For instance, what did he think of his girlfriend? Greta observed Brandon, past the last papery pupa she was hanging, trying to make it look like she wasn’t. She remembered he and Eden had made a nice-looking couple, objectively speaking. He’d started growing a beard, and Eden seemed like the type who might buy him beard oil for an anniversary gift.
Greta tore off the long strip of packing tape from the bottom of the cardboard box and rolled it into a clear ball in her palm. “Do we need to do a release this morning?”
“I have about thirty ready. We’re low on morphos, so time to restock.”
He grabbed the release boxes from the upper shelves. They were solid cubes on every side but one, which had a netted opening that worked a bit like a lobster trap. The butterflies could be put in easily, but they couldn’t escape. When Greta first started, catching butterflies was the part of the job that required the most practice. She had studied the anatomy of a butterfly, its life cycle, and its mating patterns. She had held butterflies singly to attach sensors, and she had dissected dead butterflies and observed their smallest organs. It was a very different thing to catch butterfly after butterfly between two fingers to hold it still. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she damaged the butterflies the first twenty times she caught one, especially after warning visitors not to touch them every day. After a while, though, she became as confident at catching them as the aides were. Maura was especially good and held the highest record for quick catches of most butterflies at one time. The aides stuck the folded wings of a butterfly between each finger like insectoid gloves. Brandon once caught Maura and the others at this game, and instead of scolding, showed how in his huge hands he could catch two butterflies between each finger, snapping them out of the specimen case like Mr. Miyagi with his chopsticks in The Karate Kid.
They didn’t show off today. The aides weren’t scheduled to come in for a few hours, and she and Brandon worked steadily side by side. She caught a few blue morphos. Their scales were the color of night sky just after dusk. Funny thing about the morpho was that for all the attention they got in the exhibit—kids pointing them out, photographers reaching for the cameras around their necks—it was nearly impossible to get a good picture of them. When they landed on a surface, they closed their wings tightly to camouflage with the bark around them. Their dull brown underwings sported eyespots to warn off predators. Useful in the wild, but nothing to compare with their photogenic scales. The blue, like stilettos or skinny jeans, attracted mates. The morpho shared some habitat with the glasswing—they belonged to the same family, too. Greta had to wonder how they appeared to each other. Iridescence versus invisibility. Just showed you how different members of a family could be.
Brandon held his release box close to his chest. Inside, Greta could see flutters of color rising and falling as the butterflies knocked into one another in the crowded space. An external butterfly-run heart. He smiled at her, and her own heart tightened in her chest suddenly. “Have time to help release before you head off?”
She checked her watch. “Yes.” Her own box looked less full, but between the two of them, they removed most of the emerged butterflies from the case. She liked to leave at least one behind. Kids peeking in the window liked something to point at, something just emerged and fluttering. Plus, the swallowtail in the emergent case was so freshly out of the chrysalis that its wings were still too damp to fly well.
Before leaving the lab, they removed their white coats and hung them on hooks. He handed his release box to her wordlessly as he shrugged off his coat, and then she handed both boxes to him so that she could do the same.
The walk from lab to exhibit took only a minute. Brandon and Greta crossed the wide hallway and passed the pegboard with butterfly specimens pinned to it. Brandon scanned his badge, and the door unlocked. When Greta opened the release boxes, the butterflies scattered upward and outward like bubbles floating up in soda. She squinted at the morning light coming through the glass dome. The air was humid and hot—had to be to keep the ecosystem in working order—and the dome had the barest rim of condensation around its base. The path had low flowering plants on either side, with small trees spotted with tropical fruits and laced leaves. The center of the exhibit housed the water feature, rocks spilling forth a little waterfall from five feet up. One of her favorite visiting couples was seated on the bench in front of it. The couple were probably in their mid-seventies, and she held a sketchpad while he flipped through a novel. The butterflies flitted over and around them like fairy guards. In moments like this, Greta felt sure that she belonged here, but unfortunately, at this moment, she couldn’t stay. She checked her watch again. “I gotta go,” she told him.
“Good luck,” he said.
Moving her brother home wasn’t a thing she should need luck for, but just in case, she said, “Thanks.”
Greta got to the rehab center just a few minutes before Danny’s release time. She paused outside his room at the sight of Meg and Danny together. Meg rubbed Danny’s hands while he looked out the window, neither of them speaking. She hadn’t seen Meg in weeks, and the only change was that her long blonde hair had been cut into a bob. “You cut your hair,” Greta said.
Hearing a compliment that wasn’t spoken or meant, Meg said, “Yeah. Thanks.”
Or maybe she was thanking Greta for noticing the change, this change amid changes. Greta’s eyes kept shifting to their hands, interlocked on Danny’s knees. He sat in a wheelchair that he’d been using at the recovery center. But he was going home with a walker, had been practicing with one for two weeks. He still could barely raise his arms past his shoulders, and his right hand didn’t close fully. According to his treatment plan, he needed more physical therapy to rebuild the damaged neural connections.
“I can load up the car,” Greta said. An excuse to leave again. She didn’t know why having Meg there made her feel so anxious. Greta knew her brother and his needs better than Meg could. Hell, she had known him in the womb.
If only bringing Danny home was like releasing butterflies in the wing. Instead of a netted box, there were suitcases, a stack of books, and a plastic canister full of medication bottles. Framed pictures of Meg and Franz Liszt—the dog, not the composer. Greta carried these items to Meg’s Outback and put them in the trunk. Typical for spring in Iowa, the weather didn’t know if it wanted to snow or rain, and the sleet coated Greta’s hatless head before she could get safely back inside the lobby to get another load.
Danny’s guitar case came next, dusty and untouched for the duration of his stay. Why had Meg even brought it? Hadn’t Danny told her about the noise in his head?
They had learned to swim in a lake in northern Iowa with a mud bottom, cloudy water, and fish that nibbled toes. Greta and Danny would jump off the side of their grandfather’s boat when he docked, and they played shark. One shark victim and one shark. Chomp. Their grandfather would drink beer and do crosswords under his big sun hat. Under the lake water, she could never hear her brother calling. She understood what he meant about water rubbing against water. It sounded like gloved hands clapping, like whispers. It was so toneless and unmusical that it stuck with her. And Danny heard it all the time now.
When she got back to Danny’s room, hair wet and fingertips white, Meg was sitting on Danny’s bed, with Danny still at the window. There were tears in Meg’s eyes, and Danny rubbed his skull with his closed fist. Greta didn’t notice the nursing staff lining the wall near the door until she entered the room fully. Two white-uniformed male nurses stood, lips pursed in matching frowns.
“What happened?” Greta asked.
Meg shook her head. “Nothing.”
The taller nurse cleared his throat. “Danny had an incident.”
“He just shouted a little,” Meg said, speaking toward the bedsheet as if it took her testimony.
“Anger is normal after brain injury,” the shorter nurse cautioned, “and it can come from unrelated causes. It’s just something to be patient with.”
/> Meg nodded. “I know.”
Lucky her. She knew everything.
“You folks ready to go home?” The taller nurse’s tone had flipped into false brightness.
Meg eyed Greta warily. “Now or never.” She handed a folder to Greta and kept one for herself. Glancing inside, Greta found duplicates of the release instructions, the list of physical therapy sessions, and the schedule of follow-up neurology appointments. “I put stars on the ones I can’t take him to. Could you check your schedule?”
Greta nodded. Shared custody. “Sure.”
And with that, the nurses led them to the car.
“Got to pack the last baggage. I won’t fit in the trunk,” Danny said, too loudly, as Greta wheeled him down the long corridor to the lobby.
The taller nurse held an umbrella over Danny as they loaded him into the passenger seat of the car. Greta noticed that Danny had lost some weight in the past few weeks. He used to have a tire of fat around his waist, but it was a flat tire now, and the skin remained loose under her hold. Still, it took the two of them to load him, especially with Danny helping so little. Once he was in the seat, the nurses said goodbye and went back inside.
Greta stared at her brother, settled on the seat. She knew he could move more, that it was choice, not ability, that made him limp. He would have to walk when they arrived at the other end.
Meg closed the car door and turned to face Greta. The sleet had stopped, but the wind whistled past and caught up Meg’s words.
“What?” Greta said.
“I’m scared,” Meg repeated, louder this time, each word punctuated with a period. The short haircut made Meg’s face older, but not by much.
“You’ve got my number,” Greta said.
“Yeah, you’re in my phone under Bug Lady.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Danny’s doing.”
Danny shifted in the front seat, head leaning against the window.
Greta chewed her lip and said, “Thanks for letting me stay with you a few weeks ago.”
Meg seemed surprised, and that surprise made her look younger again. “You’re welcome,” she said. And even though she said it like it was a question, the tone didn’t annoy Greta.
Greta watched them drive away before getting in her own car.
* * *
Brandon was still in the butterfly wing when she got back to work. While the day outside was still gray and windy, the inside of the butterfly wing radiated warmth. So did the smile Brandon gave her. “Everything okay?”
“Okay” was an odd term for it. “He’s home,” was all she could say.
Brandon pointed at the notebook in his hands. “Just finished soil tests. Want to check the ants while we’re still here?”
The dome housed more than butterflies, of course. The exhibit accidentally housed all manner of creatures: snails, worms, and the occasional errant frog brought in on a new planting. Frogs delighted visiting toddlers and drove the curators crazy. They had identified four species of ants in the facility. Most creatures were harmless, but harvester ants were slowly multiplying. When she thought about armies of ants, she now thought of them literally. These little pests could be as destructive as cannons.
It didn’t take long to find one of the harvester mounds in the corner of the exhibit. Since their original encounter with the ants, she and Brandon’s discussion of them became increasingly specialized. It went from, “Ah, an ant!” to “Let’s look at the morphology and try to determine genus—can you tell the antennal segment count under this microscope?” Ten-year-old Greta with her ant farm (complete with plastic tractor) would have been pleased, she knew.
In order to gather data, they needed healthy base-level measurements on damage, as well as proof of the widespread outbreak. When Brandon had first mentioned to her that they wouldn’t take action—not even to step on ants—for a month, she scoffed. The scoffing stopped after she realized that waiting meant building research for her dissertation. Something wanted to eat up the habitat, and she had to let it in order to make sure it never happened again. Without proof of the problem, they wouldn’t be able to find funding for a solution. They mapped each of the ant mounds and checked them daily. They had tacked some of the sensors to a few of the ants to help map the trails—that idea had been Greta’s. At least her butterfly research hadn’t been entirely wasted. Scientific method to the rescue, per usual.
Max had once forwarded her a web comic with the title “Scientific Meth-Head.” Good data could be addictive, especially when it supported a favorite theory, but maybe not that addictive.
A morpho alighted nearby on a bell-shaped yellow blossom by the ant mound. It flitted its wings for a second, winking blue at her before closing them again. Its proboscis uncurled and dipped into the flower like a soda straw. Greta turned from her notes to watch it drink. Even after years of studying them, she still admired the ingenious head anatomy of a butterfly. Eyes to see, antennae to sense, proboscis to drink, and all-purpose palpi in the center to comfort, to touch, to wipe away excess nectar from the eyes like windshield wipers. Nature provided solutions.
Kneeling in the damp corner of the butterfly house, she thought of her brother, of the nameless something eating his spirit and the look on his face when she’d tried to play music. If only they could see it like the mounds of harvester ants and the steady stream of workers in and out. Five workers carried a carcass of a dead moth between them, its desiccated yellow wings resembling wet, ripped paper. It hadn’t died because of the ants, maybe, but the ants would eat it now. It would make them stronger, make them grow. This dead moth would feed into the butterfly effect, would it not? Feed its enemy and expand its strength and territory. Greta’s forced inaction meant more destruction. She wished nature provided more obvious solutions for all of its creatures. Nothing had taken Danny from her yet, but darkness was trying to drag him under. She didn’t know what action she should be taking or what inaction to continue, to help him heal.
She shivered as she stood up and rubbed the dirt off the knees of her pants. “I hate this job,” she told Brandon, meaning it and not meaning at the same time. Forced observation of the life cycle.
He finished his marks on the folded piece of paper. “I know. Me, too, some days.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On Tuesdays Greta offered to transport Danny to and from his appointments. Meg had staff meetings Tuesday mornings and detention duty after school. When Greta offered to help, Meg seemed so grateful that Greta blushed. At eight, Greta mounted the stairs and helped her brother into his coat. The baggy garment drooped on his slim shoulders. As she adjusted it, she noticed bare patches on his half-grown-in scalp. His head looked like a dead lawn, but Greta kept that opinion to herself. Two and a half months ago, he had been in the hospital. In some ways, the recovery seemed miraculous—after all, he was alive, walking, talking. In other ways, it felt impossible. He was sullen and silent during the entire drive.
He must be different for other people. The staff in the clinic waved at Danny when he arrived. His charm for strangers recovered faster than the rest of him, and the nurses smiled in his direction like he was a cookie cake and balloons.
Danny and Greta resembled each other, but few people actually guessed they were twins. He had bright green eyes, where hers were more hazel. Danny was an inch taller than Greta’s five-ten, and while they technically had the same hair color, Greta’s was always referred to as “mousey” while Danny got the less gendered “light brown” description for that color.
No one had ever looked at Greta like the people at the clinic did, not even on her best days. Her father, maddeningly, would have blamed her for not smiling enough. Danny’s default expression was a grin, while Greta’s was what she thought of as neutral. Greta worried people could see the things that she thought about them. She liked to call her suspicion “intuition”; her school counselor after Martha’s disappearance had called it “fear of abandonment.” Either way, she had never made
friends easily, even before Martha left. Caterpillars emerge from eggs with all the potential for butterflies. Dissecting a caterpillar, Greta once removed the wing node. It was a near-microscopic organ of pure potential for flight and color. Deep inside of Greta, she knew, had always been those wings to get away from predators.
Harder to overcome those innate characteristics. Greta tried on a tight smile as she transferred Danny’s hands to the physical therapist. The PT was built like a tennis player, long tight muscles and height. She could picture his long brown hair tied up with a nylon headband, but stopped herself before she began imagining him grunting and swinging on the court. “I’ll be back at one,” she said after clearing her throat. It had been too long since she had grunted and swung with anyone. She blushed.
“Two today,” Danny said quickly. “It’s going to be two. In the lobby.”
“I’ll be there,” Greta said.
She had her own appointment for a birth control shot a few floors up. When she got into the elevator, she checked the e-mail that Meg had sent her about today’s schedule. Sure enough, the time said one. Greta sat in the lobby at the woman’s clinic and checked the e-mail once more. One o’clock in bold serif font. Maybe the stress had gotten to Meg more than Greta thought.
Her first semester in graduate school, she had shadowed an apiarist. He was a thick-set man of sixty with more salt than pepper in his hair. This was back in her pre-Brandon days, back when the problems of bees seemed like the ones that fascinated her the most. The apiarist gave her a veil and jacket, putting one on himself, and they went out in the hottest part of the day, when the bees were most likely to rest. He brought her to the field containing the ten-frame hives. When full of honey, the hives weighed nearly sixty pounds, but he steered her toward one that could be easily shifted. “This one swarmed two weeks ago and lost its queen,” he told her. “And about sixty percent of its workers.”
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