The Dark Path: The dark, shocking thriller that everyone is talking about. Michelle Sacks

not for playing, my mother said. They’re special dolls just for looking. If you play with them, they will break.

      Trust her to have filled my bedroom with immovable faces. I could never understand the point.

      Frank in the dream had the cabinet unlocked, and a doll in her lap – my favorite one – the dark-haired little girl with red painted lips and a blue organza dress. She wore a pearl bracelet and shoes that could be removed from her toeless porcelain feet. Why do you have her, Frank? I shouted. I pulled. The doll was mine. I was crying in the dream; it was too unfair.

      Carol came running into the room and took the doll away from us both. There, learn to share or no one plays, she said. Her dress was full of blood. She was trailing her insides all over the white carpet, the womanly parts that killed her in the end.

      Carol, Carol. I think I was crying in my sleep.

      In the morning, I went into the baby’s room. He was lying on his back, eyes open, watching me. Big eyes unblinking. What do they see, I wonder. What secrets will they one day spill?

      I dressed in my running clothes and sat him in the stroller. We go every day now. I salivate for it. I cannot do without my little escape into the woods.

      When we returned, I lifted him up. He needed changing, his diaper full and sodden. I lay him on the bed and closed the door behind me; settled onto the sofa to watch my shows. It was supposed to be a laundry and linens day, but I wanted to enjoy the empty house while I still could. I must have spent four hours in front of the screen, following my plastic housewife counterparts in Miami.