PART II: RENATA

As a deaf-mute, Renata was born at the best possible time. Had she come two centuries earlier, she would have been doomed to a Helen Keller existence, sensing the world through tiny bumps on paper. Had she been born a few decades later, she would have had her senses fully restored right out of the womb and never experienced the richness of a world full of textures and vibrations.

Renata moved between two houses which were her entire world. The first house held her earliest memories: the hum and shudder of appliances like beasts tossing in their sleep, the snap-click of doors, the tread of feet, and the slow rhythm of her mother's breathing when she held her to her chest. It was there she first came to feel the inner motions of her own body, the pumping of its heart, squidging of cartilage, popping of joints, and churning of guts.

Alone in her second-floor room, Renata had a large collection of objects she didn't have names for. Some of them were actual toys while others were just household items or junk; she couldn't tell the difference. What they all had in common were their fascinating shapes, textures, or ability to produce vibrations. Her favorite object was a Christmas stocking covered in faux reindeer fur with a silk lining. It had fuzzy ball tassels and little bells that jangled in her fingers.

Renata was mostly left to herself. Her mother worked in IT. Between the long daily commute and the extra hours she put in at home, she had little time for her daughter, leaving her care to a string of live-in nannies.

The second house was the one Renata would come to think of as her true home. It belonged to a retired music teacher, Kelly McCall, who was widowed and whose children had all grown and left. Kelly was well off, living off the retirement of her husband, who had run a successful orthodontic practice. But she was without purpose and deeply unhappy.

When Kelly McCall heard a knock on the front door one morning, she was barely able to stir herself out of bed. Girl Scouts at this hour? She was surprised to see a skinny girl standing on her doorstep. Her mother held her upright by one arm. In her free hand, she clutched a gaudy Christmas stocking. There was something obviously wrong with her—blind, autistic, underdeveloped? Despite being pre-school age, she still wore a heavy diaper beneath her one-piece. Her tongue protruded from her mouth, and her head rolled back on her neck as if trying to catch raindrops.

The woman, who introduced herself as Ms. Bilake, was a neighbor from a few doors down whom she only knew from superficial greetings. Ms. Bilake hastily explained how the live-in nanny had not shown up that morning, leaving her in a real jam. The CTO had called an all-hands for the go-live of the virtual portal (whatever all that meant), and she couldn't not go in to work that morning. Could—what was her name again?—Kelly do her a real solid and watch her child—Renata was super quiet and really no trouble at all—for a few hours until she could break away?

Kelly agreed for no other reason than it seemed the quickest way to end the woman's nervous monologue. That was how she found herself with a backpack of diapers and snacks, a jangly Christmas stocking, and the deaf-mute daughter of her neighbor.