Chapter 3
I looked at the red-headed doll on my dresser. My eyes were still bleary when I whispered her name. “Yvette?”
I wasn’t crazy. I knew my doll couldn’t really speak, but ever since Uncle Flip gave her to me as a “period gift” when I was thirteen years old, I’d imagined conversations with her. There were some things I couldn’t tell my family, things I would have told friends if I had any. Yvette filled the void. I gave her a voice, even if that voice was just in my head. Whenever I visited the cottage, Yvette was my consolation.
“Yvette, I’ve missed you too.”
“You don’t understand,” Yvette said to me. “I’ve missed you. You haven’t visited me in almost a year.”
“That’s not true,” I said, sitting up on my bed. The duvet was gritty with sand. “We were up at Easter to op
