“Honey,” she whispers, drawing the backs of her knuckles against my arm. “We are doing the right thing.” I nod and keep my head down low, hoping she doesn’t notice the splash of tears that dampen the front of my pants. When she takes my hand in hers, I lean in a little so my head rests against the top of her arm.
After a while I close my eyes.
AGNES
To doubt is human. Even Saint Thomas the Apostle, after Jesus himself appeared to him and allowed him to place his hands in his crucifixion wounds, refused to believe that it was the actual risen Christ.
No miracle.
Was the devil speaking through Dr. Pannetta, trying to get me to doubt the validity of Emmanuel’s work? It’s entirely possible. Emmanuel says that the devil has a tendency to be more clever than God, since he has to work so much harder to get people to listen to him. I think of one of my favorite saint stories, Saint Juliana of Nicodema, who was tormented mercilessly by the devil. He tried to trick her, appearing as an angel dressed in white robes surrounded by light. Disguising even his voice, he tried to convince her to worship the stone idols and to turn away from Christ. If the devil could disguise himself as a messenger angel, I think to myself, why couldn’t he conceal himself as a doctor?
No miracle.
“Lord God,” I whisper. “Suffer me not to be lost, but of thy grace show me the way and the truth.” I wait facedown on the scratchy surface for what feels like hours. No voice comes out of the sky, the way God did for Juliana, telling her to turn away from the diabolical angel. No shimmering light appears, like the Virgin did for Bernadette. Why can’t someone up there just show me? Just once? I am not strong enough to know on my own. It is too hard. I cannot even detect who is telling the truth, deep in my chest, the way it sometimes feels. Closing my eyes, all I can see are a thousand exploding pinpoints of light. I wonder if my brain is actually disintegrating behind my eyes. Everything else around me is falling apart; why shouldn’t my brain? A parade of images perforates my mind’s eye, marching before me in a kaleidoscope of color: HARLOT, Benny running to us in the field with news of Nana Pete’s arrival, the frog pond, Claudia screaming for tape and bandages, the look on Benny’s face when he woke up in the back of the car … My eyes swell with tears.
“No crying,” Emmanuel said to me once inside the Regulation Room. “If you cry, I will start over and keep going again until you stop.”
Wiggle, wiggle.
I reach up and hold on to the consecration beads around my neck.
Wiggle, wiggle. Getting up on my knees, I hold my arms out on either side and start to chant evening prayers. “Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem … ” The block of pain does not lessen inside my chest, but I can feel my breathing start to slow as the familiar words flow through my lips.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.
Nana Pete pokes her head into the room. “Mouse?” I keep praying. “Mouse? The nurse said Benny just got out of surgery. We can go see him now, darlin’.”
Benny’s room is all white with blue and pink curtains hanging over a single window. For some reason, it smells like mashed potatoes and gravy. A television floats from an angled metal arm above the bed, and a small picture of orange marigolds hangs on the wall. Benny is in the middle of the bed. He looks terribly small. Green plastic tubes snake out of his nostrils. His hand, which is wrapped in gauze all the way up to the elbow, reminds me of a butterfly cocoon Honey showed me once.
I stare at him for a minute, thinking back to the day last year when he came out of Emmanuel’s room wearing his glasses for the first time. They were much too big, and although Emmanuel had fashioned an elastic strap that anchored them around the back of his head, they still slipped forward along the bridge of his nose.
“They’re horrible, Ags,” he’d said, staring down at his shoes. “All the kids are gonna make fun of me. I hate them.”
I got down on one knee. “They’re a little big. But they’re not horrible, Benny. You’ll grow into them. And you let Honey know about any kids that make fun of you, okay? She’ll take care of them.”
Benny looked at me. “And you too?”
I nodded, although I knew very well I would do nothing of the sort. Getting into physical altercations with the bullies of the playground was not saint-wannabe behavior. Now I take his little hand in mine. Why haven’t I been a better sister? What is wrong with me?
Nana Pete steps inside the room, rubbing the sides of her arms. “I just talked to Dr. Pannetta. He said the surgery went better than expected and that he was very pleased. He expects Benny to gain full use of his fingers again in another month or so.”
“When will he wake up?” I ask.
“Probably in a few hours. At least that’s what the nurses said.” She looks at me. “He’s okay, Mouse. Really. It’s just from the anesthesia. He’ll wake up soon.”
“Well, we should call home,” I say. “Let Mom and Dad know where we are. They’re probably worried sick.” Nana Pete and Honey look at each other and then back down at the floor. “What? We’ve got to at least tell them when we’ll be back.”
“We’re not going back,” Nana Pete says quietly. From the windowsill, I can feel Honey staring at me. I know that look. It’s the look she always gives me just before we are about to go into Emmanuel’s room to be questioned for something we’ve done wrong, a look so full of willpower and stubbornness that it can’t help but penetrate my fear. Usually I wait for it, like a talisman that I can glimpse and then rub before the ordeal begins. Now it makes me nervous.
“What are you talking about?” I laugh lightly. “Of course we’re going back. Benny has to get back home so he can get better. And we have—”
“We’re leaving, Agnes,” Honey says evenly. “All of us. We’re going back to Texas with Nana Pete. To live.”
The floor beneath me feels as loose as quicksand. I steady myself on the edge of the bed. “What? Why?”
Nana Pete steps forward. “Because I cannot, in all consciousness, allow you to stay in a place like that anymore.”
“A place like what?” I am aghast. “Like Mount Blessing?” Nana Pete nods. I look over at Honey. “Honey!” I plead. “Tell her! It’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with Mount Blessing.”
Honey bites her lip and then shakes her head. “No, Agnes.”
I look at Nana Pete again. “But you’ve been coming up to Mount Blessing for years! Why all of a sudden do you want to take us away from it?”
Nana Pete clears her throat. “Because I didn’t know about the Regulation Room before.” When she starts talking again, her voice is stronger. “That in itself is reason enough to burn that place down to the ground. It’s sick, Agnes. Sadistic. No one should ever have to undergo what y’all have been through in that room. And then, with Benny’s accident and Emmanuel sewing his fingers back on … ” She pauses, shaking her head. “Maybe I’ve had blinders on all these years, but I just had no idea. I’ve never seen anything like it. This is not the way normal people live, darlin’. Emmanuel belongs in a mental institution. Or jail.”
“Jail? What are you talking about? Emmanuel doesn’t belong in jail! He’s in charge of us. He’s the holiest person I know. He’ll never let you—”
“Emmanuel is not in charge of us,” Honey asserts. “And he is not holy. He just thinks he is and he’s made everyone else in that place think he is, too. He’s a monster, Agnes.”
I blink, trying to separate the words I am hearing from something shifting in my heart. “What about Mom and Dad? They’re not monsters, Nana Pete. I know you don’t get along and everything, but … ” I struggle to hold back the tears. “But you can’t do this to him. We’re his kids, Nana Pete, whether you like it or not.”
Nana Pete blinks. “I know, Mouse. And that is the hardest part of all of this.” She drags her hands slowly down the sides of her face. “But what is happening to you is called child abuse. Do you know what that is, Agnes?”
I take a step backward. “We’re not being abused! W
e deserve it! Emmanuel has to do it for the retraining of—”
Nana Pete grabs my hands, hard. “It’s abuse, Agnes. There’s no other way around it. And there is no such thing as retraining people, okay, darlin’? People are free to make up their own minds, not be trained to think and act like seals. If the police found out what was going on in that room, Emmanuel would be hauled off to jail so fast it would make your head spin.” I wince under her grip and try to pull away. She just holds on more tightly. “It’s not your fault, Agnes. It’s not your fault that you don’t understand this or that you think its okay. Emmanuel has you and your parents convinced that all of you deserve such … such … ” She stops, unable to go on, and then gestures toward Benny’s hand. “And now he thinks Emmanuel performed a miracle on Benny’s fingers! I mean, if we hadn’t brought him here … ”
I stifle a sob, thinking again of Dr. Pannetta’s words. No miracle. No miracle.
“Agnes,” Honey says, stepping forward. “Listen to what Nana Pete is saying. Please.”
With one final tug, I wrench free of Nana Pete’s grasp and hold on tightly to the edge of Benny’s bed. The edges of the room are beginning to swim. Could the devil, disguised as Honey and Nana Pete, be speaking? Of course he could. The devil can disguise himself any way he wants.
“Listen?” I spit out. “You think I’m going to listen to you two, who think you can decide for the rest of us what’s best? How about considering my feelings? Did it ever occur to you to ask me my opinion about all of this?”
“Of course we did,” Honey says matter-of-factly. “And we decided not to because we knew you would do exactly what you’re doing now.”
“Which is what?”
“Freak out.”
“I am not freaking out,” I say evenly. “Just because I happen to disagree with an insane idea the two of you cooked up does not mean I am losing my mind.”
“Then listen to what we’re saying!” Honey yells. “For once, Agnes! Even if you don’t understand it! Open your ears and listen! We can go with Nana Pete down to Texas and have a whole new life for ourselves. No Emmanuel, no Veronica, no Regulation Room ever again.” She pauses. “We’ll be free for the first time in our lives, Ags. Free. We can go places, do things. Watch TV. Not be afraid all the time. Be normal kids, just like everyone else, living a normal life.”
“Who wants to be normal?” I yell. “We’re Believers! We’re better than normal!”
“Better than normal is still abnormal, Agnes.” Honey’s voice is stoic. Her eyes glitter enticingly, reminding me of a story Dad told me once about Saint Thomas Aquinas. To see if they could tempt him from his chosen life of abstinence and virtue, some evil men sent a naked woman to his room. When St. Thomas opened the door and saw the woman standing there, he grabbed an iron poker out of the fireplace and chased her, screaming, down the hall.
“All men are tempted,” Dad had said after the story, “but only the saints refuse to succumb.” I glance around the room quickly. The only thing resembling an iron poker is the thin metal pole that is connected to some kind of machine next to Benny. There’s no way I can pick that up.
“I’m not listening to you,” I say through clenched teeth. “You wouldn’t understand anyway.” Honey opens her mouth, but I shake my head and point my finger at her. “Stay away from me, Honey. I mean it! I’m through with you and all your talk against Emmanuel.” I look over at Nana Pete. “And you, too, Nana Pete. You’re both heathens!”
Without warning, the nurse with the teddy bear jacket pops her head inside the door. “Everything okay in here?” A silver stethoscope is draped like a necklace along her chest. For a moment I think of screaming out that Nana Pete is trying to kidnap us. But something holds me back. For the life of me, I cannot get the words out.
Nana Pete smiles brightly. “Oh yes. Everything’s fine. Thank you.”
The nurse nods and then looks at Benny. “Careful not to wake him too soon. Rest is the best thing for him now.” I look back down at my little brother, envying his obliviousness. But I am fighting for him, too, I realize. Maybe for the first time in his life. And I won’t let him down again. The nurse shuts the door behind her and Nana Pete takes advantage of the sudden privacy to touch me on the shoulder.
I jerk away from her. “Don’t touch me!”
Nana Pete withdraws her hand but stays put. “The life you have been leading at Mount Blessing is all you know, Agnes, which is why you can’t possibly understand that what I am trying to do is for your own good.”
Blah, blah, blah, I think, shoving two of my fingers in my ears. Yammer, yammer, yammer. Nana Pete’s mouth stops moving.
I feel a surge of courage as I drop my hands from my ears. “You know what? You two can talk until you’re blue in the face. But I’m not going to Texas. And Benny’s not going to Texas, either. You can’t make us. That’s kidnapping.”
“I’m not going to kidnap you or force you to do anything against your will, Mouse. I mean it.” Nana Pete grabs my hand again and points her finger between the pink curtains. “Look out the window. You see that bus terminal across the street?” I glance at the array of blue and silver buses, lined like up like sleek fish in front of a low building. “If you want to go back to Mount Blessing, I’ll put you on a bus right now and pay your fare.”
“Okay,” I say instantly. “Then put me on a bus. With Benny. Now.”
Honey steps forward as Nana Pete drops my hand. “She said you. Just you, Agnes. Not Benny. Benny and I are leaving with Nana Pete.” Her words feel like needles going into the softest parts of my belly. There is a rushing sound in my ears. A bitter taste pools in my throat.
“You can’t take Benny.” My voice cracks like ice around the words. “He’s my brother. I won’t let you.”
“He’s my grandson, too,” Nana Pete says. The tone in her voice is the same one she uses with Dad whenever she has an argument with him and knows she’s right. “I have just as much of a responsibility to protect him as you do, Mouse.” The silence in the room is deafening, the beep beep of the machine next to Benny’s bed the only distraction.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I whisper.
“Because there isn’t any other way,” Nana Pete says. “There just isn’t.” The skin around her nose is getting red and blotchy. She stretches her arms out again. “Let me take you somewhere safe, Agnes. Let me take you to a place where no one will ever hurt you like this again.”
Honey is staring at me through the little space between Nana Pete’s arm and her waist. “Please,” she mouths. “Please, Agnes.”
For a moment I wonder if maybe I am in limbo, that place between heaven and hell where movement of any kind is impossible. Can’t go up, can’t go down. You just have to wait until someone prays hard enough to convince God that you really do deserve to go to heaven after all. Until then, you’re suspended, hanging out on a cloud maybe, or sitting on the moon, staring at possibility.
Emmanuel always warned us of the physical sensation that accompanies the act of sin, a stomachache perhaps, or a sour taste in the mouth. What, I wonder, does the feeling of being on fire mean?
“I’ll go for Benny,” I hear myself saying. “He’s going to need me when he wakes up and finds out what you’re doing to us. He won’t be strong enough to save himself.” I try to keep my voice steady as I raise my eyes to meet Nana Pete’s and Honey’s. “But let’s just make one thing perfectly clear right off the bat. You two can say whatever you want or take us wherever you think you should, but Benny and I will always be Believers.” I pause. “No matter what.”
HONEY
Benny wakes up just as the sun starts coming in through the window. By then Agnes has decided, against all odds, to come with us. I don’t care if she considers it some kind of martyr journey, or if she feels she has to protect Benny from Nana Pete’s and my evil clutches. Whatever it takes to get her on the road is fine with me. We can deal with the rest of it later. Benny’s eyes are a little swollen for some reason, and
when he opens them they look like two little blueberries staring out from under a fat piecrust. Agnes rushes to his side and tries to get him talking, but his head just lolls heavily on the pillow. Nana Pete runs out of the room and returns with the nurse, who takes off her stethoscope and listens to Benny’s heart and checks his eyes and feels his forehead and wrist. After a moment she stands back and smiles.
“He’s doing wonderfully,” she says, looking at Agnes. “What a little trouper. I’ll call Dr. Pannetta and let him know he’s awake.”
As soon as the nurse leaves the room, Nana Pete springs into action, folding blankets, shoving small paper packages of gauze into her purse, emptying the side drawer of a dresser next to Benny’s bed, and folding Benny’s clothes. Agnes and I just stand there dumbly for a moment, watching her.
“Let’s go, girls,” she says in a low, conspiratorial voice. “We can’t waste any more time. We’ve got to leave now before they make me sign any more paperwork and start asking real questions.”
But the nurses at the front desk freak out when Nana Pete comes out of Benny’s room, holding him in her arms.
“Where do you think you’re going?” one of them asks. She’s dressed in a white short-sleeved tunic and has braces on her teeth. The one with the teddy bear jacket is eating a blueberry muffin.
“Please,” Nana Pete says. “We have to go.”
“Go?” the nurse repeats. She laughs, as if Nana Pete has just told her a joke. “This little boy has just gotten out of surgery! You’re not going anywhere!”
“Actually,” Nana Pete says, taking a few more steps, “we are.”
Suddenly Dr. Pannetta appears with a cup of coffee in his hands. He looks different than the night before, dressed in navy blue pressed pants, a white button-down shirt, and a yellow tie with blue stripes. His shoes, brown and glossy, make a clicking sound when he walks, and his white hair, which is still damp, has been combed neatly.
The Patron Saint of Butterflies Page 12
