Sally was wandering from aisle to aisle, eyes crawling over the neverending swaths of color and print swirling around her. She reached out to touch the fabrics with one hand, while her other hand clutched the tattered old doll that hung by her side. The doll looked like it was an older woman, maybe 50 or 60 years old, but her clothes were that of a young girl, though tattered and faded with time. Sally never went anywhere without her doll, and she held on to it out of reflex alone, since her attention was completely enraptured by the selection of clothes in the department store.
“Sally, stay close to your Mommy,” her mother Margie said, “I don’t want you wondering off. It’s dangerous for a little girl like you to be all alone in a place like this.”
Sally gave her mother a quick thin-lipped smile and turned back to the dress she had been admiring.
“Mommy, when can I wear clothes like these?” Sally asked, with a hint of a pout below the surface.
“When you’re a big girl.” Margie said, distracted with a dress of her own.
Sally rolled her eyes at her mother’s standard response. She’d been asking that question for years now.
“Or at least it felt like years,” Sally thought, “it’s kinda hard to tell sometimes.”
Sally started trying to remember how many birthdays she’d had since she first started asking and lost count after a dozen or so. But no matter how many birthdays Sally had, she never got any older. The perfect eight year old little girl.
“Mommy tells strangers that I’m eight, but I know I must be older than that…” But whenever Sally met any new children “her own age” she seemed to get along with them so well, that Sally forgot that she was easily 3 times as old as anyone there.
Sally knew it wasn’t normal, but she also knew what made her special. Her mommy had explained it to her a long time ago.
Sally was on the floor of the living room playing with legos, when Margie came into the room. She sat down next to Sally and that when she noticed the doll. She was young and pretty and had beautiful new clothes. Sally reached for the doll and Margie smiled.
“Hey baby. I have a present for you.” Margie said holding out the doll for Sally to see. Sally’s little arms reached for the doll, but Margie pulled in back from her.
“I’m going to give you this doll in a minute. But first, I need you to listen to me. This doll is an old family heirloom. I know it doesn’t look old now, but it goes back for generations. It’s been with your cousin Maria for the past few years, but now it’s come back to me… for you.”
Sally smiled at her mom, not quite understanding everything, but patiently waiting for the doll to be hers.
“Oh honey, you don’t know yet how special this doll is. I had when I was a girl and it was just so wonderful. Those were some of the best years of my life, the time I spent with my mother then. I wish I could have kept her forever…”
“But why couldn’t you?” Sally asked.
“My mom made me give it to my little sister after a few years. But you, you don’t have a sister, and you’re the youngest in the family. I don’t see why you couldn’t keep her forever! Wouldn’t that be great?”
Sally nodded eagerly and wondered when she would get to hold the doll.
“But the thing you need to understand is what makes this doll so special. As long as you keep it with you, you’ll stay my little girl forever, and you’ll never grow up. But don’t let anyone else hold her, cause then it won’t work anymore.”
Margie looked at Sally to see if she understood what she was saying, but was only met with the eager open face of a little girl wanting to hold a doll.
“Do you understand? Do you want your new doll?”
“Yes, please!” Sally said, bouncing up and down in anticipation. Margie handed her the doll.
“Great! Now you can stay my perfect little girl forever and ever. And no one’s going to take her away from you. Or you from me.”
Sally smiled and gave the doll a hug. Margie leaned over and gave them both a hug in return.
Sally wasn’t sure how long ago that had been, but she did remember that after she had had the doll awhile, she started to notice that it was getting lines in its face. kind of like her mommy was getting. And as the years passed, Sally saw the doll get older and her mommy too, but Sally herself stayed the same. She didn’t mind, her mother took her shopping all the time, and they went out to play, and it was great.
Sally watched her mother talking to the sales person, asking about the different types of fabric for the dress she was looking at. Sally tried to stay close, but a swath of fabric caught her eye and before she knew it she was deep in the women’s wear section and all alone.
She set down her doll for a minute to take a closer look at the dress that had caught her eye. After a brief and valiant struggle, the garment came down over her head. Sally struggled to get free, and once she could see again, she slipped the dress over her clothes and admired herself in the mirror. She knew the dress was way too big for her, but she imagined that it fit just right and that she was going to some big grown-up party like her mom always did.
While she was lost in her fantasy, another shopper came up behind her, pushing her little girl in a stroller. Sally saw the little hand come out from the side of the stroller and wrap its little fingers around the doll she had carelessly left lying in the middle of the aisle. Sally saw the doll’s clothes get bright again, and the years melt off its face. The doll was as young and fresh as the day Margie had given it to her. The little girl in the stroller giggled and the mother looked down and saw what had happened.
“Oh, my, I’m sorry. What an adorable little doll you’ve got,” the mom said and pulled the doll from her daughter’s grasp, handing it back to Sally. The little girl started to cry, and Sally put her hands behind her back and shook her head.
“She can keep it. I think it’s hers now anyway. Just look at its clothes and its face, they’re just like they were when I got her.”
The mother furrowed her brow, and looked down at the doll, trying to make sense of what Sally had said to her. But Sally didn’t wait. She stepped out of the dress she had been trying on, turned back to find her mom, and walked right into her legs. Sally looked up at Margie’s face and realized that she had been there the whole time. Sally’s heart fell a little as she saw the tears standing in her mother’s eyes and wondered why she was so sad. “I mean, it wasn’t even her doll”, Sally thought before Margie took her hand. They left without buying a thing or saying a word to each other.
Ten minutes later, in the car ride home, Sally finally worked up the courage to ask the question she’d been dying to ask.
“Mom, are you mad at me?”