The Patron Saint of Butterflies(70)

Look at me, Agnes, I plead silently. Grab Benny and run out of the car. Don’t go back there. I know she can feel my eyes on her because as she sits next to the window, she brings a finger up and traces her eyebrow with it. She keeps her hand there, blocking us from view, until Mr. Little starts the car and with a loud, combustible sound, drives away down the street. The last thing I see is the glint of Agnes’s golden hair through the glass, shimmering like a forgotten bit of sunlight on a cloudy day. My knees feel as though they will buckle from the strain of standing still.

I turn and look at Lillian. “You. Answer her question.” My voice is shaking.

Lillian, who is still staring down the street at the gold car’s taillights, startles when I speak. “What? What question?”

“Agnes’s question. The one she just asked her father. Why did he call you Naomi?” Lillian’s eyes squint into little slits. “I think I already know,” I say. “But I want to hear it from you.”

Lillian sits down slowly on the front step and runs her fingertips along the top of her forehead. “It … it was… the name Emmanuel gave me at Mount Blessing. You know, after I had … been there a little while and earned my spiritual status … or whatever it was they called it.”

“That’s my mother’s name,” I say, quelling the urge to sit down next to her. I pull George out of my pocket. “It’s the only thing I know about her except for this.” I hold George in my fingertips, waiting for Lillian to turn around.

She does, but slowly, as if she is afraid of what she will find. When she sees George, her whole face falls. She gives a little yelp and stands up, pushing her fingers against her mouth. “My God.” Her voice is choked tight. When she blinks, tears fall in a liquid path down her cheeks. “Oh my God, Honey. You still have it.”

“What does it mean?” I ask. “Why would you leave something like this behind?”

Lillian shakes her head. “It doesn’t mean … It was just … something Ma gave me … when I was younger.”

“Why? Because you liked cats?”

She shakes her head. “No. Because I used to be afraid of the dark.”

I reach out and steady myself against the iron railing. “You were?”

She nods. “Terribly. I used to check my closet every night and have to sleep with the light on. Even when I was a teenager. Then Ma came home one day with the little cat and told me that if I kept him under my pillow, my fear of the dark would disappear.”

“And did it?”

She smiles the tiniest bit. “A little. But I still check the closet at night before I go to bed.”

I want to grab her so hard it aches. But I don’t. I keep my fingers wrapped tightly around George and hope that she can’t hear my heart thumping against my chest. “Well,” I say, holding George out in her direction. “You can have him back now. He never did anything like that for me.”

Except for a vein that throbs in her forehead, Lillian doesn’t move.

I shove him at her. Hard. “You know, what the hell is a ceramic animal gonna do for a kid whose mother has run off and left her behind at some commune?”

Lillian’s nostrils flare. Her fingertips press white against her face.

“Take him!” I shout, pushing George against the back of her hand. “And answer me!”

She takes George from me with shaking hands. “Honey … ” Her voice trails off.

“And tell me the truth!” I scream. “For once, I’d like someone to tell me the goddamned truth!”

She pushes me inside, through the door, and leads me over to the couch.

“There is no need to scream,” she says. “And no need to use that kind of language, either.”

“Then tell me!” I grab my braids with my hands. I feel like I could pull both of them out by roots and I wouldn’t feel a thing. “Just tell me why you left! Tell me why you went away and forgot to take me with you.” I can tell by the expression on her face that each of my words is like a knife in her heart, but I don’t care.

“I didn’t forget,” she whispers. “I’ve never forgotten, Honey.”

“Oh yeah? You coulda fooled me.” I fold my arms over my chest and sit back hard. “I don’t know you from a stranger on the street.”

“But you will,” she says quickly. “I mean, you can. Now.” She looks at the top of the steps across the room. “You know, the last thing Ma did with her life was bring you back to me.”

I tighten my arms against my chest. “You’re gonna have to start from the beginning, Lillian. I don’t have the faintest idea—”

“She was never allowed to reveal herself to you. It was Leonard’s biggest rule. If she wanted to visit you and Agnes and Benny at the commune—and she did, desperately—she had to promise him that she would never tell you the truth.”

“But why?”

Lillian looks down at the floor and bites the inside of her cheek. “I think it was Leonard’s way of just erasing me—from his life and yours. You know, when I first came to Mount Blessing, I was a big hit.” She laughs, a weird, strangling kind of sound. “After Emmanuel found out that I could play classical violin, I sort of became this … this little star of his. He waived all the rules and made me part of his inner circle right away—something that usually took years. Leonard said it was because he respected my talent. He knew how hard it was to learn how to play like that.” She takes a deep breath. “And Leonard was just … over the moon about it. He was so proud that Emmanuel had taken me in and changed my name and included me in everything. You know, it was like a reflection of him or something.” She draws a finger along the bridge of her nose. “But there was one person who wasn’t very happy about it.”