The Butterfly’s Daughter (35 page)

The tall man, whose name Luz still didn't know, stood beside the woman she now knew was her mother. Luz took a moment to look at her, to search her face and features for anything that might trigger some memory.

It was her age that had fooled her. In the photographs Mariposa was a dewy, exuberant young woman. She had Abuela's high cheekbones, as Luz did. But Mariposa's other features were softer, more European, like those of her father, Hector. It occurred to Luz that it was only the photographs she could refer to. No personal
memory of her mother came to mind. None at all. That harsh reality struck her as suddenly very sad and she felt her eyes moisten.

Luz also saw Mariposa's fragility. She looked like she was holding herself together by a very slender thread. Luz didn't know what had happened to her mother during all those years she was gone, but it was clear that she was wounded.

But so was she, Luz decided, and lifted her chin in indignation. “Where were you?” she demanded.

Mariposa straightened as though struck, but she sucked in her breath and moved closer, grasping at the opening to a first conversation. She clasped her hands tight before her, seemingly gathering her words. “That is a very long, very difficult story,” she began. “One I'm not proud of.”

“I'm not a little girl anymore,” Luz said, cold as ice. “You left
her
a long time ago. I'm grown up now. I can handle it.”

Mariposa's hand shook as she brought it to her neck.

Tía Maria spoke up. “Luz . . .”

The tall man reached out to put his hand on Tía Maria's arm, silencing her.

Mariposa said, “It might be true that you can handle hearing it. But I'm not sure I can handle telling it. Of course, I'll try.” She paused, then brought her head up to look Luz in the eyes. “I left you because I am an addict.”

Luz cringed at the word. It conjured up sordid images in her mind that she shied away from.

“I have been clean for five years. Three years in prison, and two since I got out.”

“
Prison?
”

“Yes.”

Luz put her hands to her face, feeling numb, letting her fingers
slide down her cheeks to clasp tightly at her chest. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. The mother she'd envisioned in her mind, the perfect woman of her dreams, the good mother Abuela had told stories about . . . this woman was a drug-addict ex-convict?

“Luz,” Mariposa said, coming closer.

Luz dropped her hands and returned a guarded look, unaware she had stepped back.

“Will you take a walk with me?”

“Why would I want to take a walk with
you
?”

“Because we need to be alone,” Mariposa replied in an even voice. “And because I always find my mind is clearer when I'm outdoors. Please?”

Luz resented that she'd discovered something that she and her mother had in common. She glanced up at the others, all of them watching intently.

“Okay,” she agreed warily.

Her mother reached out to her but Luz jerked away. “Don't touch me.”

Immediately, Mariposa withdrew. “I'm sorry. Okay, I won't.”

Nervously, with trepidation, they retraced the steps Luz had taken moments earlier, out the front door to the sidewalk, where they began to walk. Autumn had painted the old oaks that lined the street of the neighborhood. The sidewalk wasn't wide but they walked side by side, their shoulders occasionally bumping. Each time she felt the brush Luz tightened her shoulders and drew away.

They walked in silence, allowing the pieces to settle in their minds like the leaves floating from trees to the earth. Despite the anger Luz felt toward this woman for leaving her all those many years ago, she couldn't deny the girlish wonder she felt at the
realization that the woman walking at her side was her
mother.
It seemed impossible. Unreal, like she was walking in her own dream.

Mariposa had a long stride but she slowed to keep pace with Luz. “You've grown up to be a lovely young woman,” she told her.

“You can thank Abuela for that,” Luz replied crisply.

“I wish I could.”

“You could have if you'd bothered to call her. It's too late now, isn't it?”

Mariposa walked in silence several steps before she answered raggedly, “I know. I have to live with that.”

Luz refused to feel sorry for her. Yet she realized in that moment that she had power over this woman. Each word was a land mine.

“Why were you in prison?” Luz asked.

“For trafficking drugs.”

“Trafficking? You didn't just take drugs. You sold them, too?” she asked bitterly.

Mariposa didn't flinch. “Technically, I carried them. Across the border. I was what they called a mule. I've done all sorts of things, most of them unpleasant. Do you want me to tell you all of them now? Or is it enough to say an addict does whatever she has to, to get the drugs? I deserved to go to prison. I served my time. I've been clean for five years.”

Luz stopped walking and clenched her fists at her sides. “Why didn't you come home?” she cried. “Abuela would've helped you. We both would have.”

Mariposa stopped and closed her eyes. “There's no way I can explain to you the irrational savageness of addiction. I . . . I didn't see the way out.”

“But you said you were clean now?”

“Yes. After I got out of prison, I went directly into therapy. It took me a long time just to get through a day without using. A day turned into a week. A week into a month. A month into a year. When I felt strong enough, I tried to contact you.”

“Why bother?” she said bitterly. “After all those years?”

“To ask . . . no, to beg for your forgiveness.”

Luz wrapped her arms around her chest and looked away. Her jaw was locked in fury. There was no way she could forgive her. How dare she ask her to? Did she think it would be so easy? Luz refused to feel sorry for this woman—Mariposa. She would
never
call her mother again. A part of her wanted her to suffer even a fraction of the pain she'd caused her and Abuela.

Abuela . . . A new thought came to Luz, sudden and piercing. “Did Abuela know you were alive?”

“I don't know.”

“Why would she tell me you were dead?” Luz cried. The possibility of Abuela's betrayal ravaged her more than anything else and sent her emotions skyrocketing. “Why would she lie to me?”

“She didn't lie!” Mariposa cried in defense of her mother. Color flooded her face. “She didn't know! That was the hell I put her in. All those years, she didn't know if I was alive or dead. I'm sure, knowing her, she didn't want to put you in that same hell of not knowing. You were just a little girl when I left. She needed something to tell you. And later, as the years went by, she must have believed it to be true.”

Luz turned her head to fix her gaze on some point in the distance. She could believe that about Abuela. It would be like her to protect her. Abuela's strange behavior before she died, her determination to come to San Antonio, her cryptic words—
There is much you do not know about Mariposa
—came back to Luz now.

“Did she ever know the truth?” she asked, not looking at Mariposa. “That you were alive?”

“I think, just before she died, she did. I asked Maria to call her for me. To tell her that I wanted to see her. I thought it might come easier that way, but it was more that I was afraid. While she was on the phone with Maria, you came into the room. Mami—Abuela—didn't want you to hear the truth on the phone like that so she took Maria's number and told her she'd call her back. But she never did. I thought it was because she didn't want to talk to me. But now, I think she died soon after that call.”

Luz saw in her mind's eye the scribbled phone number in the back of the book and it all made sense now. Abuela had to have written the number down in haste when she'd walked into the room. The sequence of events was falling into place. “Abuela never told me Tía Maria called.”

“None of that matters now,” Mariposa said in a broken voice. “I should've called. If I'd had the courage, I might have had the chance to hear her voice. Once before . . . I could have asked her forgiveness.”

Luz turned her head to see Mariposa standing with her head bent, her face twisted in unspeakable agony. In all her dreams and imaginings, she'd never wondered what her mother would look like crying. She couldn't bear it.

“Mariposa,” she said, using her name for the first time. “Abuela would've forgiven you. I know she loved you. She spoke of you with such tenderness. She was your mother. And there's nothing stronger than a mother's love.” She felt a sudden stab of hurt and couldn't help herself from adding, “Or, that's what I hear anyway.”

Mariposa wiped her eyes. “I deserve that.”

Luz looked at her feet as the seconds ticked by, feeling bad for the dig. She didn't like kicking someone when she was already down. “What I meant was I
know
she would have forgiven you. Or already did. Abuela was coming to see you.”

Mariposa's head shot up and the eagerness in her wet eyes was painful to behold. “She was?”

Luz nodded. “
She
was the one who wanted to come on this trip. Not me. You should've seen her. Right after the phone call from Tía Maria she was like a woman possessed, making all these plans, getting maps. I'd never seen her so hell-bent on doing something. She even bought the car! Spent every dime she had on it.” She snorted. “She'd saved money under her mattress.”

A laugh burst from Mariposa's lips. She shot her hand up to cover her mouth and from behind her fingers Luz saw the first real smile blossom across her tear-streaked face.

“Car? What car?”

“That one,” Luz said, pointing down the street. “See?”

Mariposa craned her neck, eager to find it. “Which one?”

“The orange Bug.”

They began walking quickly back toward the house, Mariposa scanning the cars, going on tiptoe for a better look.

“I see it!” she exclaimed, laughing like a girl. She ran directly to El Toro.

“Yeah, that's it.”

“It's a Vocho!” she exclaimed, wonder glowing on her face. “That's what we call these ol' VW Bugs in Mexico. She used to talk about the one she had with Luis. It was her first car. And this one, it's orange, like hers was. She called it La Monarca.”

Luz grinned at hearing this new bit of information about Abuela. “I call this one El Toro.”

A tender look of memory eased across Mariposa's face. “For Ferdinand.”

“You know that story?”

“Of course. Ferdinand the Bull. It was your favorite. You used to ask me to read it to you almost every night.”

“I remember the book,” Luz said. Then, shying away from the tender moment, she added, “But not you reading it to me. I almost named it Ferdinand but I wanted to give the car something to live up to. It turns out it's more a Ferdinand. It doesn't go fast and breaks down from time to time. But it's got a lot of character.”

Mariposa laughed lightly at the vision. “It likes to sit and smell the flowers.”

“Yeah,” Luz said, begrudgingly enjoying the shared memory. She reached out to lay a hand on the hood. “Sometimes I just sit in there to think. I feel Abuela's presence in there.”

Mariposa's face became suddenly serious. “You do?” She peered in the window. “Can . . . can we go in it? Please? Just for a minute?”

“I guess so.” Luz patted her purse and found the keys. She opened the door and watched Mariposa climb into the passenger seat. She puffed out a plume of anxiety at going into this close space with her mother as she rounded the hood and climbed in. She cracked open her window to let fresh air into the close space. For a few minutes they sat in an awkward silence. Luz tapped her fingers on her lap, and stealing a glance from under lowered lids, she saw Mariposa sitting rigid, with her hands flat over her thighs.

“She was really going to come see me?” Mariposa asked, turning her head to face Luz, her eyes revealing her vulnerability.

“Yes. The day before she died, I found her in the garden standing like a statue, wringing her hands. It was early in the morning.
She wasn't in the kitchen, where I'd usually find her, and her bed wasn't made, so I knew something was wrong. When I found her, she was still in her nightgown.” She paused, seeing Abuela in her mind's eye. “She looked so sad,” she said softly. “So worried. She kept saying, over and over, how we had to go to San Antonio right away. Then we were supposed to go to see the family in Angangueo. I thought she was in a hurry to get to Mexico by November first for the Day of the Dead celebration. Now I know she was in a hurry to see you. She said how there were things I needed to know about you. How we'd have time to talk in the car on the drive down. But she died the next day.” Mariposa paled as she listened with her brown eyes wide. “If Abuela had lived, she'd be here now.”

Mariposa's lips trembled and she brought her hand up to still them, looking away.

“There's something I want to show you.” Luz turned and stretched to reach into the backseat. She found the box of ashes and carefully carried it to the front. She smiled with affection at seeing the ragtag collection of their offerings: Stacie's wild and brightly colored letters swirled across the box along with the dozen monarchs she'd painted. Fast-food papers and candy wrappers made into flowers, the wilted marigolds and cosmos, the oil can wrapper, a page of Margaret's observations, and a pair of knitted pink booties.

Mariposa looked at the box with a puzzled expression.

“This is Abuela's ashes.”

Mariposa's mouth fell open in a gasp. She stared at the box, frozen for a moment, before her face collapsed in tears. She reached out with trembling hands to take the box into her lap. “You brought her ashes?” she said in a choked sob.