Dazzling Dollhouse

Life, only smaller

Long before I owned a big velvet couch, I owned an itty-bitty one. Years before I could sweep my front porch with a broom, I could dust it off with a fingertip. And decades before my dining room sparkled under a ponderous chandelier, it glowed under a pee-wee one, about two inches long.

I had a dollhouse. A dazzling, one-of-a-kind dollhouse that my father built for me. A blue two-story Victorian with an Astroturf lawn, white popsicle-stick fence, and working lights — and switches — in every room.

My dad's a woodcarver, and quite a craftsman. The way he remembers it, I approached him one day with this oh-so-casual remark: "Grandma said you could make me a dollhouse. You couldn't do that, could you?"

And the game was on.

He called it my "tiny mansion" and worked on it most of the year in his garage, in secret. I recall with breathtaking precision the moment I first saw it: French doors and balconies, old-fashioned wallpaper, buzzing doorbell. A wooden cutting board slid out from the kitchen counter. My initials were carved above the front door in scroll letters.

My dad's a joy to me. He's smart and funny and there when I need him. But if he'd never done another kind thing for me — ever in my life — this would have been enough.

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