Replacing the contents of Nana Pete’s purse takes a while. There is her camera, her cell phone, an unzipped rose-colored makeup bag filled with a mirrored compact, a gold tube of pink lipstick, two packages of tissues, at least twenty hairpins, and a small white tube of eucalyptus-scented body lotion. There is also a faded pair of ivory gloves stained yellow at the fingertips, a small, leather-bound folder, secured tightly with a blue rubber band, Benny’s antibiotics, and two more bottles of those vitamins she took earlier, called Lisinopril. I pick up one of the vitamin bottles and turn it over. Why, if they are vitamins, are they called Lisinopril? I wonder. Or is that what old-people vitamins are called? I get a bad feeling all of a sudden as I remember the discussion we had yesterday at the frog pond.
My doctor just told me he wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to make this trip again.
Are you sick?
No, no, sugar. He just wants me to get some tests in August.
I place the vitamin bottle back in her bag and lie down as close to Nana Pete as I can. She smells like chili and the sweet, lemony perfume she always wears. I move closer, until my ear is just above her chest, and then lean in as near as I dare. Even under the slippery orange comforter and the top sheet, I can hear the lopsided rhythm of her heart beating. Buh-hum, buhbum. Suddenly, for a split second, nothing. I hold my breath. Above me, Nana Pete gasps and exhales loudly through her nose. Buh-hum, buh-bum, buh-bum. Her breathing returns to normal again. I press my face along her robe and cry soundlessly in the dark, pushing the blanket into my mouth when my sobs start to overtake me, shaking with fear and love.
AGNES
I wake all at once the next morning, sitting up with a gasp, as if someone has thrown a bucket of cold water over me. It takes me a full minute to remember where we are. My brain races through the events that have occurred over the past two days. Benny’s fingers. Leaving Mount Blessing. Dr. Pannetta. Wal-Mart. I feel sick and dizzy, trying to piece it all back together. Benny is sound asleep next to me; Nana Pete and Honey are snoring lightly in the other bed. I can’t stop thinking about Mom and Dad. Have they come looking for us? Have they tried to call anyone? Has Emmanuel let them leave to come find us? And if he hasn’t, what could they possibly be doing?
Across the room, a flash of light gleams between the heavy curtains. Getting out of bed slowly, I push the curtains back and stare through the dull glass. The sun has just risen over the peak of hills in the distance. Another flash of light, brighter this time, forces me to squint and then shade my eyes. I stare for a moment, unsure if I am really seeing what I think I am seeing. Ten seconds later, as the sun rises another inch or so, the glare disappears and there, in all her glory, is the Blessed Virgin Mary, standing on top of the mountain before me.
I fall to my knees, trembling, but not daring to look away from her. She is dressed all in gold, from the top of her head to her toes. Her arms are stretched out before her, just like on the cover of The Saints’ Way, as if waiting for a child to leap into them. I make the sign of the cross and stare, overwhelmed, at the vision of loveliness. It is my first apparition. I musn’t be frightened. I will stay quiet and wait to see what she asks of me. There is no question it is her, but from this distance, I cannot make out any of her beautiful features, and if she is trying to tell me something, there is no way I will be able to hear her words. The minutes tick by, but she doesn’t move, not even when the sun moves higher in the sky, throwing a shadow across the heavy folds in her robe. My knees feel as if they are grinding into a knotted pile of wood, but I do not take my eyes off her golden aura. Maybe there will be no message today; maybe the first apparition will just be a test of my faith, to see if I will stay or run away.
“I will never run away,” I whisper. “I will always be here, waiting and listening.”
“Listening for what?” The voice behind me comes so suddenly that I nearly fall over with fright. I whirl around to see Nana Pete standing next to the bed, watching me with a peculiar expression on her face. “Who are you talking to, Mouse?”
She won’t be able to see her, I think quickly. Only visionaries are able to see the apparitions.
“Oh!” Nana Pete says, pointing through the curtains. “You found the statue of Our Lady of the Mountain!” My eyebrows narrow. “But of course! I forgot we were so close to Mount St. Mary’s Seminary! Isn’t she lovely? I think she used to be on top of a church that burned to the ground. She was the only thing that wasn’t destroyed in the fire. Would you like to drive up and see her?”
My brain is racing. Statue? Church? Mount St. Mary’s?
Statue?
“Mouse?” Nana Pete presses. “Would you like to drive over so that you can see her for yourself? She’s even prettier up close. She looks almost human.”
I stand up and brush invisible crumbs off the front of my pajamas. My knees are throbbing. “No.” I hope Nana Pete doesn’t notice the flush that has begun to creep alongside my face. “No, actually, I wouldn’t.” I push past her. “I’m going to take a shower.”
I lock the bathroom door and then sag against it, letting my forehead sink against my knees. What were the details in the Saint Catherine Laboure story, when the Blessed Virgin appeared to her? I grab The Saints’ Way and read it over again. A small child, dressed all in white, had come into Catherine’s room at the convent one night and told her to follow him. He led her down a dark hallway and into the chapel. Although it was the middle of the night, every single candle in the chapel was lit. Then, as the church bells tolled midnight, Catherine heard the rustle of a silk dress. Suddenly a beautiful woman surrounded by a blaze of light stood before her. The child, who was still standing next to Catherine, said, “Behold, here is the Blessed Virgin!”
I close the book and go over the details: A rustle of silk. Burning candles. A blaze of white light. My heart sinks, remembering the golden shimmer cascading down the green mountain. I could have sworn …
I’m just looking too hard, I decide at last. Trying to see something that is not there. Or maybe my head is still just a little clouded from the fainting episode. Or maybe … maybe I am just too much of a sinner for Jesus or the Virgin to ever consider appearing to me. Maybe it won’t ever happen. I put my head down again between my knees as I remember the lie I told to Christine and what I said to Benny before he got hurt. Who am I kidding?
Eventually I decide to take a shower, something I can’t remember doing recently, and count to a hundred and twenty as I soap myself up under the running water. At Mount Blessing, showers are limited to three minutes tops, since hot water is so expensive. This morning I will limit it to two minutes. The line my waist string has left behind is deep red, almost purple. I make a note to find another one as soon as possible.
After the shower, I brush my teeth for a long time, guiltily relishing the taste of the Vanilla Mint toothpaste. I slide into a clean pair of underwear, a new peach bra Nana Pete insisted on buying for me, my old jeans, a long-sleeved black T-shirt, and then, finally, my robe. I press my face into the sleeves of the robe and inhale. The material has a familiar smell to it, like shoe polish. I have to get back home.
Still squeezing the water from my hair, I come out of the bathroom to find Honey seated on the floor. She has the TV on. Three guys dressed only in wide white pants are dancing on the screen, as loud, thumping music pulses in the background. A girl wearing a black bra and shorts is writhing around on the ground like she has poison ivy.
Honey gives me a quick glance and then looks away again. “You don’t have to wear that robe out here, you know,” she says, flipping the channel.
“I know,” I answer, heading over toward Benny, whose eyes are glued to the television. “I want to.”
“Hey, check this out!” Honey says. I sit down on the bed, directly in front of Benny’s line of vision. “I think this guy just made a glass of zucchini juice!” Benny grunts and moves to the side.
“Don’t look, Benny,” I order. “It’s a sin to watch TV. Just close your eyes.�
�� But Benny doesn’t listen. He struggles to sit up in the bed, pushing me away from him with his good hand.
Honey turns around. “Oh, for crying out loud, let him look. It’s just some idiot making juice.”
I ignore her. “Benny. Come on. Let’s go in the bathroom and get washed up.” But he continues to angle his way around me, even elbowing me so hard in the ribs that I lose my breath. “Ow!” I yell. “Benedict Little!” I can see Honey put her hand over her mouth, stifling a laugh. It’s a good thing, too, because I turn on her then, all fury.
“Turn. Off. The. TV.” Honey giggles again behind her hand. “I mean it, Honey.”
She opens her mouth to object and then seems to decide against it. Pointing the remote at the TV, she flicks off the screen. A snorting sound comes out of her nose.
“Go ahead and make fun,” I say, stuffing my dirty clothes back inside my backpack. “You won’t be laughing in the end.”
Honey gets up slowly from the floor. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Think about it.” I turn so that she is talking to my shoulder.
Honey grabs my arm and spins me around. “Hey.” Her voice, low and steady, frightens me all of a sudden. “You listen to me, Agnes, because I’m only going to say this once. I don’t ever want to hear again—or even listen to you insinuate—that I am going to hell because of stuff like watching TV. Or because of anything I do, for that matter. You got it?”
I stare into her glowering eyes. “Just because we’ve left Mount Blessing doesn’t mean you have to throw everything about it away. It’s like you don’t even care, Honey.”
“I care, Agnes,” Honey says. “I care more than you will ever know.”
“About what?”
“About the things that matter. About you. About Benny and Nana Pete.” She pauses. “You’re so freaked out all the time about all the little things that might be tripping you up on this path of yours to heaven that you forget to stop and look around once in a while at the things that count.”
“Oh, like what, listening to stupid songs on the radio? Or watching that garbage on TV?”
Honey’s eyes flash black. “Like taking the time to realize that your grandmother over there is putting her life on the line for us.”
I toss my head. “Well, no one asked her to. Especially not me.”
Honey takes a step away from me. Even I can’t believe how awful that just sounded. I turn away so that I don’t have to face her anymore, but I can feel her eyes burning into my back. Just then, Nana Pete comes out of the bathroom.
“Onward, tr—” She stops midsentence, noticing Honey and me. “Everything okay here?” I hear a swishing sound as Honey snatches something off the floor.
“Everything’s fine,” she says. “Let’s just get out of here.”
HONEY
Nana Pete turns back on 15 South. We drive until we see signs for Washington, D.C., and Virginia and then hit a road called I-270, which we stay on for hours. She starts off strong, driving as if possessed, trying to make up for all the missed miles from yesterday. Staring down her own tunnel of vision, she taps her thumbs along the top of the steering wheel, hearing a beat all her own. A few hours later, though, she seems to have fallen into some sort of trance. She doesn’t hear me when I ask her if she’s hungry, and when I ask her a few minutes later if she’s tired, she just gives me a strange look and shakes her head.
Maybe I’m worrying too much. I pull out my butterfly notebook and try to draw one of the Clouded Sulphurs I saw outside of the hospital, but Nana Pete keeps swerving in and out of traffic so sharply that my pencil darts all over the page. Her doggedness at not letting the speedometer fall under eighty-five is really starting to freak me out. I am just about to say something when I notice that her shoulders are sagging like two weighted logs in a pond. Her skin is a pale, ashy color and tiny beads of sweat, like pearls, have broken out along her forehead.
“Hey, Nana Pete?” I say gently.
Her head jerks at the sound of my voice, and she licks her lips. “I’m trying to make it to Raleigh before it gets dark, but I can’t drive another minute, darlin’. Do you think you could give it a try?”
Agnes sits up straight in the back. “Wait, you mean Honey drive?” she asks. It’s the first thing she’s said all day. “The car? She can’t drive!”
Nana Pete looks over at me. Her face is a map of deep lines and shaded circles. I’ve never seen her so tired.
“It’s okay, Ags,” I say. “I’ve driven Mr. Schwab’s tractor before. It can’t be much different.” My voice sounds confident, but as Nana Pete pulls over and I switch places with her in the front seat, I’m shaking like a leaf. Will it be much harder than driving Dorothy? I put my head down and listen as carefully as I can to what Nana Pete is telling me.
“Now, the Queen Mary is an automatic, sugar, which means you don’t have to do much of anything except steer once you put her in drive.” Nana Pete points at the two pedals just under my feet. “Just use your right foot when you want to speed up or slow down, all right? Let your left one sit off to the side. Think of it as just being along for the ride. It’s not going to do anything.” I run the insides of my hands up and down the smooth ridges of the steering wheel. It’s much smaller than Dorothy’s wheel. And there is no clutch, thank God. That was the hardest thing to learn with Dorothy. “Keep your foot down hard enough on the gas so that this little red stick”—Nana Pete leans over and points to the speed gauge—“stays around sixty-five. Don’t go past seventy, no matter what. The last thing we need is to get pulled over by the police. Keep it level. You’ll get the hang of it.”
“What if I have to turn?” I ask.
Nana Pete shakes her head. “We’ve only got another hour on this highway,” she says. “Straight through to Raleigh. No turns.”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. “I can do this.”
And I really believe I can.
As I step on the gas, my breath collects itself into a pocket at the top of my lungs and sits there like a balloon waiting to be released. My hands grip the steering wheel with white fingers, swerving the car nervously to the left and then to the right and then back again. I try not to think about the fact that Dorothy doesn’t go any faster than twenty-five miles per hour and I am traveling now at almost three times that speed. But after a while, my fingers loosen and my hunched shoulders relax.
“Beautiful,” Nana Pete says approvingly. “Just beautiful. You’re a pro, Honey. I knew you could do it.” Her words relax me even more, and soon I can feel my lower back sinking into the seat. The muscles in my legs begin to unknot themselves and my breathing goes back to normal. Even when I glance over at Nana Pete, whose head is lolling heavily on her chest, I don’t panic. I’m driving a car. I’m doing it!
“Ags!” I whisper, sitting up a little so that I can see her in the rearview mirror. “Look at me! I’m driving!”
Agnes looks away, but Benny, who is curled up against her like a puppy, looks up and grins.
“Hey, Benny boy! How ’bout this? Huh?”
He nods and smiles. I look back over at Agnes. Her face is set like stone.
“You better watch the road,” she says, still looking out the window. “You’ve only been doing this for about thirty minutes, you know. Don’t get smug.”
I bounce up and down in the seat a little. “I think I got it figured it out, though! It’s not too hard once you sit back and relax a little. Take in a little of the scenery, even, instead of staring at the little yellow squares in the middle of the road.”
Agnes rolls her eyes. “Now you’re a pro all of a sudden?”
I giggle. “Yeah. How about that?”
Agnes’s jaw tightens. “When were you at Mr. Schwab’s?”
I stop bouncing. “Oh, you know. Just a couple times with Winky when he had to go over and get stuff for the garden.”
She’s holding my gaze. “And he let you drive his tractor?”
I nod, looking back between her a
nd the road.
“You know that’s forbidden,” she says. “Going off the grounds like that.”
I shrug. “Yeah, well I guess it doesn’t really matter now, does it?”
She turns away when I say that, as if I have reminded her of something painful.
I try to change the subject, but she won’t look at me. And while I know we’re miles away from being on the same page, for some reason right at this moment, I’m desperate for her to talk to me. “Hey,” I whisper. “You want to know a secret?”
Agnes’s eyes flit to a spot away from the middle of the window, but she doesn’t turn her head.
“We’re on our way to see your aunt Lillian. Right now.”
Agnes’s head whips around on her neck like a spring. “What?”
I nod. “I don’t know all the details, but Nana Pete said she’s meeting us halfway. I guess so she can help out with the trip and all.” I pause. “She’s the one you’ve never met, right?” I talk quickly, hoping my words will overtake the shadow that is crossing Agnes’s face. But it’s not working. She glares at the back of Nana Pete’s head with hateful eyes and then sits back in the seat. Her lips are trembling. “Now, don’t get all worked up,” I say. “I know you’re not supposed to talk about her or anything, but—”
“We’re not supposed to have any thing to do with that woman.” Agnes says the words through clenched teeth. “My father forbids it.”
“But she’s your aunt! You guys are blood relatives! Aren’t you even the least bit curious about what she looks like? What she might have to—”
The Patron Saint of Butterflies Page 15
