Ari paced five steps to the left, then five steps to the right. She glanced through the kitchen doorway at her grandma. “How much longer again?”

Fatima set her knife down, feeling the burn of onions flood her eyes. She squinted at her watch. “It’s only 5:09, sweetie. We’ve still got some time.”

Ari looked back down at her feet. She didn’t like the way time felt when her dad wasn’t home. “One, two, three, four, five,” she counted, stepping more slowly. “Five, four, three, two, one.” She wiggled her toes inside her socks. “What about now?”

Fatima smiled, peering again at her wrist. “Aha. 5:10. Slowly but surely, my dear.”

“Five and five is ten.”

“Yes. It certainly is.”

“I am five.”

“That you are.”

“Two of me would be ten.”

“Yes, very good.”

Ari kept pacing. She wasn’t very old, but she still knew a few things.

For one, she knew how to count to ten. She’d been doing it since she was three. She could count to ten people or ten animals or ten cars or ten words or ten sounds or ten anything else. It occupied most of her mind, most of the time. Most of the time, she liked it.

Another thing she knew was that there was an old man in the neighborhood who walked his dog every morning and always hummed the same song. She could hear him from her window, which her grandma kept open in the summer. One time she’d pretended she was a bird and yelled out a high-pitched squeak before diving to the floor so he couldn’t see her. She’d counted to ten ten whole times before sitting up.

Ari knew other things too. Like that today, August 26th, was her birthday. And that she was turning five. And that her dad was really good at puzzles. And that her mom wasn’t alive anymore. And that it took ten big steps to get from one side of her room to the other.

“K, what about now?” she asked.

“It’s 5:14 now.”

“What time does he usually get home again?”

“Around 5:50.”

“No, what time exactly.”

“Well, that depends. Sometimes it’s 5:48, sometimes 5:52. It’s not an exact science, sweetie.”

Ari turned away. “It should be,” she muttered. “It should be exact science.”

Fatima smiled at the little girl’s back. “Yes, your father thinks so too.”

Dev placed the lamp with the other lamps, then checked the clock. 5:20. He nodded, moving back to the sorting pile, and reached for the next thing: the bottom half of a flowerpot. He didn’t hesitate with this one, just moved it straight to the trash bin.

Most of the things people donated to Goodwill were quite easy for Dev to sort. The clothes went on clothing racks, the books onto bookshelves, the lamps with the other lamps, and broken flowerpots with the other garbage. Sometimes, though, he came across harder things. He liked to call these objects thinkers. For example, a few months back, someone had donated a porcelain toilet seat. That had been a real thinker. He’d probably spent five whole minutes just staring at it, trying to figure out where it should go. A different time he’d found brass knuckles inside an Easy Bake Oven. That had been another thinker; two things in one.

He also, on occasion, came across fecal matter. This was a part of the job Dev did not like, so he tried not to think about it much. Today that had been easy, because he was mostly thinking about his daughter, Ari. Today was her birthday. She was turning five.

Once ten minutes had passed, Dev got his bag from his locker and pushed through the warehouse’s wide double doors. The brightness of the store made him squint, and then his eyes adjusted and he was able to see Robyn, smiling at him.

Dev waved as he moved toward her. Robyn was not just a cashier at Goodwill but also his closest friend. He always said good-bye to her before he left.

“Calling it a night?” she asked, as she set her station to Closed.

Dev slid a hand into his pocket, clenching the small, jagged rock hidden there. “Yes. Yes, it’s 5:30 already. Hard to believe. Time flies when you are sorting.”

“Well, hold on a second then. I’ve got something for you.” Robyn reached for something at her feet and held out a box toward him. “Came in a few days ago. You don’t have Kentucky yet, do ya?”

Dev raised his fists. “I do not!” He looked around, lowering his arms. “Sorry,” he said more quietly. “I do not.”

Dev liked to think of puzzles as a kind of travel, and he was currently traveling to every state in the country. He had only seven left to go. Soon to be six.

“Thank you for this, Robyn. I will send you a picture as soon as it’s finished.”

“I’ll be awaiting your postcard,” she said, smiling.

Dev studied the puzzle. The horses, he could tell, would be easy. But everything else—the crowd, the track, and especially the sky—would be quite challenging. Rachel had always hated puzzles with this much sky.

“Hope the bus is on time for you tonight,” Robyn said. “I know it’s been lagging lately.”

Dev looked up from the box, squeezing his rock. “Yes. Thank you, Robyn. I hope so too. And thank you again for the puzzle.”

“Of course. Give Ari a big birthday kiss for me.”

Just as it had been the day before, and the day before that, the bus was late picking Dev up. Three minutes, to be specific, and it lost another two on the way home, making it five whole minutes late when it dropped him off at the corner of Ash and Steele. Not good.

Ari froze when she heard his footsteps, feeling them tickle inside her chest. Fatima raised her eyebrows as the door creaked open.

“Where is my birthday girl?” Dev shouted, his voice echoing through the house.

“Here!” Ari shouted, jumping into her father’s arms. “Here here here!”

Dev kissed her five times on the forehead. “Five kisses for Ari because Ari is five,” he said.

“More more more,” she said back.

“Nope. Sorry. Not until you are six.”

Ari frowned.

“Only joking, of course! Daddy is only joking.” Dev kissed his daughter five more times, and five more after that, and then he carried her to the soft red couch in the living room.

Fatima smiled at the two of them. They always did this after Dev’s workdays. She liked to think of it as their daily briefing.

Dev pulled the puzzle from his work bag, setting it on the coffee table between them.

“A puzzle!” Ari shouted.

“Yes. A puzzle from Robyn at work.” Dev looked at his mother. “Kentucky.”

She smiled. “You’re getting so close.”

Ari crawled off her father’s lap and peered down at the puzzle. “Why are all the horses running?”

“They are not just running, Ari. They are racing.”

Ari considered this for a moment, then decided she didn’t like the idea of horses racing. She booped the nose of the smallest one, a ways behind the others. “She’s my favorite. I think her name is…Grompf.”

“That is quite a strange name, Ari,” Dev said.

Ari climbed back onto her father’s lap. “No it isn’t.”

Dev kissed his daughter’s hair and stayed there an extra moment, with his face pressed against her head. “Well, okay,” he said, leaning back. “Now you must tell me, how was your birthday today?”

“It was great!”

“And what was your favorite thing that you did?”

“We made a cake!”

“And what kind of cake did you make?”

“Birthday cake!”

“Oh. Yes.”

“Tell him what kind of birthday cake you chose,” her grandmother said.

“Chocolate! With chocolate frosting.”

“You did? And is that your favorite kind of cake?”

“Yes! Because it’s the best kind.”

“Oh. Well, Mommy Rachel thought so too, Ari. She loved chocolate cake too.”

“Okay.”

Fatima moved toward the two of them. “Tell your father about the new friend we made on our walk.”

“A new friend?” Dev repeated. “Ari made a new friend? Even before she goes to kindergarten next week, where she will make about a zillion billion new friends?”

Fatima breathed out a laugh and sat down beside them. “Yes. Even before that.”

“What new friend?” Ari asked, confused.

“Don’t you remember? Rocco?”

“Oh yeah! We met a doggy on our walk, and his name was Rocco, and he was so sweet. He kept wanting to lick my face! And his, uh, human let me give him a treat.”

“That sounds like such a fun birthday, Ari. Such a fun birth—”

Dev stopped, feeling something loosen inside him. His eyes flicked to his mother, who held his gaze. He nodded once. Then again. Then he shut his eyes.

“Why did you stop talking, Daddy?” Ari asked.

Dev swallowed and opened his eyes again. His mother gave him a small nod. “Well, I just—” He cleared his throat. “I just always miss you so much when I am at work, Ari. Grandma and I will be so sad when you go to kindergarten next week. But it will be very fun for you. Don’t worry about us. We will be okay here. All alone.”

“Yes, yes. We’ll survive. How was your day, hon?” Fatima asked him.

“It was a very good day. Hard work, though, like always. Someday Ari will have a job like Daddy, and then she will know.”

“I want to be a spider-catcher!” Ari shouted.

Fatima frowned. “I thought you were afraid of spiders.”

“I am. That’s why I want to catch them.”

Fatima chuckled. “I see.”

“That is very brave of you, Ari. I know Mommy Rachel would be very proud of that—of how brave you have become. You get that from her, I think.”

“Okay.”

Ari looked down, and Fatima ruffled a hand through her thick brown hair. “Why don’t we let your father go upstairs and change? You can help me set the table.”

The most highly anticipated event of the evening was bath time, no doubt about it. It happened every night at 8:00, which gave Ari enough time to digest and Fatima enough time to tidy up the kitchen and dining room to her liking. Afterward, of course, the bathroom needed tidying too, but Fatima didn’t mind this nightly barrage of mess. She didn’t even really think of it as cleaning anymore. More like collecting—moving from room to room, rounding up all the joy that had passed through.

“Bath time for Ari. Bath time for Ari,” Dev sang, with his daughter perched high on his hip.

“Bath time for Ari, bath time for Ari!” she sang back.

Fatima followed a few steps behind, smiling. Ever since Ari had begun speaking, she’d taken to repeating the things her father said, things that were often, due to her son’s own speech patterns, already repeated at least once or twice. They were their own little echo chamber, bouncing small nothings back and forth like soft, reassuring kisses.

Once the tub was full, Dev lowered Ari into the water. She could do this on her own now. She’d just turned five, after all. But that didn’t matter. This was how they’d always done it, and none of them saw a reason to make a change quite yet.

Tonight she was at the circus. Ari had never been to a circus, and neither had Dev, but they both thought she was getting it just right. There were gymnasts, and a trapeze artist, and someone on stilts, and a tightrope-walker.

Ari liked it when her daddy watched her play. She played differently when he was watching. He always laughed when she did voices, so she did more of them when he watched. It was like making a movie. She was the star, and he was the audience.

“Be very careful,” Ari said to the tightrope-walker. “Don’t fall off, or you’ll die.”

“Maybe just get hurt, Ari,” her dad said. “Maybe just get hurt, not die.”

“No. Die.”

“Oh. Well, okay then. Yes. Be extra careful then, Mr. Tightrope-Walker.”

“Mrs. Tightrope-Walker. It’s a girl. Actually, it’s a girl-only circus. No boys allowed.”

“No boys allowed?”

“That’s right. Except Daddy. One boy allowed.”

“That is very nice of you, Ari.”

“Yes, but it’s expensive. Ten million dollars a ticket.”

“But I don’t have ten million dollars. Do I have to leave the circus now?”

“No. That’s okay. You can, um, you can just give it to us later.”

Fatima watched Dev and Ari playing from the bathroom doorway. Ari was pretending that her forearm was the tightrope and her fingers were the walker.

“Easy does it,” Dev said, from his small wooden chair beside the tub. He leaned closer as Ari’s hand crept forward, and the chair creaked underneath him. “Very careful now.”

“No talking, please! She needs to focus.”

“Yes. Yes. Sorry.”

Ari pretended the walker was stumbling on her arm. She fluttered her fingers before slowing them and continuing forward. “That’s why there’s no talking.”

“But you are talking too, Ari,” Dev said—and with that Ari’s fingers slid off her forearm into the murky bathwater.

“She’s dead now. Oh well.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Is she with Mommy now?”

Fatima felt her face tighten.

“With Mommy?” Dev asked.

“Yes, the tightrope-walker. Is she with Mommy in heaven?”

“Well, um, Mommy Rachel did not believe in heaven, Ari.”

“What did she believe in, then?”

Dev paused as he thought about this. Then he shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I forgot to ask her.”

“Oh. Well, I think she is.”

“You think she is what?”

“I think the tightrope-walker is with Mommy in heaven.”

“Oh. Well…we can’t really know something like this, Ari.”

“Do you think Mommy knows it’s my birthday?”

“We can’t know that either. That is not something we can know.” Dev stood up. “Okay, I think I will go get some water now. I am feeling very thirsty all of a sudden. Very thirsty all of a sudden.” Fatima stepped aside, and Dev walked past her. “Daddy will be right back,” he said.

Fatima moved back into the doorframe, locking eyes with her granddaughter.

“How come I made Daddy mad?” Ari asked.

“You didn’t, sweetie. You make your father very happy. Always. I promise.”

Ari slid into the water until the bubbles kissed her nostrils.

Fatima peered down the hall. She heard a glass clink in the kitchen and the sink begin to run. Faintly, she could hear the hum of her son’s voice, talking to himself. She sighed, then turned back to Ari, whose eyes had closed.

A few moments later, Dev’s footsteps returned, and Ari sat up. When he peered inside, Ari smiled as wide as she could. “Daddy, Daddy!” she yelled. “The tightrope-walker, she lived!”

“She did?” He sat back in his chair. “Even after such a great fall?”

“Yes! You were right, she only got hurt! Want to talk to her? She’s right here.”

Dev scooted his chair a bit closer to the tub. “Oh. Okay. Yes, Ari. I will talk to her.”

Ari scooped up a handful of bubbles and spread them across her chin. “She has a beard. She’s from, um, Iceland. Her beard’s made of ice.”

“Oh. Well, I am so glad that you are okay, Mrs. Tightrope-Walker. We were so worried about you here in the bathroom.”

“I’ve broken every bone in my body, and all of my blood got bled, and my head fell off a little, but I lived. Hallelujah!”

“Yes. Hallelujah, Mrs. Tightrope-Walker!” Dev repeated, matching her volume. He smiled at his daughter. “Hallelujah that you are still here.”

There were constellations on Ari’s bedroom ceiling. They glowed at night, once her daddy turned off the lights. Dev sat in his usual spot, just beneath Orion. Ari, tucked between Ursa Minor and Ursa Major, smiled up at him.

“Can you tell me a story?” she asked.

“What kind of story? A birthday story or a bedtime story?”

“A bedtime story, about Mommy.”

Most nights, Ari asked for a story about her mommy before bed. They weren’t usually very good stories, but she liked that her daddy liked telling them. And each one gave her something new that she could pretend to remember.

Dev looked down at his shoes, focusing. “Well, let us see then. Let us see. Maybe just a short Mommy story, because it is late and Ari needs her sleep, so she can have another fun day tomorrow.”

Ari wriggled deeper under the covers, until all Dev could see were her eyes. She clenched her right fist as tight under the blanket, waiting. Sometimes she liked to play little games with herself while her daddy talked, to help her focus.

“Okay. Here is one. When Mommy Rachel and I lived in our old apartment, before you were born and we moved into this house, there was a mouse living with us.”

Ari released a finger from her fist. One. “A mouse?” she asked, scratching her pajama leg with her nail.

“Yes! A mouse.”

“Were you scared?”

“Yes,” Dev laughed. “I was very scared of the mouse. But Mommy Rachel, she liked it. She even gave him a name!”

Ari lifted a second finger. Two.

“What name did she give him?”

“Rufus T. Blumengartner.”

“What?”

“Rufus T. Blumengartner.”

Ari scrunched her face.

He shrugged. “I don’t know either, Ari.”

“Why did she name him that?”

“Well, Mommy Rachel was very creative.”

Ari lifted a third finger.

“Just like you are very creative. And sometimes I did not understand the things her brain did because I am not so creative. But this is not the story yet.”

“Okay. What’s the story?”

“The story is that one day, Mommy Rachel was going to take a shower, and I was working on a puzzle in the kitchen, and I heard Mommy scream.”

Ari felt her heart beat a bit faster as she released another finger. Four. One more to go.

“Mommy screamed?”

“Yes.”

“Was it Rufus?”

“Yes. But, um, Rufus was not alive anymore.”

“He died?”

“Yes. Rufus got stuck in the bathtub, and he died. But this is still not the whole story.”

“Oh. Okay. Then what happened?”

“We had a funeral for him! Mommy wrapped him up all nice and warm in one of her sweatshirts, and we buried him behind our apartment next to the dumpster that always smelled like urine. And that is the whole story. Time for bed, Ari.”

Ari felt alarm in her skin. “Daddy, wait!” she shouted, as he moved toward the door.

“Yes, Ari? Is everything all right?”

“Um, yeah. It’s just…I love you.”

Dev smiled at his daughter, feeling himself opening up again. He reached for his rock. “Yes. Yes. Daddy and Mommy—Daddy and Mommy—Daddy and Mommy Rachel love you too, Ari. So much.”

“Good night, Daddy.”

“Good night, Ari. I hope you had a very happy birthday.”

Dev closed the door as softly as he could, waiting until it clicked shut before letting his hand fall. He stared down at his shoes as tears filled his eyes.

Ari took a deep breath in her warm, quiet room, smiling to herself. Five.

ARI tells the story of a girl raised by her autistic father in the years after her mother’s death. It is a novel about grief, neurodivergence, devotion, autonomy, and the burden of being loved by someone who needs you a little too much. In writing this book, I came to think of it not as a story but as a nervous system, and I came to think of the chapters as breaths. I’m not really a very woo person, and I would definitely roll my eyes at that statement if I were reading it (so I’ll give you a moment to do that), but it is true. I also invited the three main characters to meditate with me. I’ll give you another moment. Maybe two. Okay. So yeah, it was this very slow, nauseatingly woo practice that, on and off, over the course of a decade, led to this novel. And I’m immensely proud of it. I feel so grateful to have lived and breathed with these characters for as long as I have.

I am also someone who lives with OCD, and so writing Ari’s developmental arc, and her experience within her own mind, felt terrifyingly familiar a lot of the time. Trying to figure out how to present her symptoms not only gradually, and as directly adaptive, but also as very often pleasurable in her early childhood, before becoming more and more specific and restrictive over time, was such an exciting writing challenge. In addition, since I am someone who is immersed both professionally and personally in the developmentally disabled community, being able to write Dev and to spend so much time with him and his family felt like an incredible gift.

I am a writer of both books and plays, and feel most drawn to projects that distill the chaos of human connection into something we carry in our bodies. As a person, I feel drawn to silliness and play in all their glorious forms, whether it’s working with kids, excavating long, drawn-out bits with loved ones, or dinking around with my furry friend, Pinto.