With heavy reluctance, she abides and her muscles release. He peels her off and props her up onto her feet, but she remains staring down at the floor. He frowns and places the back of his hand under her chin, forcing her little head to look at him. The way her facial muscles tense shows him confused sorrow.

“Look what I have for you!” he sings with a smile. Let me turn that frown upside down.

He holds out the white fabric by its shoulders and lets it unravel before her. It waterfalls down into a new white dress.

She smiles at it with glee, instantly feeling her pain leave her chest.

“Do you like it?”

“Yes!”

“Good! I am glad. Only the best for my sweet.” He reaches out and squeezes her cheek between his thumb and finger, leaving a cold kiss. “Now, lift your arms.”

She obeys, lifting her arms high into the air and arching her back like the most beautiful ballerina. He reaches for her, this image pulling a memory from his mind. The first time he’d ever brought her a real dress. She was so excited to wear it that she nearly tore out of her old dress, if that sack of fabric could have even been called a dress. But it was all he had for her at the time. He hadn’t thought about getting her something nicer since she rarely ever saw herself. But foolish him, he realized. It wasn’t what she saw but what she felt.

He had spent so much time trying to pick it out, eyeing each design and pattern, his head growing fuzzy with the worry that she might hate it. That she would throw it back at him with heated anger. After all, this was the age of tantrums. But did it matter if she did? Was she even capable of hating anything he brought her? What else did she know?

Still, he figured it would save him the trip if he just asked, knowing he wouldn’t be able to stand her disappointment; it would only ruin him. He brought the dresses to her in the only convenient way he saw possible. In the only way he would ever show her anything from the Outside.

She was sitting in the corner on the mattress, giving the stuffed blue dog a physical, when he walked in with a grand smile printed across his face.

“My sweet, I have a question for you,” he began, nearly bursting with excitement through the seam of his lips.

“Yes, Daddy?”

He sat next to her and tugged teasingly on one of her pigtails. “You know Daddy only ever wants the best for you? You know that, right, my sweet?”

She nodded, smiling reassuringly.

He whipped out his hidden trick from his back pocket. What he revealed to her was a deck of thick, square papers, each one printed in muted colors. Photographs. He spread the deck out for her so that she could view each individually then asked, “Which do you prefer?”