Elusive Butterfly

Just before they limped to their second wedding anniversary, Travis left. He didn't call, he didn't write, he didn't even bother taking any clothes or stuff with him. He just woke up one morning, kissed wife and daughter good-bye, drove to his work and quit. Then he simply disappeared.

Darlene is very bitter about it. And, as you can imagine, she's turning Amelia into a very bitter little girl. Both Jeri and I try very hard to be pleasant, even cheerful when Darlene and Amelia come over, but damn. It's hard.

But Darlene is always willing to babysit. When Jeri went into labor, we loaded up the four kids and drove to Darlene's house. Bitter or not, Darlene is a good friend. She declared that they would be making cookies; Amethyst, Sapphire and Amelia enthusiastically agreed, and I'm sure Emerald and Stone will learn just how great cookie making can be.

I just hope she finds a man soon. Or even a woman. I know Miss Annie shoots a few glances Darlene's way when we all meet up at Miss Wendy's for dance class.

Oh, and I had my jewels fixed after Amber's birth. Five running, wobbling, crawling heathens is plenty enough for me. Jeri agrees.

Shortly after the birth of Amber, my mom's years of hard living caught up with her. She suffered a stroke that really scrambled her brains. After she nearly set her trailer on fire, trying to boil some eggs for egg salad, which by the way, she absolutely hates, I had to have her committed to a nursing home.

"Remanded. Committed sounds so horrible," Jeri would say.

Not surprisingly, my three sisters immediately descended on the trailer and picked it clean. Donna and Cindy actually came to blows over my mom's cheap ass jewelry. Donna won the savage fight and the blood from her nose hadn't even dried and she was hocking the trinkets for some crack.

Of course, none of my sisters could ever manage to kick in a few bucks for the nursing home. And nursing homes ain't cheap.

Because my mom was still relatively young and attractive, at least, when compared to the other women in the home, she quickly became very popular. Even a few of the orderlies got in on the action. I don't know which one of the residents or the orderlies gave AIDS to my mom, or if she might have even had the disease before being remanded to the home. But within a few months of my mom being committed, remanded to the home, seventeen residents and four orderlies and three girlfriends and one wife of the orderlies and one male nurse had contracted AIDS. And all roads led back to my mom's room.

Back in the '90s, AIDS was a sentence of death. There was the promise of an investigation, the state government got involved, and nothing came from it.

At my mom's funeral, Cindy and Linda wanted to know if there was a will. Donna didn't show up. We don't know if Donna was in jail, or too busy getting high, or too dead to attend the funeral.

One more little irony in life; Joey's mother finally did die. And Joey and Gwen discovered, after burying their mother, that she had died penniless. In fact, she died owing quite a bit of money because she hadn't paid her taxes in several years. The several millions she claimed to have was Science Fiction. Those millions of dollars ain't nowhere on this planet.

So, there was no inheritance for Joey and Gwen to enjoy. Joey and Gwen had suffered through years of kissing the woman's ass. They, and Marianne had bent over backward to please this overbearing woman. For nothing.

Jeri and I are still very happily married. Sorry, that's Doctor Jeri Jewels. She did get her doctorate and is the administrator of a Cyber Security company. She's the one that developed the algorithms, structured the parameters, and maintains the applications.

Yeah, I know. I almost sound smart, don't I? Using words like 'algorithms and cyber security. Jeri says I am smart, a lot smarter than I let on. I tell her I'm still just an idiot.

"Yeah, well. But you're my idiot," Jeri smiled, kissing me.

And that's plenty good enough for me. If I got to be an idiot, it's good to be the idiot of someone that loves me.

The other day, Amethyst and Sapphire needed something from a sporting goods store in West Monroe; something for soccer. An accident on I-20 diverted us to Highway 80. The trailer park was still there, right at the crest of the hill. And on the steps outside of a trailer, two young men sat, watching Highway 80. They were probably playing some stupid game of car counting or something.

Had it really only been ten years? Had it been only ten years ago that Douglass Glass and Randy Lott sat on concrete steps, in front of a trailer, just watching the world whizz past them, with no hopes of ever escaping that small park?

"You might wake up some morning," I started to sing, even though that wasn't what was playing on the radio.

"No, Daddy, stop," Amethyst demanded.

"Yeah, Daddy," Sapphire agreed, fingers jammed into her ears.

"To the sound of something moving past your window in the wind," I sang, ignoring Amethyst and Sapphire.

Who knows? Those two young men might wake up some morning, to the sound of something moving past their window in the wind. And if they're quick enough to rise, they'll catch a fleeting glimpse of someone's fading shadow.

Butterflies don't last forever. Catch them when you can.

The End.

With thanks to BeBop3 for his assistance and encouragement.