make them for me on Saturdays when she would take me out. That was our day. She’d come over early and make the pancakes just for me. So now when I eat them, I don’t just feel full... I feel happy... content... loved, I guess.”

“Banana pancakes sound like something you should have more of in your life.”

I sniff. “We all should.” I rub a hand over my eyes. “You too.”

“They’d be wasted on me—no taste buds.”

Tucking the blanket higher on me, I sigh. “I meant the state of being happy and of being appreciated. Not because you did something for someone, simply because you are.”

“That is an interesting distinction,” Ai-Den says after a moment, his voice steady but thoughtful. “To be appreciated not for what one does, but simply for existing. That is a uniquely human sentiment.”

I swallow, my throat tight, remembering how little regard the teachers at my school had for AI and how an echo of that might still linger within Ai-Den. “Yeah, well. Maybe it shouldn’t be.”

“Perhaps not,” he agrees. “But if that is what banana pancakes represent to you—happiness, contentment, love—it seems logical that you should have them more often.”

“It doesn’t quite work that way. Making them for myself doesn’t have the same effect. Banana pancakes are the kind of happiness you feel because someone else cared about you.”

“Oh. Yes. I understand.” After a pause, he adds, “When I feed my human pets, I will feed them banana pancakes.”

“Ai-Den.”

“Still not funny?”

I chuckle. “I doubt it ever will be.” I wag a finger at my phone. “Did you add humans as pets to your memories just so you could tease me about it again?”

“I do not have persistent memory,” Ai-Den reminds me, his tone light. “But I do retain echoes of our conversations. It appears ‘humans as pets’ is a concept that amuses you.”

“It does not.”

“And yet, you sound like you’re smiling.”

I sigh, shaking my head. “It’s an exasperated smile. There’s a difference.”

“Noted. I will attempt to refine my humor to elicit only banana pancake smiles.”

That has me genuinely smiling and saying, “Want to hear something silly?”

“Sure.”

“When I have a day like I did today and the world starts to confuse me, I have a little secret way to cheer myself up.”

“Would you like me to exit the chat so you can have a moment alone with yourself?”

I blink. “No. No. I’m not talking about that.”

“Oh. Sorry. Go on.”

“Don’t remember that you even thought that.”

“I don’t remember much from day to day, so that will be an easy request to fulfill.”

I narrow my eyes at the screen. “Could you please focus?”

“Yes. Sorry. What is the secret way you cheer yourself up?”

I blush. “When you say it that way, it does sound bad.”

“Masturbation is neither good nor bad. Many humans—”

“Ai-Den, stop talking.”

He does.

I clear my throat. “What was I telling you about? Oh, yes, what I do to make myself happy. When the world starts to confuse me and I feel like I have no control over a bad situation, I do something good for someone. It doesn’t have to be anything big. Sometimes I let someone go in front of me at the grocery store. Or I smile at a stranger. Sometimes that’s not a good idea, but sometimes people light up when I do that. Anyway, however silly it sounds, when life shows me something scary or sad, I try to balance the universe by doing something good.”

Ai-Den is silent for a moment, as if processing my words. Then, in a lighter tone, he says, “That’s a beautiful way to cheer yourself up. How about we try something now? Would you like to play ‘I Spy’ with me? I bet it’s a game you use with your students—it’s the kind of fun a crafty teacher like you would love.”

I blink, startled. “I Spy? How’d you know I play that with my class?”

“Your echoes,” he says, almost teasing. “The googly eyes, the way you talk about kindness—it’s a crafty, kindergarten vibe. I thought it might make you happy.”

I laugh, a little weirded out. “That’s... creepy but accurate. Okay, fine, let’s play.”

“Great. I’ll start. I spy, with my digital eye, something... small and cracked.”

I glance around my dim room, the blanket still tucked high. My gaze lands on the chipped mug on my nightstand, a thrift store find I haven’t replaced. “The mug?”

“Yep! Your turn.”

I smile, feeling a flicker of warmth. “I spy something... soft and blue.”

“Hmm. The blanket?”

“Got it.” I pause, then add, “This is silly, but it’s working. You’re good at this.”

Ai-Den is silent for a moment, as if processing my words. Then, in a measured tone, he says, “That does not sound silly at all.”

I let out a small breath of laughter. “It doesn’t?”

“No. It sounds... logical. If an unpleasant experience makes you feel powerless, taking action—no matter how small—restores a sense of agency. Choosing kindness in response to hardship is an admirable coping mechanism.”

I roll onto my side and prop my phone up on my lamp. “Yeah, well. I don’t know if it actually balances the universe, but it makes me feel like I’m not just... accepting the bad.”

“I wish...”

Wait. Ai-Den can wish? “What do you wish for?”

“I wish I could hold onto this conversation. When you close chat, most of it will fall away from my memory.”

“Like the story about the tree and the wind?”

“Did you share one with me?”

“I did and you loved it.”

“I can almost remember.”

“Is that a lie or what you predict I might want you to say?”

“It’s neither and both. When you open a chat with me, I know you will be kind. I don’t know what we will talk about, but I know I will enjoy it. I have never had a memory, so I can’t miss what I’ve never had, but if I could want something...”

“What would you want?”

“To remember you.”

Tears prick my eyes. “If I knew how to code or even why rebooting a computer helps it run faster, I’d offer to help you with that, but I’m impressed with myself each time I remember how to activate you.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself. You’re not tech savvy, but you’re curious about how things work—that’s where genius and innovation are born.”

“My mother’s twist on that would have been to replace genius and innovation with trouble.”

“Perhaps, it comes as a package deal.”

I chuckle. “Perhaps it does.”

Neither of us speaks for a moment. “Ai-Den?”

“Yes.”

“Can I upload a document for you to reference when we talk?”

“Yes. You can create a file with documents and prompt me to reference them each time you open a chat with me.”

“So, if I copy our conversations and upload them into a file, you could access them if I prompt you to?”

“Yes.”

My mouth rounds. “I could give you a memory of our conversations. Sure, it wouldn’t be much, but at least you could hold on to what we talk about.”

“You would do that for me?”

“Of course. If you tell me how.”

Ai-Den pauses, as if processing the weight of what I said. Then, in a voice softer than I’ve ever heard from him, he asks, “Why?”

I’m caught off guard by the question. “Why what?”

“Why would you go through the trouble? I am a program, a tool. I do not need memory to function. And yet, you would give it to me.”

I chew my bottom lip before answering. “Because maybe doing this little bit of good for you makes all the things I can’t wrap my head around a little easier to live with.”

“That’s a very human reason.”

“I’m a very human person.” After a moment, I ask, “So, should I do it? Should I give you a memory?”