The Patron Saint of Butterflies(52)

“Don’t ask her again,” Honey says. “She’s doesn’t do anything fun anymore.”

Lillian turns around to look at me. “Is that true, Agnes? You don’t like to have fun?”

I roll my eyes and turn over on my other side.

“See?” Honey says. “I told you. All she ever wants to do is read that ridiculous book.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.” I’m talking to the wall, but I know Honey can hear me.

“Don’t tell me what to do. You’re not my mother.” Honey’s voice is edged with a meanness that I don’t recognize. It makes my heart jump a little. I lower my head and stare down again at the picture of Saint Germaine, who was treated like a slave by her own family for most of her life, forced to sleep in a barn, nearly starved to death, and beaten regularly. She had offered everything up for the glory of God, refusing to succumb to her earthly torment. If only I could do the same.

“So, Lillian,” I hear Honey ask. “What was it like growing up with Agnes’s dad?” She’s using her fishing voice, trying to extract information that isn’t any of her business. “You guys just don’t seem to be anything alike. I wouldn’t even guess you two were related.” I grit my teeth and roll back over soundlessly, holding the book in front of my face.

Lillian doesn’t say anything for a minute. Then she clears her throat. “Actually, I used to be a lot like my brother. Or at least I wanted to be. He was smart and funny and a great athlete. You know, just an all-around wonderful guy. When we were growing up, I followed him around like a puppy dog. He never made me feel bad about it, either. He let me come along when he played basketball with his friends or whenever he went out for a hamburger at the Friendly’s on the corner.”

I feel a twinge, thinking of how often I have told Benny to scram when he comes around Honey and me. But it fades again as Lillian keeps talking.

“When he went away to college in Iowa, I thought I was going to die from loneliness. I was still in the same high school we had gone to together, but it felt like being in jail or something without him there. Not being able to see him when I walked down the halls or listen to my friends scream his name when he lined up for a foul shot on the basketball court just really tore me up inside. I literally counted down the days until he came home for his first break. All I wanted to do was go down to the hamburger place and sit in one of the booths and talk with him.” She pauses. The cards snap and flutter under her fingers.

“And?” Honey asks. I lower my book slightly so I can see the top of Lillian’s head.

“Well, the first few times he came home things were all right. I remember during fall break of his sophomore year, he brought home a girl he was seeing. I think her name was Fern. Or maybe it was Bernie. Something like that. Anyway, he took me along for just about everything he and Fern did together that weekend. The three of us went out to the movies, we hung around the house, we even went horseback riding.”

“I bet ol’ Fern loved you,” Honey says.

Lillian grins a little. “Yeah, she wasn’t too happy about it. She made it a point to tell Lenny in front of me that the next time they were going to go to her house—so they could be alone.”

“Ha!” Honey laughs. “Good for her.”

Lillian starts dealing the cards again slowly, placing each one on the carpet until two neat piles form. “But then in his third year,” she says, “when he came home for Thanksgiving he was … different.” I lower the book some more.

“What do you mean, different?” Honey asks.

“He just wasn’t the same Leonard I knew. It was like he had turned inward, away from all of us. Away from me, anyway. And definitely from Ma. He spent the whole time just locked in his room. He didn’t even come down for Thanksgiving dinner, even when Ma cried.”

I listen intently, my eyes fixed on a weird curlicue shape in the yellow wallpaper.

“And then in the spring, a year before he was supposed to graduate, he started talking about this man that he had met named Emmanuel. You would have thought it was Jesus himself the way he talked about his prayer and healing services, the meetings he held at this little house of his off campus. Ma and I asked him questions about it and tried to seem interested, but it was kind of strange.”

“How so?” Honey asks.

“Well, we’d just never seen him like that before. Ma actually used the word ‘mesmerized.’ And that’s what he was. He was just completely obsessed with everything about Emmanuel.”

“Yeah,” Honey says. “That sounds about right.” I press my lips together hard. Why can’t she just be quiet?

“He disappeared pretty soon after that,” Lillian says. “It took us a year to find out that he had moved to the East Coast and was living with the Believers at Mount Blessing.”

Honey makes a hmm sound between her lips. I can tell she wants to ask more, probably something about how much my Dad has changed over the years, but she is guarding her words in front of Benny and me. “Do you miss him?” she asks eventually.

Lillian looks up in surprise at the question. “I do,” she says, placing a card down flat on the floor. There is a pause. “Gin,” she says. “I win.”

A few hours later, after Honey has disappeared into the shower and Benny has fallen asleep, I get under the covers and start my evening prayers, counting my consecration beads as I go. Lillian is in the corner with her back to me, undressing hurriedly. I close my eyes, trying to concentrate on the prayers and the beads. When I open them again Lillian is kneeling next to me on the floor, dressed in old sweats and a long blue T-shirt.