The Patron Saint of Butterflies(54)

I take a step back. “What? No! Never! Why would you even ask me that?”

Her body shudders, trying to hold back the tears. “I don’t know. I just … ” She shakes her head. “I’ve been thinking … ,” her voice trails off softly. “Things have just … gotten so crazy all of a sudden.” She brushes her fingers across her eyes. “I don’t know what to think anymore. It’s so confusing.” She presses the edges of the sweater against her face. “I just want to do the right thing, Honey! I just want to be good!”

I wrap both of my arms around her and bury my nose in her hair. “You’re already good, Agnes,” I say after a moment. “Why can’t you believe that?”

She shakes her head. “I’m not good! I’m weak! I was terrible to Benny and I am always tempted to sin, especially out here, where everything is weird and freaky.”

“Have you ever tried to trust yourself to do the right thing?” I ask. “Instead of always waiting for some sign or trying to figure out what Emmanuel thinks is right for you?”

She raises her tear-stained face. “I couldn’t do that. I’m not strong enough. I need Emmanuel to tell me what’s right. We all do.”

I shrug. “I don’t.”

“But that’s because you don’t care about being good!” Agnes wails. She looks at me intently. “Why don’t you want to be good? Why, Honey? Why?”

“I care about being good. I just—”

“Then what’s this?” Agnes pulls the pink flower barrette out from under the cardigan and shoves it at me.

I stare at her, speechless. “Where’d you find—”

“In your backpack,” she says sadly. “I noticed it sitting open by the door, just before I came out here. The barrette was right on top.” She shakes her head. “Why would you steal, Honey? Why? You broke a commandment!”


I shrug. “I just … I saw you looking at it in the store and … and then you went and put it back and … I know it’s wrong to steal, but … I just wanted you to have it, Ags.” I look into her blue eyes. “I just wanted you to have something for yourself for once. To feel pretty, instead of always trying to make yourself ugly with all those freaky penances you do. It’s not a sin to feel pretty, Agnes! It’s not!”

Agnes’s eyes blur with tears as I talk and when she blinks, they roll down her cheeks. “We’re not supposed to clothe the body,” she whispers. “Just the soul.”

“That’s garbage,” I answer. “God wouldn’t’ve given us bodies if he didn’t want us to take care of them.”

Agnes doesn’t say anything for a minute. Then she looks at me again. “I’m scared,” she whispers. “Everything’s changing.”

I take her hand in mine. “I know.” The words hang between us, heavy as stones. Out of nowhere, a drop of rain hits the side of my face. I squint and look up. Two more drops splash my cheeks and then all at once, as if God has shaken a wet blanket in the heavens, thousands of drops scatter and fall around us. Agnes pulls the cardigan over her head.

“Get back in the car!” I yell, throwing open the door.

We sit there for a while, watching the rain run in soaking rivulets along the windshield. It’s coming down so hard that even with the lights on, I can’t make out the shrubs anymore. The glass looks like the inside of a thick piece of ice.

“Hey,” I say, grabbing Agnes’s sleeve. “Let’s run.”

Agnes looks at me like I’m crazy. “Run where?”

“Just run! Race! Like we used to! In the rain!” Something inside me starts jumping around, thinking about it.

But Agnes just stares down at her wet legs. After a moment, she curls them up under her. “I can’t.”

“Oh, why not?” I reach out and punch her softly in the arm. “Come on, Agnes, you know you w—”

“No, I can’t, Honey. I mean it.”

I sit back against the seat and pout for a minute. “Is it because you’re good at it? Is that why?” Silence. “It is, isn’t it? It’s just like the ‘pretty’ thing.” I sit up straight again and turn toward her. “Agnes, you know, I’ve been trying for a while to figure you out since this saint-wannabe thing kicked in. You used to be this really great, funny best friend of mine. Remember how hard you could make me laugh? So that I practically peed in my pants? Remember?” I nudge her a little with my elbow, but she doesn’t look up. “I can kind of understand the whole penance deal and praying all the time and all that. I really can. I know you want to be good. But this, this I don’t understand at all. You’re a really good runner. I mean it. And I know you enjoy doing it. And now, because you think that being good at something must mean you’re taking glory away from him or … or whatever the hell it is … ”

“Would you stop using that word?”

“What word? Hell?”

Agnes flinches and then nods.

“Okay. I’ll try.” I take a deep breath. “I just … God, you already give up so much. You wear strings around your waist that practically cut you in half, and you barely eat, and you probably even sleep on the floor at night when you’re in your own room. Why do you have to give this up, too? I mean … it’s not necessary. I really don’t think God means for us to offer up everything, Agnes. I really don’t.”