Virgin With Butterflies

by Tom Powers

She had seen pictures in the papers saying that I was back and staying at the Drake. She’d gone there and the hotel porter told her he had gotten my ticket to Mattoon on this train.

  Now, what she wanted to know was, did I think it could be her fault if anything had happened to Uncle Ulrich?

  I knew I had to put the kibosh on what she thought, right now, once and forever.

  I always knew when I had to decide something important by that little flutter of butterflies, and I sure felt ’em now. But I leaned over and gave Mrs. Harwood a little hug.

  “Listen, Mrs. Harwood,” I says. “You’re a fine lady,” I says, “and you’ve had more than your share of trouble. And I think it’s good you found me, before you got so worried you might do something that would maybe make a lot more trouble for yourself. I’m pretty near the only person that could ease your mind,” I says, “so listen careful.”

  I had to get this settled once and for all, and the decision I had to make wasn’t any little decision, I can tell you. But, when I thought what could happen if she went on worrying like this, I knew I had to do anything to stop her, or we’d sure be in the paper again.

  So I took a deep breath and I says to myself, “Butterflies, do your stuff, but here goes.”

  “Listen, Mrs. Harwood,” I says, “it never happened, what you think. I was at Uncle Ulrich’s inquest, and he died of an old ailment, the doctor said, brought on by eating mushrooms that was always poison to his system.”

  She opened her watery eyes, and “I see,” she says, but I saw I hadn’t convinced her yet.

  “Listen,” I says, “I was with my brother, Willie, over at Springfield the night they did what they did to him, and Mrs. Harwood, that boy broke down and cried and told me Uncle Ulrich had nothing to do with it. He wanted Dr. Harwood to help him put it on Uncle Ulrich but he wouldn’t. So Willie made up his mind to get the doctor. He hid in the butcher shop because he had heard Uncle Ulrich on the phone, asking the doctor to come there. And when the doctor came, he did get him.”

  My butterflies were zooming and looping, but I still had one more lie to say.

  Mr. Wens was at the gate now with the gateman, both of ’em yelling and pointing at the tail end of the train, just waiting to pull out.

  But I had to finish, so I nodded to him and took her arm and walked her towards the gate.

  “I’m sure glad, Mrs. Harwood,” I says as we walked and the gateman looked at his watch, “I’m sure glad you didn’t do anything that might have hurt poor Aunt Helga more than she had to suffer by poor Uncle Ulrich’s death,” I says. “She told me,” I says, “that she got the letters and that she didn’t know, but she had hoped it was that you had sent ’em. She was so touched that you wanted to show her how kind Uncle Ulrich was to other people, just like he always was to her. Now you can forget it all, except that you did a kind deed for another poor widow like yourself.”

  With tears of gratitude in her eyes, Mrs. Harwood kissed the biggest liar in Illinois. Mr. Wens pushed me on the train while it was going. He stood there on the platform waving, but my butterflies were fluttering so I had to get the porter to open the little door quick, so I didn’t get to wave back to Mr. Wens.

  I hadn’t let Pop or Aunt Helga know I was coming or anything because I didn’t know how sick Pop was; I thought I had better just walk in.

  The more I thought of me getting home, the more the feeling of me going to see Pop got so big in my chest it nearly pushed out the ache that I wasn’t going to see Jeff for I didn’t know how long, if ever. But when I thought about Jeff again the feeling about seeing Pop was pushed over to make room for that.

  I thought about the lies I had told, that I always thought I was never much good at before. And I thought surely Willie would forgive me. It couldn’t hurt him now, and I had learned enough about trials to know that if Mrs. Harwood ever told that coroner about the checks and how she had sent ’em to Aunt Helga, it would all be gone over again.

  No, I was glad I had done what I did, and I asked Willie to please forgive me for saying those lies about him.

  All this I was thinking while I was sitting for the first time in the parlor car. We were going into the ugliest part of Mattoon, if there is an ugliest part. I felt like Willie would have understood and would have forgiven me if he could. So I stood up and was ready to get off long before I needed to, but I couldn’t wait.

  “Anyway,” I thought, “now I know why Aunt Helga waited a year to do it to him—if she did do it to him.” I didn’t like to think she did but had to.

  Mr. Koltinsky took me home in his taxi. He had seen the papers and he wanted to know a lot, and I talked to him with my mind shut.

  And then we turned the corner past the Passtime Theater that used to be Mrs. Murphy’s Ice Cream place, and there was the street and the house, with the fence at the low end of the yard painted new where Pop had filled the ground in, and there was the porch and the door shut.

  I got out and paid Mr. Koltinsky and he said, “Glad to see you back,” and wouldn’t take any tip.

  I opened the gate that was always easy and firm, because such a good carpenter lived here. And I put my hand on the knob of the front door that was always unlocked, and then I thought, “Suppose it’s locked, suppose nobody lives here, or suppose that something has happened to somebody.” And I got so scared, I didn’t dare to try the door.

  So I rang the bell, which I hadn’t never done before in my life, and it sounded like a bell in a house where somebody had died.

  I stood there listening to how fast I was breathing; I stood there for too long. And then the door opened, and it was Aunt Helga. And then over her shoulder in the hall was Pop with his mouth twisting out of shape. Then we were all hugging each other in the dark hall. I was hugging Pop and Pop was hugging me, and my hat fell off. Aunt Helga picked it up and went in the dining room and shut the door. Pop took me into the parlor and we sat on the sofa. I put my forehead on his thin old shoulder till I could feel the buckle of his overall strap pressing into it, and I just sighed and settled down, and I was home.

  After a while Aunt Helga came in, looking pretty and sweet, with a big tray of sandwiches and a big pot of tea. Pop made me take off my shoes and he tucked the crocheted quilt around me and sat and looked at me, smiling. While we all drank and ate, I talked and talked and told ’em about everything I could think of.

  I told them about the little green bug and showed it to ’em, and told ’em what the wish was about having grandchildren. When I told them what the prince had given me and how he had told me not to open the little gold box till I got home, I could see it began to get pretty exciting for them, especially about it keeping me comfortable all the rest of my life.

  Finally I got to the part about us getting shot down, and me saving nothing but the bug around my neck and my writing book and one little box.

  They got so interested, and Pop said, “Well, I guess this is the time.”

  “For what?” I says.

  “To open it,” he says. “You’re home, and I thank God for that, be he Catholic, Lutheran or Indian,” he says, “you’re home. But it don’t seem to be for want of trying to get yourself killed,” he says.

  So I says, “All right.” I opened my bag and there it was, pretty near the only thing I had brought back to prove I’d even been. So I gave it to Pop, and he says, “You better.”

  And I says, “Oh, no, you better.”

  And Pop says, “I think you ought to.”

  And I says, “I would rather you opened it, Pop.”

  And Pop said, “All right. Podner.” And he started to. But just then, I heard something. And it was the sweetest sound ever made in the world since the angels sang in Bethlehem about peace on earth and goodwill to men and all that. It was sweeter than Lily Pons or any other music, and it made my hair curl and uncurl all over my neck. I knew that sound, and the heavens just naturally went crazy with music.

  It was the stomp of a big heavy old G.I. boot on the porch, with a big heavy
old Texas foot inside of it.

  Don’t ask me how I knew. I hadn’t dared to even ask if they knew where he was at. But there it was, and it shot me up off of that sofa and out into the hall, my stocking feet not hardly touching the floor. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew it couldn’t be the mailman or a neighbor or Buffalo Bill on a mule, it was Jeff and nobody else. So I opened the door and stood there, waiting, hoping for the cyclone to hit me, but it didn’t, not right away.

  Jeff just stood there for a long time and he came in quiet and shut the door quiet. He didn’t seem able to say or do anything and neither did I. Then he says, soft and hoarse in his throat, “Oh, Jesus,” he says, “oh, thank Jesus.” And still I couldn’t move. And then he began to grin with big tears in his eyes, and “For God’s sake,” he yells, “what are we waiting for?” And, boy, I sure had forgotten how strong he was, and how big and rough and gentle and everything that I ever wanted in this world or the next.

  After about a year, we went into the parlor and sat down, and “Listen, podner,” Pop says, “I still got this here little box, but I sure think it’s you that ought to open it,” he says.

  “Go ahead, Pop,” I says.

  So he opened the box and his forehead wrinkled right up, and he looked like he had opened a bureau drawer to get a handkerchief and found a litter of strange kittens.

  “Look,” he says, so we did. And then after awhile, “How’s this going to make you comfortable the rest of your life?” he says.

  “That ain’t the box that’s supposed to do that,” I says. “That box is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean,” I says, “along with pearls and emeralds and diamonds and some of the finest people I ever met,” I says. “But this is the one I saved,” I says, “and if it makes you comfortable for the rest of your life,” I says, “that’s all me and Jeff care about.”

  “But hadn’t you better give it to Jeff?” Pop says. “Why, there never was such a pipe in the world.”

  “It ain’t mine to give,” I says. “It’s yours. Look how you’re printed on it, in gold. It was sent to you, special, by the Rockefeller of Burma. And besides,” I says, “I got something else for Jeff.” And I took off the chain from around my neck with the little green jade scarab bug hanging on it and I put it in Jeff’s big hand.

  “What’s this?” he says, sitting there on the sofa and looking down at me.

  “It brings good luck,” I says, “and makes you have many children and grandchildren,” I says.

  And Jeff squeezed me tight with one arm around me and his big hand flat on me. And the butterflies flew and flew, but I never felt better in my life.

  ISBN: 978 1 472 05271 1

  VIRGIN WITH BUTTERFLIES

  © 2009 Tom Powers

  Published in Great Britain 2009

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited

  Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

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