I could see her eyes light up with excitement as she picked it up with both hands.

“She’s beautiful! I love her!”

I’d gotten my wife a lovely custom made doll for her birthday. It had long golden hair that flowed down to her back and curled at the ends. And it was dressed in a baby blue dress with white flower patterns embroidered expertly across the skirt and adorned with little bows of silk on the sleeves. A fine piece of work, all for my special partner.

You see, my wife, Martha, was sterile. We’d been trying for months but she couldn’t conceive.The doctor recommended other options such as surrogate mothers, or adoption. Sadly, we were put on a waiting list in hopes of finding the right candidate, but they warned us that the wait could take some time; months, maybe a year. Adoption was another lengthy process as we needed to fill all the required paperwork to make ourselves eligible. Until then, all we could do was wait.

But since I refused to let her spend her birthday depressed I had given her the doll to fill in that maternal void she had inside. I made sure it fit the description of everything that she wanted in a daughter. The golden hair, the blue eyes, the skin tone, to even the little freckles on her cheeks. It took some time to find the right one, but it needed to be made to her specifications.

The last few weeks afterward, she’d spend every waking hour with the doll, brushing it, cleaning it and sleeping with it, almost as it were a child of her own. Admittedly, her attachment to it was endearing, to say the least. It made me more than happy to see her coping with the situation better than I had anticipated. It was a really well-made doll after all.

But then, things started to change. About two months later, my wife grew distant from the doll. She became weary of it, no longer taking care of it in the same way. She wouldn’t even keep it in our room anymore and tried to avoid eye contact whenever she walked passed it. Soon she began getting paranoid, not wanting to stay home alone with it. She claimed that the doll looked different, that something wasn’t quite right about it anymore.

I remember the hint of terror in her voice when she came up to me. “I swear, I saw it move! Something about the eyes are freaking me out. Please, just go see for yourself!!”

She had left it locked away upstairs in the guest room. Since she refused to go up with me or get anywhere near it, I had to comply.

I reached the second floor and proceeded to unlock the door. Right in front of me laid the doll sitting on the rocking chair next to the bed. Closing the door behind me, I walked up to the doll for closer inspection. Everything appeared normal on the surface, but peering at it closer, I noticed that the texture of the skin was changing and I believe that I could make out what appeared to be small wrinkles. I shifted my attention to the eyes. The color had changed. No longer were they painted a deep blue hue; instead, they were pale and dilated.

Something else was wrong. I thought I could see something inside the eyes. I leaned closer.

Then, the left eye suddenly twitched.

“Holy shit!!” I fell on my back in shock. The left eye on the doll then dropped its gaze at the floor while the other remained in place giving it an impaired figure, and an eerie stare.

I got up on my feet and proceeded to lift the doll up to inspect the eye again. It started to wiggle, and through the creases, little white worms started to crawl out.

“Maggots.” I sighed. “I was hoping it would’ve lasted longer.” I could see more of the insects wiggling themselves through the skin, trying to burst out. No doubt about it, it was starting to rot.

“Oh, well. It was good while it lasted. And it took me forever to find the right one”

I pondered for a while until I came to a sudden realization. “Hmm, little Lucy down the block sure has a nice resemblance. I wonder if Martha wouldn’t mind if her next doll was a redhead?”