A doll draped in camouflage and flaunting rusted dog tags was still a doll. Thaddeus clutched it tightly between his hands, as if Sid might suddenly materialize and try to pull it away from him. Time had done little to honor this small soldier. The paint had faded, and dark dirt smudges seemed permanently glued to parts of his cheek and arms. His uniform was frayed near the edges, even torn on the right pants leg. Still, he smiled on, his painted blue eyes locked on Thaddeus' own.
His father had never been one for luxuries, at least when they came to children. Of the handful of toys he'd owned, the majority could be found in the box sitting on his kitchen counter. There was his old monkey, its beady glass eyes locked on its gleaming brass cymbals which would never again clang together. A stuffed dog that had lost both of its ears sat limply against a worn teddy-bear. A toy car had lost its front wheels in some forgotten collision. Marbles, jacks, and dominoes weighed down the bottom.
There were two other soldiers. One, which was covered in scratches, was wearing a sailor's uniform, while the other had lost one of its arms.
Sid had grabbed it from him and ripped the arm off as though it were easy as tearing apart a sheet of paper. There had been a sick pop as the joints disconnected, a sound so loud and sudden that it might as well have been a bomb going detonating. Thaddeus had stared at them with wide eyes. A protest had died inside of his throat, hardening into a lump that he tried to focus on as he hurried to push back tears. That was why his father had bought them for him, wasn't it? To watch Sid rip it from Thaddeus' hands with the same gaze and interest he might give to an afternoon television program, before averting his eyes back towards more pressing matters.
Oh, the other arm still had its kung-fu grip, but it wasn't the same. He'd pushed it beneath a pile of old clothes in his closet with little ceremony.
It had been inside one of two packages that had arrived that afternoon, both with no return address. The other had been larger and stuffed to the brim with comic books. Was this Sid's idea of a peace treaty? A late Christmas gift for when the anger and frustrations of the holiday had cooled? It just as easily could have been a warning. When he had moved out years prior, Thaddeus had taken about everything he owned with him. Maybe if he had dug deeper in the basement, he could have packed these along with him. Now, finally reunited, what use did he have to go back?
Thaddeus sighed. Tomorrow was trash day. Within twenty-four hours this all could have been lost beneath a pile of food wrappers and broken televisions at the city dump.
He shook his head. Though the old soldiers and sad stuffed animals brought an ache to his chest, there was someone who would probably be eager to have them.
Thaddeus grip tightened on the soldier again. William wouldn't be home for another hour from his scouts meeting, maybe longer if the carpool driver got stuck in traffic. The day prior, he'd gotten home before Thaddeus had, wondering the house while his sitter babbled away on the landline and did who knew what else.
Perhaps he'd forgotten to pull the door completely shut, or he'd simply been moving so quickly that morning that he forgot to lock the door. Whatever the cause, William had pushed against his study's door and for once it had opened.
What had he imagined when he saw it? Had he been excited or intimidated? Had he thought of pulling the door shut and hurrying away? Or had he just immediately run inside and begun grabbing whatever caught his eye?
It was likely the latter. By the time Thaddeus arrived home, William had scattered papers across the floor and begun playing with the stone figures by his laptop as though they were any everyday action figure. His heart had skipped a beat.
"Put those down, William! Those aren't toys!" The neighbors probably could have heard him.
A stone gargoyle-like creature had dropped to the floor with a dull thud. William hadn't said anything, just looked to the ground and the figures sitting across it.
Mass psychogenic illness or mysticism aside, he'd spent half the evening carefully rearranging the figures until they were again perfect. The stone wizard was the last piece he'd added. In that moment, as in now, he had replayed the afternoon's events. He had hurried towards William, the rage so sudden and tight that he could have drowned in the sea of it, pulling William down into the dark depths with him. He almost had, his hands reaching for the boy's red sweater but instead meeting with the stone temple's walls on the floor.
Oh, how differently that could have gone. He could have picked the boy up and flung him like a rag doll. He was so light, one of the smallest boys in his class. Or the anger inside of him could have flown from his fists to William's skin. How easy it would have been!
Maybe it was the look in William's eyes, or perhaps it was the ache in his own heart, that had stopped him. Just as easily as the anger had come, so too it had passed, leaving only a blanket of confusion that even now Thaddeus struggled to pull off.
They'd hugged afterwards, and Thaddeus had gotten tissues to help the boy wipe tears from his eyes.
"Those aren't toys," Thaddeus had repeated. "One of my students designed the model based on shared reports we had received from multiple sources. We wanted to compare it with other's claims, even show it to patients, but these take a good deal of time to make. If you had broken it, it would have been at least four months before I got another."
He might as well have recited off the ingredients label on the back of a soup can for all William probably knew what he was saying. Still, anything had been better than silence.
Thaddeus shook his head and sighed. He'd locked the door tight that morning, checking it twice before leaving for work. William had happily dug into a plate of chocolate chip waffles, prattling on about spelling tests and friends that Thaddeus never could remember the names of.
Was this his own apology? The plea from twenty-four hours prior had been rushed, as sudden as the anger that had fallen over him.
Thaddeus sighed. Maybe William wouldn't care for them, not when he had brand new toys decorating his bedroom floor. And if he did, what did it matter? Whatever Sid thought, Thaddeus didn't need solid memories to weigh him down.
"Will the Avengers beat Kang or not?" William asked. His voice shook as he spoke.
"Oh, I'd think so. They couldn't make more of these if the bad guy destroyed them all." Thaddeus set the comic down. Perhaps he had the next issue, perhaps not. His comic collection was sporadic, just as his local drug store's selection had been. The only thing these varied ten cent adventures shared were their yellowed pages and worn spines.
"Can we read the next?"
"Not right now. I was hoping you'd be asleep by now."
"I'm not tired."
"You told me the same thing last night." Thaddeus ruffled his hair.
"But Dad, I'm really not!" Billy sat up, grabbing his arm. "Please don't leave me. I want to hear another story."
He chuckled. "I don't. Some of us are sleepy."
"Please?"
Thaddeus' gaze fell upon the teddy bear William's shoulder was brushing against. How many nights had he snuggled up with the same one, waiting for a sleep that never came?
"Fine, but only one more. I have to be up early tomorrow." He paused, surveying the room. There were his old marbles on the floor, and his Joes decorating William's dresser. "One night a young boy, only a few years older than you, vanished suddenly from his family. The world around him disappeared, and when he finally realized what was happening, he locked eyes with a wizard."
