When I was very young, I had a baby doll named, creatively enough, Baby. I carried Baby with me everywhere. If Baby was misplaced, then I could not sleep until she was found. In my child’s mind Baby was just as real a person as any member of my family and I loved her.
When I was four-years-old, Baby went missing. It was an entire drama. I would stay up each night wailing in distress until I finally fell asleep from exhaustion. My parents were at their wits end. Finally, after a week of this without any sign of it stopping, my mother hit on what she saw as a solution: replace Baby.
She was able to find a new baby doll that was very similar to Baby. It used the exact same face mold, and the cloth body was the same shape of pink, but it would have been obvious to even the most casual observer that it was entirely different toy. I guess my mother was betting on the face being enough. She bet wrong.
I hated Fake Baby. More than anything I hated her; a hate stronger than any emotion I had ever felt. I have no memory of the loss of the original Baby, but I very distinctly remember hating Fake Baby. It’s one of my earliest memories. Fake Baby represented everything false, everything evil and wrong. She was the mother of lies. The literal devil. She even smelt wrong.
Obviously this had the opposite of the intended effect, and the Baby tantrums only grew more out-of-control.
A few days later my mother found the original Baby; she had been hidden between my mattress and box-spring by my older brother who was mad I had broken something of his. Once again I have no specific memory of this time of my life, I was far too young, but it was my understanding at the time that Fake Baby was disposed of once real Baby was found.
Over twenty years later I was home at my parent’s place for Christmas. My mother had been hinting for months that she had a particularly special gift for me. I have to admit she had be a little hyped.
Then I opened it.
It was a painting. An actual paint-on-canvas painting. Of a doll. Of Fake Baby. It even smelled like her.
My mother had clearly intended to get a painting of Baby done, which would have been creepy enough on its own, but when she went to retrieve the toy she must have found Fake Baby instead.
All of those feelings came flooding back. My face burnt red. Imagine receiving a painting of the literal Devil for Christmas from your beamingly proud mother.
I left. I wasn’t mature or honest about it I just left. I fled the scene back to my apartment, leaving behind my Christmas gifts and a bag full of clothes. I drove all the way back home and then ignored my family’s frantic texts and calls. I just couldn’t deal with it and I couldn’t explain to them how I was afraid of a toy from when I was four.
We never ended up addressing it; everyone just pretended nothing had happened the next time we saw each other. It just became a tension that hung in the air.
A few months later I came home to find the painting of Fake Baby hanging in my apartment. There was only one way this could have happened; my parents must have snuck in with my spare key while I was at work and hung it there. I see now they saw this as a kind gesture, some sort of olive branch, but at the time the violation made me see red.
I called my parents. They didn’t want to talk, my father was driving, but I didn’t care. I tore into them. I was screaming. They tried to defend themselves but I wouldn’t have it. Everyone got worked up. Then I heard a shout, a squeal, the sound of crushing metal, and then nothing.
My father, distracted by my call, had crashed the car. The accident killed both my parents and the other driver.
Even through the phone I could smell her.