“I got you.” It was a small man in a tidy suit. In her befuddled state Celia saw only a slim dart of a being, with blue eyes flashing behind round glasses. He had bright silver hair, cut short at the sides, and looked far too elegant for the streets.
“Hey.” It was Rich, and he was reaching for the sodden Celia, and the nice man handed her over, smiling tightly. Celia crouched at the gutter, vomiting.
“I think someone spiked her drink,” the man told her friends. “She ought to be careful of what she drinks on the streets.”
“What happened?” Celia asked what felt like hours later, wiping the wet from her chin, aching all over. The sun was coming up.
“Let’s go sleep,” Stoner said, circles of exhaustion around his eyes.
Which was how Celia woke up to the concrete dome of the overpass above her. She was lying on her back in the dirt, the smell of urine around her, and above, the thud of passing cars counted out the time. When she felt this sick, it was hard for the butterflies to come, and this alone was reason not to do drugs or drink. The butterflies might abandon her forever, just as they had her mother.
* * *
One butterfly.
She was in a courtroom, shaking. The victim advocate—a booming woman who kept saying everything would be all right—had told her just to take the stand. Tell the truth, they all said, but how can you tell the truth when the lie is right in front of you?
Teddy.
Two butterflies.
It took most of a year even to get there. Can you imagine? A year of her mother crying, listening to Teddy on the jail phone saying he had done nothing, she would know if he had, wouldn’t she? And her mother finally saying yes. The addiction not going away but getting worse, fed by the money Teddy sent. Two candles her mother put on the mantel. “We are going to light these every night Teddy is in jail,” her mother said, as the candles flickered, and the look she gave Celia was haunted, like she had made a choice she had since forgotten.
Three butterflies.
Celia losing herself in the maze of lies, questioning her own reality, watching her mother talk to social workers, telling them it couldn’t possibly be true. Celia knew her mother couldn’t tell anyone about the syringes under the couch, about how the drugs had taken over her own life. She might go to jail, too. Celia in the bathtub with a strainer in her hand, watching the water pour through the holes. Who was telling the truth?
All Celia had to do was look at her sister to know she was.
Alyssa, her beloved. Taken by child services because of the allegations of sexual abuse in the home. Why did they leave Celia then? Not enough foster homes, especially for older kids, she was told. Teddy was in jail, they said. Celia was safe. They didn’t know her mother, how strong her addiction was, how open her veins were to Teddy’s lies.
Four butterflies.
Alyssa finally coming home. Different. Smelling of laundry soap from another home. Having learned to wipe her mouth as she ate, all dainty like. Flossing her teeth every night, which Celia never did, and she felt guilty and angry she wasn’t the one who had taught her. Talking about her foster family like they were the ones who really loved her, saying they had wanted to adopt her and she hadn’t wanted to come home.
“Light a candle for your father, dears. The one Celia put in jail.”
Five butterflies.
That final day in court. Led to the witness chair by the victim advocate, her hand imprisoning Celia’s wrist. Celia sitting down, quaking, seeing Teddy there, in a suit next to his public defender. The lawyer had stood, smoothing out his jacket.
“Miss Celia . . .” The attorney had stepped forward, victory already in his eyes. “What does your family call you?”
She had felt the roof of her mouth with her tongue. Looked over the people in the pews, all looking back at her. The judge was a black vulture at her back. In the midst of all this was her mother. She sat with her head bowed. She wore a pretty new dress, long sleeves over the marks. Her eyes looked up, full of guilt that ran to the bones.
Six butterflies. As old as the sister you will lose.
“They call me Celia the liar,” she had said, and was surprised at how clear it came out.
Chapter 12
Naomi had put up flyers, visited her detective friend, paid her call to the Feds. Seen some street kids, asked around about shelters.
It was nothing, she told Diane in her mind, driving to her house in the puttering Datsun. By the time she got in the door the echoes of her mind were no longer soft and listening, but hard and frustrated.
“I’m not doing anything on this case!” she barked to Jerome and Diane, both in the kitchen, looking up from the homemade pizza they were taking out of the oven. Jerome’s eyebrows rose, and Diane’s merely arched. Her entire being said, Don’t even.
“You mean your sister or the street girls?” Diane said, wiping her floury hands on a towel. Jerome glanced from where he was testing the pizza.
“Both.” Naomi pulled out a chair hard.
“Mind your manners.”
“I’m not five.”
“You’re acting like it.” That was Jerome.
Naomi whipped on him. “Maybe you should get a job.”
Dead silence followed that. The whole kitchen took on a polar chill. Naomi felt the tick of shame in her belly, the rising fear. She wanted to apologize, but Jerome turned and left to go upstairs. She had never seen the look he had on his face before. It wasn’t even anger.
It was distance.
“Naomi. Honey.” Diane was coming to her, moving her hands toward her head. Naomi leaned in, unwilling. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, against Diane’s hair, once so silky, now brittle. Naomi could feel something, deep in her friend, something that felt like sadness, but in her own distress she let it slip away.
“It can only take a minute to ruin a lifetime, my dear.” Diane’s voice was firm against her. Her arms held Naomi tight. “Just like your cases. It only takes a minute to ruin a life.”
Naomi collapsed. The anger ran out of her. She fell into the chair, crying helplessly into her hands. “I keep trying,” she kept saying.
Diane lowered herself carefully and held Naomi’s knees. “Trying to do what, my dear?”
“To remember.”
“And you think you need to?”
“I don’t know.”
“You think you failed because you haven’t found the one you think matters the most. But Naomi. My dear. Your sister isn’t the one who matters the most.”
Naomi lowered her hands. Her face was wet with tears and hard with fear. “Who does, then?”
“He’s upstairs right now. The future.”
Naomi stood up so hard the chair knocked over. She left the house.
They didn’t talk for two days. Them—once foster siblings, running in meadows, fashioning whistles out of split grass, teaching each other how to skip stones play leapfrog jump rope double dutch fly-fish do algebra drive a tractor look in my eyes now Naomi. Two children who once couldn’t go ten minutes without a serious smile or giggle, who fell asleep telling each other stories—now silent.
At one time, not long after their marriage, when as adults they had realized the truth of their love, Naomi had woken up thinking she had swallowed Jerome’s missing arm and was going to make it for him, like a paper wasp spits a nest, and when she told him this, he had merely smiled, and looked at the empty space his arm would take, and said, “I can see it already.”