Frozen Butterflies

by Simona Grossi

  I added some water to the clay and then started massaging it, hoping it would slowly take shape and curves and depth and life. I tried to make the woman I saw, give her more than what I was able to give to my drawing. But it wasn’t the paper, and it wasn’t the clay. The woman I had seen would not be there. I spent hours moving around it, looking at the light and how it hit it each part of her face. I moved and moved around it, pushed and pressed, caressed and pressed more, but the woman I had seen did not come to life. I begged her to, but she didn’t. Where are you? I asked, then whispered, then called. Where. Are. you?

  I pulled my crutches close, but one of them fell, and I fell too. I lay on the carpet again, my head pressing against it, my legs spread. The window was still open, but I had just started feeling the cold. Perhaps the excitement of creation, or my hope, had left me, and now I was alone again. Exhausted, I closed my eyes and fell asleep. A few hours later, I woke up and felt inspired. I went to the computer to start writing, but then I checked my emails and found something.

  Thanks for letting me in the other day. I never got to tell you, but assuming I can say it, I’m proud of you for finding Andrew, and I’m sure you’ll write a wonderful piece. Don’t worry if you struggle. Writing may be hard when you start. But you have to be honest. Brutally and disturbingly honest. We know that can be tough sometimes. But if you manage to do it, your writing will set you free. It’s Christmas. In case you’re sad today, I hope you’ll do some good writing. This is my Christmas wish for you.

  * * *

  Nick

  I finished reading and stopped breathing. “I’m here,” my gift said. I am here. I felt good, but I didn’t feel like replying yet.

  The phone rang. It was Matt, reminding me of our dinner with my father and his family. He said he might be a little late. I should take a taxi and we would meet there. I chose a nice red dress, put on red lipstick, and called a taxi. When I checked the phone in my purse, my address book opened to Henry Pratt’s name. I thought that was strange, but I gave that address to the driver. I had some time and thought that maybe it was a Christmas suggestion I should take. I remembered I had seen a bakery close to Mr. Pratt’s building when walking with him, and I asked the driver to make a little detour and stop there. While he waited, I bought some cookies. I placed them in a little gold bag, returned to the taxi, and we drove to Mr. Pratt’s address. I pushed the intercom’s button and, when he answered, I said I had something for him. I went upstairs. He opened the door, a little boy hiding behind him.

  “That’s Noah,” he said. “My grandson.”

  I said hi to both.

  “I came to give you this,” I said, and handed him the cookies.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “To thank you for sharing with me the way you did. Your essay was wonderful.”

  “Thanks. I thought you might like it.”

  He asked me to wait at the door, as he had something to give me too.

  He handed me the book I had given him the last time we met, the one with the handwritten notes, and he said I should keep it.

  “No, I don’t need it,” I said.

  “I think you do.”

  I didn’t insist but took the book, smiled, and hugged him. As I started to enter the elevator I remembered I hadn’t asked him about the notes.

  “What did you think about the comments and questions?”

  He smiled.

  “I wrote some answers,” he said, and the door of the elevator closed.

  I placed the book in my bag and headed to my father’s house.

  An Email To Look Forward To

  When I woke up the next day, it was Christmas. There were still no decorations in the house, but I felt it. Matt was sleeping in the corner of our bed the farthest from me. I got up, made coffee, and turned on my computer. It was snowing. I read Nick’s email once more, sipped my coffee, and let myself go. I wondered where he was. I tiptoed out of my pajamas and into the shower then to the bedroom to get dressed. I left a note for Matt, and said I needed to leave for a few days. I asked him not to look for me. I said I needed some time for myself and my writing. I took Henry Pratt’s essay, the charcoal, the sketchbook, a few changes of clothes, and soon I was out the door. The streets were silent and empty, but I heard echoes of the parties from the night before. They reminded me that there had been life somewhere close. It was still dark.

  When I arrived at my studio I turned on the desk lamp, my computer, and the radio, and I looked for a jazz station. Some music I didn’t know started playing. I sat at my desk and typed Lies We Tell on the top center of the page, still unsure of whether I was going to write Andrew’s story, mine, or both. Then I closed my eyes and saw the first line of the story. I typed it. I closed my eyes again and saw more. And then I saw it all, or I thought I did. I remained with my eyes closed for a while, and then looked outside and prayed. I hadn’t prayed in a long time, and I didn’t remember how to do it. I asked for help from whomever could hear me. I hoped I could make my story live, write what I saw—exactly what I saw, the life that I experienced it. I took a deep breath, and I started.

  The sun rose and set, the noise outside became louder and then softer, and then it was silence again. I raised the volume of the music to keep from hearing the silence. I continued to write until the next morning. The radio was playing something I wanted to dance to. I went to the window, held onto the bars, and started moving following the music, my crutches on the floor. The woman in Andrew’s drawing was still in her box. I had left. I saved what I wrote and sent an email to Nick.

  You were right.

  * * *

  And I’m struggling.

  * * *

  What do you mean by “disturbingly honest”?

  * * *

  I haven’t forgiven you.

  * * *

  Susan

  I took a beer from the fridge and opened the window wide to breathe in the snow and cool my heart down. I started shaking. I opened my mouth to have more of what I couldn’t see. I stopped breathing, then breathed again, and felt alive. The clock on my nightstand said 3:02 a.m. Would he be awake now? I checked my emails.

  I know you won’t. I won’t forgive myself either. Disturbingly honest. Don’t filter your writing, even when what you’re writing hurts, and even if you can’t hold your tears or you’re laughing too hard as you write. Try.

  * * *

  I was hoping to be right, and I am happy that I was.

  * * *

  Nick

  Yes, he was awake, and he’d done it again. He’d made me stop breathing again. Every time he talked or wrote was like a punch to my stomach, right in the center of me.

  I turned off the light and went to bed.

  And then it was morning, and again, and again.

  I didn’t leave my apartment for days. Then Matt looked for me, and we talked. The usual “it’s not you, it’s me” litany, just with different words and no effort on my side. We saw each other for coffee and lunch occasionally, but I asked him to give me time, although I said I couldn’t promise anything.

  I spent my days on my own, or sometimes with my father. He and I would go for walks, sometimes taking Benji with us. We didn’t talk about mom or the past, just the persons we had become. I didn’t know much about him, and I thought he didn’t know much about me, but at times he surprised me, revealing things of myself I myself didn’t even know.

  “He really looks like you,” I told him one day, holding Benji on my lap.

  “You do too,” he said. What did he see that I didn’t?

  I hadn’t seen Nick, but we continued emailing each other, and I looked forward to his emails. They were usually short, but at times I felt that my writing, my would-be memoir or fiction, was expanding with each and every line I sent him, with pages and pages of stories he might remember or otherwise know.

  That day, after a walk with my father, I returned to my apartment and reread Henry Pratt’s essay. I hadn’t looked at the annotations and commen
ts since I’d first seen them. I lay on my bed and read. When I opened the book that contained the essay, many handwritten notes fell off the pages. A rain of thoughts. Andrew’s father had numbered the reader’s questions and comments in the book and had written answers to each of them on sticky notes, so it wasn’t hard to put them back in their proper order. I read them, sometimes silently, sometimes whispering them, sometimes a little louder. Nick said how important the sound of writing was. Those questions and comments had their own sound, and their sound was familiar.

  Comment no. 27

  I wish you had been more honest and real. This is too abstract. What is the past that you know and how did it affect your and your loved ones’ present?

  Henry Pratt’s Note 27

  If you decided to read and comment on the essay, perhaps I was honest enough to reach you.

  Comment no. 43

  You say there are no truths. I feel that when you love someone, you own her truths.

  Henry Pratt’s Note 43

  I loved, deeply loved, and yet I don’t think I ever owned the truths of the ones I loved. And I don’t think I ever owned my own truths. I’m not saying you’re wrong. Perhaps I didn’t know how to love, and maybe I didn’t love myself enough either.

  I looked at the handwriting on the margins of the used book to see if I recognized it, but I couldn’t. The more I read the comments, though, the more I imagined Nick writing them. Was I just looking for him? I responded to his last email.

  I think I understand what you’re saying. I’m trying to write in a way that is disturbingly honest. But I often question my writing. I wish I could share it with someone.

  * * *

  I met Andrew’s father some time ago. I brought him a collection of essays that had one of his essays in it. The book was secondhand, and there were handwritten comments and questions on the margins. Some of those notes seem like they could be yours. Are they? I know it sounds weird, but I thought I should ask.

  * * *

  I continue to love writing. I’m sure you do too.

  * * *

  Susan

  I felt he was looking for me every time he sent me an email that wasn’t just in response to mine. This time I had done the same. I wasn’t just answering his questions. I was looking for him.

  Weeks had passed since my accident and surgery, and finally it was time to get rid of the crutches.

  “Your legs need to remember how to walk again,” my doctor said. “You’ll need some therapy. She’ll tell you what to do,” he added, introducing me to a colleague.

  What if I didn’t want to walk the same way I did before? What if I didn’t want to remember?

  My doctor and his colleague talked for quite a while, explaining to me the procedure, the “routine” as they called it, but other than “routine,” I didn’t hear another word of what they said. Perhaps that word was exactly what shut my interest down. I made up my mind. I would walk again, but I would recover my own way. I would start with short walks, maybe first with one crutch, then none, and then perhaps I would start jogging. I had always seen people running and thought I should try it, but I never felt quite ready for it. All of a sudden I did. The irony of it was, I could barely walk.

  Interesting, the story of the writing in the margins. Yes, I used to read many psychology books before dating Elinor. And I used to annotate them and sell them, hoping some random stranger would buy them and answer my questions. I never signed my name under my notes though. I thought it shouldn’t be too easy for the stranger to find me, or for me to remember that I was the author of those notes. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had found my annotations?

  * * *

  I must confess that the idea of writing notes in books hoping someone would read them wasn’t mine. It was my father’s. He used to do that. He also loved philosophy and psychology books. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll feel like showing that book to me.

  * * *

  I loved the rain today. Have you noticed the color green is greener when it rains? Whenever I tell people that, they laugh or want to argue with me that it isn’t possible. When it rains there’s less light, so how come the colors are brighter then?

  * * *

  I would love to read what you write, but don’t send me your work before it’s done. Send something else. If you feel like it, you could write about our first meeting. I always wondered what you thought about it, but never dared asking you, and now it’s even harder than it was before.

  * * *

  How are you? How’s your leg?

  * * *

  Nick

  Punch.

  Nick was looking for me too, and his questions at the end of each email were saying, Talk to me more, don’t leave.

  I had started walking without crutches. At times my leg hurt badly, but other times I felt almost no pain. Every morning when I woke up and put my feet on the floor and stood on them, I felt uncertain, as if they would not support me. But then when they did, and every time they did, I felt grateful. I continued to write and when I felt too tired, I left my apartment and went for walks. I never had a precise itinerary in mind. I just went. And it didn’t matter if it was raining or cold. I walked. First my walks were limited to Central Park. But then I went farther and farther, until I was able to walk around Manhattan, from bottom to top and back again. It took me the entire day to do it, as I stopped here and there, for drinks and food, sometimes at libraries, and finally at movie theaters. But I loved it, and at times, I felt like I needed it. I had started going back to the Thalia Theatre. I felt close to that theater and drawn to it. And so I would plan to go or just find myself there without having planned it. I brought my sketchbook with me during my wanderings, and from time to time I would stop and draw what I saw. Discovering I could draw was inebriating.

  It’s going well. I’ve started walking, and walked for hours today. I walked around Manhattan, the entirety of Manhattan, from top to bottom and back. It was nice, especially because it rained, as I love the rain too. And, yes, green is greener when it rains. Of course, it is.

  * * *

  The writing is exhilarating, intoxicating, obsessive. I love it.

  * * *

  I’ve started drawing. Andrew would probably find my drawings rudimentary, but I like them.

  * * *

  Our first meeting: It wasn’t what you said. It was the way you looked at me. Your eyes are all I remember. They silenced the noise around me and that inside of me. For a few seconds I felt at peace. You didn’t speak, and yet you said, “I would like to talk to you and would like to listen to what you have to say.” Perhaps this lasted only a few seconds, but to me it was forever. And then everything continued to be as it had been before. Except it never was.

  * * *

  Susan

  I had also described our first meeting in my story—my piece or book or whatever it was—and I could have just cut and pasted what I had written to avoid thinking about it again. But I was thinking about it anyhow, and writing it was actually a relief. I didn’t review what I wrote. If I had, I would have probably erased those sentences, censored my feelings, the naked truth. But what was the point? He knew what I felt anyhow. Disturbingly honest. So I wrote, didn’t review, and pressed “send.” I was free.

  My story was now pages and pages long. I liked to pause and review passages, read them aloud, sometimes while looking outside my open window. I watched my words trace lines and paths of their own, beyond my control, deep down hoping they would reach those they wanted and could reach, as Andrew or his father might have put it.

  Of course you love the rain. I thought you could see what I see.

  * * *

  Yes, that was our first meeting. You just described it better than I could. But that is what it was.

  * * *

  Keep writing.

  Punch.

  His short emails could sometimes punch me harder than his longer ones. At times I wondered whether they were drawing imaginary circles around him inside
of which I wasn’t allowed. I liked them though, as much as I liked his long emails. They made me look forward to more. One line from him was all I needed.

  But then there were no more emails for days. The last email had been his, but I didn’t feel like replying. What if I was right? What if his last email had traced that circle?

  I had to stop thinking about it, get distracted, and so I started jogging. At the beginning I could run for only a few minutes, but after a month I would run for thirty minutes. The first time I did, when I stopped, my heart was beating so fast I could barely breathe. It felt good.

  Weeks later, he wrote again.

  I went to the Thalia Theatre today on my own. I never told you, but I saw you there one day. You went to see The Big Sleep, but then fell asleep soon after the movie started. I was sitting right behind you. You didn’t see me. I’m planning on going this Saturday. They’ll be showing Stolen Kisses by Truffaut. It’s at 2.15PM. Elinor won’t come. I’ll get two tickets in case you would like to join me. Maybe you could show me your book with the handwritten notes.