Butterfly Tattoo

by Deidre Knight

  “And Rebecca. You miss her, too.”

  “I definitely miss her, too.”

  “Is she coming back?” I know she doesn’t mean to Malibu, but back into our lives at all.

  My head hurts like a mother, and I rub the bridge of my nose, still not looking up at my daughter.

  “Michael? Is she?” There’s fear in her voice that I don’t like, and my eyes snap open. She’s standing at the foot of my bed now, Rebecca on the screen behind her, beyond her small shoulders.

  “I hope so, sweet pea.” I reach for her with my hand. “I sure hope so.” I fear she might flee from me as she stands there just chewing her lip, staring at my hand. I’m cursing myself for being such a terrible parent, for not having it more together than this. She knows how out of control I am—she can see it plain as day, and an eight-year-old needs her father to be okay.

  “Don’t worry, Michael.” She lifts her chin resolutely, brave to the core as always. “It will get better, you’re right. It always gets better,” she says, and then leaves me alone in my misery.

  ***

  Casey answers his cell phone on the second ring. I have no clue what time it is; I’m suspended, hanging somewhere out in the drunken ether, a timeless void of being in-between. I know it’s nighttime; I know that Andrea’s in bed asleep. I know that slowly I am sobering up, having made some coffee for myself a while ago.

  “I’ve screwed up,” I announce without even saying hello. He hesitates on his end, and I reckon he knows something’s wrong from the cotton-mouthed sound of my voice. He’s heard me in this place before: back months ago when I used to call him at dark, off-kilter moments like this one. “Totally screwed up. I’m dishonest about everything.”

  I gulp down a few swigs of black coffee. “That’s what my girlfriend told me. Right before she dumped me on my fucking ass.”

  “Well,” he asks seriously, sucking in a breath, “so what’re you going to do about that?”

  “Don’t know. Go pink triangle again, reckon.”

  “That’s not the answer, man,” he chides me gently. “You’re in love with Rebecca O’Neill.”

  “She agrees with you about me,” I grudgingly admit. “About me being a fag, like you said.” It’s not the full truth, but at the moment it’s enough for me to share. “That I should be with a guy, not her.”

  “Yeah, well people say all manner of shit when they’re upset.” Clearly he realizes how hurt she must’ve been to tell me something like that, but thank God he doesn’t ask for details.

  “I love her, Case.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  My mind spins with all my stupid mistakes. I’m not sure which one to choose from. I rub my eyes, trying to bring the room back into clear focus.

  “There was this waiter,” I begin, and I hear him groan on the other end of the line. “Yeah, this waiter and he looked like Alex—it wasn’t just me, Rebecca saw it too, and…” I stare at the opening credits of the next episode of About the House. Rebecca smiles out at me, tempts me with a coy toss of her hair. “Kind of freaked me out, the way he looked like Al, red hair and all that. Guess I sort of unraveled.”

  “Unraveled?” he coughs. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I flirted.”

  “You idiot.” He sounds genuinely angry. “You’re a total idiot, you know that?” His voice rises with irritation.

  “Thanks for the sympathy.”

  “I’ve been sympathetic for a long time, but that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he says. “Why would you flirt with some guy in front of her?”

  “Because I miss him,” I snap, sitting up in bed. “What do you think?”

  “You either love her or you miss him. You’re gonna have to choose, man. You can’t hang in between like that. She’s been through a lot of heavy shit. She doesn’t need that. She doesn’t need you flirting with some guy right under her nose.”

  “That wasn’t all,” I confess, swallowing hard.

  “What the hell else?” he thunders. Casey’s nothing if not capable of tough love. If I’d called Marti, I’d have gotten exasperation, but definitely more compassion. Maybe deep down I needed my gay friend to knock me into line.

  “She found me watching that Huntington tape. The one by your TV,” I remind him. “Alex’s last contest.”

  It was made about two weeks before he died, and I’d needed to watch it after my first time surfing again since that day, but I didn’t try explaining that to Rebecca when she was so upset.

  “How’d she react to that?”

  “She didn’t tell me…” I blow out a heavy breath. “Until after I flirted with the waiter.”

  “Oh, Michael.” He only calls me Michael when he’s either very upset or extremely frustrated with me. “You’re right. You have screwed up, pal.”

  “Thanks a lot. I called for your help.”

  “And here it is.” His voice grows serious again. “Alex is gone. He’s been gone. You’ve found someone you love, someone who loves you. But you gotta decide what you want. Right now, I’m not sure you know.”

  “I want her.”

  “But you’re still holding on to what you had. It’s gone. Alex is back on the riverbank somewhere, but the river kept on flowing. With all of us.” His voice becomes thick with emotion, and he clears his throat before continuing. “I loved him too, you know. Seriously. But he’s dead, Mike, and he isn’t coming back. It’s time to accept that fact.”

  It’s like staring in the mirror. Like staring right into Alex’s eyes. I sense him, gazing back through me. Quietly I admit, “I can’t figure out how to let go.”

  “And she figures that’s her fault,” he says, startling me back to the moment.

  “It’s not her fault.”

  “But it’s hard to see past all those scars, man. They pack a load of power. No wonder she figures you’re not telling the truth.”

  I’m reminded of my conversations with her about Andrea’s parenthood—how the secrets upset her—erosions in her perception of me as a straightforward honest guy. Especially when I’m flirting with the damned waiter right beneath her nose. Secretly watching videos of Alex. “She doesn’t believe I’m really attracted to her.”

  He sighs into the phone. “She believes the mirror, Mike, not you.”

  “You’re right.” My voice is hushed with the reality of what I’ve done to her—to us. “God, you’re right.”

  “So what’re you going to do about it?” he asks.

  Staring at her on the television, a plan begins to take form in my hazy, semi-sober mind, and despite the booze, the plan is very clear.

  “Simple, Case,” I say. “I’m gonna get her to believe.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Michael

  I park on the side street that runs beside Ellen’s house, and let the truck idle a while. Andie’s sound asleep, slumped against the window, her mouth slack and making sleepy wheezing sounds. When I woke her before daybreak this morning, explaining that we were going to leave Casey’s place and make a trip up the coast to Grandma Richardson’s house, she didn’t even question me. All the things she’s had to endure from me in the past year—the instability that’s come with my shaky mental state—it amazes me how smoothly she’s handled most of them.

  So I’m letting her rest while she can, especially since I’ve got to be back at my job in the morning. Besides, it’s easier to stare at the palm trees lining this road than deal with the reality of facing what I’m about to do today. But it’s part of my plan for making Rebecca truly believe my intentions; in order to win her back, I’ve got to come clean. Not just with Laurel, but in a lot of aspects of my life.

  And Laurel—along with our secrets—are first on my agenda. She’s here in Santa Cruz, home visiting her mother for the week. I know this because she told me she’d be flying in from Santa Fe for a long Fourth of July weekend here with Ellen. Makes it perfect timing for this conversation we need to have, but my stomach still swashes nervously. I k
ill the truck’s engine and try gathering my nerve.

  A background headache pulsates behind my eyes, begging to become a full-blown migraine. Leaning back in the seat, I rub the bridge of my nose, and watch a pack of surfer boys walk by, salty boards in hand and cocky grins spread across their faces. My mind wanders to Al’s childhood here, how he was nurtured on the ocean life, even as he was inspired to be something far more—to use his brilliant mind to help those kids of his. It was a strange blend, so many aspects in one man. I’ll never meet another guy like him, that’s for damn sure.

  For the first time that thought isn’t automatically chased by stifling pain. It’s more an objective realization; an appreciation of his uniqueness, and that even though he had a twin, there will never be another human being precisely like him. There’s just the realization that life is a gift, and Alex was part of life’s gift to me.

  Watching a gaggle of young kids speed down the sidewalk on their skateboards, sun-bleached hair flying, laughing and being crazy, they could be Alex and Casey and Marti, back twenty-five years ago, they’re that familiar. The wheel keeps on turning, another season upon us.

  Smiling as they pass my open truck window, I have a thought. Maybe the thing is, the gift means more precisely because it is always passing away, like the waves or the sand or the sun tracking across the open sky.

  Maybe that’s what Alex has wanted me to know.

  Laurel pops out the backdoor of the house, tracking right toward me. Bustling purposefully down the sidewalk with a box in her arms, she doesn’t see me at first, but then something makes her glance my way. The cool clear eyes widen, the delicate mouth opens.

  She steps around the front of my truck, half-smiling and half-staring at me. “Michael? What’s going on?” she asks in an uncertain voice, as my Nikes hit the pavement. “Is everything okay?” She looks past me, toward the truck, and seeing Andrea she visibly panics.

  “Andrea’s fine,” I rush to assure her. “Don’t worry, nothing’s wrong.”

  “Oh. Good.” Her smile opens up, the restraint fading away. Her joy that we’re here begins to fill her eyes. Looking from me to our daughter, again she asks, “What’s going on?”

  “I need to talk to you.” I glance back at Andie, still asleep. “Later, after Andrea wakes up.”

  “Of course, Michael.” She nods her head, as if this is the most ordinary situation in the world, me appearing here without so much as a warning call. “You’re sure you’re okay, though?”

  Leaning up against the truck, my shoulders slump and I feel all the strength drain right out of my body. In one quick moment I’m finally done in, deflated of energy like the week after Alex’s death, all the exhaustion of the past year overtaking me at once.

  “Nah, Laurel, I’m not okay. I haven’t been okay for a long damn time.” Tears burn my eyes, and I stare at my shoes. “But that’s why I’ve come here,” I explain, feeling as naked here on the sidewalk as I did the other night with Rebecca in bed. “Because it’s time I squared away my mess.”

  ***

  It’s dusk, the sun poised low on the Pacific horizon. Laurel and I are strolling together on the sidewalk near Lighthouse Point, having left Andrea in Ellen’s attentive care. At this time of day, everyone is out: the joggers, the walkers, the surfers, the skateboarders. Santa Cruz’s ocean-side culture is always an amalgam.

  As we approach the lighthouse, she indicates the strip of rocks stretching like gnarled fingers out into the ocean. “Let’s walk out there.” She points to a cordon that’s meant to keep visitors off the rocks. A large sign warns of possible drowning or death should one slip into the angry churning waters below. The surfers aren’t worried about that—we’re overlooking world-famous Steamer Lane, a spot I surfed with Alex plenty of times.

  She swings a long leg over the chain. “Come on,” she beckons me.

  Holding up my hands, I laugh off her invitation. “Maybe not.”

  “Michael, come on,” she urges, tugging at my hand. “I want to show you something. I promise we’ll be careful.”

  I follow her over the barrier, out onto the point, carefully watching my steps on the slippery surface. As a single parent, I can’t be cavalier about this kind of thing. Laurel has a lifetime of confidence with this place, while I have a year’s worth of tragedy and oppressive doubts.

  Out toward the tip of the point, tourists stand taking photographs of the sunset. Laurel holds my large hand, firm in her smallish one, appreciating the view. With a sweeping ocean vista surrounding us, I understand what she wanted me to see: the raw beauty of her brother’s world, the world that nurtured and raised him, almost as surely as his own family did. Further out in the water, sea lions are gathered on a slip of black rock, and they bark, splashing in and out of the water.

  The high tide causes wave upon wave to slam the point, ocean spraying upward on the rocks and onto us. A chill settles over me, even now in July.

  “This is his world,” I say, my words almost lost in the briny wind.

  She smiles, a wistful, appreciative expression. “He certainly loved it here.”

  “Does it hurt you?” While it was his world, it was also theirs. “To come back here? To see it again and know he’s gone?”

  “Oh, no. It always makes me feel close to him,” she answers without hesitation, staring out at the horizon. “I can think of all our memories, the happy times. I feel young again here.”

  I laugh. “Laurel, you are young.”

  “I’m young enough, but life marches on.” She gets a faraway look in her eyes. “We were born the same day, the same hour, he and I…yet he will never grow old. That’s very odd to me.”

  My mind fills with her painted image of Alex, arms outstretched to the sun, standing on the beach. “Like in the painting,” I say. “He never ages.”

  She searches my face, then answers softly, “Yes.”

  “Still haven’t figured that painting out, Laurel. Been thinking on it, turning it over in my head,” I explain, and she listens, settling on the rocks at my feet. “But maybe I just don’t get what you mean about it singing for me.”

  “When the time is right,” she answers, taking my hand. “You will.” She draws me down to the ground beside her. I find myself facing her, both of us sitting like a pair of teenagers at a bonfire, knee-to-knee and cross-legged. Smiling at me in that soothing, almost-beatific manner she possesses—the way that used to always make me feel strange and warm inside when I needed comforting—she waits for me to speak.

  I draw in a steadying breath. “I want Andrea to know the truth.” She stares back at me, one hand frozen by her face, tucking the wayward strands behind her ear.

  Her lips part, a soft “Oh” sound escaping, but nothing else.

  “I think she needs the truth,” I continue. She only blinks at me, silent until finally I begin to laugh. “Look, Laurel, I wasn’t trying to totally blindside you or anything. I figured this would be good news—or whatever—in your mind…”

  She interrupts me, still looking stunned. “I only want what’s best for you both.” She sounds numb and mechanical, like those words are rehearsed.

  I pose a question that’s been growing inside of me during the drive here, a question that’s forever bobbed just below the surface between us. “What about what’s best for you, Laurel?”

  “I didn’t do this for me.” She gives me a fragile smile. “I did it for Alex and for you.”

  I remind her of the obvious. “Yeah, but Al’s gone now. Maybe it’s not the best thing anymore. Not best for any of us.”

  She bows her head. “I’m not sure Andrea ever needs to know the truth,” she says in a soft voice. “I was wrong a year ago. I’ve told you that.”

  “You also told me it would be my decision to make,” I say, thinking of her words last fall. Words she sent in a letter, words included with one of her apologies. “That I was her father, and I’d be the one to make the choice. Remember that, Laurel?”

  She says nothing; onl
y stares back at me with an unsettling blankness in her expression.

  “I’ve had to think pretty hard about what your brother would’ve wanted,” I continue. “How he’d have wanted things to play out with our daughter. We had no contingency plan, no strategy in case one of us died.” I pause, staring at her meaningfully. “Which leaves this shit up to me.”

  She gazes out at the vast ocean. “I think Andrea is doing better,” she says, then looks back to me. “She’s involved, interested in things again. Michael, you’ve done such a great job with her. I don’t see why you need to—” She hesitates and then with a sudden gasp, covers her mouth and begins to cry. Not faint tears, or delicate ones, but a loud, horsy sob escapes her throat.

  Finally, she manages to continue. “I don’t see why you need to take Alex from her that way,” she whispers in a hoarse voice. “All her memories of him as her father.” Her tears fall freely, and she wraps her arms around herself protectively.

  “He’d always be her uncle,” I say, voicing Rebecca’s very words to me from a few weeks ago. “They’d always have that bond. And he would always be her adoptive father. That was legal and nothing’s gonna change the way that was.”

  “I don’t want her to lose him,” she tells me, a resolute strength falling over her like a mantle.

  “I can’t believe you’re arguing to keep this secret,” I say, my voice sharp.

  “She should know you’re her mother,” I insist. “She needs to know that, Laurel. Not so you can…change the shape of our family—”

  “I wouldn’t want to.”

  “But so she can understand how it all fits together. Her place in this family. That’s the only way she can ever be completely okay. The only way we all can, I think,” I say. “She can’t keep this up, going around calling me Michael, feeling like an orphan. She’s got both of us. She should know the truth.”

  “I don’t want to be her mother,” she says, staring over at the lighthouse. “I can’t be her mother, Michael. In a strange way, I don’t think I really am her mother. She had you and she had Alex…that didn’t leave a place for me.”