"You will see better with these," Cora said as she sewed the buttons on the doll's head.

Cora also painted the dolls cheeks pink and drew a permanent smile on its face. Afterward, she dressed the doll in an old, pink baby dress. It fit just right. When the doll was already finished, Cora kissed it and laid it down on her bed next to a furry toy dog.

"I shall call you 'Amor'," Cora declared with a smile. "I shall call you 'Amor' because I made you out of love." And with that, Cora kissed the doll again and went out to help her mom with the store.

As soon as Cora left, the furry toy dog started sniffing Amor.

"Hmmm," the dog said. "You smell kind of new."

But the doll didn't answer.

The furry dog cleared his throat. "Sweet, little Cora calls me Fuzzy because I'm so furry you can't see my eyes, but my friends call me Wink." And with that, the dog looked expectantly at Amor. But the doll just stared at him.

"Hmmm. . ." the dog thought out loud. He felt uneasy. "Amor is a nice name," he continued. "It means love."

"What does 'love' mean?" the doll suddenly spoke.

"Oh you can speak after all," the dog said with a relieved smile.

"Yes, but what does 'love' mean?" Amor insisted.

"It's a feeling," the dog answered. "And you can only feel it when you have a heart."

"What does a heart look like?" the doll asked.

The dog pointed at something hanging on Cora's desk.

"It looks like that, I think," he answered. It was a heart-shaped pendant.

Amor searched herself.

"I don't have a heart!" she sadly exclaimed after finding out that she had nothing that looked like Cora's pendant.

"Don't feel bad," the dog said. "I don't have one either. Most toys don't."

But Amor couldn't be consoled. "No! I want to have a heart. I want to feel love."

The dog just sighed. "I know!" He suddenly exclaimed. "We'll have a welcoming party. That would surely make you feel better."

And so the dog called on all his other toy friends. Within minutes, the party was in full blast. However, Amor noticed that one doll had not joined the fun. The doll had long, unbrushed hair.

"What's her name?" she asked the dog.

"Oh, that's Rapunzel. The other toys call her Haggie because she looks like a witch."

"That's not a nice thing to say," Amor replied. "Here, give her this," and with that she took her pink ribbon and gave it to the dog. "All she needs is to tie her hair and she'll look nice and neat."

"But that's yours," the dog argued.

"She needs it more than I do," Amor said with a smile. "I don't want to have it as much as I want to have a heart. Give it to her."

With a sigh, the dog gave Haggie the ribbon. After tying her hair, Haggie didn't look like a witch at all.

"Wow!" the dog was bewildered. "You look more like a princess now."

Haggie just smiled and patted the dog. She stood up and approached Amor.

"You sure have a big heart," Haggie told her.

"Where? Where?" Amor asked in an excited voice. "Fuzzy, did you hear that?"

"Don't call me Fuzzy. Call me Wink instead."

"But why?"

"Because . . ." the dog paused, ". . . I only have one eye."

Amor brushed back the fur covering Wink's face. She saw only one black button. The left side had none.

"Oh my poor friend!" Amor hugged the dog. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It's not important, okay," the dog said. But it was too obvious that it was.

"I bet you want to have an eye as badly as I want to have a heart," Amor said.

Without even blinking, she took one of her big, black buttons. She placed it on the space where Wink's other eye should have been.

"I can see!" Wink exclaimed happily. "I can see! I can see! I can see!"

He was so happy that he ran around the bed. But when he saw Amor smiling at him with just one eye, his mood changed.

"I can't take your eye Amor," he said. "It just isn't right."

"No," Amor said firmly. "Take it. Maybe, if you can have your missing eye, then someday, I can also have a heart."

Wink just sighed. "Haggie was right. You do have a big heart."

"But where is it?"

"You'll see."

That night, Cora was preparing for bed when she noticed Amor.

"Amor," she gasped. "Where is your eye? And your pretty, pink ribbon, where is it?"

Cora searched her room and almost stepped on Haggie who was mysteriously lying on the floor. She still had her hair tied. Cora picked her up.

"Why, how did Amor's ribbon get here?" Cora asked, puzzled.

Suddenly Wink fell from the bed all along with something else. From his furry face, out came rolling Amor's missing eye.

"Why, that's Amor's other eye! How did it get there?"

As Cora bent to pick both the button and Wink, she noticed a heart-shaped pendant hanging around the toy dog's neck. On it was inscribed, "Amor."

Cora finally understood and smiled. She tied a new, pink ribbon on Amor's hair and sewed big, black buttons on both Amor and Wink's faces. Afterward, she got patch of cloth, shaped it, and sewed it on Amor's chest. It was a heart.

Lenna, is a graduate of the UP College of Arts and Letters in Quezon City.

Abi is a member of Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan. One of these days, she'd like to go to far off place, surrounded by water and take care of elephants.