Serial Saturday: Hovel House by Ry Slotar, Chapter Three

Chapter Three: The Closet

There is a linen closet in the hall that stores years of long-forgotten keepsakes. Upon its first opening in years, a musty odor releases which far supersedes the generally dank smell of the rest of the house. Nearby, there is an alcove by a window off the hall near the living room. In that alcove is a vintage sewing machine. It’s the sort that is built into a wood table—the whole thing rests usually as a normal end table but can be unfolded and maneuvered and opened up to reveal a set-up perfect for the home sewists of yore. There is a drawer system built into one side of the sewing table. It is filled with both the necessary and superfluous sewing notions; it includes thread, scissors, a thimble, needles, and a number of more niche objects like bodkins and point turners. The machine is undoubtedly quite old, but given a bit of oil could likely run good-as-new.

I never had any more dreams about the doll after that final ‘episode’. My dreams of swarming mblockes of insects returned in full force. Sometimes, the swarms were so intense now that it was almost like watching television static. They were strange dreams before, but I missed that comfortability of companionship. I’d been so alone for so long. I didn’t even know how long it’d been anymore. I guess I’d lost track of a lot of things.

Because I missed the doll from my dreams so much, I decided to make a real life version of her. I knew my mom had a stash of fabric and craft supplies somewhere because she originally was a doll maker. It didn’t take me long to find her supplies—Hovel House has only one linen closet. I realized in my search that I hadn’t opened that closet in years. So, it was the first place I looked and, lo and behold, it was filled with doll-making supplies. Everything was in pristine condition, so much so that a rush of emotion came over me when I saw it all. 

I remembered, in that moment, how I would watch my mother as she worked. She would select a variety of possible fabrics and notions for a project and lay them on her small craft table by the window. The colors and textures would inspire her to make a sketch of the doll. She created truly high-end products, nothing like the typical image one might have of a sad rag doll. Her sketches were precise and her creations were sculptural in detail. The dolls she created were traditional in the sense that they were life-like and wore modern clothes. At least, modern for the time. They were the clblockic type of doll, nothing avant-garde or strange or cartoonish. Just a perfectly made doll imbued with life and love.

Old memories surging back and forth to my conscious mind made me scared. I began to worry for my mental state. I must have blocked out so much in the aftermath of my parents’ death and my sibling’s leaving me. It makes sense—with the onset of old memories blooming once more came the hurt of all their thorns. The memories of watching my mother work were accompanied by memories less happy.

The juxtaposition of those gorgeous dolls coming from our dirty little house now strikes me as sadly ironic. Meredith Barnes was not always the best mother. She often neglected things that needed her attention. It’s hard to look back at a confusing childhood and know now that your parents had not been able to provide for you. It wasn’t that they neglected us, exactly, but the lack of funds meant people and things were not always cared for as much as they might need.

I think she was so stressed that she had to escape. That’s where she might have ignored some responsibilities that could have made the house better. I remember her living in a sort of dream state most of the time, happily working away at her craft. I watched her in the way someone might watch a movie, as a pblockive observer. I watched her so much that I can look back and practically see myself going through her actions in a first-person view. My dad was similarly removed. He would go to work, and then come home. He had his own world of distance that was even harder for me to access.

They did what they could, for the most part. I think it got harder and harder as time went on. The scrubbing and painting over of mold. The tightening of leaky pipes, the pots under leaks in the roof. Even when they weren’t as distant, I still felt like a pblockive viewer of the actions.

Considering all these memories, things began to make more sense. It was good that I reopened that closet and remembered the bad along with the good. It puts things into context for me. For example I can see why I was such an avid reader as a kid—books felt like better company than the people I was around. Books became more real than real life. The same with my dreams. I don’t think it’s a far reach to say that my dreams were—and still are—so strange because my childhood was difficult. 

I went on with making the doll. I’m not nearly as skilled as my mother was, but I’d say I learned quite a bit just through watching her. I used her same process. I found a bunch of fabrics, buttons and trims that I liked and put them all out on that old craft table with peeling veneer. I got some paper and sketched a design for the face and dress. I took out one of the yellowing patterns she used as a doll base and cut and sewed the beige fabric. After constructing the doll’s body, I made it a simple A-line dress out of black and white tweed scraps and dressed it. 

I had begun to look through the stash of supplies for yarn to create hair from, when I remembered that I had something better. I had to tear through a bunch of drawers in my own room’s wardrobe for it. I left a mess in the wake of the search. Something so important, but I had forgotten where it was. Still, I found it eventually. An envelope, unsealed—I had no intention to mail it but I needed somewhere to keep it safe. I opened the flap of the envelope and got the braid I had cut from my mom’s hair after she died. I knew it was strange to keep it, but I had a feeling that I’d want it at some point. In that moment I felt connected to my past self, like I had reached into the past and asked myself to keep it because I’d need it. I felt that way because I knew this doll had to have my mom’s hair. I remember reading somewhere that the English during Victorian times did strange sentimental stuff with the hair of pblocked loved ones all the time, so that historical precedence made the whole situation feel less strange and more genuine and sentimental.

I cut the braid in half to fit the doll’s stature and to give me more individual pieces to work with. As I handled her hair, my hands shook and it became hard to focus. Not so much because of the fine detail work, more because I was overcome with emotion. This was part of her. I felt responsible, somehow, like I could have done something to stop the accident—to stop her death. I knew I was just being hard on myself—I figured grief is irrational—but it didn’t stop the pain I felt. Eventually I was able to finish the delicate work and was at least somewhat comforted that my labor was finished.

Looking at the completed doll, I immediately felt the same feeling that I did with the dream doll. This was my indication that I had succeeded in commemorating those odd dreams. I felt like I was making sense of things. The dreams, the old supplies and all their memories—my mom’s hair. All of these things were connected. Maybe I was processing my grief, in my own weird ways.