Parkison
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MEG FOLLOWED THE SOUND OF LAUGIITER in the trees and found her father dancing in the moonlit park. The darkness of oak shadow surrounded him as he spun the doll above his head. Cigarette butts floated in rainwater under the golden monkeys he had painted. The monkeys' red hats burned above slender necks encircled in delicate chain. The chain stretched outside the frame of concrete wall behind the fountain, tethers unseen. The shadow of the doll's hair hid his gaze in darkness. Meg watched in silence. The way he caressed the doll with tenderness and pure, undisguised joy- wonder, even- made Meg shiver. She couldn't bring herself to turn away. The doll was filthy, stained, torn. It hurt that her father seemed to love the doll more in spite of its stains. She took a step closer to him. He stopped nvirling. "Who are you?" he asked, approaching. "You're my father," she whispered, unwilling to look at his eyes. Not wanting to see his face, his expression, she focused on his old boots, the thick, uneven crust of caked filth that clung to the snakeskin. "I know who I am," he said, spitting on the grass. "Who the hell are you?" "Meg." She looked at his eyes, his wide clear eyes, and saw his face was splotched, splattered with what appeared to be black paint, almost dry. His hands were glistening with the dark substance that stained the doll. "Meg?" he whispered. He stepped closer and held the doll out to her. She knew better than to back away. She pretended to admire the doll. "She's dirty, ain't she?" he asked, his lip trembling. That's when Meg smelled blood. He stepped into a patch of moonlight and the redness glistened- blood drying on the doll, his face, his hands, his boots. "Ain't she?" he asked, again. "Let's give her a bath," Meg said, leading him to the fountain. They knelt beside the fountain, dunking the doll into the murky water. Ripples of blood ebbed as she reached down to touch his fingers, rubbing her hands against his, holding his wrists. Once the blood washed away from his skin, Meg was sorry to see that he had no wounds, that the blood was not his own. "Our baby," he whispered, gesturing with his bearded chin coward the wet doll, limp and heavy in his hands. Meg almost took the doll from him, then reminded herself that it was just an old toy. She imagined her baby forming like a secret inside and tried to think of ways to keep it away from him. "Who died?" she asked, speaking to him as if he were a naughty child. 76
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