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From Celia’s window, I watched the wolf pad through the snow,
weaving between the trees that grew forest-thick behind our
house. His winter coat could not hide its gaunt frame. The
cold made for poor hunting. I thought about putting the pork
roast I was defrosting for dinner out on the back stoop, but I
knew how stubborn he could be. He would not take it. Turning, I
leaned against the windowsill to block the view. Celia sat
cross legged in the center of the room. Her toy palomino
pranced in circles around her.
“What do you want to be for Fasching?” I asked.
Celia’s large hazel eyes remained fixed on the horse. “I’m too
old to dress up,” she said.
I
gestured at the palomino. “You’re not too old. It will be
fun. Treats and games, like always.”
“Only little kids will be there.”
“One last time?”
The
palomino stopped mid-step, its right hoof high in the air.
Celia furled her brow, thinking hard, a look that reminded me of
Lowell. “I think I’ll be a butterfly.”
I
could feel a draft at my back. “Are you sure? Wouldn’t you
rather be a princess?”
Celia picked up the palomino, stroked its blond mane. “I want
to be a butterfly.”
I
folded my arms across my chest. “I don’t know if we have a
butterfly costume.”
“We
can use the fairy wings I wore when I was six, antennas from
Lowell’s old bee costume.” Celia’s rosebud lips were tight, her
normally pale skin flushed. “It’s either a butterfly or I don’t
go at all.”
I
sighed, looked behind me. The wolf had disappeared, paw prints
in the snow the only trace that he had ever been more than a
figment of my imagination. If Celia refused to go, the child in
her would be lost. But dressing up in a costume that could take
wing might not be any better. “Let’s see what we have.”
Celia set the palomino back on the floor. It trotted over to
its place next to Celia’s overflowing toy box, amongst the
dolls, stuffed animals, and board games with half the pieces
missing. It planted all four hoofs flat on the carpet, flicked
the fine hair of its tail, and went still.
#
Celia’s bunny slippers slapped against the narrow staircase as
she followed me up to the attic. I turned the glass knob of the
paneled door and we entered. Translucent light flooded the
space from the small round window at the gable end of the room.
The window’s storm was cracked, the pane crusted with ice. Dust
motes danced in the air. A labyrinth of cardboard boxes were
piled haphazardly, small boxes placed on large ones, like blocks
stacked by a toddler, ready to fall in a heap with the slightest
touch. Some were labeled, “LPs”, “textbooks”, “taxes ’97 - ’99”,
but most were unmarked – Pandora’s temptations.
Celia stood near the doorway while I picked through the boxes,
carefully lifting them from one precarious pile, stacking them
in another just as precarious. The pine board floor creaked
beneath my feet. “Where could that box be?” I asked aloud.
“Where it always is, in the far corner, near the window.” Celia
sounded annoyed.
I
shrugged. I was delaying the inevitable. The attic was cold,
but Celia wore only shorts and t-shirt. She always ran hot - my
little Yule log. When she was so much smaller, she would fall
asleep between me and Grace in our bed, the heat emanating from
her keeping away the winter chill.
The
box marked “Halloween/Fasching” in Grace’s curved script sat
exactly where Celia said it was, where we both knew it would
be. I brushed away a string of cobwebs. Grace constantly
pestered me to sweep them all away, but spiders in a house were
good luck.
I
opened the box, began pulling out bits and pieces of costumes
past – skeleton masks, fairy wands, harlequin pants with ruffled
cuffs. Celia came closer to watch, put her hands on a wine
crate filled with musty paperbacks. She kicked off her
slippers. The bunnies hopped behind an old exercise bike and
disappeared. “Sam thinks it’s weird, dressing up,” she said.
I
took out a ballerina’s tutu, held it up. It seemed only
yesterday Celia was able to fit into it. Now, it was much too
small for her. In the past few weeks, I had noticed how her
hips had begun to take shape, how her chest had dimpled with the
first hint of breasts. “Did you tell Sam that it’s like Mardis
Gras, or Carnival in Rio?”
“I
don’t think she understands those, either.”
I
nodded. Sam’s parents didn’t even let her celebrate Halloween.
Sam was a nice girl, though. She and Celia had been friends
since first grade. I recalled the first day of school, waiting
for the bus with the two of them and Sam’s mother, a skeletal
woman with thin lips and over-sprayed hair. Before Celia hoped
on the bus, I gave her a hug and a kiss. She was going out on
her own for the first time. I swallowed hard as the bus turned
the corner. She would be back in the afternoon, I told myself.
I exchanged pleasantries with Sam’s mother, but not much more
than that. We had been neighbors for years, but never
connected. It wasn’t because she kept giving me that all too
familiar look, the one that said, “Why aren’t you working, why
isn’t Grace staying home instead?” No, even in this day and
age, that was all too common. The rift between us started when
Lowell was young. She had tried to ban Harry Potter books from
the public library. All magic was black magic to people like
her. I couldn’t help but note that when she put Sam on the bus,
her biggest concern was that the bow in her daughter’s hair was
straight.
Halfway into the box, bits and pieces from a dozen costumes
draped on other, surrounding boxes, I found a black cat outfit,
white chest, tail stiff, zipper up the back. I held it up for
Celia. “You wore this two years ago,” I said.
“I’m too big for it now,” she said.
I
tossed the costume aside, continued rummaging through the box.
“I
talk to him sometimes,” Celia said.
I
knew who she was talking about. “Lowell?” I asked. When we
first entered the attic, I tried to avoid the traces of him.
But in speaking his name, I suddenly saw him everywhere -- his
hockey equipment, his old ten-speed, his baseball card
collection stored in Converse shoe boxes.
Celia gestured toward the round window, to the back of the house
and the woods. “He’s doing okay, really he is. He’s the one
who suggested I be a butterfly,” Celia admitted.
“If
it’s not your decision-”
“He
suggested it. I want it,” she said.
I
returned my attention to the box. The last time I came up here
with Lowell, Celia was a toddler and Lowell was slightly older
than Celia was now. We were looking for my old big bad wolf
mask. The one I wore to win many a New Year’s masquerade
contest, Grace in tow in her red riding hood, basket full of
Jell-O shots. Half drunk women would come and touch it, pull
away. “It feels so real,” they would say.
At
first, I was anxious for Lowell to have the mask. In past
months, he had lost interest in what I had to teach him. We
fought constantly – about not doing his chores or his homework,
about staying out too late with his friends. “You’re both too
stubborn for your own good,” Grace told me. The mask was
something we could share. When he first put it on, he could
barely breathe through the tiny air holes. Moments later, his
howl shook the rafters.
Unlike Lowell, Celia had never lost her interest in my tricks.
Prancing horses, slippers that came to life, stepping into
landscapes painted with special watercolors. I was hoping with
her it would be different. Grace, ever practical, told me this
day was inevitable. I wished she was here instead of at work to
help me deal with it.
Rummaging on the boxes’ bottom, I found the bee antennae and the
pair of fairy wings Celia had mentioned. She snatched the
antennae from me, two springs with balls on the ends. She
placed them atop her head. They bounced frantically.
The
wings were sheer blue and yellow fabric stretched between shaped
wire. There was a gap in the wire on one of the wings. The wing
was limp, useless.
“Looks like it’s busted,” I said. I tried not to let my elation
creep into my voice. “How about something else?” I held up a
princess’ tiara.
Celia took the wing from me. She tried to put it back into
shape, but it was broken, not bent. Tears welled up in her
eyes.
“You’re sure this is what you want?”
Celia nodded.
I
set down the tiara, took the wing from her. I breathed deep,
held it in both hands. I let my fingers run along the wire
edges, and as I did, it returned to its original shape.
Celia smiled, the little girl’s smile that comes with a puppy’s
kiss, a new doll at Christmas. She turned her back on me. The
wings had safety pins for attaching them to a fairy costume,
white tulle that Celia had no need for anymore. My hands
shaking, I pinned the wings to the back of her shirt.
Celia spun, arms in the air. “Open the window, Dad.”
I
shook my head. “It’s too cold out.”
“Not for me. Open the window, please-”
I
unlatched the round window. The hinges creaked, frozen from the
ice. A blast of frosty air entered the attic.
A
butterfly, wings blue and gold, fluttered by my ear. It weaved
around the snare of a spider’s web. I held my breath, hoping
they would not ensnare her. The butterfly would not be trapped
so easily. She flew in a figure eight around the window’s
opening. For the briefest of moments, I thought she might not
leave. But with a sudden zigzag, she changed direction and out
she went.
Celia wouldn’t be gone long, I told myself. She knew better
than to stay out in winter. From below, I saw the wolf watching
between trees, its hazel eyes furled, familiar, thoughtful.
A
pit formed in my stomach. My mind reeled. What had I done?
Was it too late? I stretched my hand out the window, holding my
finger towards the butterfly as if I could catch her. The
butterfly fluttered up into the cloudless sky, towards the cold,
bright sun.
- the end -
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