Return of the Butterfly

by Sharon Heath

  “It’s okay,” Gwen said. She shot me an apologetic look. “I’m just getting over the fucking flu that’s been making the rounds. Thank God for Tamiflu. My doc promises me I’m no longer contagious. Did you get your shots?”

  It felt like she was talking Martian, but Adam nodded and murmured, “I’m so sorry, Gwennie. You needed this like a hole in the head.”

  No one said a word. It was as if he’d taken a dump in the middle of the room.

  As if to smother the faux pas, Stanley blanketed every bit of it with an analysis of the efficacy of this year’s flu shot. “The effectiveness of the vaccine is pretty much determined by the influenza strains the CDC guesses will be making the rounds in the coming year. Unfortunately, H-three-N-two’s a bugger, and we haven’t yet reached more than about a forty-three percent effectiveness against that particular strain. We’re much better with influenza B—I believe that one’s about seventy-three percent effective—but if we’re unlucky enough to have influenza A at the top of the dance card, as it ended up being this year, the flu shot ends up being only about forty-eight percent effective. This”—he swept a hand toward Gwen—“is what that failure looks like.”

  “Yes, well,” said Gwen dryly, “let’s hope this is the only statistic I end up being at the wrong end of this year.”

  Adam shot me a distressed look. I knew what he was thinking. This was the worst possible conversation to have when I’d just lost my mother.

  But Stanley hauled out some chamomile tea and McVitie’s Wholemeal Digestives—I think all of us but Gwennie would have voted for coffee and Krispy Kremes—and we, or at least the three of them, ended up having a couple of laughs at the latest Trumpisms. I think Adam was so happy that I was actually eating that he let himself go, having what looked like the best time ever shouting out, “Do I look like a president? How handsome am I, right? How handsome?”

  It was a spot-on imitation of what Gwennie liked to call our Creep-in-Chief, but I didn’t have the heart to point out that, as bits of McVitie’s flew from his mouth with each word, Adam didn’t exactly look his best himself at that moment. Instead, feeling increasingly uncomfortable somewhere around my heart, I gestured in the direction of the front door and mouthed, “I’ve got to go.”

  He tried valiantly to engage me as we drove the few blocks home, remarking that Gwennie looked considerably better by the end of our visit than she did at the beginning, but all I could think was that I might be having a heart attack. The pressure around my chest felt ominous.

  When we got home, we heard Makeda call out, “Is it you?”

  Adam responded, “Is that a trick question? What would you think if we answered, “No?”

  Melky’s hearty guffaw beckoned us into the dining room, where he sat next to Makeda, their knees touching under the table. Makeda was pushing the stroller back and forth next to her, as Callay made fretful sounds of distress.

  “Okay, gull,” Makeda said, standing. I couldn’t help but note that her accent reminded me of Sammie’s. She took my arm with one hand and pushed the stroller with her other one. When we reached the den, she pointed to the queen’s settee. “It’s time.” She plopped down next to me, bringing the scent of frankincense with her, and reached forward to gently unbutton my blouse, and then opened the only kind of bra I had these days, the nursing kind. “Oh, you poor thing,” she murmured.

  I looked down. No wonder I’d thought I was having a heart attack. My breasts were terribly engorged. Carrying Callay with her, Makeda left the room, whispering, “It’s alright, little one, relief is on the way.” She returned with a moist, warm washcloth, which she tenderly applied to the fuller of my aching titties as a compress. I said nothing but closed my eyes with the mix of sensations: the searing pain, the tightness, a welcome new warmth. The next thing I felt were my daughter’s delicate lips at my nipple. I felt Makeda press down on it tentatively to see if she could help the baby gain purchase. And lo—I felt milk squirt from me into my child’s mouth.

  If it had been anyone else, I would have felt violated and pushed Makeda away. But for now, her hands were my hands, her will my will.

  I opened my eyes. Even as she kept her brown index finger on my pink nipple, Makeda looked at me with an absolute lack of pity. If anything, her expression hinted at something that might have been awe. Which made me want to laugh. But I didn’t.

  Instead, I looked down at my little Monkey and remembered her. She glowed with the radiance of a new sun. I was afraid she’d forgotten me, but instead—as forgiving as the planet that continued to carry the terrible weight of us humans—she paused briefly in her sucking to burble laugher and delight, her eyes moist with the joy of recognition. She let her perfect little body nestle, content, safe, at home in my arms. I gave her thickly diapered bum a tender squeeze and she began sucking more vigorously until my breast and nipple began to soften. I felt Makeda take her hand away. I put my own in its place, stroking Callay’s cheek with my ring finger. Her skin was as soft as the petal of an Anne Boleyn.

  Chapter Twelve

  BY THE TIME Sammie returned from her latest rapturous visit with Amira, I was at least somewhat functional. I rose each morning and fed the cat, brushed my teeth, showered and shaved my legs, ate my breakfast of Greek yogurt, walnut halves, organic blueberries, and Kashi cereal that years of living with Gwennie had accustomed me to. But more importantly, I’d reconnected with Callay, my breast milk warm and flowing as I held her compact, but growing, body and marveled at her increasing alertness to her environment. I marveled at the way she burst into a double-dimpled grin when I came to lift her from her crib, laughed with her when she squealed with glee when Buster’s tail brushed across her face, stood speechless when she reached her perfect fingers with careful precision for the plush, long-legged chimpanzee that Adam liked to dangle before her eyes.

  On the outside, I was a woman moving slowly through her grief. Bursting into tears at odd moments, becoming distracted in the middle of sentences, savoring what small joys she could in the general leadenness of loss.

  The inside was another matter, and I was able to articulate its contours only when my best friend returned to town. Having turned off her cell during her month-long camping trip in the south of France with Amira, Sammie had called as soon as she collected Adam’s score of frantic messages. “Fleur, I’m booking a flight as soon as we get off the phone. Oh, my darling dear, how utterly ghastly and shocking and bloody unfair.”

  But I’d sidestepped her empathy and insisted she maximize her time with Amira. I knew her lover would be inaccessible in Afghanistan for however long it took to gather material for the BBC documentary she was producing on the status of Afghani women in the sixteenth year of America’s war against the Taliban. “I’m okay, Sam. Or at least through the worst of it, I think. Just take care of yourself and tell Amira to be safe, too.” My comment barely hinted at what was going on in my head.

  Sammie arrived just in time for our party celebrating the issuance of Melky’s Employment Based Immigrant Visa to the U.S. He and Makeda hadn’t even told us about the process until his lawyers had confirmed its success, as they hadn’t wanted to stress us during Callay’s early months and then Mother’s death. Given the current climate, we all knew how fortunate he was. The fact that UCLA’s Institute of Environmental Studies had provisionally hired him and that Governor Jerry Brown’s office had vouched for him had evidently sealed the deal.

  Adam and I were out of our minds with happiness for both of them, and I—in particular—felt a surge of a kind of cosmic relief, as I’d been consumed by guilt for years that I’d ruined Makeda’s life forever. I’d shared way too much information about Assefa at our first meeting at the orphanage, including the fact that he’d tried to commit suicide after learning that she was actually his half-sister, which, needless to say, was shattering to her, too.

  As if she were a mind reader, Makeda had impressed upon me when she told me about Melky’s visa that she would never have met him but for my su
rprise visit to her at the orphanage. That, at least, was true. The fact that the two of them had now fallen in love would have been evident to even the most oblivious. I took a wistful pleasure when I heard the strains of a tizita song coming from Makeda’s bedroom late at night, especially after she’d shyly shared with me shortly before Mother died that she’d made an appointment with famed Philadelphia reconstructive plastic surgeon Dr. Ivona Percec, who’d had significant success in restoring the clitoris and its orgasmic function in female genital mutilation reversal.

  When Sammie rang the bell, the party was already going full blast. A hectic mix of red, white, and blue streamers and miniature Ethiopian green, yellow, and red flags festooned the house. A Teddy Ab Ethiopian reggae song blasted from the speakers, and Buster batted at balloons until he burst one with his claws, sending him racing frantically down the hall. Makeda’s girls and their friends spun like little whirlwinds amid the grownups’ rocking hips and dancing feet.

  Sammie had brought with her a large Fortnum and Mason shopping bag, and out of it she extracted a green and yellow Wallias soccer team T-shirt for Melky (“just so you don’t go too far to the other side”), a Jo Malone candle for Makeda, a gift box of fancy French jams for Adam and me, and, to cries of great delight, a set of Rupert Bear miniatures for the girls. Before everyone could finish thanking her, she’d commandeered me up the stairs, ostensibly to see how much Callay had changed in her absence and to present her with a stuffed British bulldog that I swore looked exactly like Churchill. We both know her actual intent was to cuddle with Monkey and me in the bed in the baby’s room.

  She lay a soft hand on my shoulder. “Okay, then, gull, tell.”

  Tears streaming down my face, I began to share my experiences of Mother’s death and its aftermath, adding, “I hate that she died while dancing. Celebrating Callay. So joyous and carefree. It felt cruel, as if a mean-spirited god is in charge of things.”

  For some reason, I felt a decided reluctance to speak of my sojourn in Hades, but, gesturing to her to pass me a tissue, I did manage to haltingly confess that I still couldn’t wrest from my mind the image of Mother’s expressionless face, with its staring, sightless eyes.

  “It’s become a kind of emotional tic: the first thing I see as I wake up, no matter what dream I might have been having; the last image in my mind before I fall asleep. Any time of day, if I close my eyes, that’s what I see.”

  Sammie squeezed my shoulder, her own eyes moist with sorrow. “Oh, love. It’s trauma. The loss of her was bad enough, but the shock of it. It was intolerable. Is intolerable.”

  But I didn’t stop there. “Now that you mention it, I worry about Callay. She was right there, Sam. Saw the whole horrifying thing. I’m worried she’s living a nightmare of her own, with no way to actually grasp it or speak about what she’s suffering.”

  Sammie swept her eyes over my baby, who’d finished her breastfeeding and was cooing contentedly up at us, repeating her first word, Moomah, to our great delight, her dimples deepening in a series of charming grins. Sam directed a pointed look at me. “Right. She’s obviously in agony.”

  Thank God for best friends. I let loose a loud guffaw.

  “Baubo,” Sammie said.

  “Huh?”

  “The Greek goddess whose naked hoochie koochie dance was the only thing that could comfort the grieving Demeter.”

  I shot her a look of pretend consternation. “Well, don’t get any ideas.”

  “That’s okay. I’m saving my gorgeous self for Amira.”

  We both laughed. I’d forgotten how comforting just being with Sammie could be. “Okay, now you. Tell. Are you still every bit as much in love?”

  But she wouldn’t have it. Her expression sobered. “No, really, back up a bit. What you’ve been going through is classic PTSD. Have you thought of seeing a therapist? As much as I adore you, I wouldn’t share Janet with you, but I’ll bet she could offer you some great referrals.”

  I interrupted hastily. “I know how you’ve loved Jungian analysis, Sam, and I’m sure it’s helped you get over that shithead Jacob enough to make room for the real thing, but, well, I think I need to work this out on my own.”

  “But that’s just it with you. How can someone so brilliant be so bloody dense? It’s as if you have to learn over and over again that none of us is on our own. We’re not designed to be hermits. How many of us actually live by ourselves in caves?”

  “Actually, Sam, Plato had it that we all live in caves, chained to walls that we’re stuck facing, with our only intimations of reality being the shadows cast by objects passing behind the campfires behind us. Unless we free ourselves and climb the mountain of transcending ordinary life. Of course, Aristotle was much more into embodied living as a source of understanding and wisdom. I’ve always thought about quantum physics as a kind of amalgam of those two points of view. Think about Neils Bohr’s discovery of the spark that happens when electrons jump from one orbit to the other, each with its own color, linking energy with light. And speaking of light, what happens when we throw Socrates into the mix, with his reverence for the intellect as a kind of divine spark?” Something started stirring in the pit of my belly, then spread across the rest of my body in the form of an unusual alertness.

  Finally becoming aware again of Callay nuzzling against my shoulder, I saw that Sammie was giving me the stink eye.

  “You’re incorrigible, you know. What does any of this have to do with your loss of your mother?”

  And then it hit me. “Oh God, Sam, you are the queen!”

  Thrusting the baby into my friend’s arms without warning, I scrambled out of bed, saying hurriedly, “Listen, I need to get down to the lab and make a few calls. Do you mind watching Callay?”

  As I rushed out of the room, I heard her exclaim, “What the hell? The lab? In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a party going on downstairs.”

  Sam probably thought I’d gone over the edge, but I’d have to explain later to her—and to Makeda and Melky and their friends down below. I was sure they’d understand.

  Maybe I was being a little manic, but I sensed in that scientist’s gut of mine that I was on to an important next step in making Dreamization a reality. Father had been trying to show me something, and it had everything to do with the disappearance and reappearance of his butterfly avatar. That was the thing about butterflies. They were about transformation. The great crisis and miracle of their lives was all about moving from one whole identity to an entirely different one. From laboriously earthbound to flutteringly soaring. We humans weren’t strangers to that experience, but I’d always thought of it as far less concrete.

  As Adam had explained to me when I was barely into my teens, there was a reason that the ancient Greek’s symbol for the goddess Psyche was the butterfly. I remember the hairs raising on my arms as he’d said—rather casually, I thought, given its significance— “The human soul is always in movement; we change our minds, and what we think about changes us, constantly, just as the molecules comprising our being, along with everything else in the universe, are constantly in flux.”

  But now I’d been gripped by an intuitive flash that there was a whole world of application of the conversion of chemical energy into motion that we’d barely plumbed. Had Our-Father-in-Hades been hinting, as I now thought he had, that a chemical enzyme present in butterflies might be our engine for Dreamization? Sliding out the front door and pulling my cell phone out of my bag as I headed out toward the Prius, I punched in a number I knew by heart.

  “Hall-o?”

  “Gunther, it’s me. Who do we know in the field of entomology? I need to learn about the chemical states of butterflies.”

  “You’re a physicist.” He said it as if it were an accusation.

  “Yes, and you—according to Tom—are a Chelsea fan. As an Arsenal fan, I won’t hold that against you. I need to know about the chemicals that are active in the transformation process of a butterfly. Didn’t you once mention you knew an entom
ologist in the biological engineering division?”

  You might notice that neither of us had bothered to exchange a civil “How are you?” or “How’s it going?” Most scientists were as unbothered by the social niceties as one of Adam’s favorite singers, Neil Young, who reputedly had the habit of getting up from any number of important dinners without a word to grab a guitar and find a private place when he felt a new song coming on.

  “Ja,” Gunther said. “Joe Parker. Why?”

  “Long story. I think a specialist in butterflies might offer us the final key to Dreamization.”

  “Call you right back.”

  He was as good as his word, catching me just as I was turning onto California Boulevard. “Joe said that the person you want isn’t at Caltech. She works for the Natural History Museum. I have her office number and cell. Which one do you want?”

  “Give me her cell.” I’d pulled to the side of the road and was drumming my fingers on the dash.

  “It’s nine-thirty.”

  “I know.”

  We hung up without saying goodbye.

  Sally Price was my kind of woman. When I introduced myself and explained what I was looking for, she said, “Come on over. I was getting a little tired of Sons of Anarchy, anyway.”

  Fortunately, she didn’t live as far as the area adjacent to USC, where the Natural History Museum was located. Instead, within twenty minutes, I found myself walking up to a sweet Spanish bungalow at the foot of Eagle Rock’s Hillside Park. Stars lit up the sky, and the night-blooming jasmine lining the pathway was heavenly. A lanky, striking-looking, forty-something woman in a rather misshapen T-shirt, jeans, and fluffy slippers stood in an open doorway from which music loudly spilled. My spirits soared with the synchronicity of it, as my ears identified Neil Young’s straining voice lamenting mother nature being on the run in the 1970s.