Amanda Stevens - The Dollmaker

“You’re gonna get wet, Mama,” Ruby would later tell her.

“I don’t mind. Come out here with me. Take my hand, that’s a girl. Now hold your face up like this and close your eyes. What do you feel?”

“It tickles.”

“Feels good, too, though, doesn’t it?”

“I like the rain, Mama.”

“I like it, too, baby.”

Claire turned from the window, letting the memory of her daughter drift away as she stared up at the ceiling. Ruby had vanished seven years ago without a trace. And now a doll that looked exactly liked her had turned up in a shop window in the French Quarter. It couldn’t be a coincidence. The resemblance was too striking. Someone who knew Ruby, or at least had seen her, had sculpted that doll. There was no other possible explanation for such an uncanny likeness. The artist had captured perfectly the shape of Ruby’s face, her expression, even the precocious half smile that had been the child’s very essence.

Claire’s eyes filled with tears as she thought about the implication of the doll’s existence. After all this time, was it possible that she might find out what had happened to her daughter?

She was afraid to let even a tiny glimmer of hope back into her heart. She’d been disappointed so many times in the past. What if it was just a coincidence? If she’d learned anything in the last seven years, it was to take things one step at a time. The first thing she had to do was get out of the hospital.

Feeling helpless and trapped by her injuries, she brushed away frustrated tears. She had a concussion and a gash on her left hand that had required twelve stitches. After the doctor patched her up in the emergency room, he’d used tweezers to pick out the bits of glass and gravel that were embedded in her palms and the backs of her arms. Then he’d sent her to X-ray, and afterward she’d been transferred to a room on the second floor, where she was supposed to spend a quiet night.

But people had been drifting in and out of her room all evening. Doctors, nurses, her family. She found it impossible to rest, especially once the painkiller started to wear off. Every bone in her body ached, and she knew the cut on her hand was going to give her problems in the studio. She wouldn’t be able to work the glass properly, which meant that until she healed, she would have fewer pieces on display in the gallery. The loss of income would be a blow to her already dwindling bank account, but she couldn’t worry about that now. Her immediate concern had little to do with her physical discomfort or her financial problems.

She didn’t want to stay in the hospital until morning. She wanted to go back to the Quarter, back to that shop. But every time she tried to leave, she’d been discouraged by one of the nurses who came in periodically to check on her, or by Charlotte, who’d barely left her side since the accident happened. The extent of her injuries couldn’t be determined until all her test results came back, they insisted.

And then her mother had burst into the room, and Claire’s remaining energy had been expended trying to calm her down. Lucille meant well, but she could be both physically and emotionally exhausting under the best of circumstances. Claire had been relieved when Charlotte finally dragged her off for a cup of coffee in the cafeteria.

The quiet had been welcome at first, and Claire had even managed to doze off. But the sound of a siren had roused her with a start, and now she was wide-awake and getting more anxious by the moment.

Slipping out of bed, she walked stiffly to the bathroom and washed her face with cold water, then took stock of the damage. A bandage covered the cut on her hand, and when she tugged up her hospital gown, she discovered a bruise the size of a basketball on her left hip and thigh where the car had struck her.

In spite of how she looked and felt, she would have checked herself out of the hospital, no matter how vehemently Charlotte and the nurses argued, if she thought she could even make it to the elevators. But considering the way her legs trembled from the short walk to the bathroom, the prospect of escape tonight seemed doubtful. By the time she made it back to her bed, she was shaking all over and perspiring.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she eased herself under the covers and collapsed against the pillow just as the door opened and a nurse came bustling into the room, her dark eyes striking against her pale skin.

“You should have pushed the call button for help,” she scolded.

“I’m okay.”

“Your family is in the waiting room just down the hall.” The nurse picked up Claire’s wrist and timed her pulse. “They asked me to let them know when I’m finished so they can come back in. But if you’d rather, I can tell them you need your rest.”

“Have you met my mother? She doesn’t discourage so easily.”

“Oh, I’ve met her all right.” The nurse strapped the blood pressure cuff around Claire’s arm and pumped it up. “Everyone on this floor has met her by now. She’s a real pistol, that one.”

“To say the least.”

The nurse noted Claire’s vitals on the chart, then looked up with a smile. “Anything I can get for you? Do you need something for pain?”

“I don’t want to take anything else just yet.”

“That’s up to you. But if you get too uncomfortable, let me know. And if you need help getting up to go to the bathroom, push the call button. I don’t want to come in here and find you collapsed on the floor.”

Claire nodded.

“You’ve missed dinner, but I could find you a tray if you’re hungry.”

“No, thanks, I couldn’t eat a bite.”

“Okay. I’ll be back in a little while to check on you.” The nurse paused at the door. “What’s the verdict? Shall I send your mother back in?”

“If you must.”

The nurse grinned. “To tell you the truth, I’d be afraid not to.”

“There’s no point in you two staying here all night,” Claire told her mother and sister a little while later. “You should just go home and get some sleep.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Charlotte folded her arms as she stared down at Claire. “I have a feeling the minute my back is turned, you’ll try to get up out of that bed. You heard what the doctor said. You have a concussion. You need to rest quietly for at least twenty-four hours.”

“I can rest at home.”

“Claire, listen to your sister.” Her mother bent over the bed and tucked the sheet around Claire’s shoulders. “We’re not going anywhere, so you just lie there and let us take care of you.”

“But you know I don’t like to be fussed over.”

“Like it or not, that’s what happens when you get hit by a car.” Lucille Doucett patted the nest of blond curls piled on top of her head, then her hand came down to rest on a hip bone sharp enough to slice meat.

After Charlotte had called her from the emergency room, Lucille had dropped everything to rush straight over to the hospital, barely taking the time to smear on lipstick and slide her feet into the three-inch high heels she always favored. But her hair and clothes were a mess. The neck of her T-shirt was stretched out of shape and her jeans were a size too small even on her slight frame. She hadn’t gained weight since she’d bought them; she wore them that way on purpose, with the legs rolled up to show off the gator tooth that hung on a gold chain around her left ankle.

“You’re still trembling, honey. Are you cold?” She unfolded the blanket at the foot of the bed and pulled it up.

Claire sighed in resignation. “No, Mama, I’m fine. I just want to get out of here so I can go back to the shop and find out about that doll.”

Lucille and Charlotte exchanged a glance over Claire’s bed, and she frowned. “Please don’t look at each other like that. I’m not crazy.”