Kindergarten “show-and-tell” day. I trailed my brothers to school, clutching my Hanna-Barbera lunchbox, humming and jumping over sidewalk cracks. “Germie”—my German Shepherd stuffed toy—in a stranglehold, in my elbow crook. Beanbag body, cardboard eyes, tan and black fur. Scattered bald patches, like the Velveteen Rabbit. Both irises, rubbed clean off. A severed ear. Germie bled foam beads from a wound in his haunch. My sister’s stitches never held, pulled apart as I dragged him behind me. Forty-nine years later, fraying blue sutures still don’t hold stuffing that puffs out and drifts to the floor anytime I pick him up.
Ann Kathryn Kelly is an editor with Barren Magazine, a columnist with WOW! Women on Writing, and she works in the technology sector. Annkkelly.com Twitter and Instagram: @annkkelly