You just looked at everything. And you wouldn't sleep. I'd put you down and come back in an hour and you'd be sitting up in the dark with your eyes open."
He put his hands flat on the bench on either side of the dolls.
"So I took you to the Kmart. The one that's your Highline now. Same building. I had eleven dollars and forty cents in my wallet until Friday. And I took you to the toy aisle and I said, Daffy, you pick one thing. Anything. One thing that's yours. And you walked up and down that aisle for half an hour. You didn't touch anything. Then you stopped in front of these, they were three dollars apiece in a little plastic bubble, and you stood there and you looked and looked, and I said pick one, and you shook your head. And I said, honey, pick one, and you started to cry. Not loud. Just crying, standing there. And I got down on the floor of the Kmart, which with my knees was a project, and I said what's the matter, and you said..." He stopped. He breathed. "You said, If I take one, the other ones are by themselves."
Cassia did not move.
"So I bought all three," he said. "Nine dollars and change. I had two dollars left till Friday and I ate peanut butter for three days and it was the best money I ever spent. And on the way home you sat on the tank with them in your lap, which I know, I know, don't tell me, and you named them. This one was Mama." He touched the yellow crown. "The blue one was you. Daffy. And this one," he touched the red hair, "you said she was Rumble. Because she had a bow and she wasn't scared of anything. I said I was a princess now, and you said yes, and I said what about the beard, and you said princesses can have beards if they want. And that night you put them all in a shoebox, in a row, Mama and Daffy and Rumble, and you put the lid on with a hole cut in it so they could breathe, and you said now nobody's by themselves. And you went to sleep. First time. All night."
He was looking at the dolls, not at her. She was glad of that.
"Every night after that, eleven months. Shoebox, row of three, lid with the hole. If one was missing you wouldn't sleep till we found her. We found Rumble in the parts washer once." He almost smiled. "And then in October, the day they came to get you, in the county parking lot, the Renfros were standing by their car, and you had the three of them in your arms, and you'd been told, they'd explained it, they'd done everything right, the lady from the county and the lady who knelt down. You didn't cry. You walked over to me with your princesses and you took Rumble out and you gave her to me. And you said, so you're not by yourself."