A Haiku About Love

By Amethyst Turner

Watch the broken girl

Hang from marionette strings

Don't fix -- just replace

XXX

Libby's life didn't change much.

The routine was still the same: wake up, lay in bed. Go to the bathroom. Maybe take a shower, valium for breakfast. Xanax for lunch. A few cuts for dinner. She buried her face in her pillow, glancing bitterly at Richard through the corner of her eye. He was the only thing that had changed.

Richard went to sleep every night cradling a beer bottle and woke up yearning for more. Libby never stopped him. On the one hand, she hated his drinking because it made him rougher; he hit her more often, and only had mean things to say anymore. But on the other hand, she loved it, if only because it made her feel better about her own life.

No matter how shitty things were for Richard, Libby knew there had always been a little seed of jealousy in her heart, growing taller and thicker until she could see nothing else each time she opened her eyes.

Now, Richard was the same as her. No friends, no job, no family, no self control.

XXX

Leafy found that the girl didn't stay shy for long.

After she returned from a quick rinse-off in the lake, she launched into a seemingly unending stream of questions. "Why's that your name?", "Do you like leaves?", "Do you have a dog?", "What's his name?", "Do you live here?", "Are you all alone?", "Then who else lives here?"

Finally, Leafy looked up at her, lips pressed together, and said, "You will find out, in due time. No need to ask so many questions." At this reprimand, her lips turned down into a frown, which wobbled on her face. Leafy sighed. "Why don't I ask you a question?"

"Okay."

"What's your name?"

"Amethyst," she said. "Or Aimee."

"That's a good name," he said, listening to the rustle of a tent in the distance. He knew Orion would come looking for him soon. He might be slightly unsettled by the sudden apparition of this little girl -- she might remind him of Sophie. Leafy looked her up and down. She didn't look much like the pictures of Orion's lost daughter that he'd seen, but he seemed to be triggered by anything and everything.

She frowned, looking down at her feet. "I'm tired," Amethyst told him.

"Okay." Leafy sighed. Stood up. "Let's go back to the tent."

The girl nodded, bouncing along behind him. "There's a person looking for me," she informed Leafy. "He has a dog."

"Why are they looking for you?"

"Because I runned away."

They didn't talk anymore until they reached the tent.

XXX

Orion looked up from his book when the tent flap opened. He smiled, watching Pippin, who had been napping at his feet, get up and bound toward his master. Leafy pushed the Mastiff away. Looking to Orion, he said, "I have something to tell you."

"What's that?" He asked, motioning for him to sit. Leafy ignored him, closing the flap to pace back and forth.

"I found someone today," he said, avoiding Orion's eye. "Well, first I had a dream about her. Last night."

Orion furrowed his eyebrows. Who was this person he spoke of? As far as Orion knew they were the only people living in these woods. "What do you mean, Leaf?"

"She's a little girl," he said, pausing in his pacing. He faced Orion, forest green eyes jumping with nerves. "Says she ran away from home. Ri, I had a dream. We're supposed to take her in, I'm sure of it."

He sighed. Closed his eyes. "How old?"

"Three."

"You had a dream?" Orion repeated, eyes still closed. It was peaceful back there, still and red and dark. He opened his eyes to find that Leafy had resumed his pacing. Three years old. He could understand Leafy's apprehension. And yes, of course, pictures of Sophie crashed across his mind like bombs. But this did not mean that a dream could be ignored.

XXX

Richard came home from work nearly a month after Amethyst disappeared, a week after Davey Springs returned from Arkansas empty handed, with a new attitude.

He threw the door open and took his coat off. It was Friday, and he held a week's salary in his hand. four hundred thirty cash. Not bad, not bad.

Libby sat curled up on the couch, an open book tucked into the crook of her arm. She'd begun to do that sometimes, coming downstairs to read. She'd started taking showers again, too, and eating breakfast sometimes. There was no other word for it aside from progress, which confused Richard, but he didn't say anything. The last thing he wanted to do was jinx the process.

Stuffing the cash in his wallet to bring to the bank later, he glanced at his wife, wondering if now was the right time to tell her his idea. Well, it was worth it to take a chance.

Richard sat down beside her, knowing he probably stank of drugs. He and Libby had not officially discussed his current occupation, but he was pretty sure she knew.

To his surprise, she didn't flinch away when he placed his hand on her thigh. He rubbed his thumb back and forth over it, marvelling at the fact that there wasn't only skin and bone there: he could feel flesh. Maybe she'd been eating lunch, too, while he was at work.

"Hi," he said. She glanced up from her book. Nodded her greeting. "Can we talk for a minute?"

He watched her close the book, wondering if he was pushing his luck. Libby hadn't looked this healthy since she'd given birth to Amethyst. Perhaps he should just leave her to recovery . . .

But he hated to think that the only reason she was recovering was because of the thing that tore Richard in half again every day. He was down to a tiny piece of himself, and he knew that Libby might just be the only person who could give him the glue to reconstruct himself.

"Something wrong?" She asked. Her voice was unconcerned, light. It was a voice belonging to someone alive, not to the skeleton he'd married. Richard felt a smile creeping its way across his face.

"Just the opposite," he told her. "I have an idea."

Libby watched him smile. Then she did something that the Elizabeth he'd known just last month never would have done: She smiled back. "And what's that?"

"I think we should have another child."

XXX

It was amazing (scary, even, Libby thought) how quickly things could go from shit to good. From zero to one hundred, from suicidal to healthy and happy.

It started with Richard's new job, she thought. Rather than his old minimum wage 350 dollars a week, he now made up to six hundred dollars weekly. The drug business was dirty business, but well paying.

Amethyst's disappearance helped, too. No more of that incessant little voice downstairs, no more of Richard talking about Amethyst this, Amethyst that. In fact, he didn't mention her at all, anymore. Libby figured it was guilt.

Her appetite returned, somedays. And Libby kept eating because she liked that when she looked in the mirror these days, the first thing she saw was not a protruding array of ribs. She also liked that Richard woke up early these days to make her breakfast, and would smile when she came downstairs and ate it before he left. He wasn't so bad, she supposed.

Even if the only reason he was being so kind lately was because of her pregnancy, it still felt nice. It had been nearly two months since Amethyst disappeared, and it felt as though they were finally starting over.

XXX

Rubin got to where he blamed all his problems on Davey Springs.

That stupid man and his stupid dog, waltzing up to Little Rock and ruining everything. Minka refused to leave Arkansas after the show was over, and the ringmaster accommodated her for a week and a half before they moved on to Texas.

Minka believed she had searched every inch of those woods, twice. But she didn't believe that her kochanie was dead, which confused Rubin. If the girl wasn't in the woods, where else could she be but heaven?

In Texas, Minka would not perform. She didn't even watch. When Rubin returned for the night, she was curled up in bed with Amethyst's stuffed animals, sobbing. He wondered where that woman stored all those tears. She shed so many that he grew paranoid she would dehydrate herself and die. Minka didn't protest when Rubin placed her head in his lap and nursed a bottle of water between her lips.

It was all he could do to not shout: I told you so! He'd known this would happen. He'd known she would end up hurt and crying for a daughter she'd never really had. This only caked on an additional layer of guilt.

Rubin had searched those woods in Little Rock, too. And unlike Minka, he'd actually found something: a piece of blue fabric, speckled with mud and a deep red stain. This, for Rubin, was proof that the wolves had gotten to her before they'd been able to save her.

Davey Springs hadn't found her. Rubin wished he had. All Amethyst caused was pain.

XXX

Sometimes I cry so hard from pleading
So sick and tired of all the needless beating
But baby when they knock you
Down and out
It's where you oughta stay

And after all the blood that you still owe
Another dollar's just another blow
So fix your eyes and get up
Better get up
While you can

-I Don't Love You, My Chemical Romance