Warning: May be triggering (Sexual Abuse).
My mother left when I was four. Normally, that wouldn’t mean anything, but I suspected for a long time that the porcelain dolls were coming from her, like some pitiful little attempt to show me that she loved me.
My father; he worked overtime to keep things going in the household even if it was just the two of us. His hands were always worn from working the machines at the shop and he slaved even more when he got home and had to make supper for himself and I, and go through my nightly routines before I hit the sack. I sometimes woke up in the middle of the night and he was still awake, cleaning a room in the house, and I thought to myself, “This man is dedicated. Has to be awake in only a few hours…and here he is.” I love my father, and I always have.
One of his most trusted friends from high school, Alexander, was my babysitter from the time my mother left, to the time I was about seven years old. We trusted Alexander. He worked night shift and so he was able to work babysitting in around his hours, and he would have done anything to help out my father to make that work. My father paid him even though he asked for nothing; he said he was just ‘doing his good deed’, “and I like it anyway!” My dad used to come home from work and Alexander would pick up his bags full of toys that we played with; he always brought the best toys and trinkets with him. His daughter had passed away when she was ten years old, and I think it brought him great joy to now share her old toys with another little girl. He would say to my dad, “She was great for me. She ate well, and she took her usual long nap. I’ll be back tomorrow!” And he always came back.
Well, eventually times changed and my dad’s work schedule changed with them. We didn’t see Alexander anymore because we didn’t NEED Alexander anymore. My father thought that they lost touch permanently and when I asked about him he told me truthfully that Alexander was a very busy man. And he understood that, and I did too.
For my eighth birthday, the first porcelain doll arrived. It had beautiful, blonde curly hair and a painted on face. She was wearing what looked to be an expensive, velvet dress with an attached tutu. She came inside a stuffed envelope with nothing else on the package to identify who had sent her. Just my name, that was all. The first thing that my father did was call my grandmother, who said, “No, I didn’t drive by and place a present on the porch. I’m not her coward mother; I would have given it right to her.” That gave my father the second idea: my mother. Only thing was, we had no way of getting in touch with her and finding out for she had literally taken off and abandoned us both. And over the next few weeks, nobody came forth and said they had gotten me the doll, so we assumed this is who had sent it.
They showed up every year since then. Each unique in their own ways, each more beautiful than the last. I thought it was a little odd, yes. Especially because my mother made no outreach to me so if she was sending me gifts but not bothering to even so much call me and check up, then that was just plain rude of her and her gifts meant literally nothing. But I continued to set them up on my shelf in my bedroom and they looked nice there, I suppose.
The year I turned nineteen, I was moved into college and was taking courses on my birthday. My father called me from home and asked me when I was coming back home for a break, and I told him that I had time this weekend, but I only said this because I sensed some urgency in his voice. I could make it work. He told me not to worry about anything but that he would really like to see me. Then he stressed that I always lock my doors and always have somebody walking with me if I was out past dark, which I already knew.
I returned home that weekend and my father said there had been an accident. My porcelain birthday doll had arrived, my nineteenth year doll. When my father brought it inside the house, it had smashed into a hundred separate pieces. Inside, there was a diary entry on a piece of paper. We spent the entire day smashing open every porcelain doll, and the entire night speaking with the police. Alexander had written diary entries for every time he had drugged and molested me, each more explicit, admitting that he had done the same to his daughter up until the time of her horrible death. My father and I hadn’t a dry eye in our house that entire night, and I continued to have problems throughout my college career knowing that Alexander was somewhere out there, probably assuming a new identity and doing the same thing to other girls.
Now I know why he had always commented on me taking such ‘usual long naps.’
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Credit goes to horriddaydream on Reddit.
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