He looked away, his lips in a flat line, seemingly refusing to answer. But he wanted to. She could see it in the rise and fall of his chest and in the shift of his eyes as they studied the collection, searching for the words.
Endless seconds passed, the stillness strangling, before his Adam's apple bobbed and his fingers twitched on his hips. “It was the first and last toy I owned. A goddamned doll.” He laughed nervously, his hand lifting to rub the back of his neck. “I don't even know how I got it. Probably from one of those missionaries who would pop in to deliver food and Jesus pamphlets.”
A clot of emotion gathered in her throat. Something had happened to him. She lowered her hands to her shorts, gripping them. “This was when you lived in the colonia?”
He nodded and crouched over the broken doll, glaring at it. “I was a nine-year-old boy. What the fuck was I doing with a doll?”
His tone was angry, at odds with the tender way his finger traced the jagged hole in the doll's torso at his feet. He seemed to be lost in memory, his silence hardening the lump she couldn't swallow. She stepped forward, aching to erase the distance, but the jerk of his shoulders halted her approach.
“He was a huge man. My mother was a whore, sold herself for the needle, and he was just some random john, but he was the first one I remember. He fucked her right there in front of me. She was so fucking high I don't think she was conscious.” A tremor shook his body, and he sat back, legs folded against his chest, his arms wrapped around his knees. “And there I was, curled up in the damned corner, hugging that doll, kissing her ratty hair like she was my only friend. Hell, she was my only friend.”
He put his hands over his face, and his shoulders hunched like a scared little boy. Her heart clenched painfully, and her eyes burned. She wanted to hold that little boy so damned badly.
Straightening the legs of her shorts, she moved with fast, quiet steps. Then she dropped before him and mirrored his pose with her arms around her knees.
His hands lowered and dangled between them. He didn't look up, didn't acknowledge her at all. “When he was done with my mother, he turned to me. I wouldn't let go of that doll. He was so goddamned strong I couldn't stop him from ripping Isadora out of my hands.”
“Isadora? Your mother?”
His head cocked, and his eyes narrowed in confusion on the broken doll between their feet. He squeezed his legs tighter against his chest, his body curling inward. He was shutting down.
In a bold gesture, she reached out and placed her hand on his cheek, stroking her fingers through the thick hair above his ear.
He shook his head, eyes on the floor, then leaned into her touch. “I'd named the doll after my mother.”
There was no embarrassment or resentment in his tone, just...sadness. He loved his mother, that much was clear, and evidently that love wasn't reciprocated.
A burn seared through her nose. She envied his devotion. She didn't know her mother well enough to love her. There'd been no connection, no relationship. Just illness. She rocked forward to her knees and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
His legs dropped, and he pulled her against his chest, speaking softly into her hair. “When he stomped on the doll, her body split in half, and the arms and legs tore off. Just like that, she was dead.”
She rubbed his rigid back, her own muscles stiff with anguish. The attachment he must've felt for that doll amidst such a neglected, fucked-up upbringing... God, he must've mourned her. The doll. His mother. She glanced over his shoulder and took in the menagerie of brokenness with new eyes.
It was tragic and beautiful and inspiring. She didn't know the depth of his suffering, but the coping, the struggle to self-medicate? She knew all about that. The memory of his doll had stuck with him, and he'd recreated his appreciation for it, clinging to the notion that he could somehow repair what had happened, that he could fix the past with the present.
She didn't think that was possible, but what did she know? Just because she hadn't been successful at taking back her own life didn't mean he couldn't find some kind of peace in creating an indestructible doll.
He adjusted her legs so that she straddled his lap and squeezed her chest to his. His arms were strong and immovable around her, his body a powerhouse of muscle. But she felt the scared boy in the hunch of his shoulders and the restlessness of his fingers gripping at the shirt covering her back. That little boy felt like her insides, fractured and hurting, lonely and scared, but brimming with the desire to love something or someone and to be loved.