Butterfly Suicide

by Loesch, Mary Ann

Stephen’s name is listed at number 10. Next to it are the words: For being born and being distracting.

  Stephen doesn’t say anything, but he makes a derisive sort of snorting sound before turning the page. Jude has created a series of comics called The Adventures of God Man. The God Man character is clearly a caricature of Jude dressed up sort of Zeus-like with a lightning bolt tucked sheathed in a holder on his back. I scan the comic, not really reading the ballooned captions. Whatever is going on, it’s obvious God Man is smiting down people in the story for the smallest infractions. One character bumps into God Man. The character apologizes and it seems God Man accepts this graciously, but the second the other guy walks away, he is treated to a lightning bolt through the neck courtesy of God Man. In another panel, a voluptuous girl takes the last soda in the vending machine. She smiles at God Man and gives a flirtatious wink which appears to make God man blush. As she saunters away, God Man sends a lightning bolt through her stomach.

  “Jesus.” Stephen exhales. “This is so like him.”

  The more we look through the book, the more Jude’s smug sense of superiority shines through. He looks down on everyone.

  Then we get to the Simone section. The tone changes dramatically.

  Jude has done a long series of sketches on her. I get the old stab of envy as I study them, aware my sister was really beautiful. Jude has made her even lovelier, capturing her expression in ways I rarely saw at home. There is one where she is laughing and another where she has her lips pursed in a pout, yet Jude somehow manages to make her look playful. Some of the pictures he has drawn again and again, as if trying to hone his technique or whatever emotion he is trying to capture.

  And there is such emotion here. There is joy in these pages, happiness. It exudes from Simone, wrapping around the artist and pulling him in a new, lighter direction. It’s as if the first half of this notebook was created by a completely differently person.

  One page has been ripped out and then taped back in.

  In it, she is in bed, sleeping on her side, the covers pulled so her arms and part of her back shows. It is obvious she is naked beneath the sheet and I recognize the room. It’s hers. The position of the bed against the wall, the half moon pattern on the bedspread which is shoved down to the bottom of the bed, the open closet door with clothes hanging in it and stacks of hatboxes on the shelf, the alarm clock shaped like a cheerleader megaphone on the nightstand closest to her, even the stacked books on the opposite nightstand—all are details that I clearly recognize from the locked room down the hall from mine.

  Stephen flips the page again.

  Slowly, the drawings change. Simone’s eyes gradually shift in the sketches until finally I realize they are shaped like butterflies.

  Stephen tenses as we turn to the final pages.

  There is one last detailed drawing of my sister. In it, she is crying, her grief obvious. Stephen flips to the next page, but it is blank. In fact, there aren’t any other pictures in the notebook.

  Where is the big puzzle piece that will connect all this?

  “Okay, what am I missing?” I say, studying the drawing of Simone crying. Jude has not included a background or sense of location in this one—just white space around the sketch. She is seated on the ground with her legs pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped around them. Her face twists in heartbreaking pain and the anguish—oh, it’s just like I remember the last day I saw her. She is wearing an outfit I’ve seen before—just shorts and pretty blouse—but there’s nothing special about it. I can’t help myself. Tears well up as I ask, “What does this mean? What are we looking for?”

  Stephen stares at the picture.

  “I’m not sure,” he admits. “Jude made me think the answer to everything was right here. I guess I expected it to be clearer.”

  “He’s talented,” I say, wiping at my eyes. “What’s up with all the butterflies?”

  “He told me she was his butterfly, that she was fragile.”

  Fragile? It’s not how I think of Simone. She was tough—beautiful like a butterfly, yes—but not someone prone to falling apart. Of course, those last few days…she had been at her lowest point…I remember what she said.

  I wish I could be as oblivious as you…

  What am I missing?

  I study the picture of her crying, trying to see it through my own tears. Her eyes. I wipe at mine and look closer at hers. In the other pictures, they’d been shaped like butterflies, but now they look almost normal again. Still, there’s something about them…I can see Jude has drawn a small, detailed image of himself in them as if he wants the viewer to see what he looks like through Simone’s eyes. Over laid on top of that is a soft silhouette of a butterfly.

  What does it mean? What is it about him that is making her cry? It’s something more than breaking up, something more than our parents and their affair.

  Could she have been pregnant? Did she have an incurable STD? What is it?

  The blouse Simone wears in the drawing is a strapless summer top, a deep green that always brought out her eyes. It flairs at the bottom, hiding any flaws in the mid-section—not that Simone had any flaws there. You can only see a tiny bit of the hem of it in the drawing since her legs are pulled up, hiding the rest.

  There’s a little swirl at the bottom edge of the blouse. I squint and look closer at the swirl. Letters. There are letters in the swirl.

  “That’s weird,” I say.

  “What?”

  “See that swirl? That’s not on the blouse.”

  Stephen picks up the book and squints at the words.

  “Is it still in Simone’s room?” he asks.

  “I’ll go see.”

  I leave him holding the book, squinting, trying to make out the letters.

  When I stand outside Simone’s door, as I have so many times these last few months, once again, I’m afraid to go in.

  I remember the last time I saw her. It wasn’t pleasant.

  “You’re not really going to wear that?” Simone lowers her sunglasses and I glimpse the dark hollows under her eyes. My sister is a master with concealer and makeup, but I guess true heartbreak makes such things unimportant. “I’m not letting you in my car wearing that.”

  “Don’t be such a snob.” I look down at my Sweeny Todd shirt with its graphic of a bloody old fashioned men’s shaving razor. “You don’t even know what this is.”

  “I don’t care what it is. It looks disgusting. Take some pride in your appearance.”

  “You’re one to talk,” I mumble, brushing past her and through the front door.

  Simone doesn’t respond to my insult, but I know it stung. There are very few reasons to not look your best at all times according to my sister’s rules of society. Apparently, a break up is one of them.

  She stomps over to the car and slides in, huffy, lips pursed.

  We don’t say anything for a couple of minutes, and I study her out of the corner of my eye as she drives. She really hasn’t been herself lately. Simone and I don’t always see eye to eye, but that doesn’t mean she’s a bad sister. Sure, she fusses at me about staying out of her room, or gets really pissed when I spy on her and Jude, but she’s actually okay.

  But the past two weeks she has been quiet, locking herself in her room, not speaking to anyone—not even Daddy. And if there is one thing about Simone, she has always been a Daddy’s girl! This thing with Jude, the breakup, has really blown her world. Her last weeks as a senior are ones she’ll remember as being bad. I am almost a little sad for her.

  “Simone, maybe you and Jude will get back together over the summer,” I say. “He’ll figure out how awesome you are and come to his senses.”

  There. A compliment. That should smooth things over between us.

  “You don’t know anything about it,” she says, grimly. “We will never get back together.”

  “What happened? Why did ya’ll break up?”

  Her lip trembles.

&nb
sp; “We can’t be together. Something happened and there’s no way to fix it,” she says, bitterly. “It’s fine. I’ll get over it.”

  “No way to fix it? You are, like, always the best dressed, the prettiest. He must be crazy.”

  “It can’t be fixed. It just can’t. And it’s none of your business!”

  “Okay, sorry. I was just trying to be helpful.”

  “I don’t need you to be helpful,” she snaps, but there are tears in her eyes. “I just need everyone to leave me alone. I need you to stop asking questions. I need Mom to stop hounding me every five minutes about graduation stuff. I need Daddy to stay the hell away from me!”

  “What did Daddy do?”

  She laughs, a harsh almost barking sound.

  “Oh God, Monica,” she says. “You are such a child. Such a baby. I wish I could be as oblivious as you.”

  Why does she have to be such a bitch? I really was just trying to show concern. She didn’t have to call me a baby.

  “Fine. Drop me off here!” I demand with a roll of my eyes. We are still a block away from school, but I’d rather get out of the car, away from her gloom. “I can walk from here.”

  Simone slams on the breaks, not even looking at me.

  “Suit yourself,” she says. “It’s not like I enjoy carting you around everywhere.”

  I hop out, not realizing this is the last time I’ll ever see her.

  “And put some make up on!” I holler after her as the car speeds away. “You look like a hag!”

  I wish I could take those last words back. I wish I had said goodbye and that we’d parted on good terms. I wish so many things…

  I look at Simone’s door and take a deep breath. It’s time. I reach up above the sill for the skeleton key.

  Ready or not, here I come.

  It slides easily into the small lock next to the diamond doorknob.

  Don’t think about it. Just do it.

  I unlock the door and push it open, smelling a trace of her perfume. It’s a mix of vanilla and candy, something I dubbed “Baby Prostitute.” The cheery yellow walls dotted with inspirational posters glow when I turn on the light as if even they feel it’s been too long since someone saw their glory. The row of nostalgic pictures tucked into the wood lining the edges of her vanity table mirror gives me pause. Every picture is of someone who died in the cafeteria.

  Don’t dwell. Cross the room. Get what you came for and get out.

  I walk past her bed which is still covered by the pale, yellow down comforter with the cute half moons she adored and slide open the white, wooden closet door. Zillions of shoes are all perfectly lined up on the floor. Simone collected vintage hatboxes and they are stacked up on the shelf of the closet. Tucked next to them are her dance trophies, gleaming proudly.

  The blouse is hanging, untouched, right where she last hung it. Carefully, I remove it from the hanger and carry it out of the room. As I shut the door behind me, I let out a breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding.

  I survived. I made it out alive.

  I head back into my room, studying the blouse as I go.

  “See? No swirl,” I say, holding it up. “I wonder why Jude included one in the picture.”

  Stephen is pale.

  “Oh god.” I drop the blouse on the bed and put my hand on his shoulder. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “The letters.” He clears his throat and runs a hand through his hair, looking down at the picture. “They spell out something.”

  “What do they say? You’re scaring me.”

  “Sister.”

  Of all the things Stephen could have said, that one was not the one I would have picked. “Why would he write that? Is he talking about me?”

  “No.” Stephen shoves the book at me. “I need some air.”

  He goes to the open window while I try to figure out what he’s so upset about. Sister. It’s not a word to end the world or to cause such upset. What am I not seeing?

  Sister. I study the picture.

  Sister.

  And then it clicks. I flip back to the picture of Simone naked in bed. Then back to the one of her crying. Sister.

  My dad and Karen Valley. An affair that has been going off and on for years. How awkward it must be when your lover’s kid dates your own child.

  Even more awkward if your lover’s kid is also your own.

  Sister.

  Simone was Jude’s half-sister.

  Oh shit.

  Our parents. Their affair. What if...what if my father had a son? What if that son was Jude?

  HOLYFUCK

  Is Stephen his son, too? Oh god. Oh god! Oh GOD!

  “Stephen,” I whisper, fighting back nausea.

  He turns and I can see all the same thoughts have been going through his head.

  “It makes more sense now.” His voice is hollow. “They were...they were related. He said they were unclean. He couldn’t handle being in love with her. He couldn’t let her go.”

  “Are we...I mean, do you think that we...are…” I can’t finish the words. The thought just sickens me.

  “I don’t know,” he says, but his eyes—they are bleak, full of fear and worry.

  With shaking hands, I pick up the notebook and examine the words more closely. Maybe Stephen has made a mistake. People make mistakes. He’s just confused. That’s all.

  But now I can clearly see the word sister in the swirl and there are other letters, too. I study them: My fragile sister.

  She’d been upset about Jude breaking up with her, devastated, so confident they would never get back together. And her anger towards Daddy…it made even more sense now.

  I look at Stephen, not even attempting to hide the absolute terror I feel. Have I been kissing my brother? Have I been having shady thoughts about a sibling?

  I feel sick. Without thinking twice, I push past Stephen, lean out the window and throw up.

  “I have to talk to my mother,” Stephen says. He sounds mechanical, doesn’t even notice that I’ve puked up a lung on the windowsill. Maybe he’s in shock.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  He opens his mouth like he’s going to protest, but nothing comes out.

  “Alright,” he says finally. “Let’s go.”

  *****

  His mother is sitting on the couch, a glass of wine on the coffee table when we get there. She has picked up the magazines that were all over the floor the last few times I’d been there and that they are now stacked next to her wine on the table. She’s even straightened the rest of the room, and there’s a strong scent of lemon cleaner in the air. Maybe she cleans when she’s nervous.

  Mrs. Valley’s eyes the notebook clutched in Stephen’s hand, fear on her face.

  He doesn’t take it easy on her, diving right in.

  “Who is my father?” Stephen holds up the book before tossing it on the table. It skids to a stop, barely missing knocking over the wine glass. “Who is it?”

  “Your father?” Mrs. Valley’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Your father is Bud Valley.”

  A wave of relief goes through me. Thank you, Jesus! Stephen’s not my brother.

  “Who is Jude’s father?” Stephen demands.

  Mrs. Valley glances at the art journal. “What does Jude write about?”

  “His sister.” He lowers his voice, but there is no mistaking his anger. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”

  Tears fill her eyes and she reaches for the glass of wine, taking a long sip.

  “It’s true. Simone was his sister.” She gestures to the book. “One day I saw that picture in there, the one of Simone in bed, and I realized things had gone too far.”

  Uh…you think? Things went too far the moment they started dating. What the hell is wrong with Karen Valley? I’m itching to say this, but it isn’t my place. This is Stephen’s confrontation.

  “So you decided to tell Jude the truth.” Stephen nods, his jaw
tight. “That’s what you two spent the whole month of May arguing about.”

  “Things couldn’t go on between them. I told him about the affair, thinking he would break off their relationship and get over her. When that didn’t work…I had to tell him everything. At first, he didn’t believe me, and he told Simone. She confronted Simon and he…he confirmed it. The night of that awful last argument, Jude was so upset, so confused, and in love.” She sniffles. “I didn’t know what he would do the next day.”

  My stomach churns with horror. Daddy was aware Jude was his kid. On the way over, I’d imagined a scenario where Karen Valley had kept the truth from him. She had to have. My father would never allow Simone to date her brother…

  My stomach lurches.

  “But you knew how unstable Jude was. Did you think he would just accept it?” Stephen shakes his head, the word dripping with sarcasm. “Unclean…now I get what he means. He always prided himself on being above everyone. This would have made him inferior, something unacceptable in Jude’s eyes.”

  “I didn’t want to tell him at all!” Mrs. Valley protests. “He’d been so happy, so unlike himself! Simone made him happy, but I figured it was just a passing thing. Her father and I both did. I never expected they would fall in love. Don’t you think I would have stopped them from…from…”

  Having sex. She doesn’t say it out loud, but we both know that is what she means.

  Stephen is going to explode into a million pieces any second. His body shakes and the area from his neck to his chest is mottled with red blotches. Voice shaking, he says, “Now I understand why you let him get away with anything. It’s because you were in love with his father, right? You treated him special because of that.”

  “No. That’s not true.”

  “You babied him. You let him run your life, our life.” Stephen stalks toward her. “I know why he killed those kids in the cafeteria. It’s easy enough to see now. He was worried Simone told her friends about their real relationship. He couldn’t bear to look weak or imperfect in front of them.”

  “Oh, Stephen.” Mrs. Valley covers her face with both hands, rocking slightly on the couch. “Don’t say anymore. Please.”

  “No, mom. You’ve been silent for too long.” Stephen towers over her. “Did my father know Jude wasn’t his kid?”