It was a figure, a doll, the body made from an old 7-Eleven Big Gulp cup, the arms straws, the hands and fingers toothpicks, the legs and feet bent toilet-paper tubes. The face was paper, topped by whisk-broom bristle hair, and it was the face that stopped him cold. A seemingly haphazard composite of eyes, nose, and mouth culled from disparate newspaper photos, the face nonetheless possessed a strange unity, an off-center cohesion that seemed natural in an unnatural way and awakened within him a dread déjà vu.

He had seen the face before.

In the House

When he was a child.

In the House

But he couldn’t quite remember where.

“What is that?” he demanded.

Tony shrank back, shaking his head. “Nothing.”

“What do you mean, ‘nothing’?” He was aware that he was yelling, but he couldn’t help it, and though he was addressing his son, his gaze remained fixed on the figure. It repulsed and frightened him at the same time. There was something abhorrent in its makeup, something repugnant about its form and shape and the way ordinary objects had been used in its construction. But it was the doll’s familiarity that frightened him, the sense that he had seen it before and could not quite place it.

“What is it?” Margot ran up behind him, an edge of panic in her voice. “What’s happening? What’s wrong?”

Tony was still cowering on the bed before him. “Nothing!” he told his mom. “I was working on an art project and Dad went crazy!”

“Art project?” Daniel said. “For school?”

“No, I’m doing it on my own.”

“Then why were you trying to hide it?”

“I didn’t want you to see it!”

“What’s going on?” Margot pushed past him, stood before the bed. She looked down at the doll. “Is this what all the commotion was about?”

“Yeah,” Tony admitted.

Margot turned on Daniel. “Why are you screaming at him? Because of this? I thought you’d caught him using drugs or something.”

“Mom!”

Daniel stood there, not sure what to say, not sure how to defend himself. Margot was acting as though there was nothing unusual here, nothing out of the ordinary, and it threw him. Couldn’t she tell that there was something the matter with the doll? Couldn’t she see?

Obviously not.

Maybe it was him. Maybe there really was nothing wrong. Maybe he was just overreacting.

Daniel looked once more at the doll, again felt repulsed, scared.

He tried to tell himself that he was having some sort of breakdown, that the stress from being out of work for so long had finally gotten to him, but he did not believe it.

Wasn’t that the definition of mental illness, though? If you had it, you didn’t know it?

He didn’t believe that either.

What did he believe?