Return of the Butterfly

by Sharon Heath

  I turned to Makeda. “I hope the party doesn’t scare the hell out of Bobby.”

  She considered the possibility and then ventured the opinion that he’d be smart enough to stay clear once the crowd began to arrive. I was planning a full-out birthday bash for Callay, and Makeda was already one of my biggest helpers. She’d insisted on contributing to the menu some of her own favorite childhood dishes, including shiro wat (chickpea flour stew), gomen (collard greens), and, of course, the ubiquitous injera at the bottom of the plate to scoop up the rest of the food. Dhani had already offered to bring both a beef and a vegetarian curry, spiced mildly because of the children, along with her signature rice pudding, the one that had reunited Sammie and me when we’d had our awful rift after the death of my father. And Gwen had committed to baking some of her amazing vegan chocolate chip cookies, partly as an act of defiance against the inevitable Krispy Kremes that my team would show up with. The rest of the menu would be filled out by Gelson’s Market, whose cold salads and Victor Benes carrot birthday cakes were my sole contributions whenever I contributed to a potluck. Have I mentioned what a lousy cook I am?

  I plucked at the piping on my floral seat cushion, hoping Callay’s party would feel special for her. I couldn’t remember having had one of my own as a child and realized that Father’s hatred of actual children and Mother’s alcoholism probably precluded whatever normalcy might have been offered to the kind of exceptionally odd child I’d been. And then, one thing leading to another as they do, tears filled my eyes.

  Makeda, as if by magic, but undoubtedly more by the sensitivity of one who’d mothered orphans, said softly, “Ihite.” Sister. That word still had the power to move me deeply. What would it be like to have Callay move through life with a biological one of those?

  “Yes?”

  She put a hand on my own as if to calm its restlessness. “It is hard, I know. I, too, would give anything to have my mother see my child grow and blossom. But we must be mothers to each other now.”

  Like a child, I added, “And sisters.”

  She nodded sagely. “And sisters. And dearly beloved friends.”

  I grabbed her into as tight a hug as I could, feeling the beginnings of my own bump butt up against hers.

  Eventually, she loosened herself. “I saw that Adam was annoyed when you told us of your bun, but I was actually happy that you announced your baby to all of us. It reminded me of how it was back in Ethiopia. The family, the tribe, it is everything. There are no secrets from those who care about you.”

  Which brought me back to those awful secrets about Assefa that I’d shared with her in Tikil Dingay. Could they have actually become part of the powerful bond between us, much as dark matter served as the glue of the universe?

  “But,” I replied, “why did you wait so long to tell me about your own decision to get pregnant, and then when it happened ...?”

  “I wanted to make sure it would last.”

  That one stopped me in my tracks. “It’s terrifying, isn’t it?”

  “It is. It matters too much.”

  “Maybe it matters just right. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with our world. We don’t allow ourselves to know how much everything matters.”

  But then she laughed.

  “What?”

  “Matter or not, have you considered the irony?”

  I cocked my head. “What do you mean?”

  “Assefa’s women—you, me, Lemlem— we are all with child at the very same time.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  PLANNING A PARTY for a two-year-old is something of an oxymoron, for what can be planned about the behavior of a tenacity of toddlers, a katzenjammer of kids, a lollygag of little ones? Knowing that we’d be working against unpredictable moods, incomplete potty training, and diverse nap times, I made sure to invite plenty of grownups to balance things out—at least theoretically, since most of the adults I knew were nearly as odd duckish as yours truly.

  Besides, I wanted everyone who’d so far impacted her destiny to be here for Callay. I’d recently read of a practice amongst some indigenous tribes of naming circles that would spontaneously sing to the newborn its tribal name, which might later be sung to that soul should the person fall afoul of his or her true nature. I wanted Callay to have a full circle, one that would know her at every step of her way.

  And selfishly, I wanted one for me. With any luck, we were about to take a step in our progress toward Dreamization that would make me the target of renewed hatred on the part of Big Oil, Cacklers, and all-around Science Haters, the latter of which there were way too many these days. I wanted my people on my side.

  Here was our guest list (besides, of course, Makeda and Melky and Sofiya and Melesse and Sally and Lukie, all of whom proved to be absolute bricks on the big day—especially Lukie, who’d put up with cleaning up after this growing, eclectic household without an ounce of complaint or resentment and was the living embodiment of why the anti-immigrant crowd was simply dead wrong). I’m happy to report that virtually everyone said yes:

  1. The small gaggle of children who Callay played with at Grant Park; Sister F. regularly took her there to help socialize her as a prelude to preschool, though that was never going to be a problem with this girl. Their parents were invited, too, of course, and most of them seemed to spend half their time in our bathrooms helping their kiddles go potty and the other half bending our ears about how gorgeous those bathrooms were and asking for the name of our contractor.

  2. The physics team, plus Saffron Malamud, who, bless her, was about to become Saffron Ballantine.

  3. Stanley and Gwennie, bursting with pride.

  4. Sister Flatulencia, bursting with effluvium.

  5. Halley Smith-Robinson and Maxfield Robinson, carrying half a library of children’s books, including Halley’s newest, My Name is Bobby the Bunny.

  6. Sammie and Amira, the latter of whom managed to put me off all over again by dubiously eyeing my belly as if something distasteful lurked inside.

  7. Aadita and Arturo, whose tight jeans and equally tight-fit burgundy T-shirt announced that he’d managed to keep up his remarkable six pack over the years; thank God he was good to Aadita, as his getup was just this side of male calendar-ish.

  8. Ignacio and Dhani, but we had to make do without Really-and-Truly-No-Longer-a-Baby-Angelina, who was in Texas, volunteering with RAICES, helping to reunite asylum-seeking parents with their babies who’d been kidnapped by ICE; that our country held children captive in for-profit warehouses that were barely a step above concentration camps was too painful to think about; that Angelina not only thought about it but actually did something filled us all with gratitude and admiration.

  9. Siri Sajan, resplendent in her flowing white kurti and turban.

  10. Assefa and Lemlem and a now-crawling Ife, constantly fussed over by an overprotective Abeba.

  11. And finally, Cesar and Gladys, who I’d prayed would show up dressed respectively as male and female, though I had promised myself not to pinch or bang if they didn’t; in matter of fact, they arrived looking like the classic young couple, so I didn’t have to test my resolve.

  Tom and Katrina shocked me by showing up with Good Time Charlie and Hot Sauce, though they had the good sense to bring them straight to the backyard via our back gate lest they give Buster a heart attack. They nearly gave me one, as I was terrified of killing the canines in our upcoming trial run and tried my best to keep an emotional distance from them. Undoubtedly for his own reasons, Bobby the Bunny kept his own distance, too; the rabbit wisely stayed out of sight until the next day. Nonetheless, the dogs had a ball, both literally and figuratively, and I could at least comfort myself by including them in my later conclusion that a good time was had by all.

  Not that there weren’t a few hitches along the way, but they were mostly in my head and of my own making.

  We’d decided to start the party at 3:00 to ensure that most of the kids would have napped by then. The sun was still strong, and
the parents slathered sunscreen on their children as soon as they arrived. The little ones played Go Fish and acoocoolu, led of course by Sofiya and Melesse. We’d made the exception of allowing the girls to invite their friend Hector at the last minute, and I noticed that this time he pronounced anelgam like a pro.

  I was glad of the size of our backyard, which easily accommodated the assembled crowd of nearly fifty. Ignacio had done himself proud, artfully arranging twinkly colored lights amidst the jasmine, leveling the dymondia so no one would trip, dead-heading the Austins and the lavender inflorescences, and trimming the creeping thyme to trail just so across the peach-colored pavers so that people kicked up the sweet scent as they trod on them. From my perch on one of the Luytens benches, I saw Ignacio eyeing the luscious blue Endless Summer hydrangeas we’d planted just last year. He looked like he was itching to pull out his pruning shears. I strolled over and told him to stop it.

  He threw back his head, compressing his double chin into the single version I’d once known, and laughed heartily, reminding me what a handsome man he still was. “Ai, Fleuricita, you know me too well.”

  “Have you heard from Angelina?”

  “Yes. She is very busy, working way into the night. What the government is doing to these children—”

  “I know,” I sighed. “I can’t bear thinking about it. But we have to force ourselves to. And your girl? Well, she’s my hero.” I gestured at the children making wide circles nearby, laughing, shouting. “This is what all kids should be doing.”

  “Yes, but we know that life is not always this kind.”

  It was true. But sometimes, we humans had a choice in the matter. I looked at Sofiya and Melesse, on the edge of despair when Makeda adopted them and nearly in the clutches of Al Shabaab before she brought them to America. I said a silent prayer that the three of them had obtained their citizenship before the current crop of sociopaths took possession of our country and held it hostage to xenophobia.

  Just then, Dhani hurried over, asking Ignacio to help her move one of the long food tables out of the sun. Her manner was harried, her thick salt-and-pepper-hair rebelliously straying from a loosening bun. Her dimpled cheeks shone with perspiration, and the lips I’d seen Father chew at were stained the color of blood. I had to bat back the temptation to pinch myself. Some scenes we can never fully banish from our minds.

  I stayed where I was, watching Makeda’s girls ushering a crawling Ife across the thyme, Callay tripping after them. I wanted to run and giggle with them, but I was a grown woman now, wasn’t I? It wasn’t just that my body was heavier these days, my spirit had taken the hit of these dark times.

  And besides, there was a corn as sharp as a pebble on the side of my left little toe. I bent over and pulled off my Tory Burch ballet flat—berating myself that I could probably free a couple of captive children for the price of it—and tried to readjust it so that the bump didn’t meet the seam of my nylon ankle sock. I became suddenly aware that the offending strip of leather was once part of a cow. Sammie and Aadita, both vegans, never failed to remind me that gassy ruminants contributed nearly twenty percent to greenhouse gas emissions. I really did need to stop eating meat. But it tasted so good.

  Before I knew it, Adam was by my side. “What is it?”

  “Cows.”

  “Huh?” I tried explaining my melancholy thought process.

  “At your daughter’s birthday party? Come on, Fleur.” He paused, looking down. “I thought there was something going on with your foot.” How was it that he’d sensed my pain from hundreds of yards away?

  “There was. A corn.”

  “Not fun.”

  I smiled. “No, it’s not. But look.” I gestured toward the children. Sofiya and Melesse and Callay and Ife and Hector now had a train of toddlers behind them.

  Adam and I stood silently, like a pair of mature trees surveying new seedlings sprouting up around them.

  He put a hand on my belly. “Any movement?”

  “Not yet. Believe me, you’ll be the first to know.” I felt a slight breeze against my cheek. “But it should be soon.” I gestured toward our girl, running, falling down, picking herself up, running again. “I wonder how she’ll handle not being the only show in town.”

  But now Callay fell victim to a dramatic bout of hiccups, the inevitable price she paid when she laughed a little too hard, sometimes to the point of vomiting. We looked at each other. Adam shrugged, then went over and scooped her into his arms, bringing her to me—still giggling and hiccupping. Holding her tightly (and glad I could still carry her), I found her sippy cup in the kitchen and held it to her perfect, Cupid’s bow lips. It helped calm the spasms, and she nuzzled my neck before asking to be set down. I did so reluctantly. She smelled of thyme. Or more accurately, she smelled of heaven.

  Following her out the kitchen door, I made the rounds of the little groups of chatting grownups. Some conversations looked so earnest—Gwen and Abeba in a shady corner, Gwennie leaning on her cane; Dhani in what seemed like deep communion with a flashing-eyed mommy wearing a hijab. But then I saw Siri Sajan and Aadita slip into the latters’ conversation, so I decided it was safe to join them. They were talking about Pema Chodron. The stranger warmly introduced herself to me as Parveen Barelvi, mother of Umar, then replied to something Siri Sajan had just said about Chodron’s contention that we can learn important things even from people we detest the most.

  “So what can I learn from Trump?” Dhani replied with some asperity. And then she flushed and put a hand Siri Sajan’s arm. “I’m sorry, but I ...”

  Siri Sajan was turning a rather beet red color herself. “No, you’re right. I didn’t mean to sound so sanctimonious.”

  But something stirred in me, and I interjected, “No. I think Pema Chodron’s right. I have to be honest. I think something in me just loves to hate Trump. Gets off on it. As if I finally have an excuse to be out and out disgusted by someone. To make fun of him. Focus on things like his beady eyes and small hands.”

  I hadn’t realized that Sammie and Amira had joined us, drawn perhaps by the increasing heat of my tone. Sister Flatulencia had found her way here, too.

  Sister F. commented, unusually forcefully, “How much we love to hate the other. It’s why I left the Church, you know. ‘Hate the sin, but love the sinner?’ In real life, there was an awful lot more hatred of the sinner than I could stand.”

  “That’s right,” Sam chimed in. “That’s exactly what Jung meant about the shadow. Offloading our own darkness onto someone else. He thought we could contribute to the healing of the world by withdrawing our own pieces of the collective mess.”

  “Yes,” Amira put in dubiously. “But isn’t it one thing to think something and another to put others through torture over the horrid things we think?”

  I laughed. “I guess you’re not of the Jimmy Carter school?”

  She gave me a blank look.

  “Equating having sinful thoughts with being a sinner.”

  “Hardly,” she shot back. “If you’d seen the misery I witnessed firsthand in Afghanistan, with the Muslim attitudes to women ...”

  At that point, it became clear that I wasn’t the only one becoming uncomfortable. All eyes traveled to Parveen Barelvi, whose jaw had tightened perceptibly. We’d wandered into a landmine without even realizing it, and no one felt safe taking a further step.

  I nearly laughed aloud at what came next. Cesar and Gladys shyly joined our growing circle. “Did I hear you mention Jimmy Carter?” Cesar asked. “Gladys and I volunteered last weekend at one of Habitat for Humanity’s Restores in LaVerne.”

  As the rest of the group peppered the pair with questions and praise, I had a chance to meditate on my history of guilt, resentment, and contempt toward Cesar, who had to be one of the most full-of-surprises people I’d ever known. No question about it: Pema Chodron was right. My adoptive sibling was certainly becoming something of a tutor to me.

  But at that moment a gaggle of children commandeered our
serious conversation by snaking right through us. Laughing, we made way for them, then began to join in at the end of the snake, joined now by the rest of the party winding sinuously across the garden, paper cups of wine and Perrier in hand. Someone—I think it was Hector’s mom—had the idea of turning it into a mass Hokey Pokey, at which point I fled the yard and ended up in one of the upstairs bathrooms, sobbing my eyes out over all those now absent from this world: Mother, to begin with, but then Nana and Grandfather and even Father. They all became markers of the tenuousness of our hold on life. I found myself on my knees, the white shag rug thrown across the turquoise-tiled floor my prayer rug as I put the plaintive wish to whatever god or goddess or web or butterfly who ruled the universe that my children would live long and fruitful lives, knowing at least as much love as I had, once I’d learned to open my heart to the voidishness of loss.

  Some cries are not good cries. It wasn’t a good cry that I had when Grandfather died. Nor was it cleansing to sob after Mother’s death. It certainly didn’t feel good to fall apart after listening to Makeda describe her genital mutilation. And the snotty mess I made of my face after seeing photos of oil-drowned pelicans following the gulf oil spill felt anything but soothing. But now, at his moment, standing at the sink and pressing a cold washcloth against my reddened eyes, I felt calmer than I had in weeks. Who knew how long it would last, but what I felt was something that resembled peace. I removed my painful shoes, placed them neatly side-by-side in front of the bathtub, descended the stairs, and walked across the soft carpet of creeping thyme in bare feet. I saw Makeda and Melky laughing with Assefa and Lemlem and felt compassion for Abeba, who stood slightly away from the four of them, holding Ife and screwing up her lips so tightly that they resembled a prune. Life was hard on us humans.

  But not so much for dogs. At least not for now, anyway. Good Time Charlie and Hot Sauce were busily hurtling themselves around to catch sticks thrown by Tom and Katrina and a very enthusiastic Bob Ballantine, Saffron trailing behind him like a worshipping puppy herself.