Dust floated inside and on the edge of the light.
In times of stress you will remember the words of your father, the dolls said. “I want to see the dollhouse,” Laura said.
Her mother dropped the teaspoon in her hand. It went clattering across the table’s surface. Laura reached to pick up the spoon and handed it back to her.
“I locked it in your father’s workshop, before the funeral,” her mother said. She held the spoon carefully with two fingers as if she’d forgotten what to do with it. Anger rose like a wave in Laura’s chest. It was not entirely her own.
“You trapped them,” Laura said. “Jesus, Mother.”
“You don’t understand,” said her mother, frustrated. “Nothing fooled him. I gave him rocks, I gave him bundles of yarn, I caught mice and squirrels and wrapped them in blankets and still he saw through me. Still he demanded sacrifices. Still he was as relentless and routine as the ocean’s tide.”
Her hands shook as she reached, slowly, for the teacup on her plate. It was from the china set, painted blue, with greedy, white tendrils crawling up the handle like vines. She brought the cup to her mouth and drank from the overflowing brim. A few drops of tea trembled and splashed onto her pearl-white skirt, leaving dots of amber where they fell.
“I just wanted one,” her mother said. “One girl, a daughter. He’d taken so many.”
“Mother,” Laura said, about to inform her of the spill.
“I gave birth over and over in our bedroom,” her mother continued. “In my head, it took ten years. It could have taken just one. During that time, your father, he was never cruel. He fed me by hand and poured me pitchers of water. When I wasn’t asleep, I was starving. I ate goat meat by the pound. I drank lemonade quickly and vomited afterwards.” Her hands, still shaking, moved quick and soft like dove feathers.
67