Where Dragons Play

What's Her Story #47

“You find a doll that looks exactly like you.”
Word Count: 731.

Kenzie got off work at the nursing home early that afternoon. The heavy rain pelted the windshield, forcing her to drive at a snail's pace with the defrost running.

She reflected on how the stormy weather matched her mood; despite it being her twenty-sixth birthday, she couldn't help feeling as though nothing meant anything and everything was dull and heavy and uninteresting.

I'm depressed, that's all. It's fairly normal this time of year. But all I feel like doing when I get home is going to bed. Even though I won't be able to sleep.

She turned a corner and came to a stop at a traffic jam. An accident was blocking the road. Conveniently, it was right in front of her favorite thrift store.

Hmm… I haven't been there in a long time. Maybe I can find a cheap blouse or something to cheer myself up. They used to have really good sales.

Inside, the small shop smelled slightly musty, like old clothes and yellowed books. Kenzie remembered from experience that the owner had eclectic music tastes and played their personal playlist on the sound system.

A song began which seemed to match Kenzie's mood as well as the storm did, something with a long instrumental intro that built upon itself in a subtle, mysterious way. She pulled out her phone to Shazam it…

Imagine Dragons? I thought they made big, loud, annoying songs. What is this?

🎶"4 AM beside myself
and what I think of mental health
All the things that worry me,
All the things you don't believe…

It comes back to you
It comes back to you
All the things that you had lost
Will find their way to you…"🎶

It's so slow and quiet and moody, not like how I think of them at all. That's really interesting.

As she strolled absently down an aisle overflowing with stuffed animals, bags of Legos, and board games, her eyes met a doll about the size of an American Girl. It was sitting in a blue Adirondack chair, wearing a Girl Scouts uniform.

Kenzie stopped short and stared, because the doll looked exactly like her when she was a child: brown skin, green eyes, two big poufs of curly Afro hair, and what really took her breath away… the large heart shaped mole, carefully painted on the upper right cheek.

Memories flooded in as she touched the matching mole on her own cheek…

"Oh Lovey, how was your day at school?"

Mom calls me Lovey, for my mole. It always made me feel so special and unique. Goodness, when was the last time I called her up? I'm two states away from home—we never see each other anymore. But… this doll!

Kenzie picked up the chair on which her lookalike doll sat, placing the whole thing into her cart with trembling hands, not even checking the price tags.

***

"Mom, did you get my text with the doll's picture?"

"Lovey, I don't believe this," her Mom said over the phone. "That's the doll I ordered for your seventh birthday, almost twenty years ago! I had her custom made for us online. But the package was stolen right off of our doorstep when it was delivered. I never told you, because I couldn't afford to order another one."

"That's incredible! How in the world did it get here after all these years?"

"It's your birthday, Lovey. I prayed for God to give you a special gift today to remind you how loved you are, and He did."

"I wish I'd been keeping in touch, Mom. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Lovey. I've been praying for you."

"Life hasn't been easy lately…" Kenzie smoothed her doll's clothes and sat down with it in her lap. She talked to her Mom for a couple of hours, feeling like a little kid again.

"Thank you for buying this doll for me. It's the best birthday gift ever, and it came right on time. I love you, Mom."

"Love you too, Kenzie."

When she finished the phone call, she decided to play that song she'd found at the thrift store. Kenzie smiled as she hugged her new doll, leaning back and losing herself in the music which suited her so well…

🎶"It comes back to you
It comes back to you
Looking back into the past
And I can see it through…"🎶

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