Except now my left leg is a useless weight, anchoring me to the mattress. The space next to me is empty. And Tom and Ellen, standing behind the robot, have children of their own.
"It’s reliable," Tom says. Then he seems to have run out of things to say, too. My son is like me, awkward with words when the emotions get complicated.
After a few seconds of silence, his sister steps forward and stands next to the robot. Gently, she bends down to put a hand on my shoulder. "Dad, Tom is running out of vacation days. And I can’t take any more time off either because I need to be with my husband and kids. We think this is best. It’s a lot cheaper than a live-in aide."
It occurs to me that this would make an excellent illustration of the arrow of time: the care that parents devote to children is asymmetrical with the care that their children can reciprocate. Far more vivid than any talk of entropy.
Too bad I no longer have students to explain this to. The high school has already hired a new physics teacher and baseball coach.
I don’t want to get maudlin here and start quoting Lear. Hadn’t Peggy and I each left our parents to the care of strangers in faraway homes? That’s life.
Who wants to weigh their children down the way my body now weighs me down? My guilt should trump theirs. We are a nation built on the promise that there are no roots. Every generation must be free to begin afresh somewhere else, leaving the old behind like fallen leaves.
I wave my right arm—the one arm that still obeys me. "I know." I would have stopped there, but I keep going because Peggy would have said more, and she’s always right. "You’ve done more than enough. I’ll be fine."
"It’s pretty intuitive to operate," Ellen says. She doesn’t look at me. "Just talk to it."
The robot and I stare at each other. I look into the cameras, caricatures of eyes, and see nothing but a pair of distorted, diminished images of myself.
I understand the aesthetics of its design, the efficient, functional skeleton softened by touches of cuteness and whimsy. Peggy and I once saw a show about caretaker robots for the elderly in Japan, and the show explained how the robots’ kawaii features were intended to entice old people into becoming emotionally invested in and attached to the lifeless algorithm-driven machines.
I guess that’s me now. At sixty, with a stroke, I’m old and an invalid. I need to be taken care of and fooled by a machine. "Wonderful," I say. "I’m sure we’ll be such pals."
"Mr. Church, would you like to read my operation manual?" The machine’s metal lips flap in sync with the voice, which is pleasant, androgynous, and very "computery." No doubt that was a decision made after a lot of research to avoid the uncanny valley. Make the voice too human, and you actually diminish the ability to create false empathy.
"No, I don’t want to read your operation manual. Does it look like I want to hold up a book?" I lift my limp left arm with my right and let it drop. "But let me guess, you can lift me, carry me around, give me a restored sense of mobility, and engage me in healthy positive chitchat to maintain my mental health. Does that about cover it?"
My outburst seems to shock the machine into silence. I feel good for a few seconds before the feeling dissipates. Great, the highlight of my day is yelling at a glorified wheelchair.
"Can you help me up?" I feel foolish, trying to be polite to a machine. "I’d like a… bath. Is that something you can help with?"
Its movements are slow and mechanical, nonthreatening. The arms are steady and strong, and it gets me undressed and into the bathtub without any awkwardness. There is an advantage to having a machine taking care of you: you don’t have much self-consciousness or shame being naked in its arms. The hot bath makes me feel better. "What should I call you?"
"Sandy."
That’s probably some clever acronym that the marketing team came up with after a long lunch. Sunshine Autonomous Nursing Device? I don’t really care. "Sandy" it is.
According to Sandy, for "legal reasons," I’m required to sit and listen to a recorded presentation from the manufacturer.
"Fine, play it. But keep the volume down and hold the crossword steady, would you?"
Sandy holds the folded-up paper at the edge of the tub with its metal fingers while I wield the pencil in my good hand. After a musical introduction, an oily, rich voice comes out of Sandy’s speaker.
"Hello. I’m Dr. Vincent Lyle, Founder and CEO of Sunshine Homecare Solutions."
Five seconds in, and I already dislike the man. He takes far too much pleasure in his own voice. I try to tune him out and focus on the puzzle.
"… without the danger of undocumented foreign homecare workers, possible criminal records, and the certain loss of your privacy…"
Ah, yes, the scare to seal the deal. I’m sure Sunshine had a lot to do with those immigration reform bills and that hideous Wall. If this were a few years earlier, Tom and Ellen would have hired a Mexican or Chinese woman, probably an illegal, very likely not speaking much English, to move in here with me. That choice is no longer available.
"… can be with you, 24/7. The caretaker is never off-duty…"
I don’t have a problem with immigrants, per se. I’d taught plenty of bright Mexican kids in my class—some of them no doubt undocumented—back when the border still leaked like a sieve. Peggy was a lot more sympathetic with the illegals and thought the deportations too harsh. But I don’t think there’s a right to break the law and cross the border whenever you please, taking jobs away from people born and raised here.
Or from American robots. I smirk at my little mental irony.
I look up at Sandy, who lifts the lens hood flaps over its cameras in a questioning gesture, as if trying to guess my thoughts.
"… the product of the hard work and dedication of our one hundred percent American engineering staff, who hold over two hundred patents in artificial intelligence…"
Or from American engineers, I continue musing. Low-skilled workers retard progress. Technology will always offer a better solution. Isn’t that the American way? Make machines with metal fingers and glass eyes to care for you in your twilight, machines in front of which you won’t be ashamed to be weak, naked, a mere animal in need, machines that will hold you while your children are thousands of miles away, absorbed with their careers and their youth. Machines, instead of other people.
I know I’m pitiful, pathetic, feeling sorry for myself. I try to drive the feelings away, but my eyes and nose don’t obey me.
"… You acknowledge that Sunshine has made no representation that its products offer medical care of any kind. You agree that you assume all risks that Sunshine products may…"
Sandy is just a machine, and I’m alone. The idea of the days, weeks, years ahead, my only company this machine and my own thoughts, terrifies me. What would I not give to have Peggy back?
I’m crying like a child, and I don’t care.
"… Please indicate your acceptance of the End User Agreement by clearly stating ‘yes’ into the device’s microphone."
"Yes, YES!"
I don’t realize that I’m shouting until I see Sandy’s face "flinch" away from me. The idea that even a robot finds me frightening or repulsive depresses me further.
I lower my voice. "If your circuits go haywire and you drop me from the top of the stairs, I promise I won’t sue Sunshine. Just let me finish my crossword in peace."