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The butterfly’s wings opened, closed. I heard a faint heartbeat.
I wanted to reach out, touch the butterfly, but I didn’t dare. Tears pooled.
She knew.
She somehow knew about my guilt over Alexander’s death. “How can I possibly let that go?”
She lifted her veil. “Because it is not a burden you are meant to carry.”
“But if I had opened the door…”
She held the butterfly up, lifting it into the light. “Whatifhe hadn’t gone to see you?Ifhe hadn’t been tipsy?Ifthe driver had taken another route.If, if, if.” Her tone softened as she added, “Life is too short, too fragile, too precious to hide in the shadows of what might have been. If continuously looking behind, you risk missing the possibilities that lie ahead.”
She carried the butterfly outside, and it lifted off her hand and flew to a nearby flowerpot.
When she came back inside, she reached out, touched my chin, lifting it. Calm flowed through me as she said, “Tragedy, accidents especially, rarely come with reasons why. Yet, we look for them everywhere. We blame. We deny. We carry guilt, regrets. Sometimes, and this is hard to acceptbut you must,it is simply that person’s time to go. We are all here on borrowed time.”
“But”—I sniffled as I gazed at the butterfly—“if it was trulyAlexander’s time to go, why isn’t he gone? Why is he still here, following me around?”
Her eyebrow lifted. “That, Ava, isnotAlexander. It has never been.”
Not Alexander?
She moved toward the doorway, nudging me out as she went. She released the doorstop and said, “But until you stop looking behind you, until you stop letting fear hold you back, that butterfly will not be able to fly free.It has been said.”
With that, she walked inside. The door closed quickly behind her.
“Wait!” I cried, turning to follow her. “If it’s not him, who is it?”
Because that was no ordinary butterfly.
But Estrelle had disappeared. The store was dark. The door locked.
And all I could hear was the slow whooshing of the butterfly’s wings, still sounding just like a heartbeat.
MAGGIE
On my way to Donovan’s cottage, I walked in the shadows, cursing the paper gift bag I carried, the one stuffed with extra tissue paper. It seemed determined to make as much noise as possible, to rat me out when I was trying my best to be sneaky.
I was a rule follower for the most part, so sneaking around went against my nature. However, I could only imagine the gossip if someone saw me going to Donovan’s this time of night. Sure as I breathed, there would be wedding speculation by first light. Since I didn’t want to add fuel to that particular fire, here I was creeping around like a thief in the night.
The Pink Peony Cottage sat three blocks from my house, closer to the town square than the beach. For two of those blocks, I’d walked normally along the sidewalk like I was just out for an evening stroll. But when I turned onto Sandbar Lane, the road Mrs. Pollard lived on, I took to the shadows.
I sprinted between crape myrtles and magnolias and cabbage and pindo palms. I darted behind bougainvillea, hydrangeas, and camellias. In my head, I could hear theMission: Impossibletheme song playing, and I realized I was having fun.
I tried to think back to when I’d last had true, pure fun.
It had been a while. When Noah was last home. With Noah, period.
I always had fun with him. Playing games. Going on adventures. Just being with him and his exuberant personality. I wasn’t sure when it happened that I’d tied my happiness to him. It had been gradual, and it was one of the big reasons his leaving for school had hit me so hard. I didn’t know how to have fun without him. I still didn’t.
But as I scurried around in the darkness with a smile on my face, I suddenly realized how important it was for me to learn. I’d missed being happy. I missed this bubbly, goofy, could-break-out-laughing-at-any-minute kind of joy.
It was an eye-opener for sure.
I pressed my back to a live oak in the front yard of the house next door to Mrs. Pollard’s and took a quick survey of my surroundings.
Mrs. Pollard lived in a lemony-yellow one-story stucco bungalow with a slab foundation, wide front porch, plantation shutters, and a hip roof. Lights glowed dimly behind closed drapes. An American flag flapped from a pole attached to a porch column. It was obvious that Mrs. Pollard took pride in her home. It showed in the neatly trimmed shrubs, the freshly cut grass, the recent paint job on the shutters, which was highlighted by a luminous porch light, the kind that wasn’t allowed on homes closer to the beach this time of year because of sea turtle nesting.
