The Clockwork Turtle

On Dorie’s third birthday, her uncle Lou-lou gave her the clockwork turtle.

Uncle Lou-lou’s real name was Louis.   Louis was coming home from culinary school in Paris.  He had enrolled in the program so he wouldn’t be sent to fight in Vietnam, but the program was over, and so was the war.  He could make sixteen sauces, two kinds of meringue, and roast a quail stuffed inside a duck so that both birds were cooked to perfection, but didn’t know what kind of present to buy a three-year-old girl.  He had a hard time imagining what three-year-olds were like.  He didn’t spend much time around babies, and he wasn’t sure, when he saw a little girl on the street, if she was three or six.  Could three-year-olds talk, he wondered?  Did they still wear diapers? Could they read?  What size shoes did they wear?  He wasn’t sure.  

Toys.  Children liked toys, didn’t they?  Yes, he did vaguely recall playing with toys as a child.

So, on his last night in Paris, he went to a grand toy store.  He was enchanted by a large stuffed rabbit made of real rabbit fur, and was about to buy it when he remembered that his sister had become a vegetarian.  

So he put the rabbit back, and kept perusing the shelves.  It was on the last shelf, in the back corner, where he saw the little golden turtle with two jeweled eyes.  Too fancy for a three-year-old, he thought.  He turned around to leave.

But when he turned, his elbow bumped the shelf, and he heard a whirring noise behind him. The turtle was walking right toward him, right off the shelf, and–

He caught it just in time.  And supposed it was telling him to buy it.  

He had the turtle gift-wrapped.

The first thing that Dorie did when she got the turtle was put it in her mouth.  Dorie started to choke, and then to scream, and that was when they noticed that one of the turtle’s jeweled eyes was missing.  Dorie’s father picked Dorie up and patted her on the back until the eye went flying across the room and vanished into the little hole beneath the radiator.  Dorie’s mother, Lou-lou’s sister, took the turtle away, putting it up on a high shelf.  

On Dorie’s fifth birthday, she was tall enough to reach the high shelf.  She had to stand on her tiptoes, on a kitchen chair, but she could reach it, and she took down the clockwork turtle.    Uncle Lou-lou gave her a stuffed octopus.

On Dorie’s sixth birthday, she got a My Little Pony.  She took the ribbons out of the pony’s mane and tail and put them on the turtle.  Then the pony and the turtle got married.  The stuffed octopus, Strawberry Shortcake, three Smurfs, Voltron and a Care Bear all came to the wedding.  The wedding was presided over by a plastic mug shaped like E.T. The Extra Terrestrial.  Uncle Lou-lou gave her a Parcheesi board.

On Dorie’s ninth birthday, the Clockwork turtle lost its other eye.  She wasn’t entirely sure how it happened, but she suspected it might have had something to do with playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  The clockwork turtle just wasn’t as good at skydiving as Leonardo or Donatello.  Uncle Lou-lou had moved away to live with his new wife, Aunt April, but he sent her a card with ten dollars in it.

On Dorie’s eleventh birthday, her baby brother sat on the clockwork turtle.  It made a very loud crunching noise.  Dorie screamed at her brother.  Her mother screamed at her.  Dorie screamed some more and rescued the turtle.  She could wind it up, but now it only walked in circles.  She screamed at her brother again.  Her mother sent her to bed with no cake.  Uncle Lou-lou and Aunt April sent her a card with fifteen dollars in it.  

On Dorie’s twelfth birthday, Dorie went out with her friends to the movies.  She had to have that awkward conversation where she explained to her parents that she wanted clothes and books instead of toys.  And a Super Nintendo.  Uncle Lou-lou and Aunt April came to visit, and they took her out to dinner to a fancy restaurant where one of his chef friends worked.  She had Boeuf Bourguinion and a tartufo for dessert.  

On Dorie’s fifteenth birthday, Dorie had an English final the next day.  She was too busy studying to notice that the clockwork turtle wasn’t on his shelf.  Uncle Lou-lou sent her free passes to the local movie theater.  Aunt April didn’t sign the card.

On Dorie’s eighteenth birthday, Dorie broke up with her boyfriend, Joe.  She left their high school graduation party and locked herself in her bedroom with a stolen beer and the new Nine Inch Nails album.  

Dorie’s mother came up to check on her, and brought her a cupcake with a candle in it.  The door was locked.  

“Dorie?” her mother called, over Trent Reznor’s voice.  “Dorie, are you all right in there?”  She shook the door by the handle.  

Dorie opened it a minute later, eyeliner streaming down her face. “I can’t find my turtle,” she told her mother, as she rubbed her eyes, which made her look like a raccoon.

“Your what?” her mother asked.  

Uncle Lou-lou had moved back home after his divorce. He took her to the movies and bought her popcorn and Twizzlers, and then took her out for pizza.  He gave her a big fluffy blanket to take away to college and told her there would be plenty of boys there.  Cuter boys than Joe.

On Dorie’s twenty-second birthday, her father woke her up very early and told her to come downstairs.  Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table.  Her face was pinched, and she was crying.  “There’s been an accident,” she said.  

Dorie got dressed and went with her parents to the hospital.  They left her little brother at a friend’s house to play.  Uncle Lou-lou couldn’t talk.  Dorie wasn’t even sure he could hear her, but she said goodbye before they turned off the machine.

On Dorie’s twenty-eighth birthday, she and her husband, Kevin, went out to dinner with her parents.  Her mother gave her a letter and a small box.  The letter was from her Aunt April, Uncle Lou-lou’s ex-wife.  

Dear Dorie, said the letter,
I was cleaning out the attic and found this box.  I’m pretty sure Louis meant you to have it, but I suppose it got misplaced.  All my best to your family and to Kevin.

The turtle had two eyes again.  When she wound it up, it walked in a straight line…toward her, right off the edge of the table, and–

She caught it just in time.

On Dorie’s thirty-third birthday, she gave her daughter Lulu the clockwork turtle.