I always loved her smile. It blazed out of glowing ashes, razing pain and sorrow from my heart. She smiled for me and others watched, amazed. They couldn’t make her smile.
I used to visit Aggie all the time. When we first met, it was like she was drowning in the shadows, only the doll she clutched in her arms keeping her afloat. Sadness had sealed her lips.
I only saw a girl like my brother with a bald head. I knew if he could still laugh then she could too.
It was the pink play dough that fused us together. I was with the play specialist in the hospital and we making play dough. Flour, water, salt… and red food colouring. I wanted red play dough but the red refused to penetrate the white. And mist settled in my eyes.
We took the pink play dough to all the kids on the ward and I saved the biggest piece for her. Her smile meant the most to me; white fire burned her once dark cheeks. Pink was her favourite colour.
Play dough formed worlds beneath our careful hands: worlds without pain or sorrow. I danced around the room and laughter made her deep, brown eyes begin to glow. Her eyes held more than any child’s ever should. I hugged her. Grinning, we sat on her bed, squashing play dough beneath nimble fingers.
The nurse came once while we were playing. It was the only time I ever saw water thrown upon the blaze. She looked so slight as she was loaded into her ash-grey wheelchair. The nurse swept her out of the room. “We’ll just be down the corridor if you need anything.” The place had been abandoned as if before a storm. I had lived through too many storms. I fled.
I sought shelter and found it with them, in the small room off the corridor. The spark in Aggie’s eyes caught alight as she saw me creep in the door. But the storm had followed me here. When the nurse uncovered what was left of her leg, red washed the sight from my eyes: red like the play dough I had wanted to make. And the rain fell.
Weeks later, we said goodbye. Her parents came to take her home. She pressed something into my arms and left. A flash of a smile and she was gone. I never saw her again. I had given her a spark, a friend and some pink play dough. What she had given me was just as precious.
When my brother died, I sat upon the floor, drowning in shadows, with only the doll I clutched in my arms keeping me afloat. A pink doll named Aggie.