Sundays with Clarisa

My husband owns a German bisque doll from the late 1800s. Her name is Clarisa. She has delicate blonde curls that frame her porcelain face and glass blue eyes, both of which my husband polishes every morning with baby wipes gripped in shaking hands. Clarisa came with a frayed yellow booklet detailing an extensive backstory. From Germany, where she was born, to London, Spain, Portugal, and France, Clarisa’s traveled far more than I have in my 35 years.

On Sundays, my husband and I spend the morning at IHOP, accompanied by Clarisa. We have the same server every weekend. He pretends we’re not his regulars, perhaps because he’s alarmed by the doll that sits on my husband’s lap, so we squint to read his name tag even though we know his name is Bryan.

Today is Mother’s Day. There are children running around everywhere. A little girl that looks like Clarisa walks up to our table and asks for a piece of bacon, and my husband smiles and says, of course, and I say, no we spat on them, and she cries and walks back to her mother, who looks like an older ballooned up version of Clarisa.

* * *

We moved to a small town in the middle of nowhere roughly a year ago. When my husband got hired to work for the immigration law firm in the middle of nowhere, I gasped and said, there’s no one that looks like us holding hands wandering around the Walmart where they sell guns and bullets right next to the chicken thighs. My husband laughed. I want to go where I’m needed, he said saintly before adding, and there’s more space for a family in the middle of nowhere.

My husband takes Clarisa to work, so I have a lot of time by myself. Back in New York, I was a scenographer with a sparse income but a fantastic reputation. The world of scenography is very dry in the middle of nowhere, so I’ve assumed the role of homemaker. In the morning, I flick my nipples until they are raw to remind myself that life is worth living. The vacuum Roomba and the mop Roomba clean the floors while the dishwasher cleans the dishes and the microwave heats up half a rotisserie chicken right in time for my husband to return with Clarisa perched on his right shoulder.

* * *

In New York, IHOP was all nostalgia. Transplants from different states—drunk and sober—reminiscing about the fluff of the pancakes, reliving the fun of over-pouring syrup, sliding side to side against the smooth laminate of the brown booth seats. The few children that we did see sat in the corner of their booths, engaging in adult conversation about divorce and heartbreak.

The little girl that looks like Clarisa comes back to our table, a teardrop of snot resting below her nostril, and asks if she can touch the doll, and I say, sure, of course, and my husband says, never, and she flees to dig her face into her mother’s giant left breast.

They say you’re never ready to be a parent, but we were prepared for all the spontaneous vomiting, the warm milky scent atop a baby’s head, to give endlessly in the visible and invisible. Sadistically, life spins you around in a salon chair, rewires your way of thinking entirely. After the two miscarriages, we are no longer trying. I now repeat to myself, my body is a tree, my body is a tree. Frequently, my husband stares into the black void of the fireplace. I hope that he is thinking, wishing, daydreaming, and fantasizing, but I know that grief has temporarily stripped him of these prior talents.

Because I can see Clarisa when I look at my husband, I avoid eye contact with him. This has been happening a lot since my husband brought Clarisa home from an antique doll store two months ago, a few weeks after the second miscarriage. I didn’t ask questions when he showed her to me, cradled in the crook of his arms, because I knew exactly what this was. A kind of delusional coping the internet had advised that I approach with empathy. But when he said he spent $2,500 on Clarisa, I immediately asked, are you a confused individual, to which he answered, my connection to the doll is confusing, yes, but Clarisa can be ours. I was baffled. I’m Korean. My husband is Taiwanese. Nothing German, blonde-haired, blue-eyed can ever be ours.

My husband takes longer to finish his pancakes. Between each bite, he cranes his neck and looks into Clarisa’s eyes, as if he is checking. For what? I’m unsure.

I stack my empty plates and push them to the side.

The little girl that looks like Clarisa returns to our table, her blue eyes bloodshot. She says she won’t leave without touching the doll, and my husband says, never, go back to your mommy, and I say, go ahead and take her.

The little girl extends her fingers like a spiderweb and grabs the doll’s blonde bangs. Clarisa’s face shatters onto the grimy IHOP floor. One glass blue eye detaches and rolls under the booth seats. The little girl that looks like Clarisa screams before being mercilessly shoved aside by my husband. The other IHOP patrons go silent. Bryan power walks over with a dustpan and broom. My husband kneels down beside Clarisa. He picks her up. Under her blue dress, porcelain bits from her body fall to the floor, leaving the stomach and arms of the garment airy and hollow. My husband wraps his large hand around what’s left of Clarisa’s head. The remainder of her face crumbles under his grasp. The other glass eye rolls in between the cracks of the tiles like a bowling ball until it reaches the side of my shoe. I extend my arm and pick it up. Clarisa’s lone eye stares up at me, reminding me that dolls don’t blink or die.