When I was a little girl, I didn't play with dolls. Hated them, in fact. The way their little dead glass eyes gleamed like the slippery marbles my brother and I traded and shot across the playground floor made me nervous. When I thought I wouldn't get into trouble, sometimes, I'd pop them out. And carry them around in my pockets. I'd pretend they were real eyes and that with them I had some kind of super power. I never could see through walls or read the future. Instead, I had dreams that someone ripped my own eyes out with knives. I hid all those haunted pink baby-shells at the bottom of my toy box. Under the matchbox cars and action figures.

This summer, I cleaned out my mom's storage shed. Gave the old dolls she'd kept to the dogs. Watched Molly tear off the limbs and pull out stuffing like the entrails of angels. Both of us filled with the mysterious dog's-eye moment of satisfaction.