Juan Pablo and the Butterflies

by JJ Flowers

  You will find him at the butterfly sanctuary in Pacific Grove in late August.

  Elena

  And so it came to pass.

  As Juan Pablo stood beneath the towering eucalyptus trees and the windblown pines of Pacific Grove’s butterfly sanctuary, he looked up, hoping to see a butterfly. There were none, but in the moment, none were needed. Patches of blue sky promised afternoon sunshine and maybe then, he thought, the butterflies would manifest and circle his music as they always had in faraway El Rosario.

  He finally removed his violin from its case.

  Bow in hand, he chose his mother’s, his abuela’s, and coincidentally, his father’s favorite piece of music.

  With love and tenderness, he positioned his familiar friend. Bow in hand, he began playing.

  The distant sound of the haunting violin music floated through the trees and the tall man started running until he came across him, like a vision, in the middle of the grove. He stopped, transfixed by his first sight of him, Juan Pablo, his son. The tall, slender, dark-haired youth stood in the stream of sunlight falling through the trees, lost to the music he created. A butterfly circled overhead as if he needed more proof of the miracle.

  Juan Pablo spotted the tall man coming toward him and felt the recognition. It was the recognition of two souls finding each other at long last. Still, until the end, he continued playing the beautiful music.

  Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

  For his mother, for his abuela, for all the Sky People listening . . .

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JJ Flowers writes popular fiction and occasional nonfiction and is a successful screenwriter. Juan Pablo and the Butterflies dropped auspiciously onto her keyboard shortly after she lost her husband and son, the two brightest lights in her life. It is not a coincidence that George Bernard Shaw offers Flowers’s favorite quote: “[Imagination] is how the messages of God come to us.”

  Simon Pulse

  Simon & Schuster, New York

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  Merit Press

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  Copyright © 2017 by JJ Flowers.

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  First Merit Press hardcover edition MAY 2017

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  Interior design by Sylvia McArdle

  Interior images © 123RF/melpomen

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  ISBN 978-1-5072-0214-2

  ISBN 978-1-5072-0215-9 (ebook)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and Simon & Schuster, Inc., was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.