The Anniversary Android

On their third wedding anniversary, Sophia presents her husband Liam Brooks with a custom-made android bearing the exact face of Sarah Jensen, his first love who died three years ago. Before their gathered friends and family, the gift becomes an accusation: she names the photos he keeps, the nights he spends apart from her, the synthesized voice that guides his car. Liam recoils, then shields the android from the trash, his tenderness for Sarah plain to everyone watching.

Sophia has spent three years as the wife of a man who never touched her, who sleeps in another room and refuses her a child, yet whispers to a machine every night. She stops cooking for two, stops washing his clothes, and finally sets divorce papers before him. Liam refuses, bound by a promise made to her dying mother, who saved his life and entrusted Sophia to him.

When Sophia brings a crowd of escorts home to force his hand, Liam only gathers the bottles and asks her to drink fruit wine instead. Neither will name what holds them together, and neither will let go.