I smashed the porcelain doll’s head in by accident. Stupid thing; I was going to be in trouble.
Why was it always dolls with Grandma? Christmas dolls, birthday dolls, blinky dolls and china dolls, sitting staring out from every crook and cornice. Grandma converted Dad’s room into a doll museum. The small dolls are on the bed, the blinky ones on the dresser and the American girl dolls are in the closet with all their accessories and outfits packed in boxes and labeled. I don’t know where Dad’s old stuff is. We don’t have it. Grandma could have used Dad’s younger sister’s room; it’s bigger and fancier, full of lace and frills. But she keeps that room as it was when his sister was in the house. I’ve only ever seen it once; we aren’t allowed in.
If Grandma were smart, like my Uncle Denny, she would have dug a house out under her house by herself and put the dolls there. Then she wouldn’t have given us this doll, and I couldn’t have broken it. (Uncle Denny didn’t have dolls; he had a homemade lab, punchcard computer, and cot so that he had somewhere to sleep. He rented out his actual house so that he had money to live. Dad said that he is a doctor, but not the kind that help people . To help people he digs through trash to find old computers to fix. ) She went on and on about how nice this doll was, how only big girls could handle having it. She went back and forth about giving it to us a few times. And then I went and broke it. Of course it would work out that way.
Dolls are stupid. I don’t even like them; I was bored. It deserved to have it’s head broken, but I don’t like how it’s looking at me now, with only half a face. I only ever liked the nesting doll and reversible babushka that Halmoni brought back from from Russia. That was long ago, before she broke her back in China. Russia is the greatest country because it has the greatest folktales and names. I used to confuse it with Canada because they’re the same shape and color in my head. Grandma would never give me a Russian doll.
My sisters don’t like dolls either, but Grandma keeps buying them for us. At least she buys me my own, she makes them share because they’re twins. Mom doesn’t like that.
In any case, dolls are better than looking at her worm garden. I suppose I should be glad that it’s not a snail garden; I’m afraid of snails. They look like great sticky aliens slurping along the sidewalk, plotting, twisting, letting their shells be smashed just like the doll let her face be smashed.
Whales are scary too. Sometimes I imagine them in their giant blackness, how they could inhale a person without knowing, and I scare myself.
I should tell someone that I broke the doll. But I’m afraid to; it was expensive. Footsteps came up behind me. Footsteps are scary too.
“Dad?” I shifted.
“What happened?”
“It fell.” The truth was I dropped it, but I figured the less attached I was to the catastrophe, the better. He glanced at the broken doll and the black hole in her face, sucking my stomach down towards like a mouth hungry for fear.
“That’s mildly disturbing.” He sighed. I sat crossing and twisting my fingers, waiting. He didn’t seem angry.
“Will Mom notice?” I tilted my head. The hole wasn’t that bad--was it? Less than half her face was gone.
“I think so.” He picked it up and put it back on the little wooden chair.
“Don’t move, there’s broken glass.” He scooped up shards. “You shouldn’t play with delicate toys. Though I’m not sure why Grandma gave it to you.”
“What’s happening?” Mom poked her head around the corner.
“The doll broke.”
“Great, now it’s going to give her nightmares. As if it didn’t before.” Mom disappeared. “Don’t let her cut herself.” She called back. Warmth rushed back into me as I realized that the crisis had passed.
The doll sat half-staring on the shelf. She wasn’t going to give me nightmares, that was silly. Grandma had cared so much about that doll, I felt guilty. But if Mom and Dad didn’t care, well, what could I do about that?
The next day someone took mercy and buried it in the trash.
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