Clare watches a man on YouTube, who can play the guitar and sing to animals, and they come to him and cuddle him, and her mother tells her it’s a bunch of AI nonsense, and her brother tells her she’s being a girl again, which to him is an insult.

One afternoon, Clare swings out her window, climbs up the drainpipe to the top of the apartment building. She plays “La Vie en Rose” on her ukulele. She sings to the crows passing above her, sounding as French and fancy and smart and like Lady Gaga as she can. They do not come to her.

She has seen rats up here, but they do not come out of their little holes either, and she doesn’t think the cold weather is why. She sees cats on the street and plays to them. She even plays to the jays she can’t see in the trees. She can hear them. They do not come to her.

The man on YouTube is magical. She can hear it in his voice and see it in the way that the animals love him. She decides that she is not magical, never was. Still, she plays to the crows, to the jays, to the rats and the cats. She hits that high sweet spot near the end of the song. It is enough to make her tear up.

Each time, she looks around. She is still alone.