And I Will Read to You About Butterflies by P.A. Cornell
3400 words, ~17 minutes reading time
Issue 8, Summer 2025
The first signs went unnoticed. They were little things. Pablo would tell the same joke or story repeatedly. Or he’d miss catching the ball when Jerry tossed it to him. These things were to be expected. Seven-year-olds did that kind of thing. We chalked it up to realistic programming and lived oblivious. For a time.
I held Pablo tight as we waited in the examination room. Jerry sat across from us; mouth pressed into a tight line. He wasn’t speaking but he had that look. The one I’d seen in the hospital almost two years ago. I looked away, blinking back tears. I held my little boy closer, his body soft and warm against mine. It seemed almost ridiculous to think we were in a Cybervivus tech lab and not a clinic. Ridiculous to think this incarnation of Pablo could even be a machine.
The technician returned, staring at the E-Pad in his hand. Jerry stood, expectation in his eyes. I remained seated but must’ve tightened my grip on Pablo because he said, “Mommy, too tight.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“Well?” Jerry asked. “Can you fix him?”
The tech expelled a breath that spoke of exhaustion. “We’ve found the problem, but not the cause.”
Jerry looked at me, then shook his head. “What the hell does that mean?”
“There’s corruption in the files, but we can’t figure out why.”
“But it can be fixed,” Jerry insisted.
“We think so, but the result won’t be what you’re hoping for.”
With pleading eyes, Jerry said to me, Salma, get this guy to make sense.
I’d always been better with people than he was. I rubbed Pablo’s arm and stood, releasing my grip on him. “Please tell us how you plan to fix our son and how long it’ll take.”
“We think if we reboot him, Pablo should function normally. Problems like this are rare, but when they happen, a hard reboot generally resolves the issue.”
“But there’s a catch,” I said.
The tech looked at Pablo, then back at me, but he was unwilling to meet my gaze, as if he didn’t want to answer my question.
“There’s been corruption to his core memory. The reboot will have him acting like a normal kid…but not specifically Pablo.”
I took a moment to absorb this. He meant our flesh and blood Pablo who’d been with us such a short time. Our son whose body we’d lost but whose essence we’d been able to retain.
“No,” Jerry said, understanding only a fraction of a second later. “You said his memories, his personality, all of it would be safe with you. You promised his life would go on uninterrupted after his—”
He couldn’t bring himself to say it. Death, I thought. His death. Our little boy died two years ago. Cybervivus had offered us a chance to upload his memories—everything that made him him—into a synthetic body. A body that would never again get sick or age. Our little boy would remain with us forever. That’s what we’d been told.
“You have to make this right!” Jerry took a step toward the tech.
Jerry wasn’t a violent man, but something in his expression made the technician move back, looking to me for support, failing to see that my calm was far more dangerous than my husband’s outburst. I reminded myself that this man was just a messenger. He hadn’t even been at the hospital when the Cybervivus rep had shown us his holo demo. A demo showing a little boy just like ours playing with his siblings, eating holiday dinners, raising his hand to answer questions in school—all set to joyful music.
How could we have made any other choice? The expense had forced the sale of a home that had been in my husband’s family for generations, but we’d been happy in our small rental apartment knowing Pablo was still with us. The real Pablo, if not in his original body.
“I’m sorry,” the tech said. “We’ve been over the diagnostics several times.”
In his seat, Pablo twitched, then started to laugh. A chilling laugh that sounded anything but human. The kind of laugh associated with insanity or evil, not with children. Not with our boy. And then it stopped. Pablo looked up at me through tears.
“Mommy, what’s happening to me?”
“Don’t worry, Pablito. The nice people here are going to help you.” The words sounded hollow even to me.
You can read all the information you like about becoming a parent. You can ask advice from everyone you know. But nothing prepares you for the feeling of looking into your child’s eyes when they’re hurting and knowing there’s nothing you can do to make it better. You must live it. You must have a child, bond with them, and grow to love them more than you ever thought possible. Until you would literally give your life for them if you could. Then you must fail them. Because sometimes giving your own life isn’t enough to save them. Sometimes, you must watch them suffer. Watch them die even. Then watch them come to life again, only to start all over. Was I about to watch my son die for a second, permanent, time?
“Is there any chance he’ll still be in there, after the reboot?” I asked.
“I wish I could tell you there is,” the tech said. “Maybe if we’d seen him sooner. But there’s extensive damage to the file we took from—your son, before he…”
He trailed off, no more able to speak of death than Jerry had been.
“The file’s too damaged to recover,” the tech continued. “The reboot can give you a fresh start. And we can program it to learn from you, but that’s the best we can offer. Of course, you’ll be fully refunded.”
Money then. That’s what we’d get in exchange for our son. We could move out of the apartment and buy a nice house again, and all it would cost us was Pablo. I fought the urge to laugh in that maniacal way Pablo had earlier. Instead, I walked over to my son and held him once more.
“We can perform the reboot immediately,” the tech said. “We’ll give you time, of course, to speak with your son.”
“To say our goodbyes, you mean,” said Jerry, now unable to stop his tears from flowing. He wiped at his nose with his sleeve, not caring who saw. Both the tech and I looked away.
“Is Daddy okay?” asked Pablo, before breaking into a song he’d learned at camp the previous summer. I wanted him to stop, but I knew the singing was involuntary. We watched him, all of us frozen in place until he stuttered to a rough end, culminating in full body twitching.
The tech left the room then, and Jerry came over to sit on Pablo’s other side. He hugged him like I rarely saw him do. I didn’t mind that in his embrace he’d pulled Pablo away from me. He seemed to need this moment even more than I did.
Maybe it was because I’d already mourned our son the first time. There’d been a period of nearly two months between his biological death and the time it had taken for Cybervivus to manufacture a robotic body. During this time, it had been just Jerry and I in the apartment, and the silence had been crushing. I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that we’d lost Pablo forever, couldn’t believe what Cybervivus had promised us. I expected them to call and say they hadn’t been able to bring our son back.
It was Jerry who’d believed from the start. He’d been the one to push for this procedure. In the end, I only agreed for Jerry’s sake. I felt this was something he needed. Part of his grieving process.
It wasn’t until we were called to Cybervivus to receive our son that I finally came around. Not even then, really. It was when they brought him out. Not because he looked exactly like his old self, but because he saw his beloved stuffed animal in Jerry’s hands and his eyes widened with recognition as he ran to him yelling, “Blue Bunny!” It was then I knew this was my son. His biological body had been defective, but we’d given him a new one, and that was the only difference. He was still Pablo. A Pablo frozen in time, but Pablo all the same.
I no longer mourned him after that, since he was right there for me to see, exactly the way he’d looked before falling ill. The same infectious giggle. The same bright, inquisitive eyes. He was perfect. Until of course, he wasn’t anymore.
Jerry cried silently and held Pablo to his chest. Pablo held his father in return, mercifully free of twitches or outbursts for the moment.
I took my E-Pad out of my purse and read him one of his favorite stories as he snuggled with Jerry. The one about the monarch butterflies. He’d loved them before he’d gotten sick, and he’d loved them after coming back to us. He never got tired of this story. He asked questions he already knew the answers to and when I finished, he cheered.
“Can we read it one more time, Mommy?”
He always asked for one more read at bedtime too. This time, instead of saying no, I reread it. Then read it again. I kept reading until the tech returned and it was time.
They brought him back to us after the reboot, but it was nothing like the first time they’d brought him back to us. Jerry had exhausted his tears. Mine were yet to come. I wasn’t sure when that would be, but I could envision it. One day I’d be loading the clothing recycler and I’d find one of Pablo’s toys in the pocket of his pants, and I’d burst into tears for my son, both biological and machine. How can life be so cruel as to take him from me not once, but twice? I’d ask myself this and I’d scream in rage and frustration, and the tears would flow like a biblical flood.
But for now, my eyes were dry. My face was frozen. I watched this child that looked like my Pablo enter the room. His gait was normal. He looked to me, then to Jerry, face devoid of recognition. Then he smiled. A programmed smile that chilled me in its imitation of my son but failure to evoke his joy. I wanted to vomit.
“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t take this thing home and pretend it’s him.”
I didn’t wait for a response from either Jerry or the tech. I left. I walked away from that lab and kept walking. I walked to all the places that had meant something to Pablo. To his school, the park, his best friend’s house. I passed them all and walked until my feet could no longer take it. Then I flagged down an AutoRide and had it take me home.
Jerry said nothing when I came in, nor did I say a thing to him. I simply walked to our bedroom with the intention of going to bed, but as I passed Pablo’s room, I couldn’t help but glance in. He was lying in bed, eyes closed. An imitation of sleep. It had been artificial for years, I thought, but it had never been so obvious to me as it was now. Next to the bed was Jerry’s E-Pad. I knew right away why it was there. He’d read to him. Read him his favorite bedtime story.
I turned away and continued to our room.
As the weeks passed, we got out of our rental contract and bought a house. Jerry insisted it would be a better place for a child. Somewhere outside the city with lots of trees. Somewhere to make a fresh start in.
I was so numb I didn’t care. I felt like a machine myself, going through the motions of everyday life, nothing but an imitation of the real me. Maybe that’s why I didn’t object when Jerry took such care to include the robot in our move. He spent hours helping it pack up the room, discussing each item we should take with us, and telling the machine why it was important. Why it had meant something to our son.
“This is Blue Bunny,” I heard him say. “You probably won’t remember getting him. I bought him for you at the hospital gift shop the day you were born.” A laugh. “Man, you wouldn’t go anywhere without him as a toddler. And bedtimes, of course. Right up until you got big.”
He didn’t mention the other time Blue Bunny had joined us at the hospital. Nor the way Pablo had held him until his hand went slack and Bunny rolled to the floor where a kind nurse had later found him and returned him to us.
“We’ll make sure Bunny’s comfortable in this box,” Jerry said. “We’ll wrap this blanket around him and maybe throw in a few of his friends too.”
“Why is the fur on his nose rubbed off?”
Pablo’s voice. It felt like a dagger to my heart every time I heard it speak.
“Yeah, he’s a little worn out there, but that’s only because you used to rub noses with him all the time. Remember that?”
A giggle. “I don’t remember. But I believe you.”
The voice was Pablo, but the giggle and words were pure programming. I went into the kitchen and started packing anything we wouldn’t immediately need. I made as much noise as I could in the process, even managing to break an old serving dish that had been my mother’s. Anything was better than listening to Jerry’s denial and that voice that was slowly killing me from the inside out.
The house we bought was next to a lake. It wasn’t as grand as the old family home, but it was peaceful. I liked to sit on the back porch and stare out toward the water, watching the ripples until my tea grew cold.
Jerry had taken time off from work. It was his own business anyway, and we’d be alright for a while since Cybervivus had given us even more money than they’d promised, no doubt hoping to stave off a lawsuit. He spent his days taking the robot out on a little rowboat he’d bought second-hand. Something he’d never done before with either incarnation of Pablo.
He talked to it for hours on end. This from a man who’d never strung two words together with ease. Suddenly Jerry was the great storyteller. He spoke to this Pablo facsimile about our family, our old home, how we’d met, all the things we liked to do together. They spoke of favorite foods and sports, cartoons, music.
I’d become the silent one. I was the ghost who haunted this house, noticed only by the faint and fleeting scent of tea in the air.
I didn’t know how to handle this Jerry. It made me sad that he tried so hard to recreate his son in this hollow machine. But I couldn’t take it away from him if this was part of the process he needed to heal. I considered whether we should seek counseling. But what kind? Family counselling? Were we even still a family?
For my part, I pretended the robot didn’t exist. I never spoke of it. I tried not to think of it if I could. I kept to myself, saying little to Jerry. Loving him still, but from afar.
Each night he’d put the child robot to bed, encouraging it to brush teeth incapable of decay, reading to it, talking to it. During the day, he’d prepare Pablo’s favorite meals and snacks for it, even though it didn’t require nourishment.
I took my meals at different times. I spent my days alone, passing them as I moved throughout the house, but never acknowledging the robot. Most of the time just sitting on the porch, watching the ripples in the water.
“I was thinking we could all take an AutoRide to get to know the area a little better,” Jerry said one morning.
I nearly jumped out of my chair; I’d been so focused on the water. I reached for my tea but realized it had gone cold the moment it touched my lips, and put it back down.
“You want to take a ride?” I said, my voice sounding foreign to my own ears.
“The three of us.”
“If that’ll make you happy.”
I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t think of a way to tell him that, so I let my body move me toward the AutoRide Jerry had called. I sat across from Jerry and the robot. Stared out the windows as it moved, saying nothing. Not knowing what I could say anyway.
We reached a field after a while. In it, next to the road, was a large tree whose leaves fluttered in the breeze. But as we approached, I realized these weren’t leaves, rather hundreds of monarch butterflies. I felt my mouth open and something…something I couldn’t put my finger on. I was feeling something for the first time in a long while.
“Stop. Stop the ride.”
The AutoRide came to a smooth standstill by the side of the road. Jerry told it to open the door and I got out. I headed for the tree, then stood beneath it, unsure what I’d intended by approaching it. I watched the butterflies sunning themselves. Watched their wings slowly open and close, reflecting the sunlight in brilliant orange and shiny black.
“They’re like me,” I heard Pablo’s voice.
I didn’t turn to look. I wanted to believe it was my Pablito. I wanted to believe this was just any day in our life together.
“How are they like you, my love?”
“They started out in one form, then took another,” he said. “Daddy told me about butterflies. In one of the stories he read to me.”
I nodded.
“Mommy? How come you never read me stories anymore?”
I couldn’t help myself. I turned to look at him, his face, Pablito’s face, staring up at me expecting an answer. Behind him stood Jerry, tears in his eyes and hands held to his face. I couldn’t read his expression. For a moment I watched him, then he put his hands down and took a breath so hard it shook his body. He was crying but also smiling, then laughing. I wondered if things had finally gotten to be too much for him. If the loss of our son had finally broken him too.
“I—I never told him that,” he said, finally. “I never once told him you read to him before. I didn’t want him to know you were avoiding him.”
I stared at the robot that looked like my son. The machine that had been my Pablo.
“What stories did I read you?” I asked.
And he told me. Not just their titles but how he liked the way I did voices.
“Daddy never does the voices right.”
He talked about how we’d rub noses at the end, the signal that stories were done for the night, and how he’d started doing the same with Blue Bunny.
“That’s why his nose is all worn now,” he said. “I don’t know why, but all that just came to me now. I think I’d forgotten for a little bit.”
I felt the tears well in my eyes.
“He remembers,” Jerry said.
I knelt and took his hand—my son’s hand—and pulled him closer.
“Pablo, what else do you remember?”
“Just that,” he said. “But I didn’t remember that before today.”
I looked at Jerry, his smile brighter than it had even been on our wedding day. I looked again at this child. At Pablo. My son.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been myself lately,” I said. “Maybe I can read to you tonight.”
“The butterfly book?”
“Yes.”
“And to Bunny too?”
“Of course.”
He smiled. Not the smile that was part of his standard programming, but a real smile. Pablo’s smile. Then one of the butterflies took flight and he ran after it. Just like a real boy. Just like Pablito would have.
I stood and Jerry came to me, wrapping me in his arms even as he both sobbed and laughed.
“He’s still in there,” he said, into my hair.
Yes, he is, I thought. And maybe if we continued to search for him together, we’d one day get him back completely. Our son, alive again, for a third time.
