The Butterfly House by Marcia Preston

Author:Marcia Preston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2012-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

I spent more and more time alone in the white house as Robert’s life returned toward its norm. He’d been working on a large, lucrative project that required most of his time and attention as the deadline for his drawings drew near. When I came home from school, the door to his study was often closed. I brought library books home from school and lost myself in them after my homework was finished.

Joey came and went silently. I figured he should be happy because Robert was working so much, but he didn’t seem happy. A couple of nights he didn’t come home at all, and after that there’d be arguing again.

In February I finally sent Lenora and Cincy my mailing address. Lenora wrote back. Reading between the lines of her letters, I got the feeling Cincy was out of control. But Lenora never told me anything specific; she talked mostly about her research and kept me updated on the antenors. Cincy never wrote to me at all.

I wrote to Pete, as well, and heard back from him occasionally. Now that he knew I was okay, his letters seemed less personal, more chatty. Neither he nor Lenora said a word about Ruth. Maybe because I didn’t ask.

Spring came early in Birmingham. As the weather warmed and things began to bloom, I missed the smell of the Columbia Valley. On an impulse one night, I dialed Ruth’s number, not knowing whether I would talk or hang up if she answered. I heard a click and then a recording came on. The number had been disconnected. I frowned at the receiver, my body buzzing like a muffled fire alarm.

I wrote Lenora and asked, for the first time, about my mother. The answer came quickly. Ruth had been hospitalized for several days after passing out at the inn. “Cincy stopped in to see her,” Lenora wrote, “but Ruth won’t talk to me.”

I tried to picture Cincy and Ruth in the same frame, and shook my head. It was next to impossible. Lenora said the doctor had sent her to AA, but she didn’t know if Ruth had kept going. She still had her job. Maybe she’d just forgotten to pay the phone bill.

For the first time in months, I felt sorry for my mother. If I wrote to her, would she tear up the letter unread? Maybe she’d write back and ask me to come home. I realized the selfishness of wanting her to ask, when I had no intention of living with her again. So all I did was worry about her, and about Cincy.

Why didn’t Cincy write me? Finally I asked Lenora straight out, but I didn’t get a straight answer. “Don’t worry about us, Bobbie,” Lenora wrote. “We’ll be okay. You deserve to be happy, and I hope you can find that with your father. If you ever want to come back, though, you know you can stay here at Rockhaven.

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