2. Where do you live?
3. Where is your office?
4. When is Anna’s birthday?
5. How many children do you have?
If you have trouble answering any of these, go to the file named “Butterfly” on your computer and follow the instructions there immediately.
December
Harvard Square
Harvard
April
Three
JANUARY 2005
Mom, wake up. How long has she been asleep?”
“About eighteen hours now.”
“Has she done this before?”
“A couple of times.”
“Dad, I’m worried. What if she took too many of her pills yesterday?”
“No, I checked her bottles and dispenser.”
Alice could hear them talking, and she could understand what they were saying, but she was only mildly interested. It was like eavesdropping on a conversation between strangers about a woman she didn’t know. She had no desire to wake up. She had no awareness that she was asleep.
“Ali? Can you hear me?”
“Mom, it’s me, Lydia, can you wake up?”
The woman named Lydia talked about wanting to call a doctor. The man named Dad talked about letting the woman named Ali sleep some more. They talked about ordering Mexican and eating dinner at home. Maybe the smell of food in the house would wake up the woman named Ali. Then, the voices ceased. Everything was dark and quiet again.
SHE WALKED DOWN A SANDY path that led into dense woods. She ascended via a series of switchbacks out of the woods and onto a steep, exposed cliff. She walked to the edge and looked out. The ocean below her was frozen solid, its shore buried in high drifts of snow. The panorama before her appeared lifeless, colorless, impossibly still, and silent. She yelled for John, but her voice carried no sound. She turned to go back, but the path and the forest were gone. She looked down at her pale, bony ankles and bare feet. With no other choice, she readied to step off the cliff.
SHE SAT ON A BEACH chair and buried and unburied her feet in the warm, fine sand. She watched Christina, her best friend from kindergarten and still only five years old, flying a butterfly kite. The pink and yellow daisies on Christina’s bathing suit, the blue and purple wings of the butterfly kite, the blues in the sky, the yellow sun, the red polish on her own toenails, indeed every color before her was more brilliant and striking than anything she’d ever seen. As she watched Christina, she was overwhelmed with joy and love, not so much for her childhood friend but for the bold and breathtaking colors of her bathing suit and kite.
Her sister, Anne, and Lydia, both about sixteen years old, lay next to each other on red, white, and blue striped beach towels. Their shiny, caramel bodies in matching bubble gum pink bikinis glistened in the sun. They, too, were glossy, cartoon-colored, and mesmerizing.
“Ready?” asked John.
“I’m a little scared.”
“It’s now or never.”
She stood, and he strapped her torso into a harness attached to a tangerine orange parasail. He clicked and adjusted buckles until she felt snug and secure. He held on to her shoulders, pushing against the strong, invisible force willing her upward.
“Ready?” asked John.
“Yes.”
He let go of her, and she soared with exhilarating speed into the palette of the sky. The winds she traveled on were dazzling swirls of robin’s egg blue, periwinkle, lavender, and fuchsia. The ocean below was a rolling kaleidoscope of turquoise, aquamarine, and violet.
Christina’s butterfly kite won its freedom and fluttered nearby. It was the most exquisite thing Alice had ever seen, and she wanted it more than anything she’d ever desired. She reached out to grab its string, but a sudden, strong shift in air current spun her around. She looked back, but it was obscured by the glowing sunset orange of her parasail. For the first time, she realized that she couldn’t steer. She looked down at the earth, at the vibrant dots that were her family. She wondered if the beautiful and spirited winds would ever bring her back to them.
LYDIA LAY CURLED ON HER side on top of the covers of Alice’s bed. The shades were drawn, the room filled with soft, subdued daylight.
“Am I dreaming?” asked Alice.
“No, you’re awake.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“A couple of days now.”
“Oh no, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Mom. It’s good to hear your voice. Do you think you took too many pills?”
“I don’t remember. I could’ve. I didn’t mean to.”
“I’m worried about you.”
Alice looked at Lydia in pieces, close-up snapshots of her features. She recognized each one like people recognized the house they grew up in, a parent’s voice, the creases of their own hands, instinctively, without effort or conscious consideration. But strangely, she had a hard time identifying Lydia as a whole.
“You’re so beautiful,” said Alice. “I’m so afraid of looking at you and not knowing who you are.”
“I think that even if you don’t know who I am someday, you’ll still know that I love you.”
“What if I see you, and I don’t know that you’re my daughter, and I don’t know that you love me?”
“Then, I’ll tell you that I do, and you’ll believe me.”
Alice liked that. But will I always love her? Does my love for her reside in my head or my heart? The scientist in her believed that emotion resulted from complex limbic brain circuitry, circuitry that was for her, at this very moment, trapped in the trenches of a battle in which there would be no survivors. The mother in her believed that the love she had for her daughter was safe from the mayhem in her mind, because it lived in her heart.
“How are you, Mom?”
“Not so good. This semester was hard, without my work, without Harvard, and this disease progressing, and your dad hardly ever home. It’s been almost too hard.”
“I’m so sorry. I wish I could be here more. Next fall, I’ll be closer. I thought about moving back now, but I just got cast in this great play. It’s a small part, but—”
“It’s okay. I wish I could see you more, too, but I’d never let you stop living your life for me.”
She thought about John.
“Your dad wants to move to New York. He got an offer at Sloan-Kettering.”
“I know. I was there.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“I couldn’t imagine that you did.”
“I can’t leave here. The twins will be here in April.”
“I can’t wait to see those babies.”
“Me, too.”
Alice imagined holding them in her arms, their warm bodies, their tiny, curled fingers and chunky, unused feet, their puffy, round eyes. She wondered if they’d look like her or John. And the smell. She couldn’t wait to smell her delicious grandchildren.
Most grandparents delighted in imagining their grandchildren’s lives, the promise of attending recitals and birthday parties, graduations and weddings. She knew she wouldn’t be here for recitals and birthday parties, graduations and weddings. But she would be here to hold them and smell them, and she’d be damned if she’d be sitting alone somewhere in New York instead.