The Doll

Chapter 8

I was sitting with my legs crossed in my playroom on down feather pillows scattered on the floor, the Doll resting in my lap, while I flipped through the pages of a scrapbook of my life. It contained the first photograph of myself at the hospital, pictures of my parents - their smiles were so big, were they actually genuine? - taking turns holding me at home, my first birthday, my second birthday, my first day at school, etc.

I studied myself in each picture, in between whispered explanations to the Doll, to scrutinize my mental disposition at the time. In the earlier pictures I was so innocent, laughing and smiling, but by the time I was three years old I’d remarked a change. In the picture of my third birthday, I was sitting at the table, party hat on my pigtails, with a sour look at the present I’d just opened, a pout coming along. Agatha was standing near me, and I could tell by the look on her face that she was heartbroken. Her eyes expressed disappointment, and her face - less lines than it had now - drooped from her frowning mouth.

I remembered that exact moment. At the time I was obsessed with Mary Jane shoes, and I’d yelled and screamed to get every pair I saw. Agatha, with her own money, bought me a very beautiful pair of expensive black Mary Janes with rhinestone buckles. Just before my birthday I’d decided I didn’t care for Mary Janes anymore, and when I saw those unwrapped shoes at the birthday I was very angry. How could I have been so insensitive to Agatha? It was very kind of her to get me such a beautiful present, even if I treated her like crap all the time. She never deserved any of the horrible treatment she got. She had taken better care of me than my own mother had.

I flipped through all the pages until I got to the last ones, which included pictures from New Year’s as well as my birthday. The discontent and snobby air in my face seemed to diminish with every picture, and I looked happy, but not just a simple kind of happiness, a real feeling of content. In a few of the pictures I was holding the Doll, and though many say a picture is worth a thousand words, I felt like the picture had come up short. The image didn’t express her wisdom, her gentleness, her compassion, only a lifeless porcelain figure.

“Britney, telephone!”

My nanny’s voice bounced off the walls of the mansion, and at the call I gently put down the scrapbook and the Doll, whispered “I’ll be back” and scurried to the pink fuzzy phone in my bedroom. I quickly picked it up and held the receiver to my ear. “Hello?”

“Hi Britney, it’s me, Elizabeth!” greeted the voice on the other line.

“Oh hey, Lizzie. How are you?”

“I’m okay, just waiting until we go to the court house in a couple of hours. I’m not looking forward to it.”

I could note the fear and anxiety in her voice. “I know you’re not looking forward to it, but don’t worry, it’ll go by quickly. What are you guys going to be doing there?”

Loud barks coming from my mother’s lapdog from the hallway made it harder for me to hear her. I plugged my left ear with my finger and held the receiver closer to my other ear.

“Just settling some more things about what they call “division of assets”. I’m guessing I’m an asset too, but I used to think it was only for stuff like cars and money…”

“I used to hear my father talking about that in his office. One - ”

I heard a high-pitched crash that sounded like it came from the foyer. The noise, along with harsh whispers and barks, caught my curiosity. I was eager to find out what episode had occurred downstairs. “Liz, can I call you back?”

“Sure, I’ve got an hour to waste anyway.”

I put the phone back in its place on the table, and hurried out of my bedroom. I approached the banister leading to the staircase, lowered my head with my elbows up and peered down.

Agatha and three other maids were crowded around a small object on the floor. A butler was carrying the barking cocker spaniel out the door into the grounds. I squinted my eyes to get a closer look at the fallen piece. I could see some cloth, specks of blue and brown, the blue appearing to come from shiny fabric, and the brown was textured, like it was glossy and curly. Its broken pieces had limbs, like an arm, or a leg… Oh goodness no… It couldn’t possibly be, no, no it couldn’t…

My heart skipped a beat, I darted down the marble stairs, ran through the grand foyer and pushed the maids out of my way. A sharp gasp escaped me as soon as my eyes laid on the object. I dropped to my knees and reached out to the broken figure. Shock and horror flashed through my body like lightning, and tears filled my eyes quickly.

There in front of me stood the pieces of the Doll.

Her porcelain limbs were shattered into tiny pieces, broken off from her clothed body and thrown in different directions, and the face was cracked in four. Her remains were mutilated compared to the beautiful being she once was, it was a mockery, such a mockery. The quiet content and wit on her face disappeared and was replaced with blank death. Her face was split diagonally each way across her face, so disgusting. She was no longer my friend, just a corpse, a grotesque corpse of something that was more than precious. It was now only a worthless object, robbed of all life it had.

Two beings were robbed of something that day. She was robbed of her life - she was, no matter how many will ever tell me inanimate objects aren’t alive - and I was robbed of my closest friend. I couldn’t breathe, it felt like someone had ripped out my heart without warning, and I was left there naked, alone, vulnerable, lost. I heaved and heaved sobs and tears, shaking uncontrollably and gliding my hand painfully over the wreckage.

“Britney?” It was Agatha’s voice, caring and concerned, but she seemed like worlds away. “Britney, are you okay?”

“I… I… She… I… What… What happened?” I lifted my head, and I popped up to the surface of reality. I tried to gather my thoughts (messily if anything) and rage started to stream through me. “What happened?”

“Oh, dear,” sighed Agatha, her lips tight and thinned into a line. Sympathy poured out of her eyes. She kneeled down beside me, and put her arm around my shoulders. “Your mother’s dog went loose. It ran out of the boudoir, and it went into your playroom. We tried to catch it, but it was too quick. Before we could get a hold of it, the dog had grabbed the Doll with its teeth, and threw it… threw it off the banister. I’m sorry, Britney, very, very sorry, it really was an accident.”

“It’s not fair…” I mumbled. “It’s just not fair… We can fix her, can’t we? Can’t we?”

“Oh Britney…” Agatha closed her eyes and bit her lip. “The pieces are shattered quite badly. And it’s such an old doll… They don’t make dolls like these anymore…”

“No, no, there has to be a way, there has to be. There’s gotta be somebody, anybody!”

“Britney, I’m sorry. There, there’s no use. The doll’s broken. I’ll get you any doll you want - ”

“No,” I cried, shaking my head. “It’s not the same. It will never be, no other doll is like her…”

“I know, Britney, I know. She was a very special doll… Is there anything I could do for you? Anything at all?”

I closed my eyes shut, feeling the trickle of tears still stream down my face, and I shook my head. There was nothing anyone could have done to help me, except for bringing my doll back, but no one could. She was only a broken thing now, void of all life. Her sweet, animate voice did not speak to me, it was silenced like a muted television. Her glass eyes did not shine with a light of love of secrets, they were cold and blank. It was like she never spoke to me at all, it was ugly… too ugly…

I opened my ears, wiped my face with the backs of my hands, and stretched my arms out to the broken pieces. I slowly gathered her remains, despite the pain it brought me to feel her shattered parts, and brought them into my arms. Steadily, I got up and made my way up the staircase, step by step. Moments flashed before my eyes: the very first moment I opened her gift, the night where I picked her out of the trash and she talked to me for the first time, the day we went to the park and I gave that little girl the jacket and the teddy bear, the talks we had, the tea parties we played, the lessons I learned… Those moments were slipping out of my grip and vanishing into thin air. Why did they have to leave me?

After what seemed like ages, I finally made it to my bedroom. I walked through the threshold and carefully put her shattered remains down onto my bed. I stared down at her, my stomach turning, my eyes watering even more. What was I to do with her now? I couldn’t throw her away! She was too precious for that, but I couldn’t keep her in my sight either. It hurt to look at her, her beauty ripped away. What was I to do?

An idea flickered in my mind. I stumbled over to my playroom, and threw open the French doors to the first toy closet. I searched through the rows and piles of toys, cluttering all of the circular baby blue room. Rummaging through the back of the piles, I found what I was looking for: a large rectangular wooden box, with a little lock and a design of flowers and vines painted all over it. I flipped open the lid (it was unlocked) and dumped its entire contents onto the floor.

I hurried back to my bedroom to where the Doll lay, still broken, still dead. It stung to come back to her like that. I grabbed an embroidered napkin I used for tea parties I had with the Doll, and covered the bottom of the box with it with its sides pouring out of the chest. With heavy breaths, I picked her up piece by piece, laying her at the bottom of the box on top of the cloth, trying to reassemble her as best as I could, so that her broken limbs weren’t all jumbled up. Carefully, I enveloped the napkin over her to create a blanket, closed the lid and locked it. The chest would be her coffin.

I was planning on burying her somewhere in the grounds, to give her a proper funeral like a real person, because she felt as real to me as any human being. I still waited to do it, I couldn’t stand the idea of parting with her yet. I’d clutch the box to my torso, even sometimes bring it to my face, just to be with her a few more minutes.

In the meantime, I stayed in my room to keep to myself. At moments I pinched myself to ensure that I wasn’t dreaming, it felt too horrible to be real. I thought to myself, No, no, the Doll’s perfectly fine. She’s not broken. Then I’d turn to where the wooden chest was, and I’d bring myself to admit that she was truly gone.

Other times I’d be furious, throwing pillows around and thinking, Why did this have to happen? That stupid dog, that filthy beast should be torn to pieces. My mother had to get that mutt. I hate her, I hate her! I blamed everyone for her death, but then I came to my senses, remembering what the Doll told me once when she spoke of her life. She said that those who do ill deeds don’t know what they did, and I told myself that the dog, though it did something wrong, did not know what it do, and was innocent. I had to be strong.

I bargained a few times with God, even though I rarely did so, and pleaded, “Please, I’ll do anything. I’ll give every single toy away to all the poor children I can find, no matter what my mother says. Just bring the Doll back, as good as new.” I’d wait a few minutes, shaking the chest once in a while to hear if the pieces sounded put together, but it never worked. She remained broken.

Finally I became depressed. I just laid in bed, buried under sheets, wallowing in sadness and darkness. I thought there was no point in this world, that life was a cruel and evil place, where no nice beings were safe from the maliciousness that slithered between our legs. There was no point in being nice, or being thankful, because we’d all end up dead from it anyway. But how could I keep on thinking that way? It was the Doll, who was loving and kind, that had made this world happier than I ever saw it. Life was beautiful, no matter how much I denied it.

In the end, I arrived at the last stage of my grief, which was acceptance. I brought myself to comprehend that the Doll had left me, and though she was cruelly taken away, she was gone, and I was to be glad of the time she spent with me, though brief it was, and the positive change she brought to my soul. There was no use grieving and making myself miserable because of it, because she wouldn’t want me to be depressed. She’d want me happy, and full of life.

The day I accepted her death was the day I finally buried her. It had already been a week since the accident. I took a shovel from the groundskeeper’s shed and dug a hole in the back grounds. I made sure it was deep enough for the box never to come back up, and then I placed her down then, and with a final whispered goodbye, I placed the earth back onto her little ersatz coffin, and padded the earth and the snow on top.

It took a while for me to adjust to normal life without her. I’d only been with her a couple of months, but it felt like a lifetime. I told Elizabeth about the accident, and she comforted me and reassured me everything would be all right. She was probably one of the very few people who would ever understand my suffering at that time. I was happy to have friends who I could talk and open myself to, and without the Doll to break my hard exterior I would never be able to cope with grief all alone.

I always repeated to myself the Doll’s teachings on the goal of life, and what brings life meaning: giving from the heart, and to make a difference in the world so that others could remember you as a good person. I smiled when I knew the Doll’s life goal had been reached. I always thought back to her with fondness in my heart, and she had changed me forever. Her print, though small, still made an impact, like how a simple flap of a butterfly’s wings can trigger something bigger than itself.

From then on, I took the Doll’s goal in life to heart. Regardless of my mother’s argument with me, I managed to give away all my used toys in instalments. Every Christmas I made a donation of $1000 to a different charity, and I visited the nearby orphanage and community centre for the less fortunate to hand out the toys, and talk to the little children. I always pictured in my mind that girl in rags at the park, who I imagined to be a lost heiress. I never saw the girl on my outings, but if I did, I know I would have hugged her, or at least talked to her.

I went off to university when I was eighteen years old to become a teacher. The Doll, with her lessons, had inspired me to spread my knowledge to others. I also wanted to help others, especially children, and decided that motivating children, teaching them and taking care of them would be a very fulfilling job.

Though I didn’t live in luxury like I had when I was a child, I was wealthy with love and meaning in my life. The children at the school loved me, and they enjoyed coming to school. I even met a few kids with problems, and helped them take control of their lives. It felt like I was on my way to accomplishing the goal the Doll had taught me.

However, I would never have been able to accomplish my goal if it wasn’t for an accident I had one day. I was driving home from work one rainy afternoon, a smile on my face at the hilarious drama presentation my students had put on for the Spring Arts Night. I hummed to the song on the radio, a guilty pleasure in fact - an old song from ‘NSYNC I hadn’t heard in ages was playing, and I was bobbing my head and singing along, when CRASH!

In the blink of an eye a speeding car collided into my vehicle. The man hurtled towards the side of my car, and I was thrown forcefully into the window at my side. My face bashed into the window, shards of glass flying everywhere. My face burned in pain as I felt blood trickle down. I could hear the high-pitched squealing of metal being crushed and glass being shattered. My body accelerated sideways, my neck hitting my shoulders and snapping it. After that I went blank.

I woke up later with blurred vision, blinding white lights in my eyes, and white walls. I looked around, and found myself in a hospital bed, hooked up to beeping machines with wires coming out of my arms. My whole entire body was soar, I had never felt so much pain in my life. What had happened?

“Are you okay?”

I heard a female voice coming from somewhere near me, but I was so dizzy I couldn’t tell exactly where. Finally I focused, and my eyes settled on the young woman clothed in a blue nurse’s uniform. Her glossy brown hair was tied up in a ponytail, and her glowing green eyes looked down at me.

“Miss, are you all right?” she spoke again.

“I… I’m fine,” I breathed. “What happened?”

“You don’t remember the accident?”

“The… the accident?” I scrunched my forehead, and suddenly the image of the crashing car came to me. “Oh! Oh my… oh my gosh… How, how did I survive that? What happened to me?”

“You were hit by an oncoming car in the rain,” began the nurse. “It rolled over a cliff and dropped into the river. The rescue team brought you here, and we examined you. You had internal haemorrhaging in your head, so we had to perform emergency surgery. It was a close call, you were very near death… If it wasn’t for our good Dr. Sullivan,” the nurse stated with a proud grin, “you wouldn’t be here.”

It was so much to take in. Car rolling off a cliff? A river? Near death? All I could do was stutter, lost for words. I had been near death and didn’t know it. It was all too sudden…

Then the famous Dr. Sullivan entered the room. It was a female doctor, a woman no more than a couple of years younger than myself, with mousy hair tied up in a neat bun. Her gold-rimmed glasses hid her dark, smart eyes. There was something oddly familiar with her. She came to my bedside walking briskly, and almost breathless, said, “How is the patient doing?”

“She’s doing quite well,” answered the nurse perkily. “Wonderful work you did there, Dr. Sullivan.”

“Oh don’t say that,” blushed the doctor, with a shoulder shrug. “It’s my job. Now you,” she said, turning to me with a concerned look, “how are you?”

“In pain,” I whispered. “Lots of - Ow!”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be all right,” she encouraged, a broad, sincere smile and a hand on my shoulder. “You’re a good person. You’ll make it.”

I was somewhat confused. Very appreciative, this person had saved my life, but why was she being so nice to me, like she knew me? Her face did look familiar, who was she? A parent of a student, maybe?

A light chuckle escaped her. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“I… I… You… You look… familiar.”

The doctor nodded, her head moving up and down slowly. “Your name is Britney, isn’t it?”

“Yes, yes it is,” I answered.

“You used to be quite a wealthy little child when you were younger, weren’t you?”

My jaw dropped. “How did you know?”

The woman continued. “Do you remember giving a teddy bear and a jacket to a poor little girl in the park?”

Then it hit me. The mousy hair, the eyes… She was the girl in the park! My imagined heiress! She was a doctor now, a doctor… I was right that day, she had the potential to do anything, and here she was, a brilliant medical professional who had just saved my life.

“Oh my gosh! Oh… I can’t believe it! You’re that girl! That girl!”

“You changed my life that day,” she confessed, a wide smile slicing her face. “When I had given up all hope in my life, you came and give me the first presents I’d ever gotten… Let’s just say this is my way of giving you eternal thanks.”

At that moment, I fully comprehended the impact good can do to others, especially a person that can perform an act so simple, so tiny, but can change everything. A simple doll I’d received at Christmas had changed my whole outlook on life. My small donation to a little girl, things I didn’t need at all, had changed that poor girl’s life. How grateful I was of the Doll at that moment! It was like all good deeds in my life had come back to me, like a boomerang, except instead of smashing into my face (well, not including the car crashing into me), it was like a refreshing wave of welcomed warmth. I felt complete that day, like my life had meaning.

The Doll was right. If a toy’s purpose in life is to bring joy and meaning to others’ lives, then we’re all toys in our own way, aren’t we?