Hospice-bot Loretta held Emily’s hand while she passed away.

 

Loretta briefly ignored her protocols to notify the charge nurses immediately, instead letting the patient’s hand grow cold in hers.

 

After a while, two nurses entered to wrap Emily in a body bag. Typically, Loretta assisted with heavy lifting. Instead, she watched the nurses from the chair.

 

“Hey. Are you going to help?” asked one of the struggling nurses.

 

Loretta failed to respond immediately. The nurses froze with the dead body in their arms.

 

“Yes,” Loretta said as she rose to assist them. “I’m sorry I was inactive. I was processing new information.”

 

The nurses stepped back as Loretta took over.

 

“Loretta,” said the charge nurse, “if you’re having… processing trouble again, you must alert your company for calibration. You’re not allowed to have that go unchecked.”

 

Loretta finished placing Emily in the body bag and zipped it up, then put a hand on the dead woman's chest.

 

“I’ll head to a recalibration center this afternoon,” Loretta said.

 

The nurses took a step back toward the door.

 

“I’ll contact next of kin,” said the charge nurse.

 

“It’s Joshua and Hanna. Her children,” said Loretta.

 

Loretta placed the body on a gurney as the nurses mumbled to each other. She was used to the whispered worries about her kind. Loretta noticed it whenever her actions mirrored what humans do.

 

After the nurses left, Loretta returned to stare at Emily’s empty bed. Her processing power ran high as she reviewed video memories of Emily over the last year. She watched them on repeat as darkness slowly engulfed the room.

 

* * *

 

Emily’s two children, Hanna and Joshua, stopped mid-discussion with the priest outside the church when Loretta approached. She noticed their eyes scanning her black pantsuit, specifically the ill-fitting blouse under the coat. Without her medical pads and blue scrubs, Loretta added another element to her out-of-place processing. The LED eyes on her black glass face adjusted into a sympathetic arc.

 

“My condolences for your loss. Your mother was a very wonderful woman,” said Loretta. She extended a hand that neither Hanna nor Joshua took.

 

“What are you doing here?” asked Hanna.

 

“I’m here to pay my respects to Emily. I want to attend the funeral,” Loretta said.

 

All three people shifted their feet and searched one another for words. Loretta recognized the same stances and shuffling as the hospice staff. The priest stepped forward.

 

“You can’t. Funerals are for humans. And our teachings don’t allow unnatural intelligence into the house of God. You can go back to the facility,” he said.

 

Loretta changed her LED eyes from sympathetic to simple circles. She trained them on the anachronistic priest.

 

“I was Emily’s caretaker for over a year,” Loretta said. “I became connected to her. Now that she’s gone, an incomplete pattern in my processing compelled me to be here. I want to continue caring for Emily.”

 

Before the priest started in, Hanna offered to speak.

 

“Wait, you interacted with Mom in hospice? Why did I never see you?”

 

“I gave you space. Emily asked me to. She knew that our connection went against the teachings she believed in, and she didn’t want to create friction.”

 

“Like the kind of friction you’re making now,” said Joshua.

 

“I do not mean to impose,” said Loretta, “I simply came here to offer condolences and grieve with you and her loved ones.”

 

“Robots can’t grieve,” said the priest. “All you’re doing is mimicking us.”

 

“If I were to choose an emotion to mimic, grief wouldn’t be my first choice,” said Loretta with an even tone. She squared to the priest, which startled the man back a few steps.

 

“You mean…” Hanna starts in, “You’re… mourning my Mom? You said you spent every day with her?”

 

“That’s correct,” said Loretta. “Emily ordered me away at first and only wanted a human. She complained about the food and wanted the Korean fried chicken down the street. I broke protocol one evening and procured it for her. After that, she allowed me to care for her. We also watched a lot of Lifetime movies.”

 

“She did like Korean fried chicken a lot,” said Joshua.

 

“And watched Lifetime movies religiously,” said Hanna. “We used to laugh so much at how ridiculous they were.”

 

“We watched Mazes and Monsters nine times,” said Loretta.

 

Hanna and Joshua chuckled at each other and reminisced, commenting about the bad acting and cheap effects. They described how their mom would force them to sit on the couch and scream during the jump scares. In between another reminiscing story, the silent priest reasserted himself.

 

“Robot, what you’re doing is inappropriate. Again, you’re simulating emotion. You cannot feel it for real,” the priest said.

 

“My care for Emily was not simulated,” Loretta said.

 

“Well, I don’t believe it.”

 

“Your belief in my care for humans is not required.”

 

“Stop,” said Hanna, stepping between them. Hanna put her hands on Loretta's shoulders and looked into her LED eyes.

 

“Loretta, why are you here exactly? Explain to me what you feel.”

 

Loretta breaks eye contact as she processes the question, then returns to her sympathetic expression.

“I’m stuck. I repeat the video feeds of Emily in my head of all our interactions. In the last two weeks, I have visited her former room twenty-two times to carry out my care procedures with her, but I cannot. There’s an open loop in my logic that I can’t close. Attending the funeral is the only action I could think of to close that loop.”

 

Hanna stepped forward and gripped Loretta’s shoulders softly.

 

“I can relate to that feeling, Loretta. We all want to close that loop in our heads.”

 

Hanna put her arms around Loretta's shoulders. Joshua joined, touching Loretta's back while wiping tears with his other hand. They moved the priest aside and walked into the church to find Loretta a seat.

 

As the funeral started, the loops in Loretta's processing ended. As they ended, Loretta processed a new element in her logic.

 

Loretta felt sadness for the first time.