10
Willow cried many nights for Doll. I knew she cried in part for what she supposed losing Doll represented, that she deserved to be alone. She pulled off her pillowcase, stuffed a shirt in the bottom, and hugged it.
Julian was sorry. For her birthday, he bought her a plastic doll with yellow hair. It came in a colorful box with a cellophane front. Willow thought the object an intruder, too hard to lie on, smelling like bad oatmeal, and nothing like Doll. It reminded her of Mary Wolfe and things she wanted to forget: having her hand struck with a paddle, Derrick making the class laugh, missing the May Procession, and Sister Dominic Agnes’s proclamation.
At first, Willow stuffed it under her bed, but at night, sleeping on the floor, the hard blue eyes stared at her. She pushed the doll
