Chapter 26 - LILY’S DAUGHTER AND THE DOLL
Lily became a pediatric nurse practitioner.
Not because she was once sick on a kitchen floor.
At least she insisted not.
“I like bossing parents around.”
More plausible.
She married at twenty-nine.
A woman named Natalie Brooks.
At thirty-two, they had a daughter through donor conception.
Rose.
At four, Rose discovered Miss Button in a storage box.
“Ugly doll.”
Lily gasped theatrically.
“Respect your elders.”
Rose pulled the doll out.
“What this?”
“My doll.”
“Why dirty?”
“Long story.”
“Wash.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Lily looked at me.
Then Clara.
“Because sometimes old things are allowed to look old.”
Rose accepted that for three seconds.
Then:
“Need dress.”
She made Miss Button a new dress from a dish towel.
May you like
No one stopped her.
The doll’s past did not require museum conservation.
