Baby Dolls

I.

Heavy rainfall washes over the winding black asphalt road creating metallic hues that sparkle in the pale yellow circles of light casting from the street lamps positioned every two-hundred feet.

Otto Sauda, a state employee, runs through the rain that pours from black, swirling clouds. The slap of his Nikes on the pavement sloshes water onto the dark, breathable fabric of his jogging pants. His house in Dove Crossing, an affluent neighborhood that has been his home for seven years, is surrounded by the Nakamuras, the Singhs, the Sandovals, the O’Briens, and the Hinohosas. To Otto, this place is the Mecca of diversity—a great place to raise a child.

Although the harshest hours of the Texas sun are long gone, rising heat from the sidewalk mixes with the falling rain and creates thick air that presses all sides of his body. Otto, a tall and muscular man of thirty-eight, son of Swahili immigrants in Chicago, runs with an easy gait, his back straight, his arms bent, his heels kicking up. His smooth, bistre skin reflects deep gray and brown undertones that sometimes seem blue or purple in certain lighting, and his eyes, a shade lighter than his skin, wrinkle upward at the corners while similar lines near his lips turn down. Rain rolls off his bald head down his nape and trudges through his thick eyebrows.

Only the dim flicker from the reflection of his Nike swooshes reveals Otto’s location to anyone who may be watching at this late hour. He imagines himself invisible—running and creeping through the night, slipping and sliding in and out of the dark shadows, smiling at his deception and trickery. He runs through the Nakamura’s front yard to avoid a hazy, damp circle of light. In the saturated, over-tall grass, he notices a small black doll with micro-braided hair. The doll reminds him of his daughter and he pushes himself to run a little faster so he won’t miss putting her to bed.

As his feet return to the pavement, a flash of blue and red breaks the darkness and spreads over his body, defiling his skin, pants, and shoes.

His gait falters as the colors swirl around him; a short siren blurp causes an eruption of adrenaline to course through his chest and stops him in his tracks. He turns fully to the flashing primary colors—his heart clamors and his breath catches. In his mind, two words repeat endlessly: not again, not again, not again. As the lights flicker across his skin, Otto hears deep base and kettle drums. They rumble in his gut, pound the inside of his chest, and scream in his ears. The flashing lights are cut and a sudden, blinding spotlight blankets his entire body and burns into his eyes before flicking off. Blinking rain from his long, straight eyelashes and large black dots from his vision, Otto bends his head to peer into the driver’s window. He receives wary looks from two pale faces that each nod—neither apologetic nor welcoming—before turning away. The window motor grinds as the glass moves up and the car rolls along. Otto watches the blurry red tail lights vanish around the corner and releases the breath that has been burning his lungs.

Otto’s chest squeezes in time with the base drums now crashing a spastic cadence in his head. As his clenched hands become numb, he turns around and sprints home. He charges through black pools of rain water collecting in the low-lying portions of sidewalk; his Nikes sucking and spitting water in time to his ragged breathing. He runs harder, faster. Soon his entire body is screaming in agony—bile creeps upward and settles against his tonsils, his joints and bones ache, and his tendons feel as if at any moment they will snap apart like frayed, overstretched rubber bands. Deep claps of thunder grumble from the distance and roll over the neighborhood in a fantastic crescendo that explodes above him. He ducks like a frightened child, covering his head with both arms, and stumbles on a bit of eroded sidewalk just before the walkway of his house.

Teeth clenched, jaws burning, he runs up to his cream-colored two-story home and grabs for the door. Pain, caused after plowing his shoulder against the wooden door just as his hand slipped off the knob, rushes in sharp torrents from his shoulder to his elbow to his wrist. Cursing, he twists at the knob until he can get a good grasp and stumbles inside the bright foyer of his home. Cold air, pumping through two vents just over his head, slaps at his body. Otto forgets that this is a safe place—a place that he has spent his lifetime constructing—and stands in the open doorway, dripping large clear puddles onto the beige tiles beneath his feet. He stares into the depths of the storm; at the rain crashing against the endless black asphalt, his silver BMW, and Kayla’s little pink bicycle leaning against the closed garage door. Passing before his house is the same neighborhood security car; its low headlights cut a muted path down the street. They watch him as if he is a stranger on this street, an outsider, a man who has gotten to where he is in life through devious schemes, charitable government policies, or pity.

Body alight with fire, Otto grabs ahold of the door between his strong, toned fingers, squeezes the wood as if desiring to leave everlasting imprints, steps back, and flings it closed. Deep in his gut a cry bubbles and releases just as the slam of wood echoes in the foyer and shakes adjacent walls. A family photograph jumps from the hinge and crashes to the tiles; splinters of jagged glass jump and slide across the ten-by-ten entryway. Otto feels the tremble of the walls reverberate through his body. Bending over, hands on his trembling knees, he sucks in a shaky breath and tries to ease the tension in his muscles. He can’t believe they did this again, even after the hand written apology from the president of Dove Crossing’s homeowner association, swirled in bleeding ink—politically correct words that meant nothing. Consumed by a dark cloud slowly moving down past his eyes, Otto cannot hear the soft, slapping sound of running feet. The rush of floral accents in the air, sweet tinges of baby powder, and excited puffs of breath make him realize that he is no longer alone. He holds up his hand to stop her from running into the glass.

“Are there monsters coming, Daddy?”

Otto lifts his head a few inches and looks at his six-year-old daughter Kayla, dressed in purple pajamas, with the Disney Princess blanket wrapped around her narrow shoulders. Otto tries to speak when he sees her twittering and shifting back and forth, bouncing up and down at the knee, but he can’t form words that will calm her. All he wants to do is scream. He has no energy to straighten his spine and tell her that there are no monsters, that it’s just wind.

Kayla gasps as rain patters against the windows like thick fingers against glass. “They’re outside, aren’t they? They’re coming to get me!”

The last word is hitched with a sob that shakes her little body. Kayla presses her cheek to the head of a doll that she has clutched against her chest and hides her face in the blanket. The only part of her Otto can see now is her tight curly hair sticking out from pony tails at the sides of her head. As Otto places his hand between the soft tufts of her hair, his wife of nine years comes down the stairs.

Nyah Sauda, a slender woman of thirty-two with light copper skin, deep brown eyes flecked with gold, and straight black hair, stares at her husband not as his wife and mother to his child, but as the prosecutor she is by day. As she stares at him, Otto finally finds the strength to push his thoughts deep down. He smiles and wipes water from his face.

“Did you slam the door?” Nyah asks. Otto nods and waves a dismissive hand. He wipes all expression from his face, squats down before his child, and takes her by the shoulders. He kisses her forehead and drags his thumbs across her pronounced cheeks to wipe her tears away.

“No monsters outside, Baby Doll,” he whispers as he rubs her slender arms. “The wind just caught the door and it slammed! Now don’t move—either of you—there’s glass all over. Nyah, can you take her upstairs so I can clean this up?”

Without word, Nyah hoists Kayla into her arms and holds her tight. She watches her husband, sees him avoiding her gaze, and steps with care out of the foyer and up the stairs to the four bedrooms above. Kayla presses her warm face to the crook of her mother’s neck and murmurs about monsters. Below in the foyer, Otto steps around glass fragments and fetches a broom from the kitchen. He sweeps the broken shards with short, jerky motions, and gathers them up in the dustbin to carry them out to the trashcan. He returns to the foyer and with his shoulders hunched and tight, he sweeps twice more just to make sure any hidden slivers are cleared away.

II.

Otto stands in the shower with his head bowed to allow the hot streams to massage his tight shoulders. He watches the dirty water swirl around his toes and down the drain. He imagines that the color of his skin is melting off his body, layer upon layer oozes away and yet brown flesh still remains—always remains. Soon the water runs clear and the only brown he is the color of his oddly shaped feet—brown toes, yellowish toenails that need to be trimmed, tiny curly hairs. The door of the shower clicks and the light bounces from the silver metal trim and hits his eyes.

“Your daughter’s waiting,” Nyah says.

Otto reaches over to turn off the faucet, pulls a towel from the rod on the wall, and wraps it around his body. He dries off, dresses, and does his best to ignore Nyah who stares at him so intently he feels as if she has burned holes into the side of his skull.

“Otto,” Nyah catches his elbow as he steps out of the bathroom.

A crack of bright lightening fills the dimly lit bedroom. Otto gestures to the window with a laugh and says, “The storm is crazy out there—I should have listened to you about running. I thought I was going to be swept away.” He presses a quick kiss to her forehead and leaves the room. He doesn’t see Nyah cross her arms and stare after him with inquisitive eyes and pursed full lips.

Kayla’s door is open wide, spilling soft pink light that bounces off her walls into the hallway. The soft plush carpet cushions Otto’s toes as he steps inside and is immediately welcomed by the soft scent of his child. She is sitting straight up in her twin Disney princess themed bed watching flashes of lightening creep around the edges of the closed blinds. Kayla’s room is full of white wood furniture: her bed, a five-drawer dresser, and two end tables that sit on each side of the bed. The rocking chair that Nyah used when Kayla was an infant sits in the corner, and—like every other surface of the room—is overtaken by toy dolls of all shapes and sizes. Otto sits beside Kayla and smiles as she rolls up onto her knees to wrap her arms around his throat, hugging him with all her might. The embrace is too short and Otto finds himself reluctant to let her go. He watches as she slides back against the headboard. She lays her head parallel to the smiling face of a brown-haired, blue-eyed Disney princess on the pillowcase. The cartoon’s bright eyes stare at him with an innocence that matches what he sees in his child, but this is the only similarity.

“Can you get me Susan?” Kayla asks as Otto pulls the blankets to the center of her chest and kisses her forehead. He tries to remember what Susan looks like and feels slightly ashamed that he has no idea. She carries the thing around with her all the time lately, but he never looks at it. Kayla points toward the rocking chair, “She was over there talking to Rebecca.”

Otto stops in front of the rocking chair and peers down at the dolls sitting there. He can’t pinpoint Susan in the sea of eerie glass eyes, pink lips, rosy cheeks, and silky synthetic hair. He can hear Kayla shifting about in her bed, billowing the sheet and blankets like she’s gripping the edge the old parachute they use in her gym class, making waves with her bedding.

Otto reaches for a doll with black hair.

“No! That’s Rebecca!” Kayla cries.

He reaches for the doll beside Rebecca, one that looks remarkably similar but has curly blonde hair.

“No, that’s Rachel!”

For Christ’s sake, Otto rubs the back of his neck. He waits for Kayla to give him some kind of direction, but she doesn’t, and when he looks over his shoulder at her, he finds her tucked deep in the blankets, her eyes twinkling.

“Which is Susan?” he finally asks.

Kayla ducks down and hides her face. After a long pause she whispers: “She’s hiding.”

Otto rubs his palms against his eyes before walking back to the bed. “Okay, I don’t have time to find her because it’s bed time, Kayla—not time for games.”

He notes her disappointment and watches as she unearths a blonde doll, hair pulled into two thick braids at the sides of her head, from beneath her pillow. She whispers something into the doll’s ear, kisses its cheek, and curls up onto her side with Susan. Otto notices the muscles in Kayla’s skinny brown arm flexing against Susan’s body; she squeezes her eyes tight and her arms tighter. He is sure that she didn’t hug him that tightly just a second ago. As Kayla continues to whisper to the doll, her eyes meet his and then dart away. Otto’s chest tightens again—he knows she’s talking to Susan about him. It is ridiculous to care about such things, but when Kayla turns Susan so the doll gets a long, unblinking look at him, and then makes the doll nod in agreement to whatever was whispered, Otto’s hands tighten into rock-hard fists. He has to fight the urge to smack it out of her arms. Instead, he imagines doing just that and sees Susan landing in the trashcan, buried in snotty white Kleenex and fruity Tootsie Roll wrappers.

“Susan thinks you’re no fun too,” Kayla explains.

Otto sits down on the mattress again and picks up one of Susan’s braids.

“I did them myself,” Kayla says with pride shining in her eyes.

“Nice job,” Otto drops the braid and wipes his fingers against his pajama bottoms. Kayla traces a twisted rope of braid while Otto looks around the room.

There is something curious about the shape and feel of a child’s bedroom. The atmosphere of innocence is palpable—for adults it is like stepping into a dream world full of magic, innocence, and love. This is the one room in the house that Otto has felt the most free, but now he looks at Kayla’s dolls—staring with pale faces and unblinking blue, green, brown and gray eyes—that feeling has changed. He begins to fidget, shifting about uncomfortably.

“Susan has good hair, but it’s not like mine,” Kayla says. Otto’s eyes snap back to his child and shift from her thick and coarse, baby-soft hair to the doll’s blond braids. “Daddy, did I tell you that I am….” As Kayla continues talking, Otto’s mind wonders and his eyes once again return to the dolls. Baby dolls with puckered lips, older dolls in pastel dresses and denim overalls and shorts and skirts, Cabbage Patch dolls with red yarn hair, and ancient-looking dolls that seemed as if they belonged to a child from the 1930s.

“Kayla,” Otto interrupts something she’s saying about her best friend Annie O’Brien, “Where are the dollies that look like you?”

She’s still stroking Susan’s braid. “What do you mean?”

“Ones that look like you,” Blood rushes up the back of his neck. He stands and begins to pace. “You know, dolls with your hair. Your skin.”

“Oh—you mean black dolls,” Kayla rolls her eyes. “Don’t worry about them, Daddy. Besides… these are better because Annie—”

Otto curls his fingers, stands, and paces beside Kayla’s bed. Of course this was Annie O’Brien’s fault! He has always feared the influence that freckle-face, red-headed Annie would have on his child. Sure they were inseparable little friends that chased one another on their bikes and played dolls for endless hours, but Annie was different—she didn’t look like Kayla. Not that she really needed to look like Kayla, Otto amends as he continues to pace, but it would be nice if they were somewhat similar. And now, Kayla is completely brainwashed by Annie and believes Annie’s little dolls are better! Otto decides that he can’t allow their friendship anymore, not after this.

Otto turns to his child and finds her curled up in the blankets, cuddling Susan to her like a life line. The drums echo in his ears again. The deep, monotone beats move from long half notes to accented and clipped quarter, hiccoughed eighth notes, and finally staccato sixteenth notes. He presses his temples and watches Kayla’s lips move as she gestures to Susan and the other dolls. With the percussion studio clamoring in his head, he hears only a few of Kayla’s words: better, pretty, beautiful, and normal. Knees trembling, he sits back down and rubs his face. When he opens his eyes, Susan’s happy cherub cheek waits inches away from his lips.

“Kiss her goodnight too!”

Otto stares into the doll’s blue eyes and eases it to the side. Kayla looks crushed and jerks Susan back to her chest. She strokes the doll’s back in a comforting way and whispers something else to it.

“I only kiss my baby doll, not toys,” Otto says as he covers Kayla’s cheeks with light pecks. Before she can request that he kiss Susan again, Otto pulls the princess comforter so it covers the doll’s face, and as Kayla begins to unearth Susan, Otto turns out the light and leaves the room.

Back in his bedroom, Otto finds Nyah reading in bed. She smiles as he enters the room moving slowly as if his body hurts. He notices that she’s reading a biography about some white woman whose face stares at him from a black and white photograph on the back cover. Nyah turns the book face down on the pillow in her lap. He can see the cover now—it’s a biography on Sandra Day O’Connor.

“What’s on your mind?” Nyah asks.

The menagerie of white dolls in Kayla’s room, he thinks. Out loud he tells her it’s nothing, sits down on his side of the bed, and lays down to stare up at the vaulted ceiling covered with sprayed on plaster that looks like an accumulation of millions of spitballs. A minute passes before the protective jacket of Nyah’s library book crinkles as she picks it up and flips one of the yellowed pages. Left alone to contemplate things Otto’s mind flips back and forth between three subjects: white baby dolls, white cops, and little white Annie O’Brien. Over his shoulder he sees Nyah watching him.

“I was thinking that maybe we should consider changing Kayla’s name,” he suggests with some hesitation. Nyah makes a face that sits on the borderline of horror and intrigue. “She’s still young,” Otto continues, “she can get used to something new.”

Kayla’s eyebrows lift—one then the other. “Changing it to what?”

Otto shrugs one shoulder and looks away. He stares at the cream wallpaper and muddles several names over in his head. He is hesitant to go with the one on the tip of his tongue; he knows Nyah will probably be angry.

“How about LaKeisha?” he asks. It was better what he wants to use and just saying it makes him happy—it sounds better. He sits up and turns to face his wife. “It sounds the same—yeah? Kayla—Keisha. We can just drop the la.”

The bedroom is quiet for too long. Finally Nyah shakes her head and the dust jacket crinkles again. Otto looks at his hands. He has long, dark brown fingers with short trimmed nails, and wears a platinum gold wedding band that seems to jump of his skin. He absentmindedly turns it round and round, which is when he notices white scratches along the fleshy parts between his thumb and forefinger and around his knuckles. He licks his thumb and rubs these marks away.

“Okay, how about … Sharonda?”

He still can’t say the name he really wants.

“Because that sounds more like Kayla?” Nyah laughs. She flips the book pages turning them so quickly he’s sure that she’s about to rip one out.

Otto picks at a dark keloid scar on his knee, it is raised up from the skin, smooth across the surface, and so dark it looks purple in the dim light from the lamp on the nightstand. He thinks about more names and offers up a few more suggestions. The crackle of Nyah’s damn book becomes annoying.

“I like, Keisha,” he finally says as he lays back. “That’s a pretty solid name, right?” He rubs his forehead to take away the ache that presses his skull. “What do you think about that one, Nyah?”

A page rips.

She answers him when he turns his head to meet her gaze. “We’re not changing her name,” she leaves no room for rebuttal. Her eyes move back to the pages of her book; she flips backwards several pages and pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose to start reading again. After a moment she pauses and looks directly at him. “And I think you’ve lost your damn mind.”

Otto lies back down and stares at the ceiling again. He crosses his arms over his chest and thinks that perhaps he has lost it.

III.

Otto examines the fine contours of his wife’s body—the curves of her hip, the roundness of her belly, and the swells of her breasts. She sleeps soundly at his side, lush brown skin contrasting against the soft, baby blue sheets they’ve spent the last thirty minutes mussing—skin that is several shades lighter than his own. Otto thinks about waking her; he knows he can pull her back into his arms and calm his restless mind again. He traces the edgy parts of her elbow and then pokes between her protruding shoulder blades. Nyah grumbles and rolls away, moving to a cooler section of bedding. Twisting onto his back, Otto sighs.

Streaks of light penetrate the partially closed blinds, illuminating the Sauda’s expensive furniture; their closets stuffed with Louis Vuitton, Michael Kors, and Sean Jean clothes; and their multi-cultural artwork hanging on the walls. Staring at these things, Otto tries to recover, tries to reclaim the contentment and pride he felt when running. He wonders if his previous sense of security and acceptance was ever truly there to begin with. He thinks about Kayla’s dolls and sighs heavily.

How could his little girl hate dolls that looked just like her? Rage pulses just under the surface of his skin and he begins to toss and turn. He always said he didn’t care what color Kayla’s friends and toys were, as long as they were diverse and representative of all humanity. He and Nyah always bought her Hispanic dolls, Asian dolls (when he could find them), and black dolls, so when did they all morph into little white faces? Where was the color? Where was the diversity? Why in the hell was Susan better than all the rest? Without a few black dolls, Otto knew that his daughter would slowly learn to hate and devalue herself. He knows that she will see her brown skin, tight curls, and full lips as something not worthy of beauty. All because Annie O’Brien told her so!

Fearing such unacceptable and horrifying outcomes, Otto makes one last attempt to distract himself and reaches out to Nyah. Leaning toward her, he traces her hip with his palm and kisses her warm shoulder. As she sighs and curls her long arm around the fluffiness of her pillow, Otto slips out of bed, dresses, and leaves the room.

Armed with a king-sized pillowcase, Otto stops outside Kayla’s bedroom door and rubs the bridge of his nose. What he’s about to do is ridiculous, a part of him realizes, after all, she’s just a little girl. But if he didn’t do this now, if he didn’t reverse things, Kayla would grow up angry, bitter, and hateful. Otto stares at the princess name plate before his eyes and traces the “K” of her name with his finger. Batting away the hesitation, he shakes open the pillowcase and pushes the door open. The soft tinkle of music playing from her CD player on the nightstand and the outline of her little body beneath the blankets stops him in the doorway. He has time to turn back, time to scold himself, time to climb back into bed and nudge Nyah awake. Instead, Otto pushes forward and closes the door. The cold air from the vents pushes against him as he tiptoes to the window where he turns the rod to open the blinds. Light from the street creates distorted shadows that dance on the wall. Otto avoids the patches of filtered light and creeps around the room, nipping baby dolls from their comfy locations. One moans “mama” as he grabs her by the head and shoves her into the dark pillowcase. His bicep burns as he carries his bounty to Kayla’s bedside where the last doll waits. Kayla is twisted up in her sheets; her brown arm is hooked around Susan’s neck in a motherly chokehold. Kayla’s mauve-colored lips are pressing a delicate, sleepy kiss to Susan’s creamy peach, plastic forehead.

Otto knows he can snatch the doll out of Kayla’s arms and run from the room, but realizes that she would likely wake from such a disturbance. Setting the overflowing pillowcase down beside the bed, Otto tests his choices. He grabs one of Susan’s braids and begins to pull. The doll slips a fraction before Kayla’s arm tightens so that Susan’s face is squashed against Kayla’s. Otto drops the braid and waits a moment for his daughter to settle into slumber; he avoids Susan’s staring eyes. When he’s sure Kayla is asleep, he presses his palm between her shoulder blades and rolls her onto her back. He smiles as her grip around Susan loosens and nearly yells in fright when Kayla’s eyes open. She stares up at him for a moment and then rolls away her arms seeking Susan. Otto snatches the doll by the hair, tucks it under his arm, picks up the pillowcase, and flees room.

As he closes Kayla’s bedroom door, something inside him snaps and he feels lighter. He shudders as if a cup of cool liquid has been poured over his head; and all of the pressure in his body melts away.

Five minutes later, Otto walks down the street with the pillowcase full of dolls in one hand and Susan tucked in his armpit. He stops before the Nakamura house and lifts the lid to one of their trashcans. The pillowcase goes in first, and a second later Susan is flung in. She hits the lid of the trashcan with a loud thunk and drops smiling face up onto the pillowcase. Overhead the clouds stir and remnants of thunder gurgle. Otto pushes Susan down into the trash and closes the lid. He runs home before he is caught in the rain again.

IV.

Like clockwork, the Texas sun rises the next morning and begins soaking up moisture left over by the storms. Otto wakes feeling rejuvenated. He whistles as he showers and dresses for a day of work at the capitol building, and dances up and down the stairs on his way to the kitchen to put coffee on for Nyah. Still whistling, he pours Kayla a bowl of Crunch Berries, although she should have something healthy like Cheerios. She deserves Crunch Berries, he thinks as he adds a few more cereal bits to the bowl. He is standing in the kitchen with a cup of coffee when Nyah enters dressed for work.

“I’m letting her sleep a little longer,” she says as she reaches for the coffee pot. “I heard her crying a few times last night.”

Otto frowns against the rim of his mug. He doesn’t remember Kayla crying at all—he checked on her after taking out the trash and she seemed fine then. His thoughts are interrupted by the familiar rumble and hiss of an approaching garbage truck. He sucks in a breath as his stomach tickles with nervous butterflies. With one glance at the ceiling where Kayla’s room is, Otto crosses the kitchen and heads into the foyer. He pushes back the lacy curtain that covers the thin rectangular window near the door and watches the forest-green truck with an Austin City Works logo and Keep Austin Weird stickers plastered on the sides. As the garbage man operates the truck’s arm to pick up trash cans, Otto smiles. He watches the compacting door squeeze his trash together with the rest; the truck has already been to the Nakamura’s and this makes Otto laugh out loud. He stares at the back of the truck as some perverse, morose part of him hopes to see a doll head smiling out at him from the mix of garbage.

“Trash man came!” he announces to the house as the truck rolls on. His cheeks and lips begin to hurt, but he can’t stop smiling.

In response to his announcement, a shriek, which can be likened to the piercing notes of speaker feedback, comes from upstairs. Otto holds his coffee mug tighter. He bites his lower lip and glances at his watch—it is too early to head to work now, but he could escape I-95 traffic, he thinks. Nyah appears around the corner, kicks off her heels, and races up the stairs as Kayla screams again and again and again.

Otto doesn’t move. He waits until he can no longer hear the garbage truck rattling and beeping on the street. He can hear Nyah calling to him from upstairs, begging him to come quickly. He dawdles in the foyer, taking sips of his coffee, straightening picture frames on the narrow table that sits flush to the wall, looking in the coat closet, admiring things here and there, and noticing that they probably should repaint soon. Finally, he makes his way to the stairs, stopping on occasion to pick up clumps of cat hair off the carpet and to scratch at dark stains every few steps. No amount of stalling would have saved him from the chaotic scene he finds at the doorway of Kayla’s room. His daughter is spinning around like a little brown tornado, grabbing toys from boxes, crates, shelves, and drawers, and throwing them into the air.

“What’s wrong?” Otto asks as if this is a normal occurrence in their home.

He hears the scrape of toys on the bottom of the wooden trunk, and a red toy careens past his head and crashes against the hallway wall. Unearthing herself from the trunk, Kayla spins around, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I’ve been robbed!”

Kayla walks the length and width of her room in short clipped steps; her palms seem glued to her forehead. She looks through the toys on the floor and kicks more around before dropping to her knees before the side of her bed. She reaches into the darkness and pulls out a brown-haired doll with a polka-dot dress.

Otto presses his lips together to contain a curse and looks away from the doll.

“Oh no,” Kayla whimpers while smoothing back the doll’s frizzy hair. “This is the only one left!”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find the rest,” Nyah sits down on the bed and pulls Kayla into her arms. She rocks her lovingly, and as Otto watches he feels the need to point out that they can now cuddle in the open rocking chair. As Nyah strokes Kayla’s back, her eyes move to her husband who looks away. “They’re just playing hide and seek—I bet they’re all over the house waiting for you to find them.”

Otto sets his mug on the dresser and approaches the bed without meeting Nyah’s gaze. As he sits down, Kayla throws herself into his arms, wailing something about Susan that he doesn’t catch. He holds her close and thinks about ways to get the doll, gripped between her fingers, into the trash with the others. He might need to drive it to the dump himself, he decides.

“We’ll buy you new dolls,” Otto tells her. “Lots and lots of new dolls—different dolls. Dolls like you, me, and mommy. Won’t it be nice to have dolls that look like you and me?”

Kayla moans and falls melodramatically from Otto’s arms to the floor before him. She lays there like a corpse staring, unblinkingly at the ceiling. The doll with the polka-dot dress is clutched in her hand. After a minute she finally speaks, her voice dejected and morose: “I was babysitting Susan and the others for Annie,” Kayla says as tears roll down her cheeks. “Annie’s going to hate me forever because I lost all of her dolls. I told her I’d love them as my own!”

For a moment there is pure silence in the room. It is a silence that presses Otto’s skull like an iron clamp, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing until something inside him pops. He feels blood rushing through the veins at his temples making them dance. Breathing hard, he rubs his face and stands.

Kayla’s face crinkles and her words begin to break up as she begins to weep. “She said that her grandma gave her some of those dolls, said I was supposed to take real good care of them.”

Otto feels bile creep up to the back of his throat. He steps over Kayla and walks back toward the dresser. Grabbing his coffee, he gulps a mouthful, burning his tongue, the roof of his mouth, and his throat. He begins to pace again, his mind racing. Finally something else breaks in him and he feels like throttling something.

“Why on earth would you do something so stupid, Kayla?” he rubs his bald head and temples. “Why would you… why… when… I can’t believe you did this!”

She rolls onto her stomach and stares at him with wide, teary eyes.

“I didn’t steal them!” He can see that her whole body is trembling. “I told you last night that I was babysitting! And why can’t I babysit? Annie’s watching mine and I’m watching hers! I’m supposed to share my toys with others! Even Liani Nakamura has one of my dolls! It was just a temporary swap!”

“Oh, Otto,” Nyah moans covering her face with both of her hands. He turns to his wife. He can see in her eyes that she knows; as if she saw him stealing the baby dolls herself. Nyah's hands slide from her face and drop to her sides. “What do we do?”

Otto gulps more coffee and shrugs his shoulder. What can they do? The dolls are smashed with the Wednesday trash—he can’t save them all. Maybe he could salvage a few if he could catch the garbage truck, but he makes no effort to do this.

“I know,” Kayla cries with excitement as she pushes herself to her feet. “We can call the neighborhood security! They always pass through Dove Crossing, so maybe they can do something. Maybe they saw something bad outside? Maybe they can find Annie’s dolls?”

This idea excites Kayla and she begins dancing around the room, hopping over strewn-about toys, singing a made up song about baby dolls. As he stares out the window, Kayla loops her arm around Otto’s thighs and skips about him as if he were a May pole. She moves between her dejected parents with a light, bubbling hope that only a small, innocent child can bring to an otherwise gloomy situation.

Another story for school... had to read this one out loud. Not fun. Looking forward to any comments you want to share. :)T