She Only Speaks to Butterflies (2 page)

Sarah filled the kettle with water.

“He’ll notice when he runs outta chips.” 

“Why? Doesn’t he know where you keep ‘em?”

Sarah took a sugar square out of the container on the counter and popped it into her mouth.

“He’ll notice because there ain’t any left.” She pointed at herself proudly. “I ate ‘em.”

Giving her an evaluating glance, Sherry commented. “Girl, how have ya not gained a hundred pounds? God, when I was carryin’ Denise, I drank
water
and got fat.”

Sarah waved like it was nothing. “I work it off.”

“What, at the salon? You gettin’ busier lately?” Sherry tucked a loose curl behind her ear.

“Huh! Are you kiddin’ me?” Sarah yelled. “Mary barely lets me lift a finger around there.” She tutted. “Na, it’s my hormones. Me and Mark have sex like twice a night. The sweaty kind, ya know?” her face scrunched.

“Really?” Sherry’s brow rose, filling the tea pot and pouring two mugs full. “God, I faked sleep all the time when I was carryin’ Denise.”

“Mark tries. But if he ain’t snoring…”

Sherry almost spat a mouthful of tea out. “I gotta go check on Denise.” Her face was red.

A little while later Sherry came back downstairs, having changed into a short cotton house dress. “Out like a light.”

“Must be the medicine.” Sarah offered, and then changed the subject. “So, did ya hear about the new hospital comin’?”

“Yeah, Kate mentioned it earlier.”

“I was kinda hopin’ it would be built before junior here arrives, but I don’t see that happenin’ unless they do an express build.”

“Come on, it takes sometimes years to build somethin’ like that. You’ll be workin’ on your second before that’s finally erected.”

“So did Kate tell you where it was going to be?”

Sherry leaned her chin on her hand. “Apparently the jury’s still out on that.”

Sarah shook her head, as if preparing to argue. “Now listen, I love ya honey, but regardless of what happens with that damn hospital, it’s time to move on.” Sarah rubbed her stomach and Sherry watched it twitch slightly as the baby moved around. “Now, Ned and Kate made me keep it from ya for this long, but it’s not healthy.” She stopped to take a sip of tea. “For Denise or for you.”

Lifting her head off her hand, Sherry looked speculatively at Sarah. “What do ya suggest I do? It’s not that easy to forget.”

Sarah lowered the leg she had dangling off the side of the chair. “I’m not askin’ you to forget. That’s impossible. But as your best friend, I’m tellin’ ya it’s time to start thinkin’ ‘bout the future, not the past.”

They sat and sipped their tea for a minute in silence.

“You still in therapy?” Sarah asked.

“You know I am,” Sherry answered flatly.

“Good. Stay in it.” Sarah rose and walked to the entrance door. She slipped the set of keys off the hook with her long fingernail and passed them to Sherry. “Go for a drive. I’ll stay here with Denise. It’ll be fine.”

Sherry looked down at her hand and clasped her keys gently. “I’m not sure I’m ready yet. Don’t I get time to think about this?”

Sarah lifted her arms. “So if yer not ready, yer not ready,” she insisted. “There’s only one way to find out.”

…

His hands were interlaced in hers as she pushed the stroller with one hand down the boardwalk. Seagulls soared overhead and dive-bombed down as Denise screeched with glee, grasping her half-melted cherry popsicle in one hand, and her Elmo doll in the other. “Mommy!  Birds!” she pointed excitedly.

Chris playfully shoved Sherry away so he could push the carriage. Sherry watched him race her around. Denise laughed so hard she dropped her popsicle.

Sherry hollered. “She should have been a boy!”

“Maybe next time.” Chris shrugged, slowing the stroller. “We live in a small town.” His index finger was on his chin as if in deep thought. “We’ll have five more…one of ‘em is bound to be a boy.”

“Are you serious?” Sherry blurted. “You want to have six kids?” 

“I’m a lawyer.” Chris buffed his nails on his shirt. “We can afford it.”

“Mommy? How come butterflies are so much prettier than seagulls?” Denise asked, watching the birds fly overhead.

Chris interrupted from behind. “Because butterflies pollinate the pretty flowers and seagulls just eat fish…and…other stuff.” He said cautiously, sensing his wife’s glare.

Denise smiled at Chris. “Can I have a butterfly?”

“You mean…for a pet?” Chris asked. “We’ll see.” He closed one eye and put his index finger on his nose. “Maybe Daddy will get ya a special one that can live in yer bedroom.”

Denise beamed. “A purple one.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Sherry’s reverie was broken by a car honking behind her. She’d come to a full stop but didn’t signal, like she was indecisive about her next move. The frustrated driver rolled past and then she turned into the abandoned strip of road ahead.

The orange and black-checkered road closure sign was slightly bent and hanging off to the side from the bad storm the previous year. Sherry parked next to the sign and froze, recounting a conversation.

“In this small town, we’re worth more dead than alive, Sherry,” Chris mused.

“Don’t talk like that, honey. You made vows to me and I to you. We’re not allowed to leave each other.” Her finger was pointing at him the way her mother used to point at her when she’d misbehaved as a child.

“Seriously. Why do you have to have such a big insurance policy, anyway? Yer only twenty five.”

“I’m a lawyer, sweetie.” His tone changed. “I see people left with nothin’ every day. I won’t see my family suffer like that.”

“So why don’t we enjoy some of the money we have now? Why do we have to scrimp and save like this all the time? We have more money in our savings than my parents had their entire lives.”

“If we want a big family, we need to plan,” he said simply. “This house is small and we’ll be trippin’ over each other after two or three.” He cleared his throat. “The housin’ market here is slim and if we need a bigger house, it’s goin’ to cost us a lot. We need to save for it now.”

“Alright. But we’re redecoratin’ Denise’s room this week. You promised,” she warned.

“That’s right, Daddy, you promised,” Denise said, entering the room, carrying a stuffed purple butterfly.

Chris lifted her into his lap. “And let me guess how you’d like it decorated...” He looked down at her plush toy. “With butterflies?”

Denise’s face lit up. “Can I?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Sherry pulled up beside the ditch and cut the engine. She looked into the sky and was welcomed with twilight. The clouds were deep purple and the sun was trying to peek at her from behind the horizon, glaring into her deep blue eyes. Trees were waving slowly with the light spring breeze and she swore she heard a voice flowing by her ear, whispering to her.

Looking at the desolate area she got a chill down her spine. Every time she visited, it refreshed her memory of one of the most horrific moments in her life. Masochistically, she kept coming back.

“Take Denise and go get help,” Chris insisted. “I don’t want her to see me like this.”

“But I can’t leave you,” she sobbed. “You’re bleedin’.”

The gash above his left temple was slowly trickling blood down his face, leaving a line that looked like a valley on a road map.

“Sherry, we’re not far from the Baker’s farm. Go, take Denise and run for help. Ned and Kate will know what to do.”

Sherry looked back at her daughter, sobbing so hard she had hiccups. The driver’s side door frame was wedged up against Chris’s skull, preventing him from moving.

He winced. “I need you to go now, Sherry. I need help; I’m slippin’ away.”

Quickly, Sherry lifted herself up, cursing her husband for taking a detour. As she opened the door, it creaked. The tree that had fallen on the car still dangled from its roots. Sherry opened the passenger side door and scooped her shaken daughter from the vehicle.

“I love you. I’ll be right back,” she told Chris and began running, as fast as she could, towards Baker’s farm.

Looking up at the gravel path she could almost see her harried footprints from that day. Her feet barely touched the ground she ran so fast, holding Denise in her arms, scarcely aware of how heavy she was.

When they returned in Ned Baker’s pickup truck, Sherry instructed Denise to stay in the vehicle. Chris’s head lay on the side of the door, leaning lazily, as though he was rested at a stop light. Something was different; his eyes were open but unfocused. Sherry let out a loud shriek.

To her horror, Denise walked over to the side of the car and climbed under the tree trunk. She stood, staring at her father’s lifeless body, seemingly unaware that he was dead. The young woman watched her daughter hold out her hand while a purple butterfly landed on her finger, perching with its wings intermittently swaying in and out. She called out to Denise but the child was silent…she had remained silent ever since.

Sherry ran her hand along the sign and glanced over at the sawed-off tree trunk, the only thing that changed since the accident. The town decided to close that road indefinitely, it had always been a dangerous detour that Ned and Kate tried to get closed for years, knowing some day it would be the cause of someone’s demise.

Chris was buried in the town cemetery, but she could never bring herself to visit. Her mother-in-law turned it into some floufy-coufy miniature garden, where she always had a candle lit and a picture of him as a boy enshrined in the background. It gave her the creeps. This little sanctuary was hers. She didn’t change it except for the wreath she placed at the face of the tree trunk.

Her wedding band, still hugging her finger after all, was a constant reminder. It made her feel married; she liked that. Their wedding picture never left her purse since his death nearly two years ago.

Tires were crackling down the gravel road as Sherry lifted her head, drying her tears. Ned Baker smiled apologetically as he approached. He spoke gently.

“Sorry love, Sarah’s been worried about ya. Personally, I think she’s just hungry and I know you ain’t got the best food supply over there.” He watched Sherry smile thinly and added “Come on, hop in. I’ll get your car home to ya later, love.”

Chapter 4

Lina Groves walked into Peach Tree Clothing. Her fingers were painted cherry red and her dress was at least one size too small, hugging her chubby frame. The beehive hairdo atop her head was bleached platinum, creating too much contrast to her crimson lips.

Strutting by Sherry, Lina gave her an evaluating once-over, enough to make an ugly person’s skin crawl. “Greg been by here today?”

“Not that I’ve seen.”

Greg, Lina’s husband, had a crush on Sherry since before Lina came into the picture. It seemed men who Lina favored over the years were also into Sherry, something Lina had never been able to deal with despite Sherry’s nonchalance.

“He said he’d stop by and pick up this dress I like.”

Sherry continued pricing summer dresses, her sticker machine clicking as she spoke. “Did ya put it on hold?”

“No need,” Lina waved casually. “He knows my size.”

“Did ya wanna pick it out yerself?”

Lina rolled her eyes, clucking her tongue like a chicken. “Now, if I went around buyin’ everythin’ I wanted to all the time, just how would my husband buy me anything?”

“It was just a thought, save him a trip.”

“Huh! Like you don’t want to see him,” she muttered, perusing the pajama rack, pushing garments around viciously on the metal bar.

“What’s that, hon?” Leon, Sherry’s co-worker, appeared from the back room. “Who don’t you wanna see?”

Lina eyed a flannel nightie, ignoring Leon’s question. “Do you have this in a…err…nine?”

Studying the nightie, Leon raised a speculative brow at Lina. “I’m sure we do.” He gestured her over to the fitting rooms, mouthing to Sherry behind his hand. “Grab me a ten and a twelve.”

Leon was in his thirties and better dressed than anyone Sherry had ever known, male or female. His light blond hair was always slicked back tightly in a short bob that ended at the nape of his neck. One piece from his cowlick always found its way out by day’s end, and by then he would twirl it around his index finger while conversing.

“God, we need a Jenny Craig in this plaza,” Leon huffed, selecting a different pair of pajamas for Lina.

Sherry pursed her lips, trying not to burst out laughing when Lina emerged from the change room. She looked displeased.

“Damn Barbie doll sizes! My boobs don’t fit in the cups! Oh, just forget about the damn things!” She stormed out of Peach Tree Clothing.

Leon watched her stomp down the plaza walkway from the front door. “Well if your boobs didn’t fall down to your ass, we wouldn’t have a problem, now would we?” He watched her plod into the pizza place on the corner. “Yeah, like that’s what you need right now.”