The Glass Butterfly

by Louise Marley

  The woman who emerged from the back wore a florist’s apron over a long purple skirt and yellow cowboy boots. She was startlingly young, dyed black hair cropped short, a stone of some kind sparkling in one nostril, and lips painted deep red. “Hi!” she said. “I sure as hell hope you’re Paulette!”

  The girl’s energy swept across the counter like a gust of wind. Tory had to resist the temptation to take a step back, away from the fern-and-ribbon-littered surface. “I am,” she said, but she sounded unsure even to herself.

  The girl stretched her arm across the cluttered counter to shake Tory’s hand. Her fingernails were short and square, painted the same vivid red as her lips. “Hey,” she said, grinning. The deep color of her lipstick made her teeth look faintly yellow. “I’m Zoe. God, I love your hair. Wish I could wear red like that.”

  Self-consciously, Tory touched her hair. “Thanks.”

  “Are you gonna take the job? I’m about to go under here.”

  Tory couldn’t help glancing around at the empty shop. Zoe gave a belly laugh that belied her slender frame. “I know, you’re wondering why! But I have a list of orders a mile long, and Mom won’t be back until next week.” At Tory’s puzzled glance, Zoe said, “Mom. Betty. She and I own the shop together. And trust me, this weekend things are going to be hopping. The holiday people are coming in. Two weeks till Christmas!”

  “Two weeks?”

  “Oh, yeah!” the girl exclaimed. “You haven’t noticed?” She opened her eyes wide. They were ringed with mascara and smudged with navy-blue eye shadow.

  Tory felt pallid in the face of Zoe’s vitality, but she made her lips curve in a smile. “I’ve been distracted. Two weeks, my goodness! But yes, I’d like to take the job.”

  “Great! Can you come Friday?”

  “Don’t you want—I mean, an interview, references . . .?”

  Zoe gave her a wide scarlet grin. “Nah. Cannon Beach, you know? Iris talked to Mom, and that settled it.” She swept her arm across the counter, shoving the detritus off as if she had only just noticed it, catching it all in a metal wastepaper basket.

  “That’s all you need, that Iris talked to your—Betty?”

  Another grin. “Yep. Iris collects people, you know. And she’s never wrong.”

  “Okay, then,” Tory said awkwardly. “Friday it is. What time shall I be here?”

  When she went back to the VW, she thought she couldn’t have been inside the shop for more than five minutes in total. The dog was watching for her, his nose stuck through the open window, nostrils fluttering as he sniffed the breeze. She climbed into the driver’s seat and sat for a moment, trying to take it all in, trying to imagine working for someone like Zoe.

  “Well,” she told the dog, as she turned the key in the ignition. “That’s an interesting girl. I’ll bet there’s no color she doesn’t like.”

  The veterinarian’s office not only looked new, with the landscaping still raw around its small parking lot, but when Tory coaxed the dog into the waiting room, it smelled new, too, of plastic and tiles and paint. The dog pressed close to her legs, and she kept her hand in his ruff to reassure him.

  A woman in a cotton tunic printed with cartoons of dogs and cats stood up to frown at her. “Mrs. Chambers?”

  “Miss, but yes. Paulette,” Tory said.

  The receptionist, fortyish and sturdy, wore no more makeup than Tory, and her graying hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Her lips tightened as she peered at the dog. She gave Tory a stern look, and pointed at a sign on the front of the desk. It read, “Please leash your dog.”

  A flicker of irritation lent energy to Tory’s voice. “I don’t have a leash. He’s not my dog, really. I mean, not technically.”

  The woman, whose name tag read SHIRLEY, came around the desk to a rack on the wall where several leashes of different lengths hung. The dog crept behind Tory and sat there, tucked against the backs of her knees. Shirley chose a leash from the rack, and a chain collar to go with it. Still without speaking, she held them out to Tory. Tory accepted them, but she couldn’t figure out how the collar worked, with its metal circles and sliding chain. Shirley kept her distance, and Tory supposed she was afraid of approaching a strange dog. She turned the chain this way and that, trying to see how it was meant to go on. Behind her, a door opened, and when the vet spoke, his voice was familiar from the phone.

  “Hey,” he said. His voice was even deeper in person, creating a faint vibration in the glass of the windows. “This must be our found dog!”

  Tory glanced over her shoulder. A tall, lean man with silver-gray hair, startling above his olive complexion, crossed the waiting room and crouched beside her. The dog put his head around Tory’s legs for a cautious look at the new arrival.

  “This is him,” Tory said. She held up the collar in one hand, the leash dangling free from the other. “I know you prefer a leash, but I don’t—”

  “No problem,” the vet said. He wore a crisp white coat, and his hand, when he held it out to the dog, was meticulously clean, the nails pink against his skin. “Hey, there,” he said softly. He cupped his palm, and the dog took a gingerly sniff. “We just like to be careful,” the vet said, evidently to Tory. “Sometimes these fellows are scared, and they don’t know what to do about it. The leash is a precaution.”

  “I didn’t have one.”

  “Not to worry.” He held out his hand for the collar. She gave it to him, and with a deft motion, he turned it into a perfect circle that slipped easily over the dog’s head. The leash was clipped in place a second later, and the vet stood. “What do you say, big guy? Shall we go have a look at you?”

  He turned, lifting the leash in his hand, and walked toward one of the two examining rooms. Tory watched, bemused, as the dog—she hadn’t said so, but already she thought of him as her dog, though he had no name or anything else to tie him to her—walked obediently beside the doctor and into the exam room. At the door, the tall man turned, twinkling at her. He was much younger, she saw, than his silver hair implied. “Come on in, Mom,” he said cheerfully.

  Tory said, with a glance at Shirley, “I guess that’s me,” and followed. She went into the exam room, and as she closed the door behind her, she saw Shirley standing, hands on hips, watching as if to make sure Tory obeyed orders.

  The vet, crouching again beside the dog, began looking in his ears, feeling his chest, running his hand along the dog’s spine. He lifted the dog’s lips and examined his teeth. “I’m Hank Menotti,” he said, without looking away from the dog.

  “Oh—Menotti. Like the composer?”

  He smiled up at her. “Most people don’t get that, but yes. Like the composer. A third cousin, or something.”

  “I’m Paulette Chambers.”

  “Right. We spoke this morning. Nice to meet you in person.” He listened to the dog’s chest with a stethoscope. When he palpated the dog’s belly, the dog gave a slight groan. “It’s okay, my friend,” the vet said in a reassuring tone. “It’s okay. It all feels good.”

  Tory watched, enchanted by the gentleness of this tall man. When he stood up, he filled the little exam room, towering nearly a foot above her. “He’s thin,” Dr. Menotti said. “Probably hasn’t been eating much.”

  “He wandered in from the beach. He was soaking wet and covered in sand. He seems a lot stronger this morning than he did last night.”

  The vet nodded. “He was probably more exhausted than sick. He might have been running on the beach for quite a while.”

  “But how did he get there?”

  Dr. Menotti shrugged. “It’s hard to say. It could be he wandered away from one of the vacation homes, or jumped out of a car when someone stopped in town. I’ll get the scanner. Just wait here a moment.”

  He went out through a back door. Tory sat down on a padded bench that filled one corner of the room, and the dog thrust his head into her lap. She fondled his ears. He pushed closer with a slight, anxious whimper, and she bent to press her cheek to his silky hea
d. It felt so good to feel close to another living being that for the second time that day, her heart fluttered. “I know,” she whispered. “I don’t want to think about it, either.”

  Ice Woman was definitely melting. She wondered if the process could be reversed.

  The vet came back, and Tory sat up, embarrassed to be found hugging a stray dog. Dr. Menotti said, nodding toward the dog, “Kind of a sweet guy, isn’t he?”

  “I think so. I don’t know much about dogs.”

  “Really? You two have hit it off, though. That’s nice.” He came to crouch beside the dog again. He had a white plastic instrument in his hand, and he held it up to the back of the dog’s neck. Tory could just see the little screen, upside down, flicker with numbers. The vet sat back on his haunches, and turned the scanner so she could see it right side up. “There’s a chip there, all right,” he said.

  “Oh,” was all Tory could say. She found she was gripping the dog’s fur, and she made her fingers relax. “Oh, I see.”

  The vet was watching her. “You were hoping there wouldn’t be.”

  “No, no, I—I just—Oh, it’s silly. But I sort of like this dog.”

  “And he likes you, obviously.” He stood up, unfolding his long thin frame with surprising ease. “We’ll call the microchip company, see what turns up.”

  Tory came to her feet, too, but she kept her gaze on the dog. “Okay,” she managed to say. The dog pressed close to her again, as if he sensed her emotions.

  Dr. Menotti spoke as gently to Tory as he had to the dog. “In the meantime, he might as well stay with you, if you’re willing. I can’t see anything wrong with him, and there’s no point in sending him to the shelter if we don’t have to.”

  Tory nodded. “Yes, please do leave him with me. If you’ll just tell me what he should eat, what I need to do . . .”

  “We’ll send some dog food home with you, and now you have a leash and collar. Otherwise—” He paused, and she looked up at him. He was watching her closely, and she felt her cheeks warm. “You’re doing just fine, Ms. Chambers. The dog is in good hands.”

  “Paulette,” she said.

  “Paulette. Call me Hank.” He smiled. “You and your friend here are almost my first patients in Cannon Beach. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, if you’ll leave your telephone number with Shirley.”

  At the reception desk, Tory brought out her wallet as Shirley began adding up the cost of the collar, the leash, the food, and the office visit. Hank Menotti said, “No, Shirley. Let’s wait until we see if we find the owner. Whoever that is should pay this bill, not Ms. Chambers.”

  Shirley acquiesced, but she scowled as she said, “I’ll keep the bill in a file.”

  Tory said, “Thank you, Shirley.” Then, prompted by some mischievous instinct, she turned and put out her hand to the vet. “And thanks, Hank,” she said, with a deliberate emphasis on the first name. She saw by the twitch of his lips that he understood. He shook her hand, nodded to the disapproving Shirley, and disappeared back into the exam room.

  Tory gave Shirley a pointed smile as she led the dog out of the office.

  As the early sunset glimmered over the ocean, Tory took the dog out on the beach for a run. She left the chain collar on, as that seemed to make people more comfortable, but she didn’t bother with the leash. If he wanted to leave, he would leave. She didn’t think he would. He waited for her as she locked the front door, and then as she unlatched the little gate. Not until they reached the beach did he start to run, chasing up and down the packed sand, his tail up and his tongue flying from his open mouth like a limp pink flag.

  Tory trudged along the sand. It was really the first moment she had been able to ponder her dream of the night before. Caused by the dog’s arrival, perhaps?

  The dog seemed to have a limit to how far he wanted to be from her. He ran in front and then behind, but never more than a couple hundred yards away. A cold breeze sprang up as the sun dropped below the water, and Tory pulled her knit cap down over her forehead, tucking the strands of her hair underneath it. The dog frolicked at her side, then raced in circles around her on the wet sand. They must look so ordinary, a woman and her dog having a romp on the beach before dinner. She wished it was true. She wished with all her being that when she went back to the cottage, she could find Jack there, his big sneakers up on the little coffee table, playing a video game or texting his friends. He would be so pleased about the dog. She wouldn’t care if he didn’t say much. Just knowing he was there would be enough.

  But that was fantasy. Jack thought she was dead. And the dog belonged to someone else.

  She had been gone for two months. Jack would have started to adjust to her loss, just as she had adjusted to the loss of her grandmother, her mother, and later her father. She supposed she was beginning to adjust, too, to come to terms with the realization that she would never see her son again. It would mean never feeling whole, never feeling complete, but she had only herself to blame. The file lying in her drawer—and the threat it represented—held power over both of them.

  The swift darkness encroached upon the beach, swallowing the big rock and the low dunes with their spears of marsh grass. A few lights glowed here and there through the dusk, but the holiday renters hadn’t come in force yet. Scattered stars pricked the marine layer of cloud, but gave no illumination. Tory called, “Hey, dog! Let’s go get our dinner!”

  The dog, evidently untroubled by his lack of a name, bounded toward her, tongue and tail flying, and trotted by her side as she made her way up the dark beach toward the house.

  Her step faltered when she saw the strange car outside the cottage. In the darkness, it was hard to tell the make, but it was an SUV of some kind, dark and boxy. It loomed behind the yellow Beetle. Tory had left the kitchen light on in the cottage, but the yard was dark. She approached the gate warily, the dog close at her heels.

  When the door to the SUV opened, the interior light went on, and she saw who her visitor was. “Oh!” she said, relieved. “Dr. Menotti.”

  He smiled at her as he swung his long legs out of the car. The dog dashed ahead of Tory to sniff at the vet’s shoes, then wind against him to be petted. Hank said, “I thought I’d come and give you the news in person.”

  Instantly, Tory’s heart sank. Of course. He had found the dog’s owner.

  She tried to smile at him as she opened the gate, led the way up to the front door, and fished out her key. Her hand, she saw with dismay, was trembling, and she blinked to stop the stinging of her eyes.

  It was ridiculous, of course, that she should cry about a dog. She who hadn’t shed a single tear in all these weeks—over the loss of her son, her home, her livelihood—she could cry over a dog that wasn’t even hers, a dog she had met only yesterday. It was textbook therapy material.

  17

  Ah! quella donna, mi fa tanta paura!

  Ah! that woman frightens me so!

  —Butterfly, Madama Butterfly, Act Three

  Night had fallen over the wooded hills by the time Jack drove the Escalade back from town, past Tory’s tidy mailbox, and up the long driveway. The house ahead was dark. The mail—what there was of it—rested in a pile on the passenger seat. He had taken a box at the post office, and directed all mail to be delivered there. It was an instinctive decision, and he hadn’t told Chet or Kate about it. He hadn’t told anyone except the manager of the post office, an incurious sort who asked no questions.

  The mail looked to be mostly Christmas cards, a few circulars, one or two bills. Jack still felt nervous when he saw the bills. Kate had helped him sort things out, just as Chet had promised, but the Lake finances were in a precarious limbo—no income without Tory’s practice, but no life insurance until the death declaration was official. She had enough in savings to cover the mortgage and utilities for a few months, but after that he would really need the insurance.

  That bothered him, and left him staring at the stack of bills with a sick feeling. If he took the life insurance, it was li
ke giving up on her. It didn’t feel right, but he didn’t know what he could do. His school was expecting him back in mid-January, but how could he go back to classes, go back to college life, with his mother out there somewhere, possibly alone and afraid?

  He’d tried to keep himself busy. Since Thanksgiving he had spent every day working around the place, preparing Tory’s garden for winter, repairing anything he could find that was broken, keeping the house and the kitchen clean. Well, except for his bedroom. The clutter and mess there comforted him, made him feel less as if everything in his life had changed. Chet and Kate thought he was being mature and responsible. He didn’t tell them that he was keeping the house ready for Tory’s return. He didn’t want to see that pitying look they would bend on him, the secret worried glance they would exchange.

  When Kate said she was sure the death declaration would come in January, so he could collect the life insurance, he kept his head down so she wouldn’t see the expression on his face. She no doubt thought that was grief.

  It wasn’t. It was anger. Not at Kate, but at whoever, or whatever, had driven his mother away from her home.

  He pulled the car into the garage, carefully turning off the motor before he pushed the button to close the door. He gathered up the little stack of mail and the bag of groceries, and went in through the door to the kitchen. He flicked on the light, then stood, thunderstruck.

  The kitchen—Tory’s beautiful kitchen—lay in ruins. Drawers had been pulled out, their contents strewn across the floor. The pot rack with its expensive Le Creuset cookware had been ripped out of the ceiling to crash on to the glass-topped stove beneath it. Cupboard doors had been wrenched from their hinges, and the china and glassware swept out to smash on the tiled floor. The pantry door stood open, and Jack could see from where he stood that everything on the shelves had been dumped on the floor, packages opened and emptied. Flour and sugar and coffee and pasta lay in mounds on the floor, and someone had kicked through them, leaving trails of black coffee grounds, white crystals, and crushed macaroni, all leading to the litter of glass and porcelain in the center of the kitchen.