The Beginning, Continued...

After a few months, the McKinley model was finished. The girl's grandfather had painted the outside in a bold, brilliant turquoise that had very little to do with historical accuracy and everything to do with the girl's particular tastes. He had even wallpapered the walls of the dollhouse with leftover scraps of "real life" wallpaper. It was ready for our girl to play with.

And not a moment too soon, for the girl's "real life" was not exactly the happiest thing going. The children at school were becoming increasingly cruel, and while her grandparents were kind and loving, the greater family was riddled with tempest and dysfunction. This became painfully apparent on her twelfth birthday, when, a few hours before her little party, her stepfather called. Painfully, he explained that he might not be able to make it; that he and her mother were having difficulties.

Our girl's heart began to feel the first rumblings of disappointment; her stepfather was dear to her, all the more so because her biological father was nowhere to be found. And so she employed her first act of deliberate emotional manipulation--must be something that comes with adolescence. "But I really want you to come, Stepfather. It's really important to me that you're there."

Even as she said it, she knew exactly what she was doing, and she kind of hated herself for it. And she hated herself even more when she heard the annoyance and resignation in her stepfather's voice as he agreed to come.

He came to her little party, and so did her mother, and her sisters, and a little neighbor girl, one of the few people who was her friend. And the gifts were plentiful--a dear little tea set, a brass bed for the bedroom, a Victorian couch and two armchairs, a little kitchen set, a dining table and four chairs, and a doll family, too.

The girl's dollhouse and miniature life were at a point of being completely crafted--the irony was that her real life was completely falling apart.