Ricky

When she was a girl, my mother had a doll. He was hard-bodied--no soft parts--and his hair was painted on. He couldn't do anything, she says, except he could do everything.

When'd you get him? I ask.

Well, ever since I was, there was Ricky.

I know about Ricky because mom claims he was the reason she left dad. They were running a Salvation Army, and they had to move one night--fast--and they left Ricky. In a closet, she says, which was your dad's fault because he wouldn't let me keep him on the bed. So they kept him at the top of the closet and kept Joe in a pulled-out dresser drawer, and I hadn't been born yet but was well on my way, and come night, they had to get gone. And when we were driving off, I begged your dad to go back and get him, and he just shook his head no, said we owed too many people too much money.

For years I believed I would one day find Ricky for my mother. I still scour flea markets when I'm in the south looking for that little hard-bodied doll with two broken-off fingers that he lost in the mountains. It's as if I believe I might reverse the past thirty-two years, and then what? What would we make of the world then?

Me and my (long-divorced) parents
Note: Missing Doll