Breaking Butterflies

by M. Anjelais

  “Sixteen years have gone by,” she whispered. “And I don’t think I’ve ever seen that with Cadence. Your mother sees it every day in you, but I’ve never seen that and now there’s no time.”

  My confusion had left me. I understood her pain now. She had never gotten anything in return; her relationship with her child was one-sided. He may have run to her when he was scared, or sick, or wanted something from her, but he had never gone just because she was Mom, just because hugging was something mothers and kids did with each other to show that they loved. Leigh had raised an empty vessel.

  Her arms unfolded from around me and I stepped back, taking it as the signal to end the embrace. Then she looked at me for a moment, paler than she’d been a few minutes ago, as though trying to discern whether she’d given away too much. And I averted my gaze, thinking to myself, I already know. You could have told me, but I already know. I forgive you, I guess. I forgive you.

  Unknowing, she started trying to smooth the pages out in the phone book, to undo the damage that had been done, but it was obvious that the pages would never lie flat again. I watched as she returned to looking for an art gallery’s number.

  “Thank you,” she said thickly, “for suggesting the art gallery thing.” Her voice seemed ungainly, unsure of itself after pouring out such an unexpected wave of emotions. “I’m going to work on that, I’ll have Vivienne help me, we’ll try to get something done.”

  “Okay,” I said. So this was what she’d do now. She’d become obsessed with this, she’d focus in on this, and block out everything else. And I was on my own, out in an ice storm without a coat.

  Across from me, Leigh looked down at the phone book again. She ran her hands over the crumpled pages one more time and took one last shaky breath, recovering herself and recharging, ready for another try. Maybe an art gallery would let Cadence in, and maybe she would drive him to his show and at one point, he would turn around and see her and she would finally see it. Shining, warm instead of cold.

  And maybe I would be able to remember that there was a world outside Leigh’s house, outside Cadence’s icy eyes, outside this situation that I was entangled in the middle of. I knew there was, but it didn’t feel like it had anything to do with me. As it was, there were only the walls of Leigh’s house and what went on inside them, what went on inside my head. But maybe.

  Maybe there was enough time.

  The director at the art gallery Leigh ended up calling said that it wasn’t really their policy to look at art from a random source, especially from a teenager. Leigh had bitten her lip while she was on the phone with him, and I knew she was struggling inside, on whether to mention that this particular teenager had terminal leukemia or not. Part of her wanted to, just to make it happen, to shock the gallery director into saying yes right away. But the rest of her was a mother who knew her child. He would hate it if he found out that he had been given something because he was dying — and, oh, but he would find out. And really, was she doing this for him or for herself, for that chance that he might turn around and suddenly love her? For a distraction from the inevitable, so that she could believe for a little while that as long as she was searching and trying, Cadence would still be here to search and try for?

  “What if I just emailed you some pictures?” she’d said, her voice rising higher. “Just three or four. Just take a quick look and tell me what you think. Please, if anything, it’ll just be a nice experience for my son to get some feedback on his art.”

  Leigh drew out the conversation, babbling on and on, and struggled still. I knew she wanted so badly to just tell him that Cadence was sick — but she didn’t. Instead, she got off the phone.

  “He said that I could email him some of the paintings,” she said, putting the phone down with a shaking hand. “He’ll try to take a look at them if he’s not too busy.” She rubbed her eyes like a tired toddler, and added, in a much smaller voice, “I hope that I did the right thing by not mentioning that Cadence is …” She trailed off.

  “You’re his mom,” I told her. “You know.” But you don’t know anything.

  I felt she and I were switching roles; I was quickly turning into the adult, and her age seemed to be dwindling just as rapidly. Maybe I was imagining it, but it seemed like Leigh kept looking at me, almost as though for guidance, a light through the storm. I kept averting my eyes. Yes, I wanted to be there for her, but I didn’t know if I could really do it anymore, not now. I wasn’t strong, I was a leaning building in a great wind. I was standing on the edge of a precipice. I had a knife to my wrists, tracing the places where the blue lines had been, about to throw up because of the sight of my own blood. I could see Cadence and me lying motionless in his room …

  You are strong, though, a voice in my head told me. You have been here all this time. And I knew that it was true. I had wanted to stay, I had put myself in a position where I knew I would be broken in some way, fighting it and wanting it all at the same time. I had been scared, and sad, and I had felt so small most of the time, but I had been there. I was there, just as I had always been, from the moment my mother was born, when she planned out her life in the fort in her backyard. I had been there all of those years, through the day that Cadence cut my face until now, and I was still here, and I would continue to be here. I was stronger than I thought.

  But I didn’t know what that meant. Stronger than what? Strong enough to take the abuse? Strong enough to sacrifice myself? Strong enough to live? Living, surviving, overcoming: That was strength, that was meaning and purpose. But walking willingly into death was strong too. Living, surviving; sacrificing, dying. At that moment, they were horrifically indistinguishable from one another.

  During dinner that day, Leigh told Cadence that she had spoken with the director of an art gallery. “I asked him if I could send him some of your work, so that he could take a look,” she said eagerly. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “That would be fine,” said Cadence. He reached into his water glass, extracted an ice cube, and put it into his mouth, sucking on it. Blank. He smiled, but there was nothing behind it. There was never anything behind his smiles except very occasionally, when I would think that I saw something shining with real warmth — but those times were never caused by Leigh. They were only when he was with me. Across the dinner table from me, Leigh drooped slightly, almost unnoticeably. She wasn’t me. It had happened to her again.

  And Cadence looked at me knowingly. I was rearranging my food on my plate, my appetite ruined by the sick feeling in my stomach. I met his gaze, trying to harden my own. Don’t let yourself be seduced, I told myself. I want to help him but I don’t want to die. I don’t.

  He bit down on the ice cube in his mouth, crunching on it. When he’d swallowed it, he fixed me with one of his dazzling smiles and pushed a stray hair away from his forehead, widening his eyes.

  “You know,” he said, “I am so glad that you’re here, Sphinx.” His eyes darted toward Leigh. “Aren’t you glad that Sphinx is here?”

  Leigh brightened, beaming at me. “Yes,” she said at once, her eyes moistening slightly. “I’m very glad that Sphinx is here.” I reached for my water glass and took a drink to alleviate the sudden dryness that had come into my mouth.

  “I’m … I’m glad too,” I said, and took another drink of water. I made him smile. My presence had made him smile. I could do it. For him. For us. I put my glass down, listened to the soft clink as it touched down on the dining-room table. I could do it.

  Across the table from me, Cadence nudged his plate away with his forefinger and blinked, the persuasive smile still glowing on his face. And Leigh was still happy, still running on her momentary high from Cadence’s being apparently glad about something. I reached down and gripped the sides of my chair, as though I would float off it if I didn’t anchor myself. I’m slipping, I thought, and avoided Cadence’s gaze for the rest of the meal.

  Over the next few days, I tried to keep my mind occupied by thinking about the art gal
lery, and it became my go-to distraction from my scattered thoughts about Cadence’s words and the blue paint on my skin. I wondered constantly if the director at that art gallery had finished his real work, found a few minutes of time in the office, and sat down at the computer to open his email. I pictured him putting a pair of persnickety glasses on the bridge of his nose, leaning forward in his wheeled office chair, his eyes roving over Cadence’s paintings. I knew he’d see what a genius Cadence was, if he’d just take the time and look at the paintings, just like I saw it in my head. He’d snatch up the phone immediately to call Leigh, and Cadence would have his art show. And it wouldn’t matter that he was sick. It wouldn’t matter at all.

  The only threat, the only thing that could make this fail to work, was time. The same thing that hurt Leigh every day, that made us all a little older, a little closer, as every clock in the world spun around day after day. I hoped that the art director would find the time, make the time, and just have one look. One look, that was all. Just enough time for one look. If he had the time for that, then maybe I had enough time to understand what I was supposed to do with myself.

  The art gallery was the last thing Leigh could do. Before Cadence and I had gone through the coffee table, she had taken us out to do something almost every day, to fill our minds with something interesting and new and fun. Every single day, something to take our minds off the inevitable and fill the last days — the remaining time — with a better emotion. But we didn’t go out anymore. Cadence was tired now. His cuts were still having trouble healing, his fractured rib not setting itself. His world had shrunk to include only Leigh’s house and the few things that he did within it. He painted and played the piano and slept, and when he woke, I talked to him, letting him fill my ears with words that made my chest tighten and hurt.

  Even though I was frightened, I was determined not to hide from him. I still needed to be there for him — that, at least, was something that I firmly felt I was supposed to do. Day after day, I went up into the attic, or into the room with the piano, right to his side. For the majority of the time, he ignored me, as though I were nothing more than another piece of furniture in whatever room we happened to be in. I’d stare at his back, noticing how elegantly he carried himself. Then I’d try to talk to him and receive nothing but silence in return. After his long speech to me up in the attic, this silence was unbearable. He was the only person who knew what was going on behind the veil of calm that I had donned to hide from Leigh. He had told me to give myself away for the sake of meaning and purpose and plans, for him, so that he wouldn’t be dying alone. And yet he wasn’t speaking to me. You are the only one who understands! I need to talk to you! Sometimes I wanted to scream, but I didn’t have it in me.

  One day, finally, after what seemed like years of agonizing quiet, I couldn’t bear it any longer.

  “Why aren’t you talking to me?” I asked. I was sitting in my usual place, listening while he played Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata over and over again, and hugging my own knees to my chest for comfort and security.

  “You know,” he said, without ceasing his playing, “a lot of people lose their minds a little bit when they hear that someone’s dying young, because children are always expected to live to see adulthood, or whatever. But I’ve decided that if you’re smart enough, you can grow up whenever you want to. Some people are infants, Sphinx, infants forever. But not me. I’m not dying young.” His voice took on a hardened edge. “I’m older than everyone.”

  “Oh,” I said, trying to form a coherent response. “That’s —”

  He cut me off. “The reason I’m not speaking to you is because you need quiet to think,” he said gently, rounding the edge to his voice in an instant. “You need to think about what you want to be when you grow up.” He finished playing the piece, the last notes fading away into the open air of the room. “Oh, and I have a knife for you,” he said, just as casually as if he was discussing the weather. “It’s in the top drawer of my desk, in my bedroom. I’ll tell you when to get it.”

  “No,” I said, but the word felt flimsy and artificial as it came out of my mouth.

  “It’ll be soon,” he said, through suddenly gritted teeth, and let the cover fall down over the piano keys, making me jump. Then suddenly he left the room, leaving the echo of the piano cover coming down ringing in my ears. I was still hugging my knees to my chest, tighter, tighter. It’ll be soon.

  I’d known that already, of course. I could tell that Cadence’s life was coming to a close. Every day he was paler, every day he went to bed earlier, every day he moved slower. The hollows in his face deepened further. He could see the signs, feel them. And it was making him bitter, and frightened, and jumpy. He was clawing at the air, trying to find a foothold, trying to make sure that everything would be as he wanted it to be. Yes, he was resigned to his death, yes, he understood that it was coming, but he still didn’t want it, he was still fighting. And in a way, it was the same for me.

  But you have a choice, I tried to remind myself that night, after I had gotten into bed and turned out the lights.

  Yes, I have a choice, I answered myself, curling into a smaller ball underneath the sheets and blankets. I don’t have to wait to grow up, to see if I ever get a boyfriend, to see if my mom and Leigh ever get over what happened to the plan, to see if I ever do anything else with my life, to see if anyone wants me with this scar on my face. I have a choice. I pulled the blankets up halfway over my head and closed my eyes, but I was wide awake.

  I heard Cadence throwing things in his room later that night; whatever they were, they thumped against his walls and fell to the floor with resounding thuds. I sat up straight in bed, my ears seemingly tuned to every sound that issued from his room, and listened. I could almost feel the frustration and anger floating on the air, emanating out of his room and hissing slowly down the hallway until it surrounded me in mine. There was a crash, larger than any of the previous ones, and I jumped. The sound was rippling over the skin on the back of my neck, giving me goose bumps. Outside in the hall, Leigh’s door swung open, and when she hurried past my room, her shadow stretched out in the light from the hall, tall and mutant.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice a loud whisper. She flung open his bedroom door, and I could almost picture her rushing in, anxious and eager. “Are you all right? Cay?” I got scared then, because I thought that the last crash might have been him, fallen.

  “Get out of my room!” he shrieked, splitting the brief silence like a cracked piece of china. “Get out, get out, get out!” I pictured Leigh backing out reluctantly in my head, Cadence leaning forward aggressively, his eyes slits of burning blue in his head.

  “Okay, okay,” she said softly, trying to calm him down. “But please … please don’t throw your things, okay? Please don’t.”

  There was a pause, and then he exploded.

  “Don’t you dare try to tell me what I can’t do!” he screamed, and I knew exactly how he was standing, so terribly ramrod straight, and trembling slightly, from head to foot. “Don’t you dare!” He stopped and breathed, loud and hard and raggedy, making me wince. “I can do anything!” he went on, still panting. “Anything! Now get out!”

  “Okay,” Leigh said, trying to keep her voice soft and patient. She wanted to cry, and she wanted to be a normal mother and punish him, but neither would do her any good. “Okay, Cadence,” she repeated, still soft.

  There was another moment of silence, and I thought she had walked away, and I had simply missed seeing her shadow pass. Then Cadence screamed again, wordlessly this time, just a long, high sound of twisted emotion that I couldn’t even begin to interpret. And Leigh made a noise too, a yelp of pain, and something fell on the floor in the hall, something heavy and thick.

  I dug my fingernails into the comforter on the bed and tried to chase the images out of my head. Why is it that your mind always imagines the worst-possible scenario to go with sounds? A moment later, Leigh went back into her bedroom, and
I heard Cadence’s door slam. And then the water running in Leigh’s bathroom, trickling down into the sink and gurgling down into the pipes below it.

  When I woke up the next morning and went out into the hall, there was a thick book on the floor in front of Cadence’s room. The door to his room was tightly closed, no crack left open this time. I left the book on the floor, unsure of whether they wanted it moved or not, and went downstairs.

  Leigh was standing in the kitchen, looking out the window over the sink. Her back was to me, and she was illuminated by the morning sun, the flyaways from her uncombed hair glowing in the light. When she turned around to greet me, she had a cup of steaming tea in her hands, and a gash on her forehead, red around the edges and scabbing over in the middle. I looked around, making sure that Cadence wasn’t yet downstairs. He had been sleeping later recently, not rising at the crack of dawn as he had when I’d first arrived.

  “Did he throw that book at you last night?” I asked, referring to the volume that had been left out in the hall.

  “Yeah,” she said, and her voice was just as it sounded in the night: soft and controlled, but defeated. Something missing from it. “Yeah, he did. I’m sorry if we woke you up, Sphinx.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” I said. “I was actually awake. Anyway, I just hope you’re all right.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, shaking her head dismissively. One of her hands left the cup of tea and went up to her head, gingerly touching the wound. An odd look appeared in her eyes and I wondered if she was hoping that it would leave a scar, a mark to remember him by. Cadence couldn’t give back to her emotionally; perhaps she wanted a physical effect, a piece of proof displayed forever that would keep telling her, He was real, he was yours, you had a son.