The Patron Saint of Butterflies (15 page)

“I can’t imagine what Ms. Storm is talking about,” he said. “That there is one of the nicest TV rooms I’ve ever been in.” He shook hands heartily with Emmanuel, nodded politely at Veronica, and left the grounds with his partner, shaking his head. No charges of any kind were filed and the abuse accusation was eventually erased from the record. Within minutes of Officer Marantino leaving the grounds, however, Emmanuel
called for a mandatory meeting of all the Believers, including the children. His face was purple with rage and when he talked, spit flew from the corners of his mouth.

“If any Believer
dares
to call the police department to investigate my actions again, he or she will discover the real consequences of my wrath,” he roared. “Get out if you are not happy here! I am warning you! Get
out
!”

“Just tell us where you are, Mother.” Mr. Little pleads now. “Please. We’re not going to get the police involved, and Emmanuel doesn’t even have to know about it. Please, just let us come get the kids and we can forget any of this ever happened.”

Nana Pete shakes her head. “No one’s going to forget anything, Leonard. I know all about the Regulation Room.” There is a dead silence on the other end of the line. Nana Pete swallows hard and I can tell she is blinking back tears. “How could you let this go on, Leonard? How? They’re children! They’re my grandchildren!”

“Mother.” Mr. Little’s voice is shaky and light. “Just wait a minute, all right? Just hold on. Before you jump to any kind of conclusions, just let me explain … ”

“Nothing you say to me right now, Leonard, could possibly explain what you have been putting your children through. Nothing.”

“Mother!”

But Nana Pete clicks the phone shut again and turns the ringer off.

“Wow,” I say softly. “That was great. You were really strong.” But she is trembling. “Hey, it’s all right.” I put my arm around her and lead her over to the chair. “C’mere. Sit down. You’re gonna fall over.”

She sits down heavily and puts her purse on her lap. I keep my mouth shut, just in case I end up saying the wrong thing. After a few minutes, she turns and looks at me. Her eyes are sort of glassy-looking. “This is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, Honey. And I don’t even know what we’re going to do next.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “We have to get Benny fixed up and then we’ll just start driving to Texas. Okay? Just like we talked about.” Nana Pete swallows and nods her head, but I don’t know if she’s really listening. She’s getting scared; I can tell. Quickly I grab hold of her arm. “You know what else? You should probably take some pictures of my back with that camera you brought.”

Nana Pete looks at me, bewildered. “Your back?”

“Yeah.” I nod, pushing back the dread that is beginning to rise in the back of my throat. “I have belt marks on my back from the Regulation Room. Maybe you should take a picture in case we have to show anyone. You know, later, if we have to prove our case.” Nana Pete starts fanning herself with her handkerchief.

“You okay?” I ask.

She nods, moving the handkerchief faster. “Little lightheaded all of a sudden. I’ll be okay in a minute.” After a few minutes, she drops her handkerchief back inside her purse and pulls out the camera. “Okay.” Her voice is shaking. “Let’s do this.”

I turn around and, before I lose my nerve, lift up my shirt and lean against the wall. Nana Pete gasps. I stare at a groove in the blue wall, try to imagine myself sliding into it, disappearing completely.

“That word,” she whispers. “Why did he write that word on you?”

The soft part behind my eyes burns, like I have a fever. Why does it feel that Emmanuel has, after all this time, managed to take a little part of me? “I kissed a boy,” I murmur. “Please. Just take the picture.”

I can hear Nana Pete bring the camera up to her face. She clicks once, twice, three times. The camera makes a whirring sound as each picture slides out. I pull my shirt down and sit in one of the blue chairs. Nana Pete puts the photos in her bag and sits next to me.

“Honey,” she whispers, drawing the backs of her knuckles against my arm. “We are doing the right thing.” I nod and keep my head down low, hoping she doesn’t notice the splash of tears that dampen the front of my pants. When she takes my hand in hers, I lean in a little so my head rests against the top of her arm.

After a while I close my eyes.

AGNES

To doubt is human. Even Saint Thomas the Apostle, after Jesus himself appeared to him and allowed him to place his hands in his crucifixion wounds, refused to believe that it was the actual risen Christ.

No miracle
.

Was the devil speaking through Dr. Pannetta, trying to get me to doubt the validity of Emmanuel’s work? It’s entirely possible. Emmanuel says that the devil has a tendency to be more clever than God, since he has to work so much harder to get people to listen to him. I think of one of my favorite saint stories, Saint Juliana of Nicodema, who was tormented mercilessly by the devil. He tried to trick her, appearing as an angel dressed in white robes surrounded by light. Disguising even his voice, he tried to convince her to worship the stone idols and to turn away from Christ. If the devil could disguise himself as a messenger angel, I think to myself, why couldn’t he conceal himself as a doctor?

No miracle
.

“Lord God,” I whisper. “Suffer me not to be lost, but of thy grace show me the way and the truth.” I wait facedown on the scratchy surface for what feels like hours. No voice comes out of the sky, the way God did for Juliana, telling her to turn away from the diabolical angel. No shimmering light appears, like the Virgin did for Bernadette. Why can’t someone up there just show me? Just once? I am not strong
enough to know on my own. It is too hard. I cannot even detect who is telling the truth, deep in my chest, the way it sometimes feels. Closing my eyes, all I can see are a thousand exploding pinpoints of light. I wonder if my brain is actually disintegrating behind my eyes. Everything else around me is falling apart; why shouldn’t my brain? A parade of images perforates my mind’s eye, marching before me in a kaleidoscope of color: HARLOT, Benny running to us in the field with news of Nana Pete’s arrival, the frog pond, Claudia screaming for tape and bandages, the look on Benny’s face when he woke up in the back of the car … My eyes swell with tears.

“No crying,” Emmanuel said to me once inside the Regulation Room. “If you cry, I will start over and keep going again until you stop.”

Wiggle, wiggle
.

I reach up and hold on to the consecration beads around my neck.

Wiggle, wiggle.
Getting up on my knees, I hold my arms out on either side and start to chant evening prayers. “
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem
… ” The block of pain does not lessen inside my chest, but I can feel my breathing start to slow as the familiar words flow through my lips.

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.

Nana Pete pokes her head into the room. “Mouse?” I keep praying. “Mouse? The nurse said Benny just got out of surgery. We can go see him now, darlin’.”

Benny’s room is all white with blue and pink curtains hanging over a single window. For some reason, it smells like
mashed potatoes and gravy. A television floats from an angled metal arm above the bed, and a small picture of orange marigolds hangs on the wall. Benny is in the middle of the bed. He looks terribly small. Green plastic tubes snake out of his nostrils. His hand, which is wrapped in gauze all the way up to the elbow, reminds me of a butterfly cocoon Honey showed me once.

I stare at him for a minute, thinking back to the day last year when he came out of Emmanuel’s room wearing his glasses for the first time. They were much too big, and although Emmanuel had fashioned an elastic strap that anchored them around the back of his head, they still slipped forward along the bridge of his nose.

“They’re horrible, Ags,” he’d said, staring down at his shoes. “All the kids are gonna make fun of me. I hate them.”

I got down on one knee. “They’re a little big. But they’re not horrible, Benny. You’ll grow into them. And you let Honey know about any kids that make fun of you, okay? She’ll take care of them.”

Benny looked at me. “And you too?”

I nodded, although I knew very well I would do nothing of the sort. Getting into physical altercations with the bullies of the playground was not saint-wannabe behavior. Now I take his little hand in mine. Why haven’t I been a better sister? What is wrong with me?

Nana Pete steps inside the room, rubbing the sides of her arms. “I just talked to Dr. Pannetta. He said the surgery went better than expected and that he was very pleased. He expects Benny to gain full use of his fingers again in another month or so.”

“When will he wake up?” I ask.

“Probably in a few hours. At least that’s what the nurses said.” She looks at me. “He’s okay, Mouse. Really. It’s just from the anesthesia. He’ll wake up soon.”

“Well, we should call home,” I say. “Let Mom and Dad know where we are. They’re probably worried sick.” Nana Pete and Honey look at each other and then back down at the floor. “What? We’ve got to at least tell them when we’ll be back.”

“We’re not going back,” Nana Pete says quietly. From the windowsill, I can feel Honey staring at me. I know that look. It’s the look she always gives me just before we are about to go into Emmanuel’s room to be questioned for something we’ve done wrong, a look so full of willpower and stubbornness that it can’t help but penetrate my fear. Usually I wait for it, like a talisman that I can glimpse and then rub before the ordeal begins. Now it makes me nervous.

“What are you talking about?” I laugh lightly. “Of course we’re going back. Benny has to get back home so he can get better. And we have—”

“We’re leaving, Agnes,” Honey says evenly. “All of us. We’re going back to Texas with Nana Pete. To live.”

The floor beneath me feels as loose as quicksand. I steady myself on the edge of the bed. “What? Why?”

Nana Pete steps forward. “Because I cannot, in all consciousness, allow you to stay in a place like that anymore.”

“A place like what?” I am aghast. “Like Mount Blessing?” Nana Pete nods. I look over at Honey. “Honey!” I plead. “Tell her! It’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with Mount Blessing.”

Honey bites her lip and then shakes her head. “No, Agnes.”

I look at Nana Pete again. “But you’ve been coming up to Mount Blessing for years! Why all of a sudden do you want to take us away from it?”

Nana Pete clears her throat. “Because I didn’t know about the Regulation Room before.” When she starts talking again, her voice is stronger. “That in itself is reason enough to burn that place down to the ground. It’s sick, Agnes. Sadistic. No one should ever have to undergo what y’all have been through in that room. And then, with Benny’s accident and Emmanuel sewing his fingers back on … ” She pauses, shaking her head. “Maybe I’ve had blinders on all these years, but I just had no idea. I’ve never seen anything like it. This is not the way normal people live, darlin’. Emmanuel belongs in a mental institution. Or jail.”

“
Jail?
What are you talking about? Emmanuel doesn’t belong in jail! He’s in charge of us. He’s the holiest person I know. He’ll never let you—”

“Emmanuel is not in charge of us,” Honey asserts. “And he is not holy. He just thinks he is and he’s made everyone else in that place think he is, too. He’s a monster, Agnes.”

I blink, trying to separate the words I am hearing from something shifting in my heart. “What about Mom and Dad? They’re not monsters, Nana Pete. I know you don’t get along and everything, but … ” I struggle to hold back the tears. “But you can’t do this to him. We’re his kids, Nana Pete, whether you like it or not.”

Nana Pete blinks. “I know, Mouse. And that is the hardest part of all of this.” She drags her hands slowly down the
sides of her face. “But what is happening to you is called child abuse. Do you know what that is, Agnes?”

I take a step backward. “We’re not being abused! We deserve it! Emmanuel has to do it for the retraining of—”

Nana Pete grabs my hands, hard. “It’s abuse, Agnes. There’s no other way around it. And there is no such thing as retraining people, okay, darlin’? People are free to make up their own minds, not be trained to think and act like seals. If the police found out what was going on in that room, Emmanuel would be hauled off to jail so fast it would make your head spin.” I wince under her grip and try to pull away. She just holds on more tightly. “It’s not your fault, Agnes. It’s not your fault that you don’t understand this or that you think its okay. Emmanuel has you and your parents convinced that all of you deserve such … such … ” She stops, unable to go on, and then gestures toward Benny’s hand. “And now he thinks Emmanuel performed a
miracle
on Benny’s fingers! I mean, if we hadn’t brought him here … ”

I stifle a sob, thinking again of Dr. Pannetta’s words.
No miracle. No miracle.

“Agnes,” Honey says, stepping forward. “Listen to what Nana Pete is saying. Please.”

With one final tug, I wrench free of Nana Pete’s grasp and hold on tightly to the edge of Benny’s bed. The edges of the room are beginning to swim. Could the devil, disguised as Honey and Nana Pete, be speaking? Of course he could. The devil can disguise himself any way he wants.

“Listen?” I spit out. “You think I’m going to listen to you two, who think you can decide for the rest of us what’s
best? How about considering my feelings? Did it ever occur to you to ask me my opinion about all of this?”

“Of course we did,” Honey says matter-of-factly. “And we decided not to because we knew you would do exactly what you’re doing now.”

“Which is what?”

“Freak out.”

“I am not freaking out,” I say evenly. “Just because I happen to disagree with an insane idea the two of you cooked up does not mean I am losing my mind.”

“Then listen to what we’re saying!” Honey yells. “For once, Agnes! Even if you don’t understand it! Open your ears and listen! We can go with Nana Pete down to Texas and have a whole new life for ourselves. No Emmanuel, no Veronica, no Regulation Room ever again.” She pauses. “We’ll be free for the first time in our lives, Ags.
Free.
We can go places, do things. Watch TV. Not be afraid all the time. Be normal kids, just like everyone else, living a normal life.”