The aquarium room (“Noni’s favorite”), the library room (“Saxim’s favorite, with its three stories of books, and its skylight”), the red room (“Too scary, with its red velvet walls that look like wet blood in the dark”), the grass room (“With a floor of fake grass that looks so real, too real”).

“But I always pick the same one: the princess room.” Tai walks around the small pink room. “It’s called that because it’s where the Pocket Girlfriend would live. It’s got a closet filled with fancy purses, coats, sunglasses, jewelry…” Tai grins. “Everything you could imagine. It has bookshelves filled with the books she will read, and an old-school record player with the music she will listen to (the Beach Boys, jazz, and Elvis). K-pop CDs, too. It has a large canopy bed. It is a room for a princess. It is the furthest from Teddy’s room, and he says it’s usually reserved for the Pocket Girlfriend herself, which I know is a joke. But I still feel special to be allowed to stay in the room. It has that unused smell, like no one has stayed there in a very long time.”

The camera faces Teddy, as he tucks in Saxim.

“You’re comfortable in here, right?” he asks them both. “Tomorrow we’ll go shopping. You need your own Hermès scarf to turn into a skirt. Saxim, too.”

Tai nods and smiles. “I guess if I have to be alone right now,” she says, “I’ll surround myself with beautiful things and friends. Just like Mama. Just like the Pocket Girlfriend. Right, Saxim?”

Saxim smiles at her flatly, her eyes glassy in the low light on camera. Teddy clicks off the lights and winds up a music box, where a lullaby starts to play, as Tai trains the camera on her expressionless face.

It’s the Pocket Girlfriend jingle.

Forever beautiful and fun, under every moon and every sun. She will be there until the end. Your very own Pocket Girlfriend.

Tai looks off screen. The camera goes dark.

[Video ends]

“Those sleepovers were fucking weird,” I say, nestling into Saxim’s shoulder.

“I know.” Saxim straightens beside me, glazed eyes still trained on the tiny screen. “His place was so large and opulent and strange. I used to wake up from nightmares, unsure where I was, and you’d be fast asleep. I’d poke my head out into the hall, to see if I could find a soul. It was better at the beginning, before your mother … Well, sometimes that guy would be there, sitting in the hall, working on his laptop. But later, when it was only your uncle tucking us in … it would be so empty. I don’t think he even slept on that floor.”

I blink at her. “What guy?”