The Girl Who Threw Butterflies

by Mick Cochrane

  12. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S EYES

  hat night Molly dreamed about her father again. He was dressed in the shirt and tie he wore in the obituary picture, and Molly understood that he was dead. His eyes were open, he was alert, he was seated at some sort of desk, but he was dead. Molly knew it just by looking at him. She knew it in that way you know something in a dream. His eyes were huge and mournful. They were Abraham Lincoln's eyes.

  She understood what a terrible thing it was to be dead. All this time she'd been thinking only of herself. How much she missed him, how hard it was not to have him in her life. But she'd never really given any thought to her dad. At the funeral the preacher said he'd gone to a better place. But in Molly's dream he did not seem to be in a better place at all. He was seated stiffly in some chokingly formal pseudo living room. It was not a place where someone actually lived. It was more like a furniture store display, or a stage set. There was dark carpeting and heavy curtains. It was the funeral home, Molly realized.

  Molly wanted to speak to her dad, she wanted to hear him speak. No matter what he might say, she wanted to hear the sound of his voice. In the early days and weeks after his death, she'd been able to hear his voice clearly in her head. Lately, though, she was afraid that it had faded away.

  It was hard for her to speak. It was as if her mouth were full of Novocain. But finally she was able to get something out. “Dad?” she said. “Dad!”

  She waited for her father to respond. To hear his voice. She stared into his face, into those sorrowful eyes. She understood somehow that he wanted to say something but couldn't. He stood slowly. He was a tall man, a shade over six feet, and now, in her dream, he seemed even taller. Her father turned suddenly and, with two quick, graceful strides, disappeared behind a dark curtain.

  Molly woke up shaky, her heart pounding. As a little girl, she'd had her share of nightmares, dreams of monsters and skeletons, dreams of being chased, dreams of falling. This was quieter, but more disturbing. It felt hushed, but final.

  At breakfast, Molly kept thinking about her dream. She couldn't shake that image of her dad. She couldn't forget the depthless sadness in his eyes.

  “Mom,” Molly said.

  Her mother was standing at the kitchen counter, her back to Molly, carefully preparing the one perfect cup of coffee she drank each day, carefully pouring hot water through a cone-shaped filter into her mug. It was a daily ritual that seemed to require a great deal of concentration. “What, honey?” she said. “What is it?”

  What is it? Molly didn't really know. She didn't know how to say it, whatever it was. And what was her mother going to do about it?

  “Never mind,” Molly said. “Forget about it.”

  13. TEAM PLAYER

  arly Monday morning, before Molly looked at the list, she had a talk with Celia about it. She wanted to be pre-pared. She wanted to have her philosophy in place.

  “No matter what,” Molly said, “I'm okay with it.” They were in the band room, putting their instruments away.

  “You mean, if you don't make the team,” Celia said. “If you get cut.”

  At first Celia hadn't understood the terminology. “Cuts?” she'd asked. “Cuts?” Molly had explained it with a slashing motion across her throat. Like surgical cuts. They removed the lousy players from the body of the team, like warts. Now Celia got it. She understood what was at stake.

  “Right,” Molly said.

  “You're not gonna freak out,” Celia said. “That's what you're saying. You're not gonna get weird about it.”

  “Yes,” Molly said.

  “You're gonna take it in stride,” Celia said. “You don't make the team, you're like, whatever.”

  “Exactly,” Molly said.

  “You tried,” Celia said.

  “I gave it my best shot.”

  “Sure,” Celia said. “Maybe it was just not meant to be.”

  It made Molly a little suspicious that Celia was suddenly so agreeable. It wasn't like her to spout comforting clichés. It wasn't her style to dish out chicken soup for anyone's soul.

  As it turned out, Molly was right to distrust her friend's happy talk. In an instant, Celia shifted gears.

  “What a crock,” Celia said.

  “Crock?” Molly said.

  “You get cut,” Celia said, “you're gonna feel horrible. Might as well admit it.”

  Molly didn't say anything.

  “You want to make the team,” Celia said. “You really want to make the team. It's pretty obvious.”

  “It is?”

  “It is,” Celia said. “If you want it, say so. It's okay to want something.”

  “I want it,” Molly said quietly.

  “Okay,” Celia said.

  “I'm not looking for the best players,” Coach Morales had said more than once. “I'm looking for the best team.” He'd pause then, to let that sink in. Molly thought she under-stood what the coach was getting at. She knew very well how much teamwork baseball involved.

  For her dad it was one of the chief attractions of the game. He loved pointing out small, subtle acts of baseball teamwork. One player backing up another. A perfect cutoff. A double play or pickoff play.

  In baseball talk, a “team player” described someone whose game was unselfish. Someone who could sacrifice bunt, say—that is, make an out to help the team. A team player does what is necessary to help the team. The muscle-bound superstuds who stood at home plate and admired their own home runs were not team players. A “role player” was someone who could do some small thing to help the team: bunt or steal a base, maybe, play well in the field in the late innings.

  Molly knew very well that she wasn't one of the best players. She would never be a star. Her speed was average; at the plate, she could make contact but not hit for power. She was a good bunter, though. And she knew how to throw a knuckleball, which, on a good day, fooled some batters. Was she part of the best team? Would Coach Morales hold it against her that some of the boys resented her? If she was a role player, what was her role? She honestly didn't know.

  There was a bunch of boys standing in front of the physical education bulletin board. Even from a distance Molly could read their body language. She saw Grady Johnston slinking away from the board looking crestfallen. She didn't much like him, but she couldn't help but feel sorry for him. For the boys, being on the team was connected to who they were. Were they somebody or not? It meant that much. To Molly, it meant something, too; it meant a lot, but some-thing different.

  Meanwhile she watched little Eli Krause, red-haired and freckled, who was a good kid and could run like the wind, but just was not much of a hitter. Molly figured he'd been doomed from the first day they took batting practice. Eli worked his way through the crowd, got close enough to the board, and then suddenly jumped in the air. It was like he'd been shot with electricity. He turned and Molly saw his face. Such a grin! His neck and cheeks were bright red with excitement. Even his hair looked happy.

  Lloyd Coleman was standing there, arms folded across his chest, the picture of self-satisfaction. Yeah, I made the team, his posture said. Was there ever any doubt? Nearby, Desmond Davis gave a sly five on the side to his friend James Castle, another sure bet. They were in, and Molly couldn't blame them for being glad.

  Molly felt her heart beating in her chest. So, yes, she had told Celia the truth. She wanted it, she wanted it bad. One Zen book did not rid her of all desire.

  She approached the board, and the boys there made room for her. The list was typed, the names in all caps, alphabetically arranged. Molly scanned it, top to bottom. Halfway down, she saw Lonnie's name. So Lonnie made the team! No matter what, even if she got cut, Molly was happy for him. Where was he? Maybe he was counting on her to find out and break the news.

  She took a deep breath and then looked. There it was, at the very bottom of the list, the very last name: Molly Williams. She felt tears in her eyes. There were people looking at her, but she didn't care.

  Molly stepped into the neare
st rest room and closed her-self in a stall. She wanted to see Lonnie and give him a high five, and she wanted to tell Celia, too. Her lucky stone must have worked its magic. But right now she wanted to be alone for just a moment. To let the news sink in.

  So, this one time anyway, Molly got what she wanted. She couldn't help but wonder, Now what? What does it mean to be a part of this team? Time would tell.

  She remembered that night out in the backyard when it came into her head to try baseball. She could still see that magical knuckleball floating through the night sky. She thought about Jackie Mitchell, who struck out Babe Ruth and then got banned from baseball for being a woman. Molly imagined that she would be pleased. And she thought about her mother, who thought she was on the girls’ softball team. She would probably think Molly had lost her mind.

  She wondered what her dad would have said. Now she would give almost anything just to hear his voice. Like every kid, Molly had always thought her parents’ words were endless, infinite. They were drops of water in the ocean. However many flooded over you, there were always more where those came from, right?

  But the ocean only seems bottomless, the sky only appears endless. Her father's words had been finite. There had only been so many, and then, no more. There was an end, a last, and then, never again. That was what mortality meant, what she never could have imagined.

  What would her dad have said? It grieved her that now she would have to figure it out for herself. Maybe that was the message of her dream, the meaning of his silence. If he was going to speak, she would have to put words in his mouth.

  So be it. Okay. She could do this. After a certain point, every kid knows what his parents are going to say. It's what makes them so exasperating—and lovable, too.

  Molly, her dad would say, you done good. It was how he could be proud but not full of hot air, not embarrassing. He would smile then, that slow, lopsided smile of his. Was that what she wanted most of all? To put a smile on her sad dad's face?

  14. A LINK IN THE CHAIN

  t the beginning of practice that afternoon Coach Morales called them together. There weren't as many now, only fifteen after the cuts. It felt different, less like a crowd. They were no longer a mob. There used to be almost thirty, now their number was just about half of that. Already she understood it would be harder to blend in, to become invisible.

  “Look,” Morales said. He took hold of Desmond Davis's arm and hooked it around the arm of Eli Krause, who was standing next to him. Molly looked but wasn't sure what exactly she was supposed to see. The two boys made an un-likely pair: Desmond, tall, well muscled, dark skinned; Eli, short, scrawny, glow-in-the-dark fair, and freckled. Desmond looked suspiciously stone-faced, and Eli smiled—he was almost always smiling—but it was a nervous grin. What's this all about? he seemed to be wondering. What's coming next? Would it be painful, embarrassing?

  Morales grabbed onto Lonnie's shirt and pushed him into position next to Eli. Lonnie looked scared. Morales took Lonnie's arm, threaded it through the crook of Eli's, and locked it onto Lonnie's hip. Now the three of them stood there, arm-in-arm-in-arm. After that, Morales hooked James Castle onto Lonnie.

  “You see what I'm doing?” Morales asked. Molly nodded. She had absolutely no idea what he was doing. Maybe it was some kind of crazy new drill, maybe it was a freaky team-stretching routine.

  Morales kept at it. Before long, he had all of them, the whole team, every one of them who'd survived the cuts, all fifteen, plus two coaches, formed into a circle. Molly herself ended up linked between Coach V and Mario Coppola.

  “Look around,” Morales said, and Molly did. It was a real assortment of humanity. Everett Sheets, a long-legged, skinny-limbed tree, next to Ben Malone, short and squat, with thick legs and a barrel chest, the catcher who looked like a catcher. There was long-haired Lonnie and buzz-cut Lloyd Coleman, and Ian Meriwether, whose hair was short in the back, long in the front, some kind of inverted mullet, which may have been intentional, maybe just a bad haircut. Molly knew that she looked pretty scruffy herself. They were a bunch of mutts at the pound.

  “We're a chain,” Morales said. “A human chain. I'm a link in the chain, and you're a link. There are seventeen links in this chain.”

  Molly could feel Mario stiffen a little. “Is there a most important link in a chain?” Morales asked. “Is any link a star? Is any link more necessary than any other?”

  He paused, and little Eli spoke up. “No?”

  Morales smiled a little. “That's right,” he said. “No link is a star. Every link is important.”

  Molly saw Lloyd Coleman give his friend Mario a look, a pained, exasperated look. It was the kind of face you made when your parents told their corny stories about the good old days. Molly understood. The whole idea of a human chain was a little weird, quaint. Easy to laugh at. It was a cliché. Only as strong as the weakest link. Blah, blah, blah. But Coach V's arm was reassuringly solid, and standing so close to him, she could smell him—sweet and pungent, like old-fashioned licorice. In that circle Molly felt something. She felt strong and useful. She felt safe. Connected. She felt like a part of something. She liked being a link in a human chain.

  “Do we all have to be best friends?” Morales stopped and looked around. Giving them a chance, maybe, to consider how unlikely, how impossible, it was for the motley members of this particular crew ever to be best friends. “No,” he said. “Of course not. But we all have to pull together. We need each other. We're all in this together. We're a family.”

  This practice session seemed to be conducted at some new level of intensity. It was hard to explain, but it just felt different. More serious. It was as if they'd moved on to the next grade. This was Baseball, the advanced course.

  Molly spent most of the practice with the other pitchers—Desmond Davis, Lloyd Coleman, and Ian Meriwether—learning how to cover first base. When a ground ball was hit to the first baseman, and he was too far from the bag to get the runner himself, it was the pitcher's job to cover the base and take the throw.

  It sounded simple enough. Molly must have seen it hap-pen in big league games on television a couple of hundred times. It seemed like a routine play. A ho-hum, garden-variety out. But watching it and doing it yourself were two different things entirely. Molly discovered there was more to it than she had imagined. It was not a maneuver Molly had practiced in the backyard with her father. It was all new to her. First, you had to get off the mound in a hurry. If you dawdled, if you even thought about it, it was already too late.

  Next, Morales explained, a pitcher shouldn't run directly to the base—because you could collide with the runner. Instead, you had to aim for a spot several yards in front of the bag, then run up the line, parallel with the batter, and take the toss from the first baseman on the run. You had to touch the base and keep moving—it was easy to trip or get stepped on by the runner. The timing had to be perfect. If it worked, if the pitcher was quick, if the throw was where it should be, it was pretty. And if something went wrong, it was a train wreck.

  Morales set up a drill so they could practice. The pitchers took turns. Each would throw a pitch home to one of the catchers, Ben or Lonnie, watch Morales hit a grounder to Everett Sheets, who played first, then dash down the line toward first and try to beat one of the boys Morales drafted to serve as the runner.

  The first few times, Molly was slow, late getting to the base. “Again,” Morales said, not angry, just relentless. It had to be automatic. Your legs needed to react before your brain.

  After each of the pitchers had taken a few turns, Lloyd Coleman, standing behind Molly in line, started talking. “A guy who plays sports you call a jock,” he said. “Because, you know. The equipment.” Lloyd was standing near Desmond and Ian, but they didn't respond.

  It was Molly's turn next. She took her position on the rubber and started her windup. Lloyd kept talking. “But what about a girl who wants to be a jock?”

  Just as Molly threw home, Lloyd said something else, answered his o
wn question presumably. Molly couldn't make out the words, but his tone was nasty.

  Morales rapped a hard grounder to Everett at first. Molly bolted off the mound and saw Everett fumble the ball briefly, then recover. She slowed down as she approached the base.

  Somehow they all arrived at the same time: the ball, Molly, and Eli Krause, the runner. As Molly stretched for the high throw, Eli must have hunkered down to protect himself and came in low. He took out her legs, and Molly cartwheeled over the top of him. For that instant, cut loose from the ground, time seemed to slow and she could feel herself flying, she could see the landscape tilt. For that split second, she was Evel Knievel, defying gravity. It was thrilling. Then she came down.

  She saw, not stars exactly, but a bright light, and may have even blacked out for a second. She opened her eyes and found herself surrounded. There were faces looking down at her. Her left shoulder and back ached. But most of all she felt embarrassed. She'd managed to make herself a spectacle.

  Morales shooed everyone away and attended to Molly. She was breathing in shaky gulps but was able to assure him again and again that she was okay, really okay, really, really okay. But he made her stay on the ground anyway and made small talk with her in a quiet voice. He asked her some simple questions. Her name and the day of the week. Maybe he thought she was concussed, brain damaged.

  He let her sit up. “How's Eli?” Molly asked, and Morales told her he was fine, unscathed—she'd gotten the worst of it. She stood slowly with Morales's hand on her elbow, and he led her over to the bench. He got her some water and an ice pack. “I'm okay!” Molly said so emphatically that Morales smiled. He told her to relax, take it easy, and left her to watch the last few minutes of practice.

  Molly put the pack to her head. Maybe she was brain damaged. Or maybe she'd been brain damaged when she'd decided to play baseball. What had she been thinking?