Beloved

Meet Lizzy. She’s a survivor.

Once upon a time, there were a lot of them. There was Tommy, Abigail, Lucy, the gypsy triplets Scheherazade, Esmeralda, and Aurora, the English one Emily, Annie the country girl, Mollie the baby and a lot more but I have forgotten their names already.    

Out of the 27 pieces of antique porcelain dolls in my collection, she alone escaped the wrath of my ex-husband when during one of his drunken episodes he decided to murder all of them using a screwdriver. He stabbed them one by one right in the face. One doll I found his weapon of choice still buried deep in one eye. Luckily he passed out before he could damage my beloved Lizzy. The reason? He got none aside from his opinion that I loved the dolls more than him and spent more time in their company than in his.

It reminds me of the time he flushed my goldfish down the toilet and let out my parakeets in the middle of the winter, killed the giant pothos his late grandmother had given me, removing the leaves one by one until there was nothing left but the climbing pole for exactly the same reason: They took so much of my time he said. Well, it’s all water under the bridge now. 

Lizzy’s face neck and chest together with her arms and legs are made of porcelain and the only doll in my collection who has movable joints. I love her big innocent sorrowful chocolate brown eyes, baby limbs, and pouty lips, her traditional attire too. When I finally had the courage to walked out from the hell house, I took nothing but the clothes on my back and Lizzy. 

You can read the rest of our journey to freedom here.