Just Like Me

“She’s just like me!”

Ellie fell in love the moment she tore off the wrapping paper. She leapt with joy as Rachel opened the package and gently handed her the doll with its blonde hair, blue eyes, freckly cheeks, and beautiful pink dress. Rachel was impressed. It really did look like her daughter, just as the toy maker promised.

“What does this do?” Ellie asked as she tugged on a pull string in the doll’s back.

“I love you!”

“She talks!” Ellie shouted, waving the doll around for her mother to see. Rachel groaned inwardly, but the look on her daughter’s face was worth any mild annoyance from a talking toy. She relished Ellie’s beaming smile as she pulled the string again.

“Let’s play!”

And once more.

“Who needs a hug?”

Further pulls of the string spurred the doll to repeat those same three phrases:

“I love you!”

“Let’s play!”

“Who needs a hug?”

Rachel’s delight in her daughter’s joy turned to agitation in the week following Ellie’s fourth birthday. Soon enough she wished she’d just walked past the vintage toy shop downtown and gotten her a box of sidewalk chalk instead as those three phrases rang out in a constant loop.

“I love you!”

“Mommy,” Ellie said one morning at breakfast, “do you love me?”

“Of course I love you, sweetheart,” Rachel said. She sat down at the table next to Ellie and ran a hand through her daughter’s blonde hair. “I love you more than anyone else in the whole world.”

“Even when I’m crazy?”

“Yes.” Rachel chuckled and tapped Ellie’s button nose. “Even then.”

Ellie took a bite of scrambled eggs and asked with a full mouth, “What if there was something wrong with me? Would you still love me then?”

Rachel’s head instinctively tilted to the side. “Ellie, nothing would make me stop loving you. What makes you ask that?”

“I think there’s something wrong with Tiffy.”

“Tiffy?”

Ellie pointed with her fork at her doll, which sat in a chair next to her at the table. “Tiffy. My dolly. I think there’s something wrong with her because she was all alone for a long time and people forgetted her. She told me.” Ellie shrugged and said, “I guess nobody loved her before me.” Rachel smiled and shook her head. The things Ellie thought up with that active imagination of hers. She knew her baby girl would give her a run for her money soon enough.

Ellie finished her eggs and said, “Well, Tiffy, what should we do now?” Rachel cringed as Ellie tugged the pull string.

“Let’s play!”

As the summer months began winding down, Rachel went shopping downtown to freshen up Ellie’s wardrobe for preschool. It was one of the few times she was granted a brief reprieve from Tiffy’s incessant chatter. She’d convinced Ellie to leave the doll at home when they went out, since if she accidentally left it behind, Tiffy wouldn’t know how to find its way back home. So Ellie followed along beside her mother, singing and dancing in excitement as Rachel bought her new clothes from the shops. Ellie couldn’t wait to twirl like a princess in her new dresses. The last thing she needed was a new pair of shoes, and their walk to the shoe store led them past the vintage toy shop.

Or at least it should have.

Rachel paused before the foundation of a demolished building where the toy shop once stood. Not two weeks ago, she’d gone into this exact building looking for a gift for Ellie’s birthday. Shelves along the walls and displays on the floor were filled with all manner of wooden cars, wind-up robots, tin airplanes, and porcelain dolls. It all seemed a bit dated for her soon-to-be four-year-old until she met the shopkeeper, humming to himself as he handcrafted a doll behind the counter with a wall full of unique dolls behind him; none of them looked alike.

When she asked him if he could make a doll that looked like her daughter, he asked for a picture. She found one after a quick rifle through her purse and, after looking it over, the shopkeeper gave her a warm smile and said he could finish it in a few days. He even offered to gift wrap it and drop it off at her house when it was ready. Sure enough, a wrapped package was waiting on their doorstep three days later.

Now the building was gone.

Rachel was pulled forward and out of her thoughts by Ellie, who was anxious to get back home to Tiffy. Before long, they left the shoe store with Ellie clamoring to wear her new light-up Skechers.

“Who needs a hug?”

“I do, Tiffy!” Ellie clutched the doll to her chest and squeezed it tight. Rachel continued folding the new clothes and organizing them in her daughter’s dresser while she played on her bed covered in dolls and stuffed animals. Her other toys were practically invisible next to Tiffy.

“Mommy?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“What’s down in the basement?”

“Well,” Rachel said thoughtfully, “there are some machines that wash our clothes down there, and some others that keep our house cool and make our water warm, and some things we don’t use right now.”

“What kinds of things?”

“Mostly boxes. Christmas decorations, some clothes you wore when you were a baby, some old stuff from when I was in school. And some other things, like the big dog crate we used when Buster was alive.”

“Would you lock me up in Buster’s crate?”

Rachel turned to face her daughter, who was brushing Tiffy’s hair. “No,” Rachel said. “No, sweetheart, I would never do that…why are you asking that, Ellie?”

“That’s what happened to Tiffy,” Ellie said without looking up from her doll. “She was in her box in the basement of her old house for a long time. Then they knocked her house down and forgetted her in it.”

Rachel watched in silence for a moment before saying, “I see,” and returned to putting away the laundry. Once she’d laid Ellie down for bed that night, she Googled the vintage toy shop she’d gotten Tiffy from. The only seemingly related result was a news article from years ago, when a similar store downtown had gone out of business. But that couldn’t possibly be the same one, because she’d just had that nice old man make Tiffy for her a couple weeks ago. She concluded it must have been a different toy store and did her best to shake off her concern, reassuring herself that it was Ellie’s imagination getting the best of her again. Even so, each pull of Tiffy’s string disturbed her as the doll ran through its usual rotation of phrases.

“I love you!”

“Let’s play!”

“Help me.”

Rachel stood upright and shut off the kitchen faucet. The living room was quiet.

“Ellie?”

“Yes, Mommy?”

“Was that…” Rachel set down the pan she was cleaning and walked to the living room entryway. Ellie sat on her favorite blanket with Tiffy sitting across from her, a tea set and some empty plates and bowls between them. “Can I…can I see Tiffy for a second?”

“Sure, Mommy.” Ellie handed the doll to her mother. Rachel turned Tiffy over in her hands, looked at it from all angles, and then focused on its face. Its molded smile was unflinching, its blue eyes were piercing as always. Hesitantly, she hooked a finger through the ring on Tiffy’s back and drew the pull string.

“Who needs a hug?”

Rachel held the plastic eyes’ gaze.

“Are you okay, Mommy?”

Rachel blinked. The doll didn’t. “Yes, honey,” she said and smiled at Ellie. “Yes, I’m okay. Sorry, sweety.” Rachel handed Tiffy back to Ellie and looked at the clock. “It’s about time for us to get going. Can’t be late for your first day of preschool, can we?”

She finished getting Ellie ready and drove her to preschool, dropping her off with a tearful good-bye. She couldn’t believe her baby girl was getting so big. When she returned home, Rachel shut the front door, walked to the living room, and let out a short, shocked scream when she found Tiffy sitting on the couch staring at her. She leaned against the wall to catch her breath, laughing to herself with each gasp. Ellie had just left Tiffy sitting there before she’d taken her to school. Of course.

Once she regained her composure, Rachel went about her usual business for the day—showering, making some work calls while doing the laundry, replying to a few emails—but her recent conversations with Ellie about Tiffy kept cycling through her mind as she busied herself with work. And what she could have sworn she heard just earlier that morning kept echoing in her ears…

Help me.

Every opportunity she could, she peeked at Tiffy in the living room. At one point, she knelt by the couch just out of the doll’s line of plastic sight. It never moved, never made a sound. It simply sat there. Waiting.

She started drawing the pull string over and over again to see if the doll would say something different, but for a good half an hour those same three phrases rang out in rapid succession. Unaltered, unswayed, unrelenting.

“I love you!”

“Let’s play!”

“Who needs a hug?”

As Ellie’s pick-up time approached, Rachel made a tough call. She walked the doll out to the trash can in the garage and tossed it inside. It’ll be fine, she thought as she walked back into the house. I’ll just tell Ellie that Tiffy went on a long trip. I’ll get her a new toy from the store tonight, and soon she won’t even remember—

She froze in the doorway to the living room.

Tiffy was sitting on the couch.

She walked back out to the garage, retracing her steps through the events that had just occurred, trying in vain to convince herself that she’d just imagined throwing the doll in the trash and hadn’t followed through with it. She continued this mental exercise as she drove to pick up her daughter, and quickly changed her demeanor as Ellie ran to her from the classroom, joyful, enthusiastic, and carrying a picture of her and Tiffy riding a pony that she’d drawn in class. When they got home, the picture went straight up on the fridge, and Rachel watched with apprehension as Ellie ran to the living room and grabbed Tiffy for another evening of dancing and games and laughter punctuated by the doll’s three phrases. As her daughter picked up the doll, Rachel could have sworn she saw it blink.

“I love you!”

“Let’s play!”

“Who needs a hug?”

To celebrate Ellie’s first day of preschool, Rachel took Ellie to dinner. Ellie persuaded her to allow Tiffy to come along, citing that it was a “special ‘casion.” She even convinced her mother to buy the doll its own cheeseburger and fries, which she held in front of Tiffy’s mouth and made chomping noises to Rachel’s amusement. As they finished their meal, a man wearing a funny hat began sauntering through the restaurant making balloon animals for the children at the tables. Rachel encouraged Ellie to get a balloon animal while she took care of the check.

As she tucked her wallet back into her purse, she noticed Ellie had left Tiffy sitting in the booth on the opposite side of the table. She could see her daughter captivated by the balloon man on the other side of the restaurant, completely oblivious that her doll was still in its seat. So Rachel slung her purse over her shoulder, stood from the table, and the two of them left. Rachel felt a weight lift as she drove away from the restaurant with Ellie chattering away at her new balloon giraffe in the back seat.

They’d nearly made it home by the time Ellie noticed. She quickly kicked into a panic, and begged her mother to turn around and go back. Rachel offered to call the restaurant and, after a brief exchange with an imaginary person on the other line, informed Ellie that they couldn’t find Tiffy anywhere. Even Rachel’s promise that she would buy her a new doll the next day wasn’t enough to console her daughter on the drive home. When they got out of the car, Ellie wrapped her arms tight around Rachel’s neck, sobbing as she carried her into the house. As painful as it was to see her daughter cry, Rachel knew Tiffy being gone would be good for her—for both of them—and tried her best to soothe Ellie as she walked down the hallway toward her bedroom.

“Tiffy! You’re home!”

Rachel stiffened as Ellie leapt from her arms and ran into the living room, clasping Tiffy tight to her chest from its seat on the couch. “Mommy was wrong,” she said. “You do know how to find your way back home!” She tugged Tiffy’s pull string.

“I love you!”

“Let’s play!”

“Who needs a hug?”

Rachel hardly slept that night. There was little she could do to try and explain away how the doll was back in her house. The next morning, she found Ellie sitting up in bed with her knees tucked to her chest under her My Little Pony nightgown, staring at the doll sitting on the opposite end of the bed.

“Ellie?” Rachel asked as she sat on the bed next to her. “Is everything okay?”

Ellie pointed at the doll. “Tiffy’s mad at me.”

Rachel gave the doll a sideward glance. “What do you mean, sweety?”

“She kept talking to me last night. And her voice got all low and scary.” Ellie wrapped her arms around her knees. “I didn’t even pull the string.”

Rachel rubbed Ellie’s back and tried to hide her worried expression. “What did Tiffy say?”

“She said I need to help her.”

Rachel’s brow furrowed. “And how did she want you to help her?”

Ellie squeezed her knees to her chest. “She said I can’t leave her any more. She said they left her in a basement and forgetted about her because she only says three things.” She looked at Rachel. “She said you would do that to me.”

Rachel wrapped her daughter in a tight hug. “Never,” she said. “I would never do that to my sweet baby girl.” She kissed Ellie on top of her head, not once taking her eyes off the doll.

That’s it, she thought. This thing leaves today.

Tiffy remained on the bed while Rachel got Ellie ready for preschool, and soon enough she’d dropped her off and was alone in the house. Just her and Tiffy in Ellie’s room. She’d tried to convince herself all the odd occurrences with the doll were just Ellie’s active imagination—an imagination that had started tricking her mind as well. But with everything that had happened…she held her breath and drew the pull string.

“It’s too late.”

Rachel dropped the doll and backed away. The voice box was low, distorted, characteristic of a low battery. But there was no way it was just her imagination. Rachel couldn’t unhear what it said. The doll stared up at the ceiling.

“There’s nothing you can do now.”

Rachel clasped a hand to her mouth. She hadn’t touched the doll. No one pulled its string. She did her best to steady her ragged breathing and think. I tried to throw it away, she thought. I tried to leave it somewhere else. But it didn’t work. She picked up the doll and looked at its blue eyes. She knew what she had to do.

Desperate times, she thought.

She carried Tiffy into the living room, threw it on its side in the fireplace, and started tossing loose sticks and old newspapers on top of it. As she struck a match from the box on the mantle, she hesitated. Was she overreacting? Was this really necessary? She went back and forth in her mind as the flame climbed down the matchstick and the heat began licking at her fingertips.

“She’s mine.”

Rachel threw the match into the fireplace, setting the newspapers alight. She sat on the couch, watching the wood burn, waiting for the doll to melt in the flames.

It didn’t.

An hour passed, and the last embers of the kindling died out. Tiffy remained on its side, its hair unsinged, its blue eyes vibrant as ever, staring off into space.

Rachel pressed her fists into her temples and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, the doll was still there, staring. She shook her head violently and looked again. Tiffy still laid on its side in the fireplace.

“Where the hell did you come from?” she roared at the fireplace. The doll did nothing. Said nothing. She took fistfuls of her hair and took a deep breath. “And now you’re yelling at the doll, Rachel. Really keeping it together. Like the high-functioning, put-together parent you are. Great.” Rachel knelt and rubbed her eyes. She opened them, hoping that maybe this time Tiffy would really be gone. It was still there.

“Why?” Rachel crawled forward, settling on her knees in front of the fireplace. “Why are you doing this?”

Tiffy’s head turned, slowly, until it was looking directly into Rachel’s eyes.

“So she’ll be just like me.”

Rachel clenched her jaw. “I won’t let that happen.” She grabbed Tiffy and howled as pain shot through her hands; the doll wasn’t burned, but it was hot. Furious, she pulled a blanket from the couch and wrapped it around the doll. She carried Tiffy through the kitchen, down the stairs to the basement, and dug through piles of boxes until she found the old dog crate. The doll looked so innocent and tiny sitting by itself in the back corner of the cage she’d once used for her German Shepherd. But she shut the door, tied it shut with a line of tinsel from a nearby box of Christmas decorations, threw the couch blanket over the crate, and pushed it into the corner before piling other boxes in front of it to hide it from view. Satisfied, she went upstairs and drove to the store to get Ellie a new toy. When she returned home with a brunette doll that boasted thirty different phrases, the living room couch was empty, and the boxes were still piled high in the corner of the basement.

When Rachel picked Ellie up from school, she gave her the new doll and explained that Tiffy had gone on a trip and wouldn’t be back for a long time, so the new doll had come to keep her company. Ellie took the new doll and pressed the button in its chest.

“Hi! My name’s Maisie! What’s yours?”

Ellie looked into Maisie’s eyes for a moment before muttering, “Thanks, Mommy,” and said nothing else on their drive home. When they pulled into the garage, Ellie left the new doll sitting in the car and walked quietly to her room. No matter how Rachel tried to cheer her up the rest of the evening, nothing worked. She couldn’t convince her to eat, or even get out of bed the rest of the night. After getting Ellie into pajamas and tucking her in, Rachel laid down in her own bed with her daughter’s quiet sobs coming from across the hall. Rachel struggled to fall asleep, guilt weighing heavy on her conscience, but told herself repeatedly that she’d done the right thing. Eventually Ellie stopped crying and she was able to drift into an uneasy sleep.

“…”

Rachel woke to a loud crash from the basement. She sprang from her bed and ran to Ellie’s room. Empty. She rushed to the kitchen and stopped in front of the basement door. The door was cracked open, and the picture Ellie had drawn of her and Tiffy riding a pony was taped in its center. But it was different. She could have sworn Ellie drew the ring for the pull string on Tiffy’s back. Now it was drawn next to Ellie.

Rachel opened the door. A dull fluorescent glow flickered at the bottom of the stairs. ”Ellie?” she called. No response. She tiptoed gingerly down each step until her feet reached the cold concrete of the basement floor. The flickering light above the washer and dryer illuminated the chaos she’d walked into. The boxes had been thrown aside. Christmas decorations and baby clothes littered the floor. Old notebooks and supplies from her school years were strewn everywhere. The blanket from the couch was askew in the corner. The dog crate was empty with Tiffy lying face-down at its open door. She knelt near the doll, and it was clear there was something wrong. There was a hole in Tiffy’s back. Its voice box had been ripped out.

The all-too-familiar sound of a pull string came from behind her.

“I love you!”

Rachel swallowed, shuddered, and stood. Two tiny feet poked out from the shadow of the staircase. They moved, and Ellie—blonde hair messy, blue eyes unblinking—stepped into the light in her pink nightgown.

“Sweetheart,” Rachel said, trying steady her voice, “are you okay?”

Ellie, her face devoid of emotion, reached behind herself, and the sound of a pull string shattered Rachel’s composure as she tugged the ring in her own back.

“Let’s play!”

Rachel sank to her knees as tears flooded her vision. Ellie stepped toward her with mechanical and heavy movements, entirely unlike her light-footed baby girl who loved to dance and twirl like a princess. Ellie reached behind herself again and tugged her pull string.

“Who needs a hug?”

Rachel—her throat tight, her sight blurry—extended her arms. Ellie walked forward into her embrace. Rachel scooped her up, stroked her hair, and wept as she ran her fingers along the ring in the middle of her daughter’s back. She kissed her head, held her close and shushed her, though Ellie wasn’t making a sound. She looked at the old dog crate.

“It’s okay, baby girl,” Rachel said as she knelt in front of the cage. She set Ellie inside and took hold of the door. Ellie stared at her and reached behind her back.

“I love you!”

“I love you too, sweety.” The door to the crate creaked shut. Rachel looked through the mess sprawled across the basement and found an old padlock she’d used in high school. With a deep, quivering breath, she secured it to the crate as Ellie reached behind herself again.

“Let’s play!”

“Not right now, sweetheart,” Rachel whispered. “I think we could both use some sleep.” She stood and flicked the light switch, drowning the basement in darkness. The sound of a pull string came from the direction of the dog crate.

“Who needs a hug?”

“In the morning, baby,” Rachel said. “I promise.” She walked up the stairs in silence, the steps creaking under her weight, until she finally reached the top and gently shut the basement door. She pressed her back against it and sank to the floor as violent, uncontrollable sobs racked her frame.

“I love you!”

“Let’s play!”

“Who needs a hug?”

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