#29 The Thief Had Seen Too Much

When I was 6 or 7, I had a dollhouse. It was a painted metal monstrosity with sharp corners that my parents kept banging their knees into. It had no furniture, so I made some out of thin cardboard and folded toilet paper and glued it to the floors and walls to make it upright. The only doll that fit in it was my Strawberry Shortcake doll.

A day came when my shin-bruised dad picked up the dollhouse and put it out on the front porch. He left it behind a low wall, but the next morning, everything that’d been inside it was gone, including my doll.

I blamed myself for the loss. I’d left her in there on a bed of toilet paper. I worried about what her new life was bringing her, but I was more embarrassed by the flimsy makeshift furniture. The thief had seen too much.