Frozen Butterflies

by Simona Grossi

  I didn’t say a word. I was still thinking about my mother. So she had killed herself, and I always knew it. Deep down, I knew it, and I had completely buried it. Just as I had buried the reason why I loved shadows so much. I had basically been lying to myself all these years to the point that I convinced myself that the lies were the truth. I remembered what Nick said about lies and reality, and how scared he was when he thought he could be lying to himself without even realizing he was doing so. At the time, I had thought that was something remote from me. And yet I had done the same. I had lied to myself about my mother. What else was I lying to myself about?

  The Woman In The Box

  The days at the hospital were incredibly long. Matt had started working, and my father was busier than he had been before. He wanted to send Evelyn to the hospital to keep me company, but I begged him not to. I spent my days thinking, but my thoughts didn’t always follow a logic. Or if they did, I didn’t know what that logic was. My father insisted that once released from the hospital I stay with him and his family, but I said I preferred to keep my apartment, have my own space, although I promised I would visit them from time to time. I was told I would have to be on crutches for a while, and when I asked for how long, the doctor couldn’t say, as that depended on my bones’ response. And although I had spent days trying to sketch plans for the future, I realized—I knew—that my plans were as uncertain and unpredictable as my bones.

  Not much changed once I left the hospital. I thought that being released would feel like being freed from a prison. But once I was back in my apartment, it wasn’t so. It wasn’t just the crutches that were limiting my movement, it was something else, something I couldn’t see or touch. I was a woman in a box. Andrew had said I could have that drawing, but only once I completed my article. I should write it article, and I would have to do it from my box.

  The box, my apartment, was as I had left it, except for a new couch and a footstool Matt had bought for me. He said he had imagined me writing there, and he liked that image of me. He had placed the couch and footstool close to my desk and turned them toward the window and the street. I laughed when I saw them.

  “I don’t plan on spying on my neighbors.”

  “You never know,” he said, smiling.

  I sat on my new couch, and he asked me about my article.

  “Have you thought about it lately?”

  “Yes, I have, but I need to give it more thought. There’s more I need to explore,” I said, and thought about the essay Andrew’s father had given me that day. He wanted me to read it, but the title somehow made me resist: “On the Past and the Present.” I was curious though. I stood up and looked in my bag where I had put the essay to make sure it was still there. It had been handwritten. I ran my fingers over the ink. The letters seemed to come out of the paper, as if they had been engraved on it, as if they had a life of their own. When I pulled the essay from the bag, I realized I hadn’t read Henry Pratt’s note to me.

  To Susan, with my best wishes in your search for the truth. I hope you won’t be disappointed when you find there isn’t any.

  What did he mean by that?

  I leafed through the pages. The essay had been written ten years ago. It started with a hypothesis on the effects of the past on a person's present and future, and the idea that we distort the past to purge ourselves of our mistakes. He described the process and explained how the alterations of the mind aren’t intentional, and so they are not technically “lies.” They are the product of a series of variables affecting our perception of reality. It’s like taking a photo of someone or something. The light, the distance, the sound, the noise, our mood, a weak press of the shutter, a decisive one . . . all these variables will affect it. Our photo will never be the same as anyone else’s. And no matter how sophisticated the camera, it will never ever capture what is in front of it. our eyes won’t do that either.

  So there’s no truth, if we call “truth” something objective, something everyone would agree on. Pratt said we would never be able to agree on each and every detail, nuance of an event, fragment of our life, no matter how accurate the instrument to capture, record, or reproduce it. We could agree on a simplistic description of it, still captured through a sophisticated instrument. The problem with that, though, would be the lack of nuance and details, the lack of depth, which could make a huge difference, sometimes dramatically changing the essence of what we saw. So it’s not the past per se that affects our present, our life, he argued. It’s our perception of it, the way we alter what we live and sense. We can try to assess it, we can look at the events under a microscope. But what we’ll see will always be only our own perception of reality. Hence, he concluded, there was no truth to be found. I had been reading and thinking about the essay for a while when Matt called from the kitchen.

  “Did Nick look for you?”

  “What? No. Why would he?”

  “Just wondering.”

  I resisted a bit, but then I couldn’t hold my question. I had to ask.

  “Did you really need to call him that night?”

  “Yes, I did. I was worried about you and didn’t know anyone here other than him.”

  I looked outside the window, and he continued.

  “I feel sorry for him.”

  “What? Why? Why do you feel sorry?”

  “I don’t know. He seemed so sad when I met him.”

  I didn’t comment on that.

  “He told me what happened that night at the theater.”

  “Wonderful. That’s truly something to be proud of, something to share with other people.”

  “I think he wanted to tell you that he’s sorry.”

  “Did he ask you to do that? Tell me he’s sorry?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are we talking about him now?”

  “I’m just trying to understand whether I should step aside.”

  I pulled him toward me to hide my tears, and we had sex. I didn’t feel anything, and when it was over, I pulled the blanket on and felt cold. It was December.

  The days went by slowly, like in one of Andrew’s novels. I would feel everything so deeply, I would question everything, carefully study this or that detail looking for answers to questions that had nothing to do with what I was observing. I stayed home while Matt worked. And yet I wasn’t waiting for him to get home. In fact, I would have rather spent my days alone. His presence was an opportunity to convince myself that Nick and I were done. Except we weren’t. Or, at least, I wasn’t. I wrote, read, watched TV, wrote more—but I wasn’t happy with my writing. I blamed it on the leg, on the apartment that had become too small for two, on the noisy streets early in the morning, on the afternoon silences, on everything that could possibly cross my mind, and on everything that didn’t. One day, as I was sketching ideas for my piece, I called Andrew. He sounded happy to hear my voice.

  “Do you feel any better?”

  “I do. The doctors said I should be able to walk without the crutches soon. So I’m sitting at my desk, watching outside, spying on my neighbors—”

  “Like in Rear Window.”

  “Yeah.”

  After a moment, I said,

  “I called to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about your article. It’s been hard to focus lately.”

  “You don’t have to explain. I’m glad you called. I’ve got good news.”

  “What is it?”

  “My new agent loves Lies We Tell, and we might have a publisher.”

  “That’s so wonderful. I told you it was great.”

  I asked him about Christine.

  “I haven’t heard from her in a while. We broke up. Actually, she broke up with me over the phone.”

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m fine. Not great, but fine. Maybe breaking up the second time isn’t as harsh as the first time. Or perhaps I cared less than I thought.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. Not really.”
>
  “I promise I won’t try to analyze you.”

  “It’s not that.”

  I insisted, and he finally agreed to meet with me at a café on the ground floor of my building. When I arrived at the café, he was already seated, waiting for me. He seemed OK, relaxed.

  He helped me sit down and was waiting for me to speak when I realized I wasn’t ready.

  “I talked to Christine. She was very close to Emily before you met her,” I tried.

  “I knew that,” he said. “What’s so special about this?”

  How should I put it?

  “Emily and Christine were in love. They were a couple before Emily met you.”

  “What?”

  I remained silent. Had I been too abrupt?

  “How do you know?”

  “Christine told me.”

  He stared at me, his eyes in disbelief. He remained silent for a while, choking his napkin.

  “Why should I know this?” he asked.

  “It wasn’t your fault if it didn’t work out with Emily. She had conflicts bigger than you.”

  “How are you so sure about this?” he asked, perhaps trying to decide whether to thank me or punch me. “We’ll never know what it was between them, between us,” he added. “She’s dead.”

  His eyes turned red. I watched him and his silence, and I realized that he was right. I didn’t know anything.

  “I don’t know how you feel,” I said, “so I won’t say that I understand you, because I’m sure I don’t. I wish I could though.”

  “I know you do.”

  He took a breath.

  “Why me? Why are you interested in me? The journal?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Right,” he said, sounding hopeless.

  The radio was playing “Summertime.”

  “This song is so full of contradictions,” he said.

  I smiled. Andrew’s father was right. We really did share something, and maybe that was why I was trying to help him. And maybe that was why I had become part of his world. Such a small world. One of my own creation.

  “When will the two novels be published?” I asked.

  He hesitated and checked my eyes. Was the exchange about Emily over?

  “Soon, I guess.”

  We talked some more about the drawings and the novels, and then I said, “I’m sure they’ll be successful. And I’ll write the article and publish it before then.” I took a breath. “Andrew?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for trusting me.”

  He didn’t say a word, did his best to smile but couldn’t, then looked elsewhere, and left.

  Once I returned to my apartment, I put on some jazz, poured a glass of wine, and turned on my computer to start writing. I loved it when the wine and the music melded. When that happened, they made me feel warmer and loosened the tension in my body. I could almost feel the jazz and the wine in my veins. I thought about the woman in the box and felt sorry for myself. Then the intercom rang. I looked at the clock and thought it was too early for Matt. I pulled my crutches close to me and went to the phone to answer. The voice said, “Nick.” I stopped breathing for a moment, stared at the phone, froze, hesitated, and then still unsure of what to do, I answered.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Can we talk?”

  I could have said no. I could have told him to leave. But I didn’t. “I’m on the third floor,” I said, my legs shaking.

  I opened the door to my apartment, and there he was, staring at me. He seemed tired, darker. His eyes looked empty, almost anesthetized.

  “Can I come in?”

  I opened the door more and turned my back to him, heading to my couch. I needed to sit. He followed me inside the apartment and closed the door behind him.

  “Does it still hurt?”

  The fracture? You? I looked outside the window and didn’t respond.

  “Look, I didn’t come here to apologize. I hurt you. I hurt myself. That’s done. I can’t undo that.” He took a breath. “I came because I felt you needed me.”

  He was right, but I didn’t say so.

  “I wanted you to know that.”

  “I think you should go,” I said, and stood up to take him to the door. When I passed by him, he grabbed my wrist, and I almost fell.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  My eyes betrayed me.

  “Please leave,” I said, without looking at him.

  After he left, I closed the door behind him and cried.

  An Email For Christmas

  I hadn’t seen Nick since that time in my apartment. I was trying not to think about him, but from time to time I did. He said he had come to see me because he knew I needed him, and he was right. He knew he was. In fact, he didn’t come to confirm that he was. He came to let me know that he knew my feelings, and that he knew me. And my silence had probably been louder than any words I could have said or written.

  My little box had become smaller and smaller, and so Matt and I moved to a bigger apartment. I kept the box, though, “for writing,” Matt said. For myself, I thought. In fact, even if Matt was rarely home, the new apartment didn’t feel as mine as the box, and from time to time I would return to the box. The box now had strangely expanded, or perhaps it just felt more comfortable. I was still on crutches, but getting around wasn’t as hard as it had been, and sometimes I would even go out on my own to run little errands around the block, or a few blocks away. It hadn’t started snowing yet, and the cold didn’t bother me, or maybe I had become more used to it.

  Matt worked hard. He said December was especially hectic at work because they had several deals to close and accounts and files to review before the New Year. I had started writing my article on Andrew, but I had also trashed an infinite number of attempts, as they were either too fake or too personal. It seemed that I couldn’t talk about Andrew without talking about me. The sketches and drawings in his novels had swallowed me in. I had become one of them. Should I talk about myself in the article? Would I be able to? I tried, stopped, tried again, and then crumpled each new try. I kept hearing a voice in my head. It said that what I was writing wasn’t good enough. But then another voice wanted me to continue writing and try to pierce the page using Andrew’s art as my inspiration and story. I wanted my writing to scream as loudly as his drawings, but every time I reviewed what I wrote, it seemed antiseptic. I hadn’t found my voice yet. Would it come to me? Should I wait for something or someone to tell me how to do this? Or maybe writing wasn’t for me. But why did I want to do it so badly then? I stared at my last attempt for a while, then clicked “print,” and a white page came out. I stared at that page in disbelief. I thought I had written something. Or maybe I just dreamed writing but hadn’t done anything. I checked again, and I realized the printer was out of ink.

  I opened the window, lay on the floor using the cold as my blanket, pushed my head against the soft floor, and closed my eyes. I felt so empty I could feel it in my stomach, and the emptiness started pulling my navel and sucked my tears. Andrew had said that “the tears you don’t see are the ones that hurt the most.” I got that now. He had also said that I could see the woman’s tears in the drawing because I knew her and thus she “spoke” to me. Did I speak to Nick? Did he know me?

  I checked my emails hoping to find one from him. I wasn’t sure I would reply, but I knew I needed his email, him. Yes, I did. There wasn’t anything, though. I shut the computer, put on my coat, and left.

  It was Christmas Eve. Our apartment had no Christmas decorations as Matt was Jewish, and Christmas didn’t matter for me. Or at least it didn’t this time. I did miss looking for Christmas gifts though—in fact, I missed looking. So I told myself I should go out and look for something, something that would make me happy, inspire me, or even just distract me.

  I thought about my dissatisfaction with my writing, and my sense that it didn’t feel real. I had to feel what Andrew felt. And even if we had talked about it, and I had read h
is journal, and spent time with his novels, I knew I didn’t know enough yet and thus couldn’t write about it in any way that was meaningful. True, we were similar. We shared much. But I couldn’t replace his story with mine and convince myself that it was fine because, after all, we were so similar. I searched the internet for an art store nearby, then I called a taxi and went looking for inspiration.

  The store was packed when I arrived. There were too many customers for the salesmen to take care of. Christmas Eve, of course. I should try to take care of myself. I paused at the canvases, the brushes, the colors, the pencils, the pens, the clay. I remembered Andrew’s description of his attempts to capture Emily, first in his drawings, and then with clay. I remembered his description of his movements around the curves, the corners, the wrinkles, the shading, the eyes, the lips . . . and thought I should try myself. I bought charcoal, paper, and some clay, and returned to my box.

  I opened the window wide but kept my coat on. I placed the paper on the floor, sat close, took one of the charcoal sticks in my hand, and started brushing it against the paper. My fingers turned black. At first the charcoal felt cold and sharp. But then it became fuller, softer, and my sketch slowly came to life. I pressed lightly, then harder. I drew a line, then another one. I pushed the point, then the side of the stick, and the lines became fuller. I looked at what I had drawn and thought it could be an arm. Maybe the arm of a woman. I looked at it again, and now I saw a woman, except the woman wasn’t there. It was just her arm. So I thought about it more and added some other parts to that arm, the ones I had just seen. A hand on the arm, then another arm, then the chest, the neck, the lips, the nose, an eye, another one. Sad, I thought. The eyes looked sad. They should look sad. And then the hair, long, and straight, as Emily’s, but thick and wide like mine. And then I gave her depth, breathing into her the thoughts of my day, the voices I heard, my struggles when writing, my questions, the silent tears that I wanted to see. I started moving my hands around her eyes and lips, making shadows around them, the neck, the space between her arms, legs . . . I wouldn’t say it resembled Emily, or Christine, Elinor, me, my mother, or any other woman I knew or had known. But perhaps it was all of us. And yet she didn’t have the depth I saw before drawing her. The depth I had given her wasn’t enough. I felt Andrew’s frustration. I was sad. And then I felt almost desperate. I tried some more, made more shadows, pushed my fingers more on the paper, made some more dark, some more angles, more volume. But the woman I had seen wasn’t in that drawing. I moved to the clay.