Dollface

I stum­ble slight­ly on my way down from my par­ents’ musty attic, near­ly top­pling the pre­car­i­ous stack of plas­tic stor­age bins in my arms.

My father looks up briefly, per­ma­nent mark­er in hand, before going back to label­ing the mass of card­board box­es swarm­ing the hall­way. “You okay, dollface?”

“Doll­face?” my boyfriend repeats, a look of unabashed delight on his face.

“Fine,” I say to my father. And to Kevin, with a good-natured frown, “Shut up.”

Tak­ing the top two con­tain­ers from the pile I’m car­ry­ing, he fol­lows me into my child­hood bed­room to help me fit them in yet more card­board box­es. I think my par­ents must have cleared out every liquor store in the area of their recy­cling in antic­i­pa­tion of this move.

“I will not shut up. This embar­rass­ing nick­name just made dri­ving three hours to help your par­ents move total­ly worth it.”

I roll my eyes at his teas­ing grin. “Well, then you have the three-hour dri­ve home to for­get you ever heard it,” I say, paus­ing after bend­ing over to close a box. My knee again.

It’s hap­pened for as long as I can remem­ber, I’m used to it, but it’s been hap­pen­ing with more fre­quen­cy the past few weeks.

If Kevin notices the delay in me stand­ing up, he doesn’t men­tion it. “So why do they call you Doll­face, Dollface?”

As if hear­ing the siren song of an oppor­tu­ni­ty to embar­rass her daugh­ter, my moth­er sweeps into the room at this moment. Her hair is fraz­zled from run­ning her hand through it too many times, but she keeps her face and voice cheer­ful in an attempt to hide her obvi­ous exhaus­tion. “Haven’t you seen her baby pictures?”

“I have not,” Kevin says, his smile grow­ing obnox­ious­ly wider. It’s a good thing I love this dork so much.

“Oh, I’ll have to show you when we unpack them, but she was the most beau­ti­ful baby, weren’t you, Diana, before you were diag­nosed? Just the biggest, bluest eyes, the rosiest cheeks you’ve ever seen. Just like a porce­lain doll—” She frowns at me. “What’s wrong with your leg?”

“It’s noth­ing,” I say, even as I have to sit down on my bed when my knee threat­ens to give out again.

It isn’t my bed, I sup­pose. Not in a tech­ni­cal sense. My room became a guest room when I went away to col­lege. Same wall­pa­per, new every­thing else, my stuff packed away into the attic.

But it feels like noth­ing has changed, it feels like I’m home sick from school, sit­ting on my old Sailor Moon sheets with my cadre of plas­tic ponies star­ing down at me from my shelves. A feel­ing that has every­thing to do with my hov­er­ing, fuss­ing moth­er, no doubt.

I swat her away dis­mis­sive­ly. “I’m fine, it’s nothing.”

From a prac­ti­cal stand­point, that’s true. The joint can still move with rel­a­tive ease if I lift my low­er leg with my hand, but there’s a sort of… rigid­i­ty to my mus­cles and ten­dons, lock­ing them in place when I try to bend or straight­en my knee. It doesn’t cause much trou­ble, and it pass­es quick­ly enough.

But there’s always that lin­ger­ing fear in the back of my mind, that inescapable fact that I have a degen­er­a­tive neu­ro­mus­cu­lar dis­ease and soon­er or later—probably sooner—I will not be fine.

It’s a mir­a­cle, if you believe in those kinds of things, that I’ve lived this long with rel­a­tive­ly few com­pli­ca­tions. Every time it hap­pens, I won­der if this is it, if this is when my luck runs out.

#

“No, I have to go back to work tomor­row,” I insist for what must be the fifth time, dodg­ing my father’s well-mean­ing attempt to relieve me of the box of dish­es I’m bring­ing into the new house.

I’m not sure I could let go of it if I want­ed to, right now, any­way. When I get to the kitchen, I lean against the counter, still hug­ging the box tight instead of putting it down with the oth­ers, and wait for my elbows to loosen up.

“Non­sense,” my moth­er says, hold­ing up her bird sounds clock in var­i­ous places with the grav­i­ty of a direc­tor fram­ing a shot. “You’re sick, you can call out. The swamps won’t be found guilty of mur­der just because you’re not there.”

I stopped try­ing to explain to her what envi­ron­men­tal lawyers do years ago. About the same time I real­ized she under­stood per­fect­ly, she just didn’t care because I didn’t go along with her plan for my life she made when I was little.

I’m hon­est­ly kind of sur­prised she learned Kevin’s name, since she was so dead set on me mar­ry­ing gold­en boy foot­ball play­er Bradley Mafi­no for some reason.

Well, in ret­ro­spect, she was prob­a­bly try­ing to take back as much con­trol as she could from my diag­no­sis. They weren’t even sure I would sur­vive child­hood at first, though thank­ful­ly the dis­ease didn’t progress as fast as they thought it would. She prob­a­bly want­ed, in her own, twist­ed log­ic way, to make every oth­er part of my life as per­fect as it could be.

Maybe I can under­stand why she did it, but it got exhaust­ing very fast.

“I’m not sick,” I say again. My mus­cles final­ly lis­ten to me, and I set the box down and begin unpack­ing the glass­es. “And even if I was sick, it doesn’t mean I need my moth­er to take care of me.”

As I went to put a glass in the cup­board, I felt that tight­ness again, in my fin­gers this time. I should have stopped, tak­en a moment for the sen­sa­tion to pass.

But then, I would have to admit some­thing was wrong.

The glass slips from my hand, shat­ters on the counter. I mut­ter an apol­o­gy, instinc­tive­ly reach­ing for the larg­er shards before my moth­er can help me with them.

My hand is clum­sy, my fin­gers stuck to each oth­er as if trapped in an invis­i­ble mit­ten. I’m too busy star­ing, pan­ic rush­ing through my veins, to real­ize I’ve cut myself.

My moth­er notices first, grab­bing my rigid wrist and pulling me to the sink. To wash away the blood, but what blood? Why isn’t there blood?

“Mom!” I yell, pulling my hand away to exam­ine it.

By now, my father and Kevin have rushed in, and we all see the deep gouge in my palm. They wince as I spread the skin with my good hand, but it doesn’t hurt.

I don’t feel anything.

There’s no blood, and I don’t know what such a deep cut should look like, but there should be some­thing, right? Some­thing under the skin? Ten­dons, mus­cles, bones?

There isn’t. It’s just skin—firm, but pli­able like a soft plastic—all the way through.

#

We should go to the emer­gency room, I know we should—we all do—but my par­ents are even bet­ter than I am at pre­tend­ing every­thing is fine and some­how I find myself lay­ing in their unpacked guest room, my moth­er hov­er­ing and fussing.

My hand came back to life briefly, long enough for the wound to close up and hide the unset­tling lack of biol­o­gy. Long enough to make me won­der if I imag­ined it. But it’s locked back into place again along with both of my knees.

There’s noth­ing online about it. No case stud­ies of peo­ple, with or with­out my diag­no­sis, hav­ing their limbs sud­den­ly turn prosthetic.

That’s what Kevin tells me, any­way. My oth­er hand is get­ting stiff, too, so I can’t use my phone very eas­i­ly and have to rely on him.

“Just let me see,” I ask again, prop­ping myself up awk­ward­ly on arms I can bare­ly feel, angling my neck to look at his screen. “What did you search for? Try phras­ing it—”

He pulls away from my bed­side, turn­ing so all I can see is the back of his phone and his irri­tat­ed scowl. “I can han­dle it, just trust me.”

I do trust him. With my life, with my heart, with everything.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve even been enter­tain­ing the idea that maybe, if this vis­it with my par­ents goes well, I might bring up the idea of get­ting mar­ried. On the way home, of course. If my moth­er even hears the word “wed­ding,” she’ll have my dress picked out and a church booked for me with­in an hour.

I think she has a flower shop on speed dial.

So I trust Kevin. I do.

At the same time, how­ev­er, I can feel my con­trol over my own body slip­ping away, faster than I ever thought it would hap­pen, and I am quite lit­er­al­ly inca­pable of keep­ing a hold on it.

I reach for his phone with a des­per­a­tion that sur­pris­es even me. I won’t be able to grab it, I won’t be able to use it, but I just need to try, I need to know what’s hap­pen­ing to me. And if that’s not pos­si­ble, at least I need to know it’s not because I didn’t try.

My fin­gers hit his pro­tec­tive case with an audi­ble clack, and Kevin grabs my hand to stop me.

I can feel it, his touch, but dis­tant­ly. Indi­rect­ly. The way you can feel some­one touch­ing your leg through a pair of jeans.

There’s a moment when he looks at our hands, at the way he’s hold­ing mine like he always does, where he seems… I’m not quite sure. Uncom­fort­able, almost. Like some­thing has changed, beyond the bio­log­i­cal struc­ture of my limb and my abil­i­ty to rec­i­p­ro­cate the gesture.

The moment pass­es, and he slides his hand up to hold my wrist instead. “Diana. You need to stop.”

I’m sure I don’t, but it doesn’t feel worth fight­ing about. My mother’s fuss­ing is going to be much more irri­tat­ing; I should save my ener­gy for that.

Kevin returns my hand to my lap, puts the oth­er on top of it and starts adjust­ing my legs.

“I don’t need you to move me,” I say, try­ing to sound more play­ful than I feel.

“I know,” he says, mov­ing me anyway.

I kick him away. Play­ful­ly. Maybe.

He says noth­ing else on the sub­ject, just pulls up the cov­ers and heads for the door, telling me he will check on me in a lit­tle while.

#

I don’t remem­ber falling asleep, but I must have because I awake to the sounds of my father hum­ming and card­board box­es slid­ing across the carpet.

“What time is it,” I mum­ble, although I can hear my mother’s clock down the hall­way. “Nev­er mind. Blue jay, three o’clock,” I answer my own ques­tion, open­ing my eyes.

Cor­rec­tion. Try­ing to open my eyes.

My eye­lids flut­ter slight­ly, my vision flash­ing from com­plete dark­ness to bright after­noon sun­light from the win­dow but resist the pull of grav­i­ty. A qui­et click of plas­tic accom­pa­nies each move­ment, and the drowsy half-asleep fog burns off like a magician’s flash paper. I am vio­lent­ly awake.

“Good old Cyanocit­ta crista­ta,” my father chuck­les. Delight­ful­ly obliv­i­ous as always. “Enjoy your nap?”

For­get­ting the rigid­i­ty of my hands, I grasp inef­fec­tive­ly at my face. There’s still some give, some soft­ness, to my cheeks and mouth, thank God, but I can’t see, I can’t open my eyes.

“Dad!” I pan­ic, my heart rac­ing and my limbs fight­ing my attempts to sit up. “Dad! Help, I can’t see!”

He’s at my side in an instant, the bed dip­ping under his weight as he gen­tly pulls me into a sit­ting position.

His face is the first thing I see when my eyes click open, con­cerned but smil­ing. “There you go,” he says, putting pil­lows behind me for support.

“I’m sor­ry,” I say. I can’t believe I over­re­act­ed like that, clear­ly my eyes are just fine—

Except I can’t close them now. Or move them. I can only stare, wide eyed, straight ahead.

“Dad!”

Gen­tly, my father takes my head in his hands and tips it back. My eye­lids close instant­ly, open­ing again when he helps me straight­en my neck.

“See, you’re all right. Just move your head like this when you need to blink.”

“What… what the hell—”

He shush­es me, like he used to when I was a lit­tle girl and kiss­es me on the fore­head. I don’t feel it.

“Love you, Dollface.”

#

They unpack box­es of my old things—to “make me feel at home”—while they unpack rea­son after non­sen­si­cal rea­son why I can’t go to a hospital.

“It might go away,” my father says, hang­ing up old posters I thought I got rid of years ago. “You know as well as I do, your symp­toms come and go. No rea­son to assume the worst. Imag­ine how embar­rass­ing it would be to go through all those time-con­sum­ing tests, mak­ing a big deal about every­thing, only to be told to go home and get some rest?”

“I’m wor­ried this is total­ly unre­lat­ed to your diag­no­sis and they’ll take you away, put you in some gov­ern­ment lab and study you,” Kevin tells me, lin­ing up a herd of plas­tic ponies I haven’t seen since I was a kid. “I wouldn’t want that, would you? And what if they fig­ure out a way to weaponize what­ev­er is hap­pen­ing to you? Do you want that on your conscience?”

“They’ll blame me,” my moth­er declares, tak­ing one of my dolls out of a box and painstak­ing­ly putting every way­ward hair back in place. “They always blame the moth­er. And you would let them, don’t deny it. Hon­est­ly, Diana. I’m begin­ning to think that you only want to go to the hos­pi­tal because you just hate being around me so much. Is it so intol­er­a­ble, let­ting me take care of you, that you’re pre­tend­ing this is a med­ical emergency?”

My protests go unheard, my pan­ic grow­ing with every addi­tion­al child­hood mem­o­ry they sur­round me with.

#

I can’t do this. I can’t stay here.

I don’t know if I can even stand, let alone walk, but I have to try.

The next time I’m alone, when my moth­er goes to make me a bowl of her chick­en noo­dle soup I’ve always hat­ed, I take my chance.

Sit­ting up is a strug­gle, my eyes flick­er­ing open sev­er­al times before I final­ly man­age to stay up. Then comes the task of piv­ot­ing in bed, of shift­ing my legs to hang over the edge.

My body fights me for every move­ment, my joints lock­ing up and my skin numb to out­side stimuli.

It doesn’t even feel like my body any­more. It’s just parts, con­nect­ed with fray­ing wires to my con­scious­ness that is trapped inside.

My body is bare­ly respon­sive to my brain’s sig­nals; I know how to move, I know how to bend my knee and straight­en it, but I can’t con­vince my leg of that. And there isn’t any tac­ti­cal feed­back when I take my leg awk­ward­ly in my hands and drag it across the bed­spread, no sense of how hard I’m squeez­ing or how silky the fabric.

Do I even have a ner­vous sys­tem any­more, or am I just a piece of plas­tic with delu­sions of personhood?

My feet are on the floor, my body sway­ing unsteadi­ly with­out the sup­port of my pil­lows. If I have to con­cen­trate to keep from falling over, how am I sup­posed to walk?

I take a few deep breaths, though my chest doesn’t expand and I just hear a lone­ly, hol­low sound.

I always knew some­thing like this was com­ing. Maybe not this, maybe not as fast, but I always knew I would get worse. I just kind of thought, when it hap­pened, the peo­ple I love would be there to help me.

I think I’m stalling. I have to try, have to get it over with.

There’s a moment where every­thing works. I push off the bed, my legs sup­port me, I’m standing.

And then, all at once yet some­how in slow motion, I collapse.

Every part of my body just gives out. As I crum­ple to the floor, my arm strikes a plas­tic con­tain­er that my moth­er had been unpack­ing and the con­tents tum­ble down with me.

I come to rest with my limbs sprawled at awk­ward angles like a chalk out­line at a crime scene, my head popped up enough on my arm to keep my eyes from snap­ping shut.

In front of me, a pile of dolls mir­rors my anguish with emo­tion­less faces.

#

They didn’t set the clock to be silent at night. Unable to relax enough to fall asleep, I lie awake behind closed lids, count­ing bird­songs to keep track of time.

Bal­ti­more ori­ole, North­ern car­di­nal, tuft­ed titmouse…

Around a quar­ter past white breast­ed nuthatch, it occurs to me that Kevin didn’t kiss me good night like he nor­mal­ly does. I can’t remem­ber if he even said it.

I can hear his slow, steady breath­ing next to me. At least one of us is able to sleep.

But I can’t feel him. Have I lost so much sen­sa­tion in my body that I can’t feel his warmth, or the weight of his arm around me?

With some dif­fi­cul­ty, I move my hand out, reach­ing, search­ing. I find his broad back at the edge of his side of the bed, at the fur­thest exten­sion of my reach.

Maybe I hit him hard­er than I thought, I can’t tell. He stirs, grum­bling, and turns over to face me, mov­ing my hand back towards my own body.

“What is it?” he asks, more annoyed than concerned.

“You for­got to kiss me good night,” I say, hop­ing he for­got. Hop­ing there’s a rea­son he’s so far away, any rea­son oth­er than the obvious.

“I didn’t for­get,” Kevin says, and I can prac­ti­cal­ly hear him frown­ing. “You woke me up for that? Really?”

I bare­ly dare to ask, but I whis­per, “Why?”

He makes a sound, like he can’t believe I have to ask, and I self-con­scious­ly go to touch my mouth. My lips click against my fin­gers, hard and cold but still mov­able, kissable.

“So it’s dif­fer­ent,” I say. “I’m still me. I still love you.”

And you still love me, I don’t say, wait­ing for him to sup­ply the words him­self. He doesn’t.

Is that it, then? Is our rela­tion­ship real­ly so frag­ile that some­thing like this can break it?

Am I real­ly so hard to love like this?

I wish I could see him, see what he’s think­ing. Is he look­ing at me with dis­gust or star­ing at the ceil­ing wish­ing he could help me?

After a long moment, he lets out a sigh. The bed shifts and then goes still; his foot­steps pre­cede the sound of the door clos­ing with a soul crush­ing finality.

#

By the time black capped chick­adees announce the arrival of morn­ing, I’ve lost more than just Kevin.

My limbs lay heavy and motion­less, ignor­ing all attempts at move­ment as my moth­er gen­tly undress­es me. I have no con­trol, my body is no longer my own.

It even looks unfa­mil­iar, unnat­ur­al, when she lifts my head and my eyes open enough for me to notice. The skin is too smooth, too uni­form. The breasts are unde­fined globes affixed in place, the area between the legs lack­ing any real anatomy.

I’m grate­ful when my moth­er cov­ers the body again, but her cloth­ing choice leaves a lot to be desired.

“Mom, I don’t wear dress­es. Espe­cial­ly not…” How do I even describe it? “Lit­tle House on the Prairie dresses.”

“I’ve noticed,” she says, and my vision blinks out briefly as she tilts my head back to get the blue cal­i­co fab­ric over it.

When my eyes open, it’s to the hor­ri­fy­ing sight of my moth­er twist­ing my arm at an unnat­ur­al angle while putting it through the sleeve. Elbows shouldn’t bend that way.

A surge of phan­tom pain goes through me before I real­ize I don’t feel a thing. The arm is prac­ti­cal­ly out of the sock­et, and I don’t feel a thing.

“I don’t want to wear it,” I protest, watch­ing her calm­ly set the limb back in place. “I want to wear—” I almost try to point to my suit­case, resort­ing to stiffly turn­ing my head in that direc­tion instead. “I want to wear my own clothes.”

She starts fuss­ing with my hair, one hand on my fore­head to keep me from fight­ing her. “I thought I might bring you to the kitchen lat­er, have you sit with me while I have lunch.”

“No—”

“Of course, I have my book club com­ing over lat­er, so I’ll have to put you away for that. But maybe your father will come and play with you.”

It’s not just my body.

My life is no longer my own.

It belongs to my par­ents, for them to mold as they wish. All I have left is my voice.

“Mom, I don’t—”

“Doesn’t that sound good, Doll­face?” she asks, set­ting down the brush and reach­ing a hand down the back of my dress.

I open my mouth to argue, and my moth­er pulls a string I didn’t know I had. The voice is mine, the words are not.

“Yes, moth­er. What­ev­er you say.”