Shoebox Dolls

I was three when I threw my Ken
doll inside a shoebox, leaving
Barbie and Kelly alone at
their dinner table in their one-
bedroom apartment.

Barbie worked two jobs to afford
rent: her weekdays spent in blue scrubs,
weekends in flight-attendant skirts,
but every Tuesday evening she combed
Kelly’s curls into pig-tails and
drove her to volleyball practice
in their pink and white beetle.

Aunt Skipper watched Kelly on
the days Barbie worked late, cleaning
wet sheets and cooking Fruit Loops
for dinner. I was seven when I made
Kelly ask Skipper, “Where’s Daddy?”
to which Skipper sighed and said, “He
lost himself, sweetheart.” And even
though I knew Ken was buried beneath
piles of miss-matched green heels and
floral printed pants, Kelly did not.

I was seventeen when we moved.
I packed my old Barbie dolls into shoe-
boxes to give to Goodwill and
folded my father’s apology
letter into a box so it
covered my Ken doll’s blue eyes and
static smile.

Macey Sidlasky is a graduate of USF's MFA program, and currently teaches creative writing at the University of Tampa. When she's not writing, she is reading, swimming, playing with her cat, or watching videos of otters on repeat.