pushed up, there was a mountain bluebird in faded blue and rust, its wings half open, holding a banner in its beak, and on the banner there was a name. He had gotten it in 1985 on the day his daughter was born. It had been the most beautiful thing on his body for a long time. Now it was blurred at the edges, the way all old tattoos go, as if the bird had been seen through a window in the rain.
Aisle twenty-two was all the way at the back, past housewares and the pharmacy, and he walked there without looking at anything, his boots loud on the waxed floor. He had walked this path enough times that he could have done it with his eyes shut. The store had been a Kmart the first time, and then empty for a year with paper over the windows, and then a Highline, and in 2014 they had moved the toys to the other side and he had stood a long time in front of a wall of fishing lures, feeling the panic start in his chest the way it did in dreams where he had lost something, until a stock boy pointed him the right way.
The princess dolls were on the third shelf from the bottom, near the end cap. They had changed over the years, of course. In 2008 they had been cheaper, stiffer, with hair like doll hair and painted shoes. Now they were taller and their arms bent at the elbow and their hair was softer and they came in boxes with windows shaped like castle arches and a little card on the back that told you each princess's favorite things. This year the brand was called Starlight Kingdom. There was a princess in a yellow gown with a crown of small yellow stones. There was one in blue with dark hair and a silver crown. And there was one with red hair and green skirts and a bow and arrow, who, according to the card on the back of her box, loved horses and thunderstorms and was afraid of nothing.
He took one of each. He checked the boxes, turned them over, looked for crushed corners or torn plastic. He did that every year too. They were not going anywhere they needed to be perfect, but he did not see the point in bringing something damaged when he could bring something whole.
Then he stood there a minute longer than he needed to, holding them against his chest, three boxes stacked, and looked at the shelf, and breathed.
Today she was twenty-two.
He did the arithmetic every year as if it might come out differently. It never did.
He went up front.