Nerves and butterflies are a physical sign that you’re mentally ready and eager. You have to get the butterflies to fly in formation, that’s the trick.
~STEVE BULL~
Dearest Tara,
If you’re reading this, that means I’m gone.
Oh, phooey! I hate even writing this, let alone thinking about it. What does gone mean, after all? Am I six feet under? Floating in the air or dancing on a cloud? Maybe I’m having tea with God and making Him answer the long list of questions I’ve been hungering after for decades.
I suppose I could be wandering Timbuktu with amnesia, but I made arrangements for that long ago — with Reginald Godwin, my butler, who doesn’t leave my side for a moment. Even sleeps outside my bedroom door so there’s no trouble with theft or ransacking.
Whatever the reason we can’t be together and I’m writing this contingency letter, always know in the deepest regions of your soul that your Grammy loves you from the depths of her own crazy, old heart.
I miss you dreadfully already,
Grammy Claire
P.S. Now. On to business. Whatever happens, go with the flow. I’m watching out for you. Believe that completely. And I have a plan. Don’t I always?
Your first job is to start packing, my girlie, because in just a few hours Reginald Godwin will be there to move you and Riley to my old house. Don’t despair, even though the house is a bit untidy after a year of lying empty (I know that will drive you especially mad, Tara darling), Madame Erial See is a darn good cook. You’re gonna eat good.
And then I have a few other tasks for you … so keep your thinking cap on and your wits about you.
Final Advice: Don’t trust anybody who tells you to do the opposite of my instructions.
Remember what Deborah Chaskin said:
“Just like the butterfly, I too will awaken in my own time.”
Even if that means I’ll wake up in heaven next time I see you. You can bet I’ll be the first one in line to hug you and smother you with kisses.
All my love forever,
G.C.
A letter from my Grammy Claire!
A letter from the dead — beyond the grave! Shivers race up my arms and legs like spiders are crawling along my skin.
How strange that it arrived the day after her funeral. Almost like Grammy Claire planned it. Well, I guess she did plan it. She’d written me this letter before she died so I would have something to comfort me when she actually did die. It’s spooky and wonderful all at the same time.
The sound of her voice comes through the words on the thick, creamy stationery so strong, so real, tears prick my eyelids like sharp needles.
“You weren’t supposed to die!” I whisper fiercely to the empty foyer. Polished parquet and meticulously straight rug fringes aren’t particularly comforting at the moment. Holding the letter to my chest, I want to breathe in her words and the smell of the paper that she touched with her own hands.
My grandmother had always been a planner. The kind of person with a list of fascinating things to do every day, who didn’t let nobody stop her from doing them. A grandmother who would think about me before she died so that after she actually did die, things would be okay. Just like folks write a will to make sure nobody fights over their stuff.
I read through the letter again, feeling a flush of warmth in my chest, as I think about her sitting down at her desk to write to me so that I wouldn’t be so sad that awful day in the future after her funeral.
I read the letter again in the hall, lifting my right foot to rub my toes against the side of my left leg. Standing on one leg like a stork. It’s something I do when I am thinking or puzzling something out. Definitely a trait with the girls in my family. We all do it: Mamma, Riley, me, and Grammy Claire. Guess we originally picked up the habit from her.
The doorbell rings a second time, but I keep staring at my letter, annoyed at the interruption. My eyes flip through the P.S. that’s filled with all sorts of mysterious hidden messages.
The doorbell rings again, and now the person on the other side of the door holds it for several seconds so it rings and rings like a siren.
Hurriedly, I fold up Grammy Claire’s letter, stick it in the envelope — then cram it down the front of my dress like I’m a spy.
When I open the front door, a tall, manicured, tanned man stands there. He’s wearing a strange sort of suit. Not a tuxedo. Not a suit businessmen wear to their high-rise offices on television. It’s tailored all wrong, Mamma would say. And I’m pretty sure he’s blistering hot because a trickle of sweat drips down his nose and plops on the front step as he performs a deep bow.
He lifts his head, mops his brow, and says in a cultured voice with a trace of a British accent, “At your service, Miss Tara Doucet.”
Grammy Claire’s letter crackles inside my dress. I wonder if I should slam the door shut. He knows my name, but I don’t know him from nobody! Where is Mamma when I need her?
The man takes out his handkerchief again and erases the sheen of sweat once more. “It’s warmer here than I expected,” he tells me.
That’s when I realize he’s wearing a butler kind of suit. With black tails and a pair of white gloves tucked in his pocket. He produces a letter from the inner coat pocket and hands it to me. “Reginald Godwin at your service.”
I start to close the door, wondering if Riley will be able to hear me yelling over that dumb Kittie band — wondering if I need to start yelling.
“Go ahead,” Reginald Godwin adds pleasantly. “Read the letter.”
The note is short and to the point and my heart begins to pound.
Tara, the man standing before you is Reginald Godwin, my butler (chauffeur, handyman, and all-around employee). He will accompany you and Riley to my house. I’ve known him for decades and he’s as trustworthy as anybody you’ll ever meet. The question is: Have you packed yet? If not, then go. Go! There is no time to waste!
All my love forever,
G. C.
Grammy Claire’s handwriting on this note matches the handwriting on the previous note. Handwriting I’ve seen all my life. And the man calling himself Reginald Godwin is in possession of it.
He stands perfectly upright on my porch. Behind him, the red and yellow roses of our garden waver in the heat. Hot, sticky July wafts into the air-conditioned house.
“Okaaay,” I start to say, not sure what I’m supposed to do. Grammy Claire says I can trust him. He’s actually fairly handsome for an old guy. Smudges of gray paint his temples, but other than the lines around his eyes, I can’t tell how old he is.
When he gives me an assuring smile, I see a hint of a dimple. And he’s got very, very blue eyes. As if his eyes absorbed the ocean’s deep blue color.
This is the man who slept outside Grammy Claire’s bedroom all these years to make sure she was safe from poisonous snakes and woman-eating tigers on that island in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean. So I know I’m going to like him.
Butler Reginald stifles a yawn behind the handkerchief he keeps taking in and out of his pocket. When I stare at him, he says, “Jet-lagged, I’m afraid. And I was raised in northern England. Not used to this southern humidity.”
“Didn’t you spend the last few years on a tropical island?”
“Most assuredly, but your grandmother and I, we usually wore shorts and shirts for our work there. When she sent me back to the States I assumed, wrongly, that I should wear more formal attire suitable to my position of employment.”
“Oh. Well, I guess you can come in, then,” I drawl real slow, thinking about how Mamma is gonna kill me for letting a stranger into her shabby, threadbare house.
“May I meet your mother and sister, Riley?” he asks with perfect politeness.
“Mamma’s upstairs sleeping right now,” I lie, cursing her again for disappearing.
Overhead, Riley’s music makes a thrashing noise like someone is dying. Which, for the first time in my life, I’m actually happy about. At least Butler Reginald knows I’m not home alone. Not that I think he’s dangerous. I’m just having a hard time taking everything in. Even an infuriating big sister is better than being home alone.
Butler Reginald seems to notice my hesitation. “Thank you, Miss Tara, but I can always wait outside for the —”
Just then a big yellow truck pulls in front of the house, its brakes screeching. The truck parks at the edge of the lawn where the oak tree branches lay like gnarled arms across the grass.
“Ah, it’s here. Right on time. Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?”
“The adventure of a lifetime.”
I squint at him, flipping my silky hair over my shoulder. “Did you know that you sound like a game-show host on television?”
He gives me another smile, and I think about how rude I must sound for a seventh-generation female of the Doucet family. “Before I forget, please take this and keep it safe.”
A padded manila envelope comes out of his pocket, and when he hands it to me I feel something hard with an unusual shape sliding around inside. It’s not a very big envelope, though. Just a few inches around.
He waves to the driver of the truck. “This is the correct address, my good man!”
We look at each other and I press the new note and the envelope with its odd contents to my thigh.
“Well,” I say. “I guess I’d better start packing.”
“Perfect,” Butler Reginald replies. “I have a small list of items your grandmother would like us to take along. May I?”
“Um, sure. Come on in. I’ll go get Riley.”
As I walk back up the ragged carpeted stairs, my head is buzzing, my heart is thumping, and my hands are sweaty. Pulling the first letter from the top of my dress, I grip both of Grammy Claire’s notes when I step into my bedroom — just as the second butterfly arrives.