Boy With Doll

Zack whispered, “That boy has a doll.” I really wanted to tell him that it’s OK and lots of boys play with dolls, and isn’t it about time we broke down these gender identity roles. But I couldn’t. I also couldn’t tell him about Barbie. When he was a toddler, he got his hands on a Barbie somewhere. Naturally, I was aghast. Alex, who was 10 at the time, demanded to know what I was going to do. “Well…I’m going to get rid of it.” He asked if we could bury it in the backyard. I can’t remember why, but that sounded like a pretty good idea, so early one morning I snatched Barbie and we sneaked outside. In the garden, not far from where several goldfish are interred, we dug a shallow hole and committed her to the great hereafter. Someday someone will find what we buried, but they’ll never know that they’ve dug up more than just a doll.