BABY DOLLS

My mother isn’t always Raggedy Ann, but she was when I was born. Week before Halloween, office party. Not at the office, but at Richard Nixon’s basement apartment. She sipped on Shirley Temples while my jelly fists pommeled her beneath her denim thrift-store jumper. I hate grenadine, but how was Raggedy Ann supposed to know that? Her brain was stuffing, and my communication was limited to pathetic fetal boxing. The drunk guests rollicked in their altered states. When fluid dampened her striped stockings, everyone laughed. Because she was a doll, and also very young, my mother laughed, too.

A cat whose tail was longer than her skirt laid Raggedy Ann in the bathtub and closed the moldy curtain. Her limbs stayed limp while people pissed nearby, and the tangled nest of red yarn remained on her head, drenched with sweat, for Raggedy Ann is loyal and true. Only I was able to bring her to life, each shock of me making bone and blood of her soft body, carving chambers into her two-dimensional valentine heart.

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Becky Robison masquerades as a corporate employee in Chicago, but at heart she is a writer and a world traveler. A graduate of University of Nevada Las Vegas’ Creative Writing MFA program, she’s currently working on her novel and serving as Social Media and Marketing Coordinator for Split Lip Magazine. Her fiction has appeared in Paper Darts, Midwestern Gothic, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter: @Rebb003