The Memory of Butterflies: A Novel

by Grace Greene

  I waved, then put my finger to my lips to signal the baby was sleeping and went to meet her at the truck.

  She handed me a grocery bag and carried the box herself. She whispered, “I saw diapers and wipes and formula on the order and decided I’d deliver it myself. I heard you had a little one. I hardly believed it. Can I see her?”

  “You can peek, but don’t wake her. Sorry, I was up with her last night.”

  “Colicky? Or got her days and nights mixed up?”

  “Lonely, I think.” I smiled. “Wanted some hugging.”

  Eva started toward the porch. I stopped her, saying, “Let’s carry it around back. Gran’s resting, too.”

  “Oh, of course, honey.” She followed me down the side path to the back stoop. “How’s Mrs. Cooper doing?”

  “Gran is pretty good.”

  “Well, she always was stubborn, but a lady, certainly.”

  Once in the kitchen, she couldn’t help but see through the kitchen door into the living room and see Gran on her bed. But she didn’t approach her or disturb her. As we walked back outside and around again, she said, “Give her my best when she wakes, if you will.” She went straight up onto the porch this time and paused by the cradle. She asked, but softly, “Who does she favor? You or her daddy?”

  She was casting about for personal information.

  “Ellen got lucky. She looks like her great-grandmother.” I let Eva know by a hard look that no further questions would be welcome.

  “I got ya,” she said. “That Melissa Meese just had a little one, too. A boy, I heard.”

  Melissa and Spencer? It seemed like their breakup hadn’t been that serious after all. And he’d run off on both of us. I almost laughed at the foolishness, the recklessness, of young hearts. We’d thought we were grown up.

  I didn’t have to hide resentment or hurt feelings from Eva. There were none. If I had a touch of regret, it was about my poor choices, like dating Spencer. Certainly it wasn’t over losing him. Good riddance. Taking care of Ellen was exhausting but rewarding. Not so with Spencer. I was thankful I didn’t need to deal with him.

  She continued. “I reckon the father’s family will be paying her bills, since I hear he’s run off to college like he had nothing to do with it.” She gave a short laugh. “Or more likely his parents packed him off lickety-split. Easier to pay the bills and not let the relationship go further. Mama and Daddy have bigger expectations for their only son than a local girl.”

  If Eva thought she might pry a secret loose from me, she got nothing but my tired smile.

  Eva nodded good-bye. As she went to the car, she added, “If you need anything out here, you let me know. I know you’re a strong, smart girl and devoted to your grandma, and I can see you’re a fine mommy to the babe, too, but no one can handle it all. You let me know and I, or my Anthony, can be here in twenty minutes. And happy to do it.”

  She meant it and had a good heart, but she was also an information broker, as I called such folks. Grand had explained such things to me when I was a child. People like salesmen, and people who did deliveries and paid lots of visits around the county were the purveyors of personal and interesting information long before the local newspaper was being printed and sold. The worst of all such invasions of privacy were local diners and doctors’ waiting rooms. Frequent those places, per Grand, and you could never expect to have a modicum of privacy. Needless to say, we didn’t eat in town a lot. My grandparents considered Mildred to be the exception, and they were never proven wrong.

  It occurred to me, almost belatedly, that my Ellen had a half brother out there. Beyond a moment of speculation, the information held no meaning to me whatsoever. I had plenty of other things to concern myself with, and I put it out of my mind.

  Eva had stuck the latest issue of the local newspaper in the top of the food box. She’d also tucked a baby book in the side of the box. The book was pretty and mostly pink. I thumbed through it. There were pages for all sorts of dates and events and pictures. I left the baby book on the kitchen table and took the newspaper out to the porch to read while I kept my eye on my sleeping Ellen.

  There it was, in the section with engagements, weddings, births, and obituaries. I hadn’t submitted an official notice in the paper, but it didn’t surprise me. No doubt they pulled the information from legal records, and Mildred had said she’d file notice of the birth for us, so I guessed she had.

  “Baby Girl Cooper, born to Hannah Cooper,” and the date. That was it.

  I decided this wouldn’t be my baby’s birth notice. It wasn’t good enough and didn’t deserve a place in Ellen’s baby book. I went into my bedroom and found a school notebook, my spiral notebook from history class with plenty of empty sheets left in it, and took it back out to the porch.

  I wrote:

  Ellen Clara Cooper, daughter of Hannah Cooper and great-granddaughter of Clara and Edmund Cooper of Cooper’s Hollow, was born on a cold, overcast day in February—a day that was immediately made bright by virtue of her shining countenance, her charming blue eyes, and her sweet smile and voice. She was born with light-brown hair, almost golden, and curly and feathery, and she grabbed her mama’s hand with a strong grip. She knew she was exactly where she belonged—in her mama’s arms.

  Feeling life’s rhythm strong in me now, I flipped to the back inside cover. It was a lightweight cardboard with more substance than the thin sheet of lined paper, and while my Ellen slept, I sketched her sweet baby profile and the tiny, slightly curled fist resting near her cheek as if she’d fallen asleep before the thumb could complete its journey to her mouth. Her lips, soft and full, were posed as the traditional cherub’s bud mouth, and the nose was perfect. Simply perfect.

  This would start the baby book off as it should. Only the best that love could give was what my Ellen deserved.

  I wasn’t a great artist, but I had some skill, and I did one more sketch later that day. Gran was holding Ellen, and when I put the pencil to work, I kept glancing up at her.

  “What’s this?” she finally asked. “Why are you looking at me?”

  Ellen reached toward Gran’s moving lips. Her hand, with its chubby fingers, waved, and she smiled. The pediatrician had said she was too young to smile, but Gran and I knew better.

  “Hold still and don’t get her stirred up,” I said. “I’m drawing a picture for her baby book.”

  “What? Of who? Me?”

  “Hold still, Gran. This is for Ellen. For her baby book. A picture of her being held by her Great-Gran.”

  Gran chuckled, and the sound and movement delighted Ellen. Her arms swung and her feet pumped.

  “Hold still, girls. Show a little respect for the pencil, please.”

  Gran smiled and didn’t protest again. Instead, she touched the pert nose, the rosy cheek, and Ellen waved her tiny hands again and gurgled happily.

  George Bridger was a lean, angular man with a beard that had gotten whiter and longer over the years. It had grown straggly and wasn’t always clean. Every few months, Mr. Bridger bestirred himself to cross over Elk Ridge and hike down to our Hollow. Only once did I ever remember his driving over. Instead, he walked. Gran and Grand had known him since before water ran in the creeks, as they liked to say, and they were some kind of distant kin. Mr. Bridger had been fast friends with Grand in particular. He lived alone. I think the old man walked down to visit and to check on us, feeling a family sort of responsibility, and to let us have the honor of checking up on him, too. Sometimes I think he hoped he’d find his old friend, at home and miraculously restored, no questions asked. I understood, but I couldn’t help him with that. Other than Mr. Bridger, Eva Pullen’s one visit, and Mildred, we saw no one, which was fine with all three of us gals.

  He visited one day while I was working with my clay at the kitchen table. He didn’t approve, being as it was a kitchen table, and he’d wanted to pull up to it and have a cup of coffee and share a little conversation with Gran. Gran insisted they could settle at one end while I wor
ked. After a bit, I realized the conversation had ceased. I looked up to see him watching.

  “What’re you making?” he asked. “A bowl?”

  “A bowl or a pot. I suppose it would work for a cup, too.”

  “It’s got wings?”

  “Butterfly wings.” I motioned with my hands. “Or rather hands and fingers shaped to mimic butterfly wings. I made the bottom, the bowl part, on the wheel, and then came in here to make the wings and attach them.” I finished smoothing a missed edge into the main body. “This is Ellen’s long naptime during the day, and my only time to get things like this done.”

  “That so?” he asked.

  “I’m going to carve her name in it. I’ll save it for her till she’s older.”

  He laughed.

  Gran spoke up. “What’s so funny, old man?”

  Mr. Bridger finished his last swig of coffee with a slurping noise and said, “Well, you’d best make two of ’em. I never knew a child who didn’t break a breakable.” He chuckled, appreciating his own wit. “That pot with its wings looks like an invitation, an outright temptation, to little hands to touch.”

  I considered what he said. It made sense. After all, if one was good, two was better, right? Smart to have a spare.

  Despite her ailments, Gran lived beyond either of our expectations. I liked to think it was because I gave her such loving care. On good days she’d get up and move around. On other days she sat in her rocker or lay abed, but for those few months we shared baby Ellen, I had glimpses of a time I, myself, couldn’t remember—of my own babyhood, of when Gran had made funny faces and spoken to me in baby talk. I didn’t doubt her face had shone as brightly back when I was a baby as it did when she made faces over Ellen. In those long-ago days, Gran’s hair had been the color of corn silk, though already mixed with gray, and while her wrinkles were fewer, they would still have been in evidence, as she was just over sixty when I was born. Back then, she said, she’d still had shapely legs and nice ankles. She and Grand had used to go dancing, at least until my parents died. Now those swollen legs burdened her. Sometimes they seemed to weigh a ton, she said. On the days she spent abed, Gran would ask for Ellen to lie beside her at naptime or when I was fixing meals.

  I’d place my daughter in the crook of Gran’s arm. Gran would offer a finger, which Ellen would grasp and hold on to with every ounce of her baby strength even while they slept. We both knew the time was coming when Ellen would become mobile. She’d start crawling, and our current arrangement wouldn’t work so well. Gran wouldn’t be able to chase after Ellen, and I’d have extra burdens on me. I worried about it. Gran said not to borrow trouble, that things would work out. As it turned out, there was nothing to worry over. Not in this case. Before crawling ever had the chance to be a problem, we lost our sweet Ellen.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ellen was in my bedroom in a small wooden fold-up crib. My grandparents had used it for me when I was little bitty, and for my mother when she was a newborn. It was a simple bed with a two-inch mattress and wooden slats to let the air through. I kept fresh linens on it all the time. I’d fed my sweet baby Ellen, and she was dozy. The heat and humidity made her extra drowsy on top of her meal. A summer storm was trying to roll in. It had bunched the bad air up ahead of it, and we all felt the heaviness. I put Ellen into her small crib for her nap that day instead of with Gran, because Gran was hurting especially hard. Storm fronts always tortured her joints and bones.

  I’d given Gran some herbal tea to help. She was finally dozing. Ellen was quiet in her crib, her eyes still peeking, but with the half-conscious, unfocused look they’d get before she slipped off into sleep. I was eighteen and bone-tired myself. A five-month-old daughter, an eighty-year-old grandmother—they depended on me. My body ached with the oppressive front, too, but never as hard as Gran’s did. I supposed my time would come one day, but not for decades yet, I hoped.

  While Ellen and Gran slept, I went into the backyard to watch the trees. Up high, the boughs bent in the fitful winds, not yet breaking through to the thick air closer down on the ground. I felt the storm approaching and yearned for the freshening breeze to blow through and push out the dirty air. The clouds were dark and massing. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The rain was likely to be heavy. On impulse, I arranged some old bricks around my herb patch to divert the runoff that was bound to happen. The slope could be a problem, but thankfully the creek was far enough downslope I didn’t need to worry about flooding. Cub Creek was likely to get itself a nice replenishment today. I stood there in my bare feet, sniffing the air and feeling the change. The leaves in the trees near the edge of the forest seemed to be growing larger and turning over, so I knew I was right—there’d be real rain. I checked the window and door to the toolshed, and the pottery cabin, too. Everything was shut up tight.

  The atmosphere was uneasy. My bones and my brain were uneasy, too, and felt brittle. I checked on Ellen. She was sound asleep. I saw the slight rise and fall of her back as she slept. I didn’t touch her lest I disturb her. Even through the closed windows, I felt the electric pull of the coming storm. I needed, wanted, to focus on it. Grand had been the same when an electrical storm approached, and Gran had said it was in my genes. Gran, herself, had fallen off into real sleep, and I was grateful. The heavy, anxious air pressing around me made me restless. I was always one to meet it head-on instead of running or hiding.

  The storm came as promised. I sat on the porch rocker, not rocking but leaning forward as I watched the clouds turn nearly black. Then I stood at the steps, eager, as the freshening wind blew its way through and bent the trees by force.

  I wanted my share of it and lifted my arms. The skin on my arms prickled, and then my whole body shivered with the electricity. When the clouds opened and the rain fell in sheets, I stayed out of reach of the drops but enjoyed the clean feel of it washing away the thick, dirty air the storm had bunched up in our Hollow. A sharp boom of thunder sounded and reverberated from hill to ridge. I poked my head back inside the house to listen, but neither of my charges showed any sign of having been disturbed.

  When the wind shifted and the rain began to pelt the porch floor, I went into the house. I left the front door open, taking a risk that the rain would wet the floor because inside felt like a stale, dusty sauna badly in need of an influx of new air.

  Despite the noon hour, the day was dark as the storm continued around and over us. Too dark and very quiet. I stood in the living room. Gran was in her bed, and I listened to her breathing. She’d slept through the thunder and lightning and the downpour. Her chest rose and fell evenly. She was resting easier. The weather front was passing, and the air pressure was rising. My own bones felt better, too.

  Careful not to disturb her, I walked softly through the dim room and went to check on Ellen.

  My baby was sleeping. She was due to be waking up soon, but she wasn’t moving. Maybe she was feeling the break in the weather the same as Gran did. I touched her back through the lightweight cotton gown she wore. It was pink with burgundy roses, handworked by Gran’s own mother.

  The house rattled in a strong gust. There was a sucking sound, then a loud crack outside. Part of my brain recognized a tree was going down, its root ball being plucked from the wet ground. I didn’t care as long as it didn’t land on the house.

  I touched my baby’s back again, this time more firmly.

  My instinct, more than my intellect, knew something was wrong. No stirring at my touch? I pressed the flat of my hand against her back. Her back wasn’t hardly wider than my stretched-out hand. There was no rise and fall.

  Roughly, I rolled her over, hoping the infant-size assault would offend her, scare her, or startle her into wakefulness. I called out her name. The house shook. Or I did. Maybe both.

  I grabbed her up and held her small body close to my chest and neck. Her hair still had that precious baby smell, but her eyelids were tinged with purple. Her body was too cool. I wrapped her in her pink blanket. I swaddled her tight
er and tighter as if to prevent her escape and to warm her up again.

  Gran called out from the next room, “What’s going on, Hannah? Was that a scream? Did I hear someone call out? Are you hurt?”

  Gran’s voice was thick and slurry sounding, and it made less of an impression on me than the rain and wind and the thudding of my heart. I rushed past Gran as I ran through the living room to the kitchen with Ellen in my arms. I grabbed the wall phone and dialed. Nothing. No dial tone. I flipped the wall switch. No light. The lines were down.

  The car keys were in the dish by the door. I didn’t pause for shoes or an umbrella but dashed straight out, the screen door swinging wide behind me and slamming into the outside wall. Beyond the steps, it was mostly mud. The rain, lighter now, continued to fall, hitting the thick leaves. Greedy leaves. The greenery seemed to have multiplied, and it brushed my face wetly. I pushed the leaves and branches aside, got in the car, and laid my bundle on the passenger seat.

  “We’ll get help, baby. Sweet baby, sweet Ellen, don’t leave your mama.” The words came from my mouth and were formed by my lips, but that desperate voice didn’t sound like mine.