1988

By Amethyst Turner

I was born with blue eyes

That turned dismal gray

I came out with gold hair

That grew limp right away

I was born with a smile

That was ripped off my face

And robbed of good time

That I could not replace

XXX

Libby Miller was a petite woman with bony arms and legs and a pointy little face that was usually contorted into some sour expression. On the day of her daughter's birth, that did not change. Even when the child was presented to her, a little pink mass bundled in white, she did not smile or cry or even sigh in relief that the long labor was over. She simply looked the baby over and handed it back to the nurse, saying she wanted to rest.

She was no more than twenty five, but appeared much older. Years of smoking and frowning and late nights had left a wear on her face. After seven hours of labor, she thought she must look older than ever.

The hospital had not supplied her with a mirror, so she had no way of knowing that at the moment she looked exactly like she should: a tired woman with a mountain of stress on her shoulders.

More than anything, Libby wanted a cigarette to calm her nerves. She didn't want to rock her baby or to nurse it, she only wanted to feel the smoke curling in and out of her lungs, the rhythmic pattern that had calmed her for so many years.

Where was Richard, she wondered. What was he doing that was more important than the birth of his baby?

Richard didn't like children, she knew that. He didn't like most things, aside from his beer and his poker. She had told him that he would have to stop drinking if they were going to have a family. He just reminded her that he had never wanted a family in the first place.

Libby sighed, letting her head fall back on the pillow. This was not where she wanted to be. It wasn't even that she didn't want to be a mother. She loved children. What she hated about the situation was this child.

Any other baby in the world would have been amazing. She would have held it in her arms, smiled and watched it wrap it's tiny fingers around her thumb. She would have loved it instantly, this she knew.

But this child. This child was a combination of the two people she hated most in the world. She didn't want it. She didn't want to look at it, hold it, acknowledge that it had indeed come out of her. She wanted it gone.

There was nothing that could be done now. An abortion was no longer an option and neither was cold blooded murder. So the only thing left for Libby to do was sit in the delivery room and cry.

XXX

Richard was waiting at the kitchen table when she opened the door. Libby didn't look at him as she set down her bag and walked past into the kitchen.

"So that's her?" he asked. The baby kept quiet in the carrier as she set it on the counter. Richard stood up behind her and reached into the carrier.

She swatted his hand away.

"What's wrong with you?"

Libby only unbuckled the baby and carried it into the living room, hearing Richard following her. The little girl was warm with soft skin and little blue eyes. Adorable, yes, but Libby didn't like that face. The eyes especially, they were his.

"You not talking to me?" Richard growled. "What's up?"

"I had a baby, that's what's up," she sneered. "Where were you?"

Richard frowned at her, and then at the baby. "Making money for you and that thing, you ungrateful bitch."

"I'm going to be your wife soon. Don't call me that."

"I'll call you whatever I want to!"

"Fine!" Her voice rose suddenly. "Take her!" She thrust the baby into his arms, ignoring the squeals she immediately released and stomped upstairs.

It was killing her, knowing that this man and this baby that she hated were the rest of her life. She and Richard would get married within the month. That was the end.

She didn't love him. She didn't love the little girl, either. Yet she would spend the rest of her life with them.

Up in her room, Libby locked the door and undressed. The jeans and sweatshirt she was wearing were the ones she had on when she'd first been rushed into the delivery room. They felt tainted now with the memory, so she stuffed them in the bathroom trashcan like a used pad, poking the cloth into the can until it was completely invisible.

She could still hear the baby screaming downstairs.

The mirror on the closet door caught her attention. For the first time since giving birth, she looked at herself. She looked away instantly.

XXX

In the days to come, Libby fell into a dull schedule, a cycle that began and ended at 3:30 AM.

First, she was shaken awake by the terrible shrieks of the girl downstairs. Rolling to the side, away from Richard, the clock would inevitably flash 3:30.

She would let her cry for fifteen minutes or so, but would inevitably resign herself to rocking the baby around four, holding her like she was a leaking sack of dirt.

Around four thirty, Libby would put the baby back in her makeshift drawer-crib and went to make breakfast for Richard, a task that took most of the rest of the hour: he had meticulous standards when it came to food.

At five, he came down for his omelette and coffee with a scowl and a bedhead. She fed him and he passed his judgement, usually in a single word. "Good" , "Gross" , "Bullshit".

After he left, she sat in her rocking chair for however long she felt like, listening to the baby cry and coo in its drawer.

Around seven, she fell asleep and stayed unconscious until the baby woke her again, at which point she would make herself some breakfast and mix up a bottle of formula. The baby very rarely drank more than a fourth of the bottle, which frustrated Libby, but not enough to do anything about it. She often squealed and batted at Libby's chest while she was being fed. She refused to breastfeed the baby, even though she knew that was what it wanted. She ignored her milk when it came in, let it weigh her down until it gave up and retreated.

After that, the baby went back in the drawer and she, back to her rocking chair to read. Most days, she'd make it through ten or twelve pages before she became frustrated and went back to sleep. It took her all of February to finish She's Come Undone. After that, she moved on to 1984.

Lunch was a bagel and tea for Libby, a bottle for the baby.

She would watch television for the next few hours, turning the volume up a notch every time the baby made a noise.

Richard got off work at five, but he was never home until late at night, so Libby turned the TV off around that time and closed the drawer for a few minutes. The peace of silence settled over her for a moment, and with it came a feeling of power. That baby was hers and it had no power over her. Still, she almost always ended up opening the drawer again thirty seconds later.

She scarcely ate dinner. Instead, she often took the baby upstairs and let it lay on her and Richard's bed for an hour or so, which made it happy most of the time. While it was quiet, Libby would take another nap in her rocking chair, waking up around eight or so. Usually, when she went back upstairs, the baby was fast asleep.

After the baby was once again secured in her drawer downstairs, Libby went upstairs to read some more. In the silence, she could make more progress, a chapter or two a night.

Around eleven or twelve, Richard would come home. Sometimes, he passed out on the couch and was still there in the morning when the baby woke her up. Sometimes, he cooked himself a late dinner and she listened to the silverware click with a certain amount of anxiety. But most of the time, he stumbled upstairs, smelling of liquor and smoke.

Some nights, he kept her awake, talking about work and his friends and money. To an extent, Libby was jealous of him, that he had work and friends and money to speak of.

Other nights, he fell right asleep.

XXX

"Amethyst is crying."

Libby sat up, startled by Richard's voice. "Who?"

"The baby," he said. "You didn't name her, so I did."

"But . . . why Amethyst?"

She heard him turning on his other side, away from her, without answering the question. Amethyst. Pretty.

But the baby wasn't pretty. It was an ugly little pink thing, choking every second on all the strings attached.

Libby had thought to herself more than once that she would rather have her family's condolences than their congratulations. On the wedding, on the baby. Everyone acted like these were such good things.

She felt like it would be better to hear them express their sorrow over the death of her baby or her new husband. It would be freeing. It would make her the victim.

The way her mom, the only one who actually knew what had happened, saw it, it was Libby's own fault that she was so unhappy. She had gotten drunk. She had sex with Richard, even if she didn't necessarily give her consent. It was her fault that she had a baby, and there was no one else to blame for it.

Her mom was the one who proposed the deal: she wouldn't press charges if Richard married Libby and provided for her and the baby.

Libby protested. She would have rather given the baby up for adoption and moved back in with her parents. According to her mother, that was not an option.

What would she say, she wondered, if I killed that baby? She had the chance to save it, but she didn't...

It was too late. There was no saving her now.

XXX

You're just a small bump unknown and you'll grow into your skin

With a smile like hers and a dimple beneath your chin

Finger nails the size of a half grain of rice

And eyelids closed to be soon opened wide a small bump

In four months you'll open your eyes

I'll hold you tightly, I'll give you nothing but truth

If you're not inside me, I'll put my future in you

- Small Bump, Ed Sheeran