The Patron Saint of Butterflies (27 page)

For some reason, Benny has a problem with this. When Mom takes his hand and leads him away from the bed, he pulls back and starts squealing. “Unnhh! Unnhh!”

Mom looks alarmed. “What is it, Benedict?”

He shakes his head and points his finger at Nana Pete. “Unnhh!” The coroner takes his hat off and places it on the sheet next to Nana Pete’s feet.

“Please,” he says. “I can’t get started unless he is out of the room.”

Without a word, Dad reaches over, scoops Benedict up, and carries him out of the room. Mom and I follow him down the steps. Lillian and Honey are sitting as still as statues on the yellow couch in the living room. Mr. Pibbs is curled up next to Lillian, sound asleep. Benny’s
unhh
noises get fainter and fainter until, as the two of them disappear out the front door, I can barely hear them at all anymore. A faint terror, like a spider, crawls along the inside of my chest.

“He’s having a hard time with this,” the policewoman says, looking at me. I don’t know if it’s a statement or a question, and so I don’t answer her. Mom puts her hand on top of my head.

“They both are,” she says softly. “She was their grandmother. They loved her very much.” Mom’s hand feels like a rock. I step out from under it and walk away from her, out the front door.

I spot Dad and Benny a few minutes later sitting under the gigantic tree on the far side of the yard. It is very dark now; the air, heavy and warm, feels like a skin. Benny is
cradling his injured hand in his lap, rocking it back and forth like a baby. As I get closer, I can hear him humming to himself. It’s the odd little tune he started under the blankets in the room, something between a cry and a whine. Dad’s legs are pulled up like a tent under his robe and his head is tipped back against the tree trunk. His eyes are closed.

“Stop it, Benedict,” I hear him say. His voice is low and tired. I stop walking. Benny keeps humming, not even pausing at the sound of Dad’s voice. The hum gets louder, more desperate sounding, as if he has lost something and the world as he knows it depends on it being found right now. Dad exhales sharply and without opening his eyes, grabs Benny’s arms. “I said stop it!” he barks.

“Don’t you touch him!” The words are out before I know they are mine or even that they are being said. I slap my hand over my mouth as Dad’s eyes fly open. Benny stops humming, watching me fearfully. I rush toward my little brother, ignoring Dad’s startled gaze, and sandwich myself between him and my father. Putting my arms around him, I guide his head to my chest and hold him there.

“It’s okay, Benny. Shh. It’s okay.” I try not to flinch under Dad’s stare three inches away from me. “It’s okay, Benny. Just relax.” I rock him until I can feel the rigid muscles in his shoulders begin to ease, the familiar drop of his chin against my chest. The humming begins again, but it’s his regular hum now, not the frantic desperate sounds from before. Dad watches the two of us for a few minutes without saying a word. Then he brings his hands to his face and draws them down the length of it.

“I wasn’t going to hurt him, Agnes.” He pauses, waiting for
me to respond, but I don’t dare look up. The sound of Benny’s humming hovers between us like a tiny, wounded bird.

“Isaac?” Mom’s voice comes floating out the front door. “Isaac, where are you? The coroner wants to speak with you!” Dad looks in the direction of Mom’s voice and then turns to me. He puts his hand on my knee. I stare at the tiny black hairs sprouting from his knuckles, the curve of his thin gold wedding band on his fourth finger.

“Isaac!”

Dad takes his hand off my knee and stands up slowly. “I’m here, Ruth! I’ll be right there.” He looks down at the two of us. “You coming?” I shake my head.

“Okay.” He crouches down in front of me so his face is level with mine. Something in his knee makes a popping sound. He studies me for a moment. “Okay.” He stands back up, still looking down at me, and opens his mouth to say something else. But the words don’t come. He shakes his head, turns on his heel, and walks quickly inside the house, back to Nana Pete and Mom and the coroner who will tell him how his mother died last night.

HONEY

I don’t know why I’m surprised by Mr. Little’s rude treatment of Lillian. I guess considering the circumstances, I thought he would be a little gentler with her, maybe a bit nicer. But he brushes past her the second he arrives and barely gives her a second glance for the next few hours it takes to call the police and the coroner and get everything in line to take Agnes and Benny back to Mount Blessing. Lillian tries a few times to get him talking, but the bastard won’t budge. You’d never guess that at one time Lillian used to follow this guy around, worshipping the ground he walked on.

The coroner informs us that Nana Pete died of a massive heart attack.

“She was taking Lisinopril,” he says, shaking the white plastic bottle in front of Mr. Little. “This is strong stuff. It’s usually prescribed for people with high blood pressure or congestive heart failure. Did she have a prior attack?”

Dad gives him a blank stare and then barely, just barely, flicks his eyes over at Lillian.

“I don’t know,” Lillian says, getting up slowly from the couch. Her voice is thick with grief. “We’d only just started talking again. I didn’t even know she was on medication.”

The coroner hands Lillian the bottle of pills and then nods his head. “Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter now.” There are a few awkward moments of silence as everyone watches the coroner gather his things. He puts his hat back on, grabs his
large black bag, and then tilts his head toward Mr. and Mrs. Little, who are standing side by side across the room. “Y’all just come from choir practice?” he asks.

Mr. Little clears his throat and straightens the front of his robe. “No,” he says in an icy voice. “We did not.”

The coroner looks stumped for a moment and then shrugs. He pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and gives it to Mr. Little. “Well, I’m truly sorry for your loss,” he says, tipping his hat. “That there is the name and phone number of the best funeral director in Chatham County. He’ll take care of things for y’all from now on.”

Mr. Little nods, but after the coroner leaves, he hands the slip of paper to Lillian. “You’ll need this.”

Lillian stares at the paper. “Yeah,” she says after a minute. “I’ll take care of it.”

“If that’s everything, then,” Mr. Little says, “we have a flight to catch.” He takes his coat off the back of Lillian’s rocking chair, brushing invisible lint off the sleeve.

“You m-mean … ,” Lillian stammers. “You’re going back
now
? You’re not going to stay? For the funeral or anything?” She searches his face. “It’s
Ma
, Lenny.”

“My name is Isaac,” Mr. Little says brusquely. “And I have said my good-byes to Mother. I don’t need any further sort of pagan burial ritual to put a close to things.” He holds out his arms, one for Agnes and one for Benny. Agnes slides her hand into his, avoiding my eyes. “We’re going.” He stares at me for a minute. “I’m presuming you will refuse if I order you to come with me?”

I nod silently.

Mr. Little raises his eyebrows and then shakes his head. “Fine. You take care of yourself, then. You too, Naomi.”

Agnes flinches when he says the name and pulls back a little on her father’s hand. “Why … why did you just call her Naomi?” she asks. Instead of answering, Mr. Little turns around sharply and walks out of the house, dragging her and Benny with him. Mrs. Little follows, carrying the backpacks, her eyes fixed on the back of Agnes’s head. Lillian and I stand in the doorway, watching as they climb into a compact gold car and shut the doors.

Look at me, Agnes,
I plead silently.
Grab Benny and run out of the car. Don’t go back there
. I know she can feel my eyes on her because as she sits next to the window, she brings a finger up and traces her eyebrow with it. She keeps her hand there, blocking us from view, until Mr. Little starts the car and with a loud, combustible sound, drives away down the street. The last thing I see is the glint of Agnes’s golden hair through the glass, shimmering like a forgotten bit of sunlight on a cloudy day. My knees feel as though they will buckle from the strain of standing still.

I turn and look at Lillian. “You. Answer her question.” My voice is shaking.

Lillian, who is still staring down the street at the gold car’s taillights, startles when I speak. “What? What question?”

“Agnes’s question. The one she just asked her father. Why did he call you Naomi?” Lillian’s eyes squint into little slits. “I think I already know,” I say. “But I want to hear it from you.”

Lillian sits down slowly on the front step and runs her fingertips along the top of her forehead. “It … it was… the name Emmanuel gave me at Mount Blessing. You know, after I had … been there a little while and earned my spiritual status … or whatever it was they called it.”

“That’s my mother’s name,” I say, quelling the urge to sit down next to her. I pull George out of my pocket. “It’s the only thing I know about her except for this.” I hold George in my fingertips, waiting for Lillian to turn around.

She does, but slowly, as if she is afraid of what she will find. When she sees George, her whole face falls. She gives a little yelp and stands up, pushing her fingers against her mouth. “My God.” Her voice is choked tight. When she blinks, tears fall in a liquid path down her cheeks. “Oh my God, Honey. You still have it.”

“What does it mean?” I ask. “Why would you leave something like
this
behind?”

Lillian shakes her head. “It doesn’t mean … It was just … something Ma gave me … when I was younger.”

“Why? Because you liked cats?”

She shakes her head. “No. Because I used to be afraid of the dark.”

I reach out and steady myself against the iron railing. “You were?”

She nods. “Terribly. I used to check my closet every night and have to sleep with the light on. Even when I was a teenager. Then Ma came home one day with the little cat and told me that if I kept him under my pillow, my fear of the dark would disappear.”

“And did it?”

She smiles the tiniest bit. “A little. But I still check the closet at night before I go to bed.”

I want to grab her so hard it aches. But I don’t. I keep my fingers wrapped tightly around George and hope that she can’t hear my heart thumping against my chest. “Well,” I say, holding
George out in her direction. “You can have him back now. He never did anything like that for me.”

Except for a vein that throbs in her forehead, Lillian doesn’t move.

I shove him at her. Hard. “You know, what the hell is a ceramic animal gonna do for a kid whose mother has run off and left her behind at some commune?”

Lillian’s nostrils flare. Her fingertips press white against her face.

“Take him!” I shout, pushing George against the back of her hand. “And answer me!”

She takes George from me with shaking hands. “Honey … ” Her voice trails off.

“And tell me the truth!” I scream. “For once, I’d like someone to tell me the goddamned truth!”

She pushes me inside, through the door, and leads me over to the couch.

“There is no need to scream,” she says. “And no need to use that kind of language, either.”

“Then
tell
me!” I grab my braids with my hands. I feel like I could pull both of them out by roots and I wouldn’t feel a thing. “Just tell me why you left! Tell me why you went away and forgot to take me with you.” I can tell by the expression on her face that each of my words is like a knife in her heart, but I don’t care.

“I didn’t forget,” she whispers. “I’ve never forgotten, Honey.”

“Oh yeah? You coulda fooled me.” I fold my arms over my chest and sit back hard. “I don’t know you from a stranger on the street.”

“But you will,” she says quickly. “I mean, you can. Now.” She looks at the top of the steps across the room. “You know, the last thing Ma did with her life was bring you back to me.”

I tighten my arms against my chest. “You’re gonna have to start from the beginning,
Lillian
. I don’t have the faintest idea—”

“She was never allowed to reveal herself to you. It was Leonard’s biggest rule. If she wanted to visit you and Agnes and Benny at the commune—and she did, desperately—she had to promise him that she would never tell you the truth.”

“But
why
?”

Lillian looks down at the floor and bites the inside of her cheek. “I think it was Leonard’s way of just erasing me—from his life and yours. You know, when I first came to Mount Blessing, I was a big hit.” She laughs, a weird, strangling kind of sound. “After Emmanuel found out that I could play classical violin, I sort of became this … this little star of his. He waived all the rules and made me part of his inner circle right away—something that usually took years. Leonard said it was because he respected my talent. He knew how hard it was to learn how to play like that.” She takes a deep breath. “And Leonard was just … over the moon about it. He was so proud that Emmanuel had taken me in and changed my name and included me in everything. You know, it was like a reflection of him or something.” She draws a finger along the bridge of her nose. “But there was one person who wasn’t very happy about it.”

“Veronica,” I say instantly.

Lillian nods. “Yes, Veronica. I don’t know if it was a jealousy thing or what. But she didn’t like the fact that
Emmanuel thought I was talented. Or that he was showing me attention. I didn’t realize it at first, because she just never talked when I was around. But then one day when I was playing for the two of them, I caught a glimpse of her over my violin bow. She had this awful scowl on her face and her eyes were just blazing. I got this feeling in the pit of my stomach, like she was biding her time when it came to me, just waiting to pounce.”

“And did she?” I ask.

“Well, you know, the whole reason I came to Mount Blessing in the first place was because I had just found out I was pregnant. I was in my senior year of high school and while Ma and I got along okay, I didn’t want her to find out. She had big plans for me, you know? Wanted me to go to college, get my degree in architecture … Anyway, Leonard was calling me regularly by then, telling me that I should drive out to Connecticut to visit him and meet everyone at Mount Blessing. I always stalled and made excuses why I couldn’t go because, frankly, the whole idea of a commune sort of weirded me out. But all that changed when I found out I was pregnant. I figured it was my way out of having to tell Ma, or by the time I did, it would be too late for her to do anything about it. So I came to Mount Blessing. I was only two months pregnant, so it took a while before I began to show. After a while, of course, my belly started to pop out. I tried my best to hide it, especially since Emmanuel was calling me in at least four or five times a week by then to play for him. I wore those horrible blue robes for days at a time and tried to take as few showers as possible, in case anyone saw me. But pretty soon it just became impossible to hide. When Leonard found out the
truth, he went ballistic. And then, a month before I gave birth, Veronica found out.”