When the Butterflies Came

by Kimberley Griffiths Little

  “What?” I prod, wanting her to go on. Desperate for her to go on.

  “— I hate that Mamma takes off and leaves us alone every time there’s a crisis. She and Grammy Claire are so different it’s like they don’t even share the same gene pool.”

  “We have something in common, then.” Riley gives me a half smile and my heart suddenly warms to her, even as fear takes over. “Are you leaving me, too? Are you running away with what’s-his-name?”

  She lets out a noisy sigh. “Brad. His name is Brad. And — no. I was going to, but I won’t.”

  “Because you don’t want to leave me alone?” My heart jumps with hope that my sister doesn’t find me completely annoying.

  “Get real. Guess I just decided to obey Grammy Claire’s dying wishes.”

  “I knew you loved me!” I throw my arms around her neck and get stabbed in the ear by a wad of brittle hair glued together with super-duper-holding goop.

  “Brad has to work a construction job with his uncle the next few weeks in Shreveport. He’ll get overtime. Maybe when he comes back he and I’ll run away together.”

  I blink at her. “For real?”

  She rolls her eyes. “You’re so gullible. But, yeah, maybe we will. You gonna make something out of it?”

  I shrug my shoulders and flip my hair. “You gonna get married? Do you actually love him?” I wonder what it’s like to kiss a guy with an earring in his tongue.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  We stand there staring at each other.

  The clock ticks.

  Riley finally says, “You ready?”

  My heart gives a jump. “For what?”

  “Well, I declare, Tara Scarlett Doucet!” she says in an obnoxious Southern accent. “I coulda sworn you graduated sixth grade last month! What do you think I’m referring to? Are you packed for Grammy Claire’s house? Unless I’m going alone and you’re staying here by yourself.”

  “Don’t you dare leave me behind, Riley Samantha Doucet! I’m going and you can’t stop me!”

  Her lips curve into a small smile. “Good, because that butler dude says we’re leaving ASAP.”

  “I didn’t think you’d met him yet.”

  “I know what’s going on in this house more than you think, Tara. Believe me.”

  “Shh!” I suddenly hiss. “I hear funny noises.” There’s definitely the sweep of a door closing softly and the muffled sound of running water. “Is that the dishwasher?”

  Riley’s eyes flick away down the hall. “Nope.”

  “I think it’s coming from the South Wing.”

  “You’re so brilliant I can hardly contain myself.”

  I ignore her sarcasm. “Is someone breaking into our house?”

  “Guess again.”

  That’s when I know, and the knowledge makes my heart skip a whole beat. “It’s Mamma, isn’t it?”

  “Give the girl the grand prize!”

  “I thought she went away to some resort hotel so she could watch television twenty-four seven and order room service.” Mamma’s note didn’t actually say that, but I was sort of hoping that’s all she was doing.

  Riley gives me a look like I’m the dumbest person in the whole world. “We don’t have any money for a resort hotel and room service.”

  “That’s better than some mental hospital, ain’t it?”

  “You don’t pay attention to anybody else in the world but yourself, Tara. Have you ever heard of the Doucet Family Trust Fund?”

  She says it in capital letters like it’s more important than the governor. I shrug, pretending I know all about it when I really don’t.

  “Read that note again. Mamma doesn’t ever say what she’s doing. She likes to be all vague and cryptic.”

  I don’t like hearing her talk negatively about Mamma even though Mamma makes me angry, too. I’d spent the whole previous night wishing Mamma would come into my room and stroke my hair and tell me it was going to be okay without Grammy Claire.

  I guess Mamma can’t lie — because nothing will ever be the same again without Grammy Claire. Not for me, not for Riley, and not for Mamma neither. Grammy Claire rescued us all the time. She was our Superwoman Grammy. The person who made you smile and know that everything was gonna be fine. Nope, better than fine — you knew things were gonna be good.

  Then I spy the corner of the small padded envelope sticking out from under my pillow where I’d hidden it — the one I haven’t opened yet. The one with something inside.

  “Pack,” Riley tells me. “And fast. None of your silly dawdling and trying on clothes.”

  “Okay, okay,” I say, pushing her out the door.

  I’m packing but don’t have a clue where we’re really going or what I’m going to do once I get there. A strange butler is in my house. Mamma’s gone off the deep end. Riley’s being sort of nice. Best of all, I have two letters from Grammy Claire.

  Running across my room, I reach under the pillow and bring out the soft, squishy envelope, ripping open the seal. I shake out the contents and a single brass key falls into my lap.

  A white tag is stuck through the little hole of the key and on the tag is written the words Number One. Are my eyes playing tricks? I know exactly what door this key will open. And all of a sudden I feel a whole lot better.

  Sticking the key into the pocket of my sundress, I start throwing underwear and socks and shorts and shirts into piles on my bed. Soon as I’m packed, I sneak down the hall of the South Wing, listening to the echoes of Riley’s suitcases bumping down the stairs. One, two, three … for a girl who only wears ripped jeans and T-shirts accessorized with an occasional baggy sweatshirt, she sure has a lot of luggage. Must be a whole case just for her hair goop and neon hair dye.

  The front door slams and the whole house lets out its breath.

  Silence invades the very air I’m breathing.

  My heart starts to yammer inside my chest when I reach the splintered mahogany door to the guest suite. Rubbing my sweaty hands against my dress, I get up the nerve to knock. I’m trying to remember the last time I saw Mamma. Ever since the police arrived at our doorstep with news of the car accident, the days are a blur.

  I make three taps with my fist — but there’s no answer. ’Course, she’s not gonna answer. She ran away from us, from the world, from her life, to the other side of this big ole house.

  Wrapping my fingers around the fake crystal doorknob, I jiggle it back and forth. It’s not locked so I push the old door open, slowly, slowly, and let myself inside.

  “Just living is not enough,” said the butterfly.

  “One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”

  ~HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN~

  The master suite guest room is rarely used. We don’t hardly have guests anymore. Grammy Claire used these rooms when she came to visit, but it’s been a year. Yet I can still smell the faint scent of her perfume lingering, against a backdrop of lemon furniture oil.

  I spot a dried-out bouquet of roses on one of the bureaus. Dusty petals lay scattered on top of the wood.

  The room has a four-poster tester bed with damask drapes that reek of the decade Before the War. I remember Grammy Claire telling me that a long time ago every plantation mistress wanted one of those expensive beds. I guess my great-great-great-grandfather did pretty good at sugar cane if he could purchase such a bed.

  The rugs under my feet are worn and thin, the flowers fading inside the pattern. Ancient tables and bureaus and coat racks and gilt mirrors are stacked and shoved everywhere. I let out my breath and pivot on my toes, right smack in the middle of all those dusty, musty antiques.

  So where is she? Thought for sure I’d see her bawling her eyes out on the pillows, but there’s no one on the bed. The sheets and duvet are rumpled. The pillowcase looks sort of gray. Maybe all those scratchy noises I heard earlier weren’t Mamma at all. Maybe it was just the automatic sprinkler system coming on.
Creaks and groans from an old house with arthritis and a bad case of plumbing.

  My bare feet don’t make any noise as I cross the room, jumping softly from one rug to the next.

  And then I see her.

  The French doors are open, and my mamma is sitting on the upstairs porch that wraps around the back of the house.

  “Mamma?” I call out real soft.

  She doesn’t move.

  I walk closer and see her small figure wrapped in a blue sheet, knees tucked under her chin, eyes behind dark glasses, pale skin, and no makeup. She’s staring at the fountain in the center of the lawn, which makes small gurgling noises. Masses of flowers spread out in five directions in the shape of a star from the fountain’s shushing pool of blue. At least the perennials come back every year, or we probably wouldn’t have any flowers at all anymore.

  At the bottom of the lawn, the Bayou Teche runs sluggish and brown. A nutria paddles right down the middle, carrying a branch in his mouth. The rickety slave shacks from Before the War have gloomy black sockets for windows, giving me a shiver.

  My mamma used to be president of the Garden Club, but nobody in Bayou Bridge knows she suffers from melancholy, especially since Daddy left us for the glamour of Hollywood and some woman named Crystal. Yeah, like the chandelier. But I realize that Grammy Claire dying hurts worse than my daddy leaving.

  “Mamma, you okay?”

  She’s so silent my heart grips the inside of my chest like it’s got sharp claws.

  I kneel on the planks of the porch to get right in her face, but her eyes are closed behind the sunglasses, mouth turned down like she’s in agony.

  “Mamma, it’s Tara.”

  There’s a scary moment of silence while I wonder if she forgot how to talk, then she draws out a sigh and nods.

  “How you doin’?” Feels like I’m five years old again, scared and small, even though I’m starting middle school at the end of summer. I want to ask a thousand questions, but I don’t think she’s going to give me any answers.

  She shakes her head, tight and nervous.

  “You been up here since the funeral?”

  “Yeah,” she whispers, her voice scratchy like she hasn’t talked in days.

  “You got something to eat?”

  She shrugs and her thin fingers clutch the chair arms like she’s afraid that lawn chair is going to launch her right over the balcony.

  “Bet you haven’t eaten at all,” I accuse her. “Want me to bring you some lemonade? Or tea? Or cookies?”

  “Miz Landry’s comin’ later.”

  Miz Landry is our once-a-week housekeeper, although she usually shows up more often than that. I guess Mamma might get hungry, but she won’t starve.

  I think about Riley making that crack about the Doucet Family Trust Fund.

  “Mamma, how can we afford to pay Miz Landry still? I know we’re keeping up appearances on the outside, but what happens if you gotta go to a hospital? How we gonna pay?”

  My mamma’s eyes are two dark holes behind those sunglasses, just like the slave shack windows. “A proper-bred lady doesn’t worry about finances, Miss Tara.”

  “Well, you know you’re gonna make yourself sick, Mamma.”

  “Riley says that, too. Thank goodness you girls are under your daddy’s medical insurance.”

  “Riley’s been here?” The words burst out of my mouth. Riley knew Mamma was here all along and never told me? That just irks me so bad I want to hit something.

  “Gave her that note so you girls won’t worry.”

  I rise to my feet, spittin’ mad. “Riley is a stinking liar! She said you’d gone and disappeared to a hotel and left that note on your bureau! Some days I just hate her to pieces. Some days, I want to run away, too.”

  Mamma makes a noise in her throat, and for the first time since I came out here, she turns her head toward me. “Riley’s just — Riley,” she says in a strangled voice. She sounds sick. Tired. Worn-out. I don’t even know what to call it.

  I pace up and down the porch, then bang my forehead against one of the peeling white-painted pillars. The sprinklers come on, shooting sprays of water over the grass. I wish I was a little kid again running through the sprinklers while Daddy takes home movies of me in my Barbie swimsuit.

  Finally, I go back over and lay my head in Mamma’s lap. I try to see past the dark glasses, staring at her colorless lips and small, pointed chin. “Mamma,” I bawl, clutching at the sheet. “I want Grammy Claire. She shouldn’t have died. It just isn’t fair!”

  Mamma doesn’t answer. There’s a wall of silence like I never said anything.

  Something catches the corner of my eye and I glance up, my hair sticking to my face in the heat. A butterfly dances along the tops of the elephant ears on the banks of the bayou. It’s small and blue, so delicate and tiny, if I blinked I might miss it. The blue butterfly crosses the lawns and darts around the chugging sprinklers.

  “Look, Mamma,” I breathe out. “It’s so darling. So pretty.”

  I’ve got her attention. She lifts her chin and looks out. I can see her eyes watching the butterfly behind the sunglasses.

  The blue butterfly comes closer, looping over the railing of the porch and then spinning around our heads. It circles Mamma’s chair, and she lets out a tiny gasp. Her lips begin to tremble into a smile.

  Time seems to stand still and then the butterfly pauses, as if listening to something in the breeze. Zooming back over the porch, it skims across the grass and disappears down the bayou again.

  The spell is broken. Mamma shifts in her seat, pushes my hands off her lap, then stumbles back into the dark room. Throwing herself on the bed, she jerks at the draperies to close herself in like a cocoon.

  “Mamma! Don’t! What’re you doing?” I run over and grab her arm to stop her from shutting me out.

  She rips off her sunglasses and takes my hand in her cold fingers. Her eyes are bloodshot and puffy and wrinkled. Like she’s been crying nonstop for days.

  “Well, haven’t I been crying for days, too?” I cry out. “But I don’t hide away and shut out the world.” Anger builds inside my chest, like I got a ticking bomb inside me. I want to scream and scream, but she looks so frail, and so pathetic, I can’t do nothing.

  I pick up one of the empty vases stacked on a table and turn toward the wall, ready to smash it into smithereens just to get her attention. To snap her out of the hateful melancholy.

  Mamma gives up on the curtains and falls back onto the bed. “Go on now, Tara. Do what Grammy Claire tells you to do.”

  I glare at her. “You know about that butler guy downstairs?”

  She nods with her eyes closed. “Riley told me.”

  I make a face.

  “I can’t help you right now, just go — go!”

  She rolls over onto her side. The mound of pillows smells unclean, as if Mamma hasn’t showered in three days neither.

  Words shoot out of my mouth like sharp, pointed needles. “Everybody always tells me to go! Go, go, go! You and Riley are the bosses of everything and keep all these secrets, but you don’t care at all about how I feel! Maybe I will go! And maybe I’ll never come back! How’d you like that?”

  I pause to catch my breath and realize that the only thing I’m shouting at are the heavy burgundy drapes surrounding the bed. Nothing but a bunch of velvet folds Mamma’s hiding behind. Shouting at my mamma who’s sick, but won’t go to a doctor. Mamma who says she cares, but is so broken she don’t know up from down.

  And I’m a girl who never shouts at her mamma. Last time it happened I was four years old and got a mouth full of Ivory soap. I’m so mad I want to spit, too, and I’ve never been tempted to spit in all my life. I don’t know whether to drag her out of bed or slam the door until the walls fall down around our heads.

  I decide to storm out.

  Don’t even say good-bye.

  Except a few last hateful words come flying off my tongue: “Only Grammy Claire cared, and now she’s gone, and I wis
h you’d died instead of her!”

  Silence rings, hovering in the air, buzzing at the molding, curling up the carpet. I’m horrified, and let out a ragged gasp. But I don’t take it back. I can’t. Not yet.

  Instead I grab at the knob with both fists, whip the bedroom door open, and crash right into Miz Landry coming in. I’m moving so fast, we smack heads and I see stars and diamonds and little black flecks. Tears spring to my eyes, but I’m so upset at my mamma that I hold in all the dumb tears. I let out a hiccup and start coughing. “I’m so sorry, Miz Landry!”

  “Ah, honey, just an accident, darlin’,” she says in her soft, mothery voice. “You hurt, baby?” She holds me, stroking my hair with her thick fingers and gentle way. I’ve known her since I was born. Mamma’s known her since she was born.

  I regret yelling at Mamma, but I don’t turn back to apologize. I just want to crawl into a hole myself like she always does.

  “Any better?” Miz Landry says.

  “I’m okay,” I mumble, my hair falling over my face, not wanting to look at her.

  “Think you got yourself a goose egg on that noggin of yours.” Miz Landry shuffles me down to the hall bathroom and gets a cold cloth to press against my forehead. When she opens the cupboard door, it falls off its hinges and clatters to the floor. “Tsk, tsk,” she clicks her tongue. “This house fallin’ down ’round our heads. One day you gonna wake up to rubble and dust surrounding your beds and nothin’ in the pantry to eat.”

  I stare at her. “Really? Are we actually poor?”

  She gives a snort. “Now I don’t know nothin’, but I know your mamma’s hidin’ here in this house thinking all her problems gonna go away. And they ain’t. That trust fund has gone and disappeared over the years. Shoulda sold out long ago, got rid of all them antiques while they was worth something. Sold off some property.”

  “Maybe my daddy can give us some money.”

  Miz Landry blinks her big brown eyes. She snorts again and rolls her eyes like Riley. “Oh, Miss Tara, when that happens it’ll be the Second Coming!”

  A slow heat crawls up my neck. “But he does! Child support or something, right?”