Words: Coleen T. Houlihan
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The Doll
The two mothers are animated; one uses her hands to gesticulate, while the other’s rhythmic accent pauses only for laughter.  On one side of the living room there is a large multi paned window.  It looks out onto the backyard and a winter scene.  It is the middle of the season, and several heavy snowfalls have already taken place.  It suits the New Hampshire terrain which, during spring and summer, is always lush and beautiful, but because it is not covered in snow, somehow unreal.  The teenage girl stands by the window.   She hears the talk of the two women, one of whom is her mother, but she does not follow the conversation.  Inside her head it is blank; she has no thoughts.  So, momentarily, the girl is at peace.

Now her mother calls her over.  Come, the laughing mother says, sit with us and chat.

The girl continues to stand at the large picture window, looking out onto the cold white snow; iridescent, glimmering, so perfect it could almost be a fairytale.  An imaginary place of warmth. 

Next to the other woman is a young girl of about ten, and besides the young girl is her younger brother.  He sits by his sister and mother listening to the grownup talk, but he watches the girl by the window, sees her turn and walk over to the group, a smile across her face that may, or may not be real. 

If the teenage girl were actually a huge, skinny, green praying mantis, the boy’s expression would contain just as much wonder, for he has been surrounded by soft, pale skin and silken light brown hair for most of his nine years. 

The older girl is closer to the couch now.  Her eyes search out a place upon the sofa.  Will she sit on the side of her mother by the fire, or in between the two women?  There is always space near the children.  Instead, she picks a solitary chair and slumps into it.  Her long slim, brown legs stretch out before her.  Carefully, she arranges the unruly appendages and creates a picture her mother and the world would be pleased to see.  She smiles as she does so.

The boy is too young to realize what it is he’s doing, loving the strange brown skinned girl sitting before him who is too old for his world and still too young for hers.

The eyes of the girl are darker than his brown eyes.  He talks to her, says a shy word in response to his mother’s conversation that attempts to include them all.  His mother smiles.  Her face is round and soft.  There are faint lines under her eyes that deepen and release when she smiles.  His mother’s face is beautiful to him, as is the older girl’s, but in a different way.  This is only the second time the boy has seen the older girl.  His mother laughs.  “Go get the Christmas gift your brother gave you,” she says to her ten year old daughter.  Dutifully, the little girl rises, exiting the room.  When she returns, she holds the doll out before her.  All eyes are focused on it, so no one sees the flash of recognition in the teenage girl’s eyes. 

The Black Barbie doll rests sideways in the pink palms of the little girl.  “It’s her first Black Barbie,” her mother says.  And that is how the child holds it, unsure, wondering, careful.  The older girl looks at the doll, and then she looks at the little boy.  She knows she is the reason for its purchase, can imagine the boy walking through the toy store with his mother, raising his hand and pointing to the brown skinned doll with curling black hair, wearing a red dress.  “How beautiful!” the teenage girl’s mother exclaims, the hue of her own skin that of the doll’s.  The young girl smiles and then leaves to take her doll back into her bedroom.  Now the adult conversation resumes, another cup of hot tea is requested, but the teenage girl looks at the young boy.  He stares at her shyly, innocent, yet with the impulse of an explorer setting off into the unknown.  She is forced to blink her eyes rapidly for a few seconds, displacing the display of emotion.  That he is just a child does not matter, what does is that someone has seen her and the young woman feels less alone. 

© Coleen T. Houlihan    


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