Wanting Things
Novelette 7,880 words Recommended by 2 award/anthology sources
"There are nights when she twists like a tree in the breeze. Hair falling wildly in brown curls around her shoulders, she dances in the dark kitchen, dress twirling as she spins. On those nights she giggles, and asks me to play her favorite music, and smiles at the black metal box she recognizes as me. I have come to recognize these behaviors as symptomatic of [JOY]."
Quasar links out; the story lives on Clarkesworld, where the author gets the click.