For my eighth birthday my dad brought home a doll house. He told me I needed something other then a drawer to sleep in. Plus, I could also have some privacy if I wanted. It was great. It was a two-story Colonial looking house. It was white and trimmed in blue, it came with real furniture, made to fit me. Another great feature of it was the fact it had working lights and running water. It even had a tiny hot water heater built into it and a small bottle that the drain emptied into. I actually got to take a shower or a bath without being in a bowl or a sink. I couldn’t believe just how much like my dad’s house this thing was. I even had a balcony off my bedroom and a porch with a swing on it. It even had a fence and fake grass in the front.

Of all the gifts I ever got, the dollhouse had to be the best.

He set up the doll house in the living room. I could watch T.V. from there at a 45 degree angle, but still, I was in my very own house. Aunt Pearl helped me with a lot of my clothes. At times I swore she stayed up all night making clothes for me. There was only one thing I didn’t like about it. The roof lifted off. I tried to get my dad to nail it or glue it shut but he wouldn’t do it. He always said if there was an emergency, he or my Aunt would need to get to me as soon as possible. I saw his point, but, she was constantly pulling the roof off and sometimes, after dad went to work she would take it off and leave it off until it was time for him to be home.

I remember when he first brought his new girlfriend Cindy home. I was fourteen at the time. She had short black hair, brown eyes, fair freckled skin, and had a nice shape. I don’t believe he told her about me because when she saw me she almost fainted. When she had calmed down and saw me again, she fell back onto the couch acting like she had seen a ghost or something. My dad quickly put me back in my dollhouse and rushed to her side. I heard him apologizing, almost pleading with her to forgive him for not telling her about me. That really set me off. Never had I heard him make apologies for me to anyone. It was usually “accept my son or get out“. This was different.

For the next several weeks when she came to the house, she would sit on the sofa and stare at my dollhouse. Sometimes I would go out on the balcony and wave at her just for spite. She would give me a fake smile and turn her head and resume her conversation with my dad and Aunt Pearl.

One morning, Aunt Pearl told me she wasn’t feeling well and that she was going to see the doctor and asked me if I wanted to go or stay. It wasn’t a big deal leaving me alone for a few hours, she always did it. The crowds began getting so big whenever she went somewhere and had me with her that she started leaving me behind so I wouldn’t get injured or possibly stolen from her.

I noticed she had been gone for several hours before I heard the front door open. I felt the tremors of the footfalls on the carpet as they came closer to my dollhouse. I figured Aunt Pearl was letting me know she was home. I walked out the front door and off of the porch and almost fell back. What I saw shocked me. I had never seen a sight like this before. There, before my eyes were a pair of sandaled feet, toes painted a ruby red. I slowly looked up and saw the face of Cindy. She was looking down at me with a look of terror on her face.

I finally broke the silence by speaking. Hard to believe that little ol’ me could scare someone, but, as soon as I spoke, she nearly jumped out of her skin. She composed herself the best she could and told me that my Aunt had a stroke on the bus on the way to the doctors office and that my dad had asked her to sit with me until he came home from the hospital.