Claire slammed her laptop shut. She sat in the dark of her own apartment, listening to the hum of the refrigerator. The file wasn’t a movie. It was a simulation. A proof-of-concept. And somewhere, somehow, her father had been offered this service. Or worse—he had sought it out.
Claire’s stomach turned. Her father was healthy. He didn’t need a sitter. But the file’s title— Daddysitter —felt like a coded message meant only for her.
She hit play. Jenna leaned forward. “Maybe she doesn’t know how to say she’s sorry. For not being there. For being scared.” Daddysitter.2024.720p.VMAX.WEB-DL.x264.ESub-Kat...
Claire paused the video. Her hands were shaking. She had been busy. A promotion, a new apartment, a boyfriend who didn’t like “emotional baggage.” But she called every Sunday. Didn’t that count?
“Claire,” he said. “You didn’t have to come.” Claire slammed her laptop shut
The next scene was the gut punch. Jenna and Mark were slow-dancing in the kitchen to a vinyl record— their song, the one her parents had danced to at their wedding. Jenna rested her head on his shoulder, and for a terrible, fleeting moment, she looked exactly like Claire’s mother from old photographs.
She skipped ahead. The scenes grew darker. The young woman, “Jenna,” began showing up daily. Mark (the fictional Mark, she told herself) grew dependent. Not on her care, but on her presence. He started dressing nicer. He bought flowers. In one scene, he showed her a locket with a photo of his late wife—Claire’s mother, who had died five years ago. It was a simulation
She hugged him tighter than she had in years. “Yes,” she whispered into his cardigan. “I did.”