Short story: The Butterfly, Ann MacKinnon

As she drove to work Chris saw a figure hunched in the bow of the park gates. She seemed to be watching and waiting, wrapped in layers of clothing and in the quick glance she was able to give her, she could only see the eyes above a scarf wound tightly round her face. She didn’t look as if she belonged here. She was like the pupa of some exotic butterfly.

By the time Chris got to work the image had faded and the day took over. As she drove home she couldn’t help glancing at the park gates but there was no sign of the lonely butterfly. That night at dinner, she asked her husband, Stuart, if he had ever seen this creature and he shook his head,

‘Can’t say I have. But I’ll look out for her tomorrow.’

It was the odd way she hunched forward that had got to Chris. She looked as if she should be holding her head high, but she was curled in on herself. She looked like a larva, as if there was a whole gossamer set of wings hidden beneath the layers of coloured cloth.

Chris decided she would stop if she saw her again and, on the pretext of taking a walk in the park, get a little closer. The girl shouldn’t be there. She didn’t belong in that dank, dark place.

When she mentioned her idea to Stuart, he looked at her with concern. He spoke sharply: ‘Already after one sighting you are inventing a life for her! You know what you’re like when you get an idea in your head. You can’t let it drop.’

‘I know but she does fascinate me.’

The next day Chris slowed the car down and stared but there was no sign of her butterfly. When she stopped for her paper, she asked Janine in the shop if she had ever noticed a girl in that spot.

‘Can’t say I’ve noticed a girl but there’s often a bunch of flowers. Remember the boy that crashed his car into the gate. I think his friends put the flowers there. Or maybe it’s the girlfriend. They say it was her fault. That he did it deliberately.’

‘I remember reading the story in the paper. The stonework on the gate was down for quite a while – a pile of rubble. I knew there was an accident, but I didn’t realise that it was suicide.’

‘They couldn’t prove it. They said he lost control – driving too fast. He had just left her house. There was a lot of speculation in the paper at the time. She wouldn’t say what had gone on between them. I don’t know what happened to her after that. I dare say she must have found it hard to live with that on her conscience’.

At work Chris couldn’t stop thinking about the girl. She wondered if she was coming to pay her respects. After all, Chris took flowers to a particular spot every week so the girl might come to where her lover had died.

Chris went to lay flowers at the spot where Alison, their daughter had died. At first Stuart had been supportive but finally he said, ‘There has to be an end to this. You can’t go on blaming yourself. ‘

It was easier for him. It wasn’t Stuart who had shouted after Alison that night. ‘Don’t bother coming back then!’

It was such a pointless argument. Such a stupid thing to say! The last words she ever spoke to her and she had not meant a word of them, of course.

The figure at the park gates gave her something else to think about instead of dwelling on Alison’s last few hours. The police hadn’t been sure where she had been, but they knew that she was heading home when the car struck her. It wasn’t the driver’s fault – she always wore black. He didn’t see her.

Shaking herself, she went back to her desk at work. She scanned the internet for information on the boy who had died and found the stories and the death notice but no mention of the girl’s name. It was almost as if the girl was there so that Chris could focus on something other than the raw empty feeling she had since Alison had gone.

Early on Saturday morning, she shouted to Stuart that she was going for a paper and walked down to the gates. As she approached, the girl walked into the park. She followed but once she was in the shadowy walkway, she felt a shiver of fear and she ran back out of the park and headed for the paper shop, shaking.

She knew she was being foolish, but she decided to phone the parents of the dead boy because she wanted them to know that the girl was keeping a vigil. The mother was extremely upset,

‘I wished so much ill on that girl after what happened,” she said, almost appealing for forgiveness. “I forgot how much she must be suffering too. I haven’t spoken to her since that day. I told her not to come to the funeral. ‘

Chris tried to talk to Stuart about it, but he dismissed her.

‘Leave it will you, Chris. You know how ill you were after Alison…’

‘It’s nothing to do with that. It’s curiosity.’

‘You know what they say about curiosity…killed the cat.”

Chris decided that she must give it one more shot. On Sunday afternoon, she set off and the same thing happened. As she approached the girl walked into the park. This time, Chris followed and thought to herself, ‘It’s broad daylight. I’m not scared. She doesn’t mean me any harm.’

The girl suddenly turned and looked at her.

‘What do you want?’

‘I’m sorry... I saw you ... standing at the park gates the other day.’

‘I come on the anniversary of my boyfriend’s death.’

‘Can I ask you, does it help?’

‘I’m not sure. I just like to think of him and wonder what might have happened if he hadn’t crashed. I know I can’t take back what I said to him that night, but I’ve realised that it wasn’t my fault that he took the bend too fast. It could have happened any time. I’ve stopped feeling responsible. It was his decision to get in the car. Maybe I feel I’ve been punished enough for a few rash words that I didn’t even mean. We would have made it up the next day. We always did. I came this last time but I’m not coming back. It’s time to spread my wings.’

When Chris got home, she asked Stuart, ‘Will you come with me one last time? I’ve put my life on hold for too long. It’s time to move on.’

When they got back from laying the flowers and saying goodbye, she noticed a clear imprint of a butterfly on the glass of the back door and she wondered to herself,

‘When did you launch yourself against the glass?’

She could pick out every line and she knew that the grey silhouette would stay with her, a ghost grazing the glass but there was no sign of a broken body, so she hoped that the butterfly had flown away.

AUTHOR’S COMMENT: This has come as a surprise but a pleasant one. Thank you for tweaking my work. I understand what you mean about trying to engage the reader emotionally and using the name works well. This is an area that I find difficult and I think what you have suggested lifts the story and involves the reader. I am thrilled that my story might get into print.