Return of the Butterfly by Sharon Heath

Author:Sharon Heath
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: contemporary fiction, literary fiction, series, women's fiction, psychological fiction
Publisher: Thomas-Jacob Publishing, LLC via Indie Author Project
Published: 2018-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

Mother had done none of those things for me. But it was all going to be redeemed, made much better when I watched her do them with my little girl.

That’s how it was supposed to be. But now she would not discuss with me the progress of my child’s potty training, suggest seasonings for pureed food, thrill with me over her first steps, nor comfort me on Monkey’s first day of school. She would not babysit when Adam and I were desperate for a night out, would not give me advice when he and I quarreled, would not despair with me over my daughter’s choices in clothes. She would not sit at our table for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Would not bend over me and plant a kiss on the top of my head, sweetening the air with her Chanel No. 5. She would not show me what it was like to grow old with grace or even do so with constant complaint. Would not give me a chance to ferry her around in a wheelchair, or spoon feed her when it came time for pureed food.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the crowd heading back toward their cars had stopped, making an interesting, Anthemium-like pattern on the gravestone-dotted lawn. No one had seemed to notice that I’d ascended back to ground level. Or had descended before then, for that matter. What all seemed to see right now, since it was so unusual in Los Angeles, was a murmuration of starlings above Forest Lawn Memorial Park. The birds swept as one organism, making intricate patterns beneath the clouds in a dazzling rush of whirring wings.

I knew something about starlings. Adam’s education of me had been thorough in more ways than one. I knew that they maintain their glorious cohesion by each keeping its eyes on seven of its flock. I asked myself now, "Who are your seven?" Did they change from situation to situation, phase of life to phase of life? And is our human number seven, or seventeen, or even more? Mother had most certainly been one of mine. Even in our worst days, her whereabouts served as a kind of fulcrum for my own movements in time. Was that why I felt certain now that nothing would ever again hold meaning—no sense of a magical harmony of the universe, of the soul of the earth and her sky?

As if on cue, I saw one shape break away from the people on the faraway lawn who continued to stand still as statues, staring up at the sky, starling-struck. As he approached me, I wanted to cover myself, let myself be sucked back again into the Stygian murk below. But instead, I watched Assefa navigate gracefully between the headstones until he stood right in front of me. I had to shield my eyes from the brilliance of the sun to look up to him. He wasn’t a tall man, but I was seated. Fallen. The fact was, he did seem larger.

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