“I love you, mommy!”
I loved hearing these words out of her mouth; I would keep pressing the button just to hear them. She only spoke three phrases: “Hungry, mommy!” and “Turn me over!” I did not like it when she said to turn her over because I would get angry at myself for allowing her to be on her stomach. Sarah Rachel Pitkavish was her name, and she had blond, beautiful silky hair with two little pink bows. Her eyes were as blue as the sky, and I swear I saw a twinkle now and then when she would speak those four words to me over and over again. She had the cutest pink outfit on with little bears up and down her overalls. Then there was the little pink heart that was on her chest where the heart would be lying there and ready to beat with content. Her pink long sleeved shirt had little white ruffles around each plastic wrist, and her awesome pink slippers with a teddy bear only on the left one. She was magnificent to me and she was my protector, even though to most she was just a doll.
We would go camping a lot together. Sarah would always sit in my seatbelt with me so she didn’t get hurt and was safe. My sisters would yell at me, calling me names for loving her so much. I didn’t care; I was her mommy and I loved her like she told me she loved me. She would sit there in the van, watching my father; her piercing blue eyes would be drilled on the back of his bald head. She would take a nap only for a second, and then she would gleam those round eyes, with little black flakes hanging from them right back at my father’s head.
I remember one camping trip in particular; the grass was green and smooth as a golf course. The sun was beaming down on our Caucasian skin, frying the flesh to a red color. We set up our navy-blue, three-room cabin tent. We blew up our green air mattresses with our powerful red pump that we steered with our feet, pressing down and up every time we wanted to get a puff out. I placed my purple blanket on top of my bed and tucked Sarah in for a nap.
Then the terror of consequences arose. My father, who is about 6’2, 200 pounds, decided he was angry that we did not set the rooms up right. I saw his bald head, wrapped around an envelope of black fur, start turning beat red, and I knew that he was angry. His hazel eyes turned from green to an evil red, and I swear I saw flames shooting from his black pupils. He was coming towards me and my sisters and then there it was; a twitch of Sarah’s hand that made my father look in her direction. Then I knew my sisters and I were safe this time, and I knew Sarah would suffer for our wrong-doing. My dad noticed her as if she were real, too, and started yelling and screaming at Sarah. He used all sorts of mean words and punished her as if she was the one who mistakenly set the beds in the wrong order to upset my father. She was thrown, kicked, punched and stepped on, and I felt the worst pain when her little stomach made a horrific crunching noise as the large brown boot stomped on it over and over again.
Finally, it was over and I ran to her. I picked her blackened body up and brought her to the water basin. There I repeatedly told her thank you and scrubbed the brown from her swollen pink skin. I used a yellow sponge and a little Dawn dish soap and tried and tried scrubbing her free of the debris that she had all over her 2 ½-foot frame. Slowly, the black crumbles fell to the green grass that conformed so wonderfully to my bare feet. I knew that I owed Sarah, and I told her I loved her. I hit the button to hear her say it back, the four words I so desperately needed at that time, but they were gone. No noise arose. I pressed it over and over again, and no sound came through the soft, pink lips anymore.
This is when Sarah really was there for me, and her pale white skin turned brown from all the dirt and mud that she was thrown in and pushed through. She fought, though. I could tell her clear, artificial skin was torn and bruised. Deep within her plastic frame, she was crying for my sisters and me. I thanked her for helping me, knowing that her being there protected my family.
This is a disturbing but compelling story, Kimberly. It's the details that make it work: "the awesome pink slippers," "her pale white skin turned brown from all the dirt and mud," "her clear, artificial skin was torn and bruised." You really bring the story--and the doll--to life.
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