The Patron Saint of Butterflies(40)

“I’m not going to kidnap you or force you to do anything against your will, Mouse. I mean it.” Nana Pete grabs my hand again and points her finger between the pink curtains. “Look out the window. You see that bus terminal across the street?” I glance at the array of blue and silver buses, lined like up like sleek fish in front of a low building. “If you want to go back to Mount Blessing, I’ll put you on a bus right now and pay your fare.”

“Okay,” I say instantly. “Then put me on a bus. With Benny. Now.”

Honey steps forward as Nana Pete drops my hand. “She said you. Just you, Agnes. Not Benny. Benny and I are leaving with Nana Pete.” Her words feel like needles going into the softest parts of my belly. There is a rushing sound in my ears. A bitter taste pools in my throat.

“You can’t take Benny.” My voice cracks like ice around the words. “He’s my brother. I won’t let you.”

“He’s my grandson, too,” Nana Pete says. The tone in her voice is the same one she uses with Dad whenever she has an argument with him and knows she’s right. “I have just as much of a responsibility to protect him as you do, Mouse.” The silence in the room is deafening, the beep beep of the machine next to Benny’s bed the only distraction.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I whisper.

“Because there isn’t any other way,” Nana Pete says. “There just isn’t.” The skin around her nose is getting red and blotchy. She stretches her arms out again. “Let me take you somewhere safe, Agnes. Let me take you to a place where no one will ever hurt you like this again.”

Honey is staring at me through the little space between Nana Pete’s arm and her waist. “Please,” she mouths. “Please, Agnes.”


For a moment I wonder if maybe I am in limbo, that place between heaven and hell where movement of any kind is impossible. Can’t go up, can’t go down. You just have to wait until someone prays hard enough to convince God that you really do deserve to go to heaven after all. Until then, you’re suspended, hanging out on a cloud maybe, or sitting on the moon, staring at possibility.

Emmanuel always warned us of the physical sensation that accompanies the act of sin, a stomachache perhaps, or a sour taste in the mouth. What, I wonder, does the feeling of being on fire mean?

“I’ll go for Benny,” I hear myself saying. “He’s going to need me when he wakes up and finds out what you’re doing to us. He won’t be strong enough to save himself.” I try to keep my voice steady as I raise my eyes to meet Nana Pete’s and Honey’s. “But let’s just make one thing perfectly clear right off the bat. You two can say whatever you want or take us wherever you think you should, but Benny and I will always be Believers.” I pause. “No matter what.”





HONEY

Benny wakes up just as the sun starts coming in through the window. By then Agnes has decided, against all odds, to come with us. I don’t care if she considers it some kind of martyr journey, or if she feels she has to protect Benny from Nana Pete’s and my evil clutches. Whatever it takes to get her on the road is fine with me. We can deal with the rest of it later. Benny’s eyes are a little swollen for some reason, and when he opens them they look like two little blueberries staring out from under a fat piecrust. Agnes rushes to his side and tries to get him talking, but his head just lolls heavily on the pillow. Nana Pete runs out of the room and returns with the nurse, who takes off her stethoscope and listens to Benny’s heart and checks his eyes and feels his forehead and wrist. After a moment she stands back and smiles.

“He’s doing wonderfully,” she says, looking at Agnes. “What a little trouper. I’ll call Dr. Pannetta and let him know he’s awake.”

As soon as the nurse leaves the room, Nana Pete springs into action, folding blankets, shoving small paper packages of gauze into her purse, emptying the side drawer of a dresser next to Benny’s bed, and folding Benny’s clothes. Agnes and I just stand there dumbly for a moment, watching her.

“Let’s go, girls,” she says in a low, conspiratorial voice. “We can’t waste any more time. We’ve got to leave now before they make me sign any more paperwork and start asking real questions.”

But the nurses at the front desk freak out when Nana Pete comes out of Benny’s room, holding him in her arms.

“Where do you think you’re going?” one of them asks. She’s dressed in a white short-sleeved tunic and has braces on her teeth. The one with the teddy bear jacket is eating a blueberry muffin.

“Please,” Nana Pete says. “We have to go.”

“Go?” the nurse repeats. She laughs, as if Nana Pete has just told her a joke. “This little boy has just gotten out of surgery! You’re not going anywhere!”

“Actually,” Nana Pete says, taking a few more steps, “we are.”

Suddenly Dr. Pannetta appears with a cup of coffee in his hands. He looks different than the night before, dressed in navy blue pressed pants, a white button-down shirt, and a yellow tie with blue stripes. His shoes, brown and glossy, make a clicking sound when he walks, and his white hair, which is still damp, has been combed neatly.

“Does Benny have a sudden craving for a Big Mac?” he asks, striding toward us. “Or are you thinking of leaving the hospital with him?”