Page 10 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
“Ambrose.”
I twist to him, between this room and another.
“For now, please try to settle. It’s a great big creepy house, and you love that kinda thing.”
Without a real choice, I nod again, and I start to feel a headache building.
“And to really get you in the feel of it, how about you and I have a horror movie night this weekend?”
My lips pull up, and I can’t fight the smile because Dad rarely makes time for anything I like these days, and despite everything, I miss him. “Definitely, Dad.”
“Seventies or eighties?”
“I want that nineties shit.” I laugh, pushing my luck with the swear word.
Dad laughs, then makes a joke about scolding me for swearing, telling me to get to bed before he ‘Whoops my ass.’
With another struggle, I creep up the stairs on my crutch, admiring the gargoyles because they are so much more enchanting at this hour. I like them now.
At the top, I hear a whimper and then a little voice breaking out between sobs—something about the pizza and how it’s made her feel ill.
Mom steps out of the bathroom—the biggest of many on this floor. She slumps back against the door, leaving Dollie crying on the other side.
Feeling my eyes on her, questioning her, she glances over. “I guess pizza wasn’t such a good idea.”
Hopefully, that means we won’t have it again. “No. Is Dollie okay?”
“She’ll be fine. Get some rest, honey.” Mom disappears back into the bathroom, and I listen for a moment, stepping closer, as she hushes Dollie’s cries, bribing her with yet another Barbie doll that she’ll buy for her because, sure, she needs another one to add to the endless collection that she doesn’t play with and just stares at.
I head to my room, yawning and missing whatever Dollie says next… but I wonder what it was until I fall asleep on the uncomfortable lilo.
CHAPTER 3
Ambrose—age eight
Everything echoes in this house. The sound of me struggling down the last three steps on the crutch. Dollie on what sounds like a grand piano. The doorbell and its ominous chime. Dollie then screeching because that chime is too loud, and she hates it. Dad soothing her.
Mom rushes down the stairs so fast that it shocks me when she doesn’t fall over her giant pink slippers in her dash to answer the door.
I ignore her struggle to unlock it as I follow the melody of my favorite classical tune—slightly wrong—as it drags me to the old music hall through its double doors.
“Morning, Amrose.” Dollie’s head is low, her bloodshot eyes from little sleep and her crying for half of the night are barely visible, with her hair blanketing her face.
I’m not sure if she intentionally says my name wrong each time she talks to me or if she struggles with it like I do with hers.
“Good morning.” I hobble past her at the grand piano, even while my fingers twitch over the idea of landing on the keys and showing her where she’s going wrong, just like Mammy used to do with me back home.
But the piano isn’t up to my hygiene standards.
It was white once, I’d guess. I’d also guess that was a long time ago.
Pictures line the wall, all of children playing instruments. Children who are probably no longer alive. I study each face and give them a name in my head as I continue to Dad, who sits with his phone glued to his hand, on one of the many basic wooden chairs in this room. I want to see if he’ll part with it long enough for me to play on his game with the snake.
“You like to play.” He smiles. He isn’t talking about phone games. He’s talking about the dirty piano. “Why don’t you have a go with your sister?”
Before I can tell him I have little interest in playing the doting big brother or the piano, Dollie has already made room for me on the pink cushioned stool.
The mold is almost visible from here.
