Red Butterfly Page 14
after I shut the laptop.
She’s been standing there, listening
and chopping onions,
endless onions,
while I talked to Mama and Daddy.
That one word
okay?
(or maybe it’s the way she says it,
like everything should be okay now
that I’ve gotten my way)
weaves a sharp strand of anger
through all the sadness that
has bound itself
like a nest of protection
around my heart.
It was fine,
I say, because
if I tell her
how disappointed I am
she might never
let me talk to them
again.
There’s a brochure here,
she says,
for summer rec.
She scoots a yellow booklet
across the counter.
The girls will be doing activities.
I wondered if you’d be interested.
I can’t do sports.
I hold up my hand
as a reminder,
because sometimes Mrs. Gurnsey
seems to think
she can fix every single
thing that’s wrong.
And she can’t.
Sure you can,
she says.
You can do anything you put your mind to.
Not catch a ball.
Sure you could catch a ball.
Not play piano.
Yes, even play piano.
I turn away,
feel the weight of her
determination
boring into my back.
There’s nothing I want more
than to get away
from her and
the truth
that she’s lying to me.
Mystery
While the girls are at school the next day,
I sneak into the front room,
which smells of peonies,
the fancy room with high windows,
a pale blue couch,
and a palm tree in a glazed pot.
A ceiling fan rotates overhead
with blades shaped like big leaves.
Palm fronds stir,
miniature versions of the tall palms outside.
This place feels almost too beautiful to stand in and
I doubt I’m allowed to be in here
at all
because everything
looks as if it could break.
The huge piano
stretches sleek black,
the lid tipped up so I can peek inside
at taught strings shining gold.
I touch the keys
white white
black white black,
but don’t dare press them down,
not yet,
because the sound
may not be soft as flower petals on silk,
it might be loud,
obnoxious,
dream-shattering.
Someone’s music
propped up
looks like the beautiful script
of a different language:
black lines, circles, curlicues.
I know it all means
something, a code
waiting to be figured out.
Question
Who plays your piano?
I ask Mrs. Gurnsey.
She looks up
from a plugged-in mop
that lets out steam
in a whoosh.
Emily takes lessons,
she says.
I tried to convince Rosalie,
but she’s too preoccupied
with sports.
I can’t imagine
someone with two hands
not wanting to play
a luxurious
piano
that sits in a front room
all day and night waiting
to be played.
Visiting Hour
I visit Mama and Daddy almost
every day,
hunched close to the screen
trying to catch every glimpse of their life
to see if anything familiar remains.
It’s never enough,
but it’s better than nothing.
My biggest fear is
we’ll run out of things to say.
Instead of talking,
I want to see Daddy
kiss Mama’s cheek,
hear the door slam
when he goes to fix someone’s apartment,
smell the mildew,
hear the tumble of the washing machine
and know our clothes are in there,
hear Mama singing
in the shower
through the thin walls,
my feet propped up on an old coffee table,
reading Pride and Prejudice
page
by page
by page.
I’ll never fit here
in this house with too many doors,
long hallways,
and steps on carpet so thick
my foot makes no sound,
where everything seems
perfect,
from the
neat green grass expanses
to the front room
with its slow-moving, dustless fan.
Mama and me,
we were so connected,
every breath
taken together.
Here, everyone moves
to a separate rhythm,
confined to a large
personal space.
I’ve never been so
alone.
Afraid
Mrs. Gurnsey asks
if I’ve picked a summer activity
from the book yet.
No, I say.
There’s nothing I want to do.
What about puppeteering
or drama
or a poetry workshop?
You don’t have to do sports.
No.
She tells me I’ve got to try.
No.
Then what’s the point?
she asks.
You’re going to sit in your room
all day alone,
reading?
That will be your life?
I can tell she’s angry though
trying to be gentle,
pushing her feelings down
so her words are soft,
though they cut like jagged glass, because
I still haven’t read
a single page
even though I pretend to
every day.
Are you afraid to settle here?
she asks.
Are you afraid of liking it?
No,
I say,
my teeth gritted as if I’m lying,
though I’m not sure I’m lying.
I’m not sure of anything,
just that being here makes
my insides squirm,
my shoulders tighten up to my ears,
my lips smash together.
Maybe for a while,
she says,
we should leave off calling Montana.
My head snaps around.
No.
We’re your forever family,
she says,
crouching close to me.
I know it’s hard to let go of what you had,
but we want you here.
We—
No,
don’t make me . . .
But I can’t finish.
I race for the stairs,
slam my door
so hard
the whole
quiet
house
shudders.
Library
The next morning
after everyone has bee
n dropped off
and all the work
Mrs. Gurnsey
does to fill her time
has been done,
she takes me to the library
to rooms of books,
millions of pages of stories,
and says,
Pick whatever you want.
But I don’t know what I want.
It’s like standing in an
American supermarket
staring at rows of cereal
knowing milk gives me a stomachache.
Pick anything,
Mrs. Gurnsey says.
But I stand still so long,
uncertain,
that she finally snatches books about
polar bears
pianos
piranhas
from the juvenile nonfiction shelves
and says,
Let’s go,
really short.
I climb back in
the big, gold van
with seats for us all
that squeak when I slide
across them.
I catch her eyes in the mirror
watching me,
calculating her
disappointment.
Less Than Empty
Every morning
I wake
with a single thought:
This will be the day
Mrs. Gurnsey will crack,
let me open the computer again,
let me see Mama’s face,
let me hear her voice.
But she never cracks.
Every visit left me wanting,
but every day without visits
is a desert without light,
less than empty.
Ungrateful
Emily comes home
from an end-of-year party
at a friend’s house
and all she can talk about is
everything
Jolie
has.
Jolie has
a basset hound puppy,
prettier bedroom furniture,
a Wii in her room,
all the dolls from American Girl,
an entire wall of
beauty contest crowns.
Emily stomps at dinner,
says she hates ravioli
more than anything in the world—
the grossest food
ever made
for human consumption.
Rosalie groans,
but that only makes
Em madder.
Mrs. Gurnsey says,
There are so many people
in the world
with hardly anything, Em.
Try to be grateful.
Her compassionate eyes
rest on me.
I wasn’t talking about the whole world,
Em yells,
stomping from the table
and up the stairs.
I was talking about myself!
Mrs. Gurnsey trails,
standing at the bottom step
calling,
Come on, Em.
Please,
don’t overreact.
But Em
doesn’t come back.
The house
falls
to silence
of boys sending texts
and listening to music
through earbuds,
of Rosalie staring at her plate,
slapping tomato sauce
with her fork.
I cower, knowing
Em’s anger has something to do with me.
It was the way she glared
before she launched herself up the stairs.
She wasn’t thinking about Jolie anymore.
All her eye-fire
flew at me.
Tidal Wave
After dinner
Rosalie
hurries upstairs.
I creep back to my room, but
in the hallway I
pause outside the cracked-open door
of Em’s room,
stopped
by the sound
of their voices.
Em lies
facedown
on her purple bedspread.
She turns her face,
a red splotch on each cheek.
Everything’s about Kara!
I shrink against the shadowy wall,
ready to slink away.
But then Rosalie says,
Not everything.
Yes, everything!
Em insists.
She’s the only one
Mom cares about!
She’s not even careful
to be quiet,
as if she wants
the whole house to know
how much she hates me.
Mom walks around
crying all day,
worrying about Kara!
Well, Kara’s new
and she’s had a hard life,
Rosalie says.
A streak of resentment
cuts through me,
even though I like Rosalie, because
how does she know
anything about my life?
Most of it was good,
for her information.
Em grunts into the pillow.
Mom loves you
and you know it,
Rosalie says.
But I want our family
to be the same as before,
Em wails.
Before SHE came.
Something breaks
in me, a
tidal wave of anger.
I sweep past the door,
not bothering to hush.
I don’t mind the whole house knowing
that I heard proof of
Emily’s resentment.
Aftermath
Rosalie knocks on my door.
I know it’s her
because she taps
with her fingernails.
I don’t ask her to come in,
which may be mean,
but I can’t stand
being with anyone
right now.
Even her.
Em acts spoiled sometimes,
but she’s not really,
she says through the door.
She just . . .
She just . . .
feels insecure.
I don’t know what
Em could be insecure about.
Rosalie is making
excuses
so I’ll feel better.
Either way,
I don’t answer.
Sometimes silence
is better at speaking anger
than a thousand words.
Pack
Pack a bag,
leave everything
the Gurnseys ever gave me
behind.
What I pack
is almost the same
as what I took
to the hospital that day
a different lifetime ago,
except now there’s the scarf from Toby.
In Montana,
it’ll be cool enough
to wear it.
The Plan
There’s a way of finding out
what you want to know,
but don’t want to ask.
This way is called
Google.
I watched Rosalie
use it one time,
typing on the screen of her iPad
to find directions to the water park
where her friend
was having a party.
(She said I could come,
said it would be fun.
But I didn’t want to;
I’ve seen the things people
wear when they swim.)
I pull my iPad
from its cover,
press the button,
watch the screen blink aw
ake.
All I have to do is type at the top
H-O-W
D-O
I
G-E-T
T-O
M-O-N-T-A-N-A,
letters one by one,
then wait for the ticking screen
to spit out
the answer.
Cheap flights!
Cheap flights!
Cheap flights!
that aren’t so cheap.
Greyhound bus:
Two days
Twelve hours
Twenty minutes
Two hundred and fifty dollars
Mr. and Mrs. Gurnsey
give me money
they call “allowance”
every Sunday.
I empty it
on the bedspread
and count
to ninety.
They said I should
save some,
spend some,
give some away.
But there’s only
one thing
I want.
It will take
six more weeks
to save up
the one hundred and sixty
extra dollars
to get to Missoula
by bus,
with twenty more
for food and emergencies.
I shove my filled-up
backpack
under the bed,
shift the bed skirt
to scrape the floor
so no one can see it,
stuff the money
back in the purse
Mrs. Gurnsey gave me,
take out the calendar
with kittens
Mrs. Gurnsey gave me,
and count
six more weeks,
two days.
Granola
Every other day
I sneak
a granola bar
from the cupboard
and slide it into
my backpack
under the bed.
Granola bars
are wonderful choices:
instant food
in a tiny,
concealable
package.
Summer
When the school year ends,
the house has noise
all day
with Emily’s piano playing
and Rosalie and the boys splashing in the pool
in the slanting rays of light,
their cell phones perched on deck chairs.
The boys have loud voices.
Rosalie shrieks when they toss her.
The water sploshes,
waves crashing
over the concrete edge.
I stand beside the glass door
watching them
and although Rosalie motions for me to come
I shake my head,
ducking sideways so she can no longer
see me lingering in the shadows.
Besides,
I like to hear the sound
of the piano’s soft flutter
from the other room.
Even if it is Em playing.
Luck
She’s so lucky.