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Harry no longer has the heart to tell Louis that the daughter he lulls to sleep every night is not real.
His world came crashing down just a day before Ivy would have turned five years old. Ivy-in the new red gown they had just bought for her to be worn on her birthday. The one she got teary-eyed over when told to take off and wordlessly convinced them to let her wear it on the drive back home. A shade of red so bright that one might not really register blood on in an inattentive glance.
Blood-there was so much of it.
Four months since the accident and he still remembers the sight of her. The gruesome details are etched into the back of his brain. One look at the bloodied body crushed between the seats-and he knew that she was dead. Her limbs were scattered like a puppet might flop after its strings were cut off. Someone dialed 911 in the background. His heart dropped as the finality of it all dawned upon him. Ivy was dead. His lifeline, his baby girl- was gone. She’d never be able to celebrate her fifth birthday. Or any birthday to come.
He remembers screaming until his lungs gave out when the paramedics shook their heads and took the body away. He thought to himself that the person that he loved with all his heart was gone.
But before that, his eyes travel to his husband who was standing frozen next to him. Louis was beside himself with the shock. Harry studied the swollen left side of his face as his quivering lips struggled to emit words. His hazy brain only registered the words after a few tries. Louis looked away from him as he told Harry that he was sorry. “You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s not your fault,” Harry replies in a hoarse voice, reaching out for his hand. Because it wasn’t. It wasn't Louis’s fault that a drunken driver had chosen to gamble with his life and there was collateral damage.
“Can’t believe we almost lost her,” the relief in Louis’ voice made his words stick to the bottom of his dry throat. The hand reaching for him was retrieved in an instance.
He follows his husband’s gaze to the object hugged close to Ivy’s chest. A doll which Harry had bought for her the night before. It almost looked like her. A beautiful round face with wide eyes and unruly red curls. This very doll was the reason that Ivy wanted a red gown to wear at her birthday party. Something that resembled her red frock. Ivy desperately wanted to look just like her. And lying dead, with the blood-soaked doll clutched in her grip-she did.
“My lovely daughter,” Louis spoke again. In utmost horror, Harry then watches him pry away the doll from their dead daughter’s hands. He doesn’t even spare a glance at Ivy’s body as he kisses the doll’s forehead. “You’ll be okay. We’ll always keep you safe. Nothing’s gonna hurt you.”
“Louis.” His internal scream only materialised as a mere whisper.
With a cathartic smile etched on his reassured face, his husband turns around to face him. Drops of their daughter’s blood splashes forward as Louis thrusts the doll towards his face. His first instinct is to stumble back but Louis’ next words make him halt in his tracks like both his legs had been nailed to the ground. “Tell her how much we love her, Harry.”
“Louis!” With a gaping mouth, he watches the body being taken away as his grief-stricken husband clings to his chest and keeps crying. As he continues to sob, he refuses to let go of either Harry or the doll he has engulfed in their embrace. The blood from its hair seeps into Louis’ t-shirt and the only reason Harry doesn’t flinch is because he is too numb from hearing him mumble about how lucky they were that their daughter was still with them and how they were going to go all out for her birthday.
And that is all he talks about when they are returning home from the hospital. In torturous vivid details, Louis describes to him everything he has planned for her birthday party and more. When he gets to the part about how they’ll blow out the candles and thank god for keeping their daughter safe-he finally unclenches his fist. An angry grunt from Harry gets no reaction from the man as he keeps rambling on without paying heed to his distraught husband. He flinches when Harry barks at him to stop. “Please,” he switches to a gentle tone when he sees tears forming in his eyes. The driver looks back at them in the rear view mirror and clears his throat before looking back on the road. Sighing, Harry bites down on his tongue and presses his head to the door of the cab.
The last words he remembers from the night is Louis calling for him and pulling him closer to kiss him goodnight and brushing the curls off the face of the doll he had scrubbed clean. “Our daughter turns five tomorrow, darling!” Louis says after turning off the lights. In the dark, he feels something brushing against his neck. At least he thinks he does. Not for nothing but he would know Louis’ touch in death. And this is why he feels like his lungs are on fire and doesn’t dare to turn to his side and inspect what it was. He lies awake the whole night with his eyes glued to the ceiling. The sound of Louis’ low snores ground him.
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On the day after she would have turned five years old, their daughter’s body gets lowered to the ground.
Louis keeps marinating in the delusion such that he refuses to go to the funeral. “Our baby girl is not dead, Harry! She’s fine.” His nimble fingers fists the collar of Harry’s shirt with tears in his eyes.
“Louis, please stop this. She’s gone. We have to bury her-” He shuts the bedroom door in Harry’s face. He spends the night on their living room couch trying to drown out the sobbing coming from the bedroom.
A month into this insanity and the song and dance still remains the same.
Louis covers the doll’s ears and hugs it close to his chest. Then, he shoots him an ice-cold glare that makes him flinch. In all their years together, Harry has never seen Louis look at him with such wrath in his eyes. “What the fuck is wrong with you! Don’t you dare say that again.” He tugs at the collar of his shirt with a new found force and speaks sternly. “Drop this joke right this instant. It was not funny when you kept saying it on her birthday. And it’s not funny now, Harry. Ivy says that you’re hurting her feelings.”
“Ivy say-” he repeats to himself. “Louis just-” The maddened creature in front of him simply refuses to see reason. He keeps screaming in his face to stop the cruel joke. Funny because Harry could say the same to him. For a second, Harry is sure that Louis is going to slap him across the face but that never happens. He simply shakes his head and moves to the couch. Not before looking at Harry with something akin to hurt. The damned doll rests on his husband’s lap and Harry swears that its mouth looks a little crooked, in contrast to the beaming smile that the doll shared with their daughter when she had first held it in her arms. Louis has combed her hair and she is wearing Ivy’s favourite clips.
Noticing Harry’s nervous gaze on him, he looks back and smiles timidly at him. Like he wasn’t just glaring at him with unfiltered hatred. Or maybe some time has passed between the two points for Louis to have collected himself. Harry hasn’t slept in god knows how many days and he was not doing much better.
The tear stains on his cheeks seem to be permanently indented into him since that day. The goddamn month had felt like a year to Harry. Louis had made them celebrate her birthday again this month. As if living the nightmare once wasn’t enough. It was just the three of them. The doll was never not in front of his eyes and he swears it looked curiously in his direction once or twice. Or maybe it was glaring back at him. Mirroring his hatred. That wretched thing was driving his husband mad. How he’d gently reached for Harry’s hand and taken it to the doll’s shoulder. How he’d announced that she was the most precious thing that had ever happened to him.
And it had been a long day. One long, long day of watching Louis move around the house with the doll like it was their daughter and bursting out crying each time Harry as much as opened his mouth and tried to tell him otherwise. It had drained him beyond ambit. Now, he wonders if the tear stains had always existed as indispensable parts of Louis’ features and were merely solidified a little more each time he screeches into the corner of their room like an animal off its hinges and thrashes around until he passes out with exertion-when Harry tells him that their daughter was dead and he had buried her a month ago.
“Sit with me,” Louis calls him in the sweetest tone. He pets the couch beside him and beckons him again, “I know you’re sorry Harry. I know that you love her and you’re elated that she’s alright and you never wanted to hurt her. And you’ll never say that to our daughter again.” Harry would never refuse his husband. He’d join him to the ends of the earth if he called him like that but the doll that he keeps rocking back and forth in his arms revolts Harry. He resists the urge to disrupt the cordiality by telling Louis that no, she was not their daughter. Their daughter was dead and he had buried her alone because Louis was too busy coddling a fucking doll.
He’s going to fix this, he thinks to himself. He’s going to get Louis to see a doctor and he’s going to throw away the doll. Even better, he’ll burn it and it’ll never-
The doll’s eyes are sewn shut almost resembling a sleeping kid.
He blinks and her eyes are wide as the day he had bought it because it reminded her of Ivy. He sees no resemblance now. It looks lifelike but not full of life.Sickly, even. He doesn’t see a speck of the warmth their daughter had in her eyes. It’s decided then, the moment Louis lets the thing out of his sight, he’ll pluck its eyes out and stomp all over the doll.
When Louis asks him if he wants some more cake, Harry decides to forgo the screaming match and simply leave the house with a simple excuse of going for a walk. He pretends not to hear him when Louis calls after him to take Ivy and him with him. He simply keeps walking with each step getting heavier to take.
His steps halt in front of the place where their daughter rests now.
He kneels and tells her that he misses her so much.
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“Did you not hear her, Harry?” is the next thing Louis says after remarking that he was late for dinner. The godforsaken doll sits on the sofa with Ivy’s drawing book placed in her lap. A self-portrait of the ugly doll. It’s the seventh one since the accident. Each time, the smile on the doll’s face in the painting keeps getting more and more crooked. Harry grimaces and bites his tongue. Again. These four months have passed in a haze. All he remembers are little details here and there. And tons of opportunities to get rid of the doll when Louis was busy and failing to follow through each and every time. Louis’ still in too deep and sometimes Harry indulges him.
That is a lie. Harry indulges him all the time such that sometimes he believes it too. Today is not going to be that d-
“I didn’t catch that. What did she say, honey?” he smiles radiantly at Louis.
Louis shakes his head but smiles back at him. “She says that it has been so long since we’ve gone somewhere. The three of us. I think we should have a picnic today.”
“That’s a beautiful suggestion, Ivy.” He glares at the doll who doesn’t look up from its painting. He settles himself on the opposite end of the couch and lets Louis get everything done. When he is done with the packing and settles down beside the doll, it’s almost like it leans into his touch.
The picnic is the second time Louis steps out of the house since Harry had brought him home after the accident. The first time being when he had to prepare for Ivy’s second birthday. It is the first time they have brought the doll out of the house. Technically it’s their backyard. Either way, he’s glad that Louis is feeling the sunlight against his skin. As much as he loathes the weird look his husband is getting from people passing by, he is glad that he is out of the house.
“Want to step away for a smoke? I’ll watch her. Your lighter’s still in the shed, yeah?” Harry sighs when Louis declines the suggestion but he doesn’t press anymore. Fearing that would make him suspicious. The doll is always by Louis’ side and he never gets the chance to ‘accidentally’ leave it behind.
Louis smiles when a blob of frozen yogurt spills on its face. Like an actual big bright smile that makes Harry smile too as he watches him clean it with his sleeve.
And in that very moment, they’re a family again.
At night, when Louis is fast asleep-he squeezes past their slightly ajar door to sneak into the kitchen and glares at the painting attached to their fridge with a magnet. The only reason that he doesn’t spit on it is because his throat is dry from the screaming before. He’s going to tear the fucking page into pieces and burn them alongside the wretched doll.
A low whisper pierces through the dead of night. He turns around to face the doll leaning against the door frame. Her face is hidden by the shadow cast on it. But he knows that she must be smirking at him.
He can almost hear her taunting him in the sugary voice of their babygirl. Today marks four months of me defiling your daughter's memory. Four fucking months of you watching your husband go mad from grief and being able to do nothing about it but play along. And boy, has it been fun. It’s dark, no doubt but just a game. For me at least. You seem to be a really sore loser though.
“You can’t keep doing this to him,” despite all the anger bubbling in his chest, he still pleads.
The doll doesn’t dignify a response. Neither does that voice in his mind. He clenches his teeth and rushes forward to grab the ugly creature by its throat. But before he can do that, the lights are switched on and a grumpy Louis mumbles, “What’s going on, Harry?”
“Ask your daughter,” he sing-songs.
The doll is picked up and Louis rocks her close to his chest. Harry blinks and its eyes are stitched shut and she is as silent as she had always been. After putting it to sleep in her room, Louis gestures to Harry to go back to theirs. A few minutes later Louis comes in and closes the door behind them and leans in to kiss him goodnight. This is the first time Louis had locked their door shut since forever. A rakish look from Harry earns him a pillow to the face.
Harry closes his eyes and the ringing in his head renders him unable to cherish the taste of Louis’ lips. That damned thing had to go. That’s all he can think about. He had to get rid of the doll. Whether Louis liked it or not. It would break his heart but it would be better in the long run. Louis has to accept that their daughter was dead. And this doll wasn’t Ivy but some cursed object that was playing tricks on his disturbed mind. It would take some time but Louis would understand why he did that. They can’t live like this anymore.
He knows just what to do.
𓁹‿𓁹
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With his shaky limbs, Harry crawls towards the doll sitting upright on the foot of their bed.
It had been brought into the room by Louis a few minutes ago claiming that she wanted to sleep a little longer. Harry had listened to this whole conversation with his back turned towards him and his face pressed into the pillow. Deeming him asleep, Louis had gently placed it next to him and kissed its forehead. “I’m going to make some breakfast for miss sleepyhead,” he had said before closing the door behind him. As soon as Louis leaves, Harry flips around just in time to see the doll open its eyes and showcase the same smile as the one it had when it was clutched in Ivy's arms.
Harry shrieks when it blinks back at him and moves closer. Instead of touching him, it wraps its tiny hands around the pillow and carries it to Louis’ side of the bed. A sense of dread comes over him and he thinks to himself that if he didn’t do something now he might never do anything ever.
He brings forward his boneless hands to grab the doll’s neck to throw it across the room.
A loud wail makes him recoil. It’s not Louis. He knows that it’s not Louis because two seconds later the door swings open and Louis gasps at the scene in front of his eyes. His seething look makes Harry almost take a step back.
“Louis, you have to believe me. This doll is not our dau-”
“GET. OFF. HER.” he snarls, enunciating each word with a steady step forward. Harry lets her go but stays put in his place. “You are not the man that I loved,” he spits at Harry. Louis gathers the doll in his arms and glares at him with stones in his eyes. From behind his back, he produces a wrench he keeps stowed away in the sink drawer. Harry’s eyes widen as he points it towards him. The sight of the love of his life holding a make-shift weapon against him should send him into a hysterical spiral but no tears form in his eyes.
He feels like he’s been plunged into the bottom of the ocean when he sees the tears form in the doll’s eyes instead.
“How?” he whispers silently. “She’s not real. She’s not real.” He stares at Louis’ unyielding face. “She’s not real. She can’t be. Ivy is-” In a last ditch attempt at god knows what, he charges forward to snatch the doll out of his husband’s hand.
The wrench plunges forward without missing a beat. He looks down to check for a deep gash and profuse bleeding and for Louis to throw away the wretched thing and rush forward to his aid.
With a single tear rolling down his cheek, Louis watches him dissipate in a flash of lightning.
࣪ ִֶָ☾.𓁹‿𓁹 ִֶָ☾.
࣪ ִֶָ☾.𓁹‿𓁹 ִֶָ☾.
He doesn’t know how long it has been when he comes to. The sun was as good as gone. He looks around to find himself lying in their backyard. Louis chose her. It. The doll. He loves that inanimate thing more than he loves his husband. Nothing else will do.
Resigned of all hope, he crawls towards his daughter. He doesn’t bother checking if anyone sees him get on his hands and knees to exhume his daughter’s dead body. Not sure what he’ll gain from it. Yet he keeps digging at the dirt with his hands like a feral animal until he feels something against the pad of his thumb.
He shuts his eyes tightly and lifts her close to his chest. Not yet ready to see what’s left of her. “I’m so sorry. I know I should let you rest but I need someone to talk to,” he chokes on his words. “I love you. Please forgive me.”
His eyes open involuntarily after a few minutes and he smiles, despite himself.
He throws a look at the window and finds a teary-eyed Louis mustering a smile. The weight of the world is lifted off his shoulders as everything falls back into its place. He places his hands on his heart and holds it there for a good minute. Taking one last look at the most beautiful boy he’ll ever know and signing him not to cry, he marches into the shed and gets the lighter stashed in its drawer. He lights a match and drops it in the pit with the soiled doll thrown at its bottom.
As the flames engulf his binding object, he waves goodbye to his husband and their daughter as he feels himself fade out of existence.