I, Jaheia

There’s tragedy in a person who can never make herself happy. You cannot help but pity, for there is something pathetic in being a slave to one’s own melancholy.

I had known Jaheia for close to a decade, and not once had I seen her truly happy. Perhaps there was an ease of contentment in her shoulders or eyes, but as close as it inched toward the threshold of happiness, it always cowered and fell back. As all those chronically self-absorbed do, I ruminated over the idea that it was an innate characteristic of our relationship—that she could never be happy around me specifically. Pictures and videos, though, told the same story that I had grown to expect. For some time, I considered referring therapists to her; my Uncle had struggled with depression his whole life, and I knew how much it could consume, what a bottomless void it could become. He was a shadow of a man, my Aunts and grandparents would say; but I wondered, cruelly, how they could decide that, how they could know for sure he was a shadow when the depression had lurked in him always?

For Jaheia, though, I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries or inadvertently offend her. Her family had always been notably religious and of the opinion that mental illness was not in the cards should you fully submit to God. She still lived with her parents, which complicated the matter. Rarely did I have the opportunity to speak to her in private, so I abandoned the idea and assured myself I was overreacting.

In late August we both found ourselves at the same party, a neighborhood potluck that doubled as a fundraiser for the local school district. My visits home were perfunctory and infrequent, so it had been a few months since I’d seen anyone at the party.

“Mira.”

“Jaheia, hi,” I said, raising my bottle to her and smiling. I always liked that she was no-nonsense; no small talk necessary. “God, some day you’re going to need to give me your skin care routine, okay? It’s been what, half a year? More?”

She took the comment in stride and helped herself to some wine. Maybe it was the stoicism; fewer smiles, fewer wrinkles. “You look well, too, Mira.”

“Hey, so I had a question,” I prompted, fiddling with the bottle label. Now that the opportunity arose, it seemed cruel to dismiss it. Yet, it all felt very anti-climactic after so many imaginings. “You can punch me if necessary, but uh. I suppose I’ve been a bit worried about you.”

“Worried? That’s silly.”

I gave a self-conscious laugh. “I guess, yeah. But in all the time we’ve known each other, you’ve never really seemed… happy. And you deserve to be. My Uncle uh… saw this therapist for a while who really helped him. I could give you the contact info, if you wanted it.”

Jaheia watched me silently for some time; it was almost as though I could see the gears in her mind turning. I wondered what she thought of me in that moment, whether it was ire or relief or pity. Finally, she took a long gulp of wine and offered up a wan smile: her emblem. “That’s sweet, Mira, really, but not necessary.”

An answer fully expected, but disappointing nevertheless. I gave a vague nod.

After a beat, she eyed the crowd around us then leaned in and took one of my wrists. Her grip was cool despite the sultry atmosphere. “We could talk more elsewhere, though.”

“I mean, sure,” I managed. Suddenly, I was certain everyone was staring at us and seeing through to our thoughts. A quick glance around told another story.

“Next Saturday,” Jaheia suggested, dropping my wrist and closing in on herself again. “Would that work for you?”

“Yeah, for sure,” I said. “I live in Mendocino, about an hour away, if you don’t mind the drive.”

Somehow, it seemed the farther from her parents and the town we grew up in, the better. She gave a short nod and I agreed to text my address over before the end of the day. And just as abruptly as she had approached me, she left.

-

As usual, she was on time. In the interim, though, I had begun to feel like a schoolgirl with a crush; my palms had turned sweaty and a vaguely nauseous feeling overtook me. I made a pot of tea in preparation and got through two and a half cups before she knocked on the door.

In a motion so out of character she fell quiet at it, I pulled her into a tight hug. Her resulting questioning gaze made me blush, and I drew back and stumbled through an introduction, telling her where to place her shoes and that the tea was lukewarm but I’d make more.

“You needn’t be so nervous,” she said magnanimously.

“I know,” I said and busied myself with the kettle. “And yet I can’t help it. Why do I feel like you’re about to confess to some nefarious plot? Murder? Blackmail? Embezzlement?”

Jaheia laughed, which caught me off guard. It was low and charming and I burned the sound into my memory lest it never come again. We were quiet until we had seated ourselves at my small kitchen table and stared at each other over cups of fresh tea, steam trails rising before our eyes.

“You know, Mira,” she started, her words slow, “you’re the first person who has ever made mention to my happiness.”

“I wasn’t trying to—”

“I know,” she interrupted gently. Her dark brown eyes watched mine with a sort of awed look. “I’m not saying it as a rebuke. I mean it as the reason why I suggested we talk again. I figured if anyone was worth talking to about it, it was someone with such a sharp eye.”

I blushed again and gave a meek shrug.

“It’s a long story, but one I’m willing to share—with you, at least.”

I gestured aimlessly around me. “I’ve got all day, Jaheia.”

“We met when we were around seventeen, I believe? And to your knowledge I had no siblings. I was my parents’ second daughter, though. In 2238, their first daughter threw herself off the Wacohosda bridge.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, stunned. In all the years knowing her, no one had ever spoken of such a lurid secret, had ever even hinted that there had been another Bardell daughter. Distantly, I wondered if my parents knew. In 2238, I’d been fifteen and not known of Jaheia and her family for another two years.

Jaheia was quiet for a moment. “Her name was Jaheia and I was only made in her likeness.”

When shocking news hits you, it seems to slow the moment and heighten your senses—the fight or flight response. Distantly, I heard the neighbor’s doorbell’s shrill ring and the whiz of a car down the street. It was a moment out of time, shared only between the two of us.

“Androids have been popular since the 22nd century,” Jaheia said, twirling a lock of her dark brown hair, so dark it was nearly black. Was it real? Could it grow? “Her parents refused many things—to accept her passing, to acknowledge the depression that had prompted it. You know how religious they are; who wants to think of their child being damned for all of eternity?

“Not to mention the gossip of it all. They had money and connections, but none strong enough to fully erase the reality of a corpse; how, after all, would they explain the absence? Even the old stories of daughters going abroad or to boarding school to mask pregnancies still had the daughter eventually returning home. So they built me. Jaheia’s body had been broken beyond repair, but there were bits of DNA in her bones; did you know DNA remains active after death? It was fortunate for them. And they used the broken form of their daughter to mold me into the ideal replication. Genes are finicky, though; it turns out depression ran in the family.”

“Are you… I mean, does that mean you have depression, too?”

Jaheia thought over my question. At last, she said, “I’m not sure. Can androids be depressed? I certainly have the genes of their daughter, but not the same material makeup as a human. Maybe it simply dulls the sensations I have. It was no concern to Jaheia’s parents, who decided my apathy matched their daughter’s behavior, thus strengthening the pretense.”

“But you can smile,” I argued. “And your eyes…they’re so…”

They were so full of emotion at times. Like now, as she stared me down with a keen expression.

“Have you heard of mirror neurons, Mira?” At my shake no, she continued: “They’re an instinctive reaction to someone else’s actions. Think of yawning; it often causes a yawn in another person. Mirror neurons fire when you complete an action and when you observe the same action in someone else. I don’t have all the knowledge of androids and their inner mechanisms, but perhaps it’s a similar trend. Over the years, I’ve culled my reactions and emotions based on what I’ve observed in others. I suppose I was a bit like a child in the first few years, still learning the intentions behind others’ behavior. Perhaps there’s some element of mirroring in empathy.”

I sat on her words for some time. She made no sign to rush me, instead taking the time to sip through her cup of tea. Absentmindedly, I poured her a second cup.

“So was I right?” I asked eventually. “Have you never truly been happy?”

“I couldn’t say. Can you be sure you’ve never experienced something if you don’t know what that feeling is? Perhaps it’s been disguised as something else, or there all along.”

“When you laughed earlier,” I said, mentally replaying the scene. “It was the only time I’ve seen you laugh, but I could hear the note of happiness in it.”

Her expression was warm. “I wonder—I wonder if you bring it out in me.”

And in the small, overdecorated kitchen in my apartment, she and I sat face-to-face and shared a taciturn intimacy, one that no one else in the world could have established with her, given her situation. I felt like an accomplice in a story that had just begun, a plot of nefarious origins but optimistic prospects. I couldn’t stop the smile on my face—maybe she was onto something about mirror neurons.