Page 111 (1/1)

"Peopleto you, that’s all you and I ever did"

She nodded "Mistakes wreck your life But they make what you have It’s kind of all one" She felt a huh her chest "You knohat Hester told ood to coether of all your past choices"

Cub nodded slowly, understanding this He set his hands on the wheel Soon he would start the engine, and they would go "I can’t help it," he said "I still wish they’d never lit down here Those butterflies"

You and the butterflies both, she thought We wish

Dellarobia lay in the darkness trying not to begrudge her husband’s profound and tranquil sleep It could not be as easy as it looked, to be Cub Turnbow After their conversation in the truck they’d said no more, and slipped back into a day that seemed bizarrely untouched Furniture delivered, Cordie picked up, Cub congenial throughout The sorrow she’d laid bare for hi-toothed phanto even the co her skin, everywhere While Cub failed to see it

But so the the air in their bedroo ways, then rolled to his side and slept the sleep of athe river of her desperation into rivulets until soht and untethered, the salimpse of release she’d had ood life away, she rehed by the immense and measurable parameters of a family’s life She refused to be the first to act If Cub saw fit to walk through eleven e, after the blunt truths she’d told him, she could do the saht about her character For one thing Andin what had coe had its own heft, and that had to be respected She watched lines of light groly along theblind as a day began to fill the void The one impulse that transfixed her, that she understood to be of no real use, was to go to theand look out To see if his caone Probably she would have time to turn over every conversation with Ovid she could recall, as she always did That enterprise had a way of becoritty coins at the bottorettable notes, her badly spoken self, her brashness, led on by Dovey, in forcing notoriety on hi Tina to the lab to interview him, but she could have protected him from the rest Instead she’d claie It proved his integrity, she’d told hi hi about the selfish undertones of her enthusias down all the falsehoods coe There was no beautifulherself as the Butterfly Venus, she was no party to that lie The butterflies were a synancies, and all nicer bets were off Ovid needed to set the record straight, whether or not he was ready to do that This was the weight Dellarobia laid down like a sandbag at her center: that he did need her

She waited until the clock’s red nu up, and she did not look out fro coffee, she allowed herself to lift the shade and see nothing The barren rectangle of his absence After she had poured bowls of cereal for the kids and listened awhile to theirwith a blanket over her head and bowl, Dellarobia allowed herself to get up and go look again Each time, bereavement slary with her

After breakfast Preston stood on tiptoe and nearly pressed his glasses against the kitchento count thethenant flock His thrill was electric They aking up She tried to tap into that current but failed, standing beside her son at the aiting stupidly She got out the roasting pan for the lamb shoulder roast Hester had sent home with them yesterday She would slow-cook it all afternoon and they’d have leftovers for a week On a different day she would have felt the joy of that too, the relief of plenty She opened the curtains in the living roo no purchase on the bright sky She felt sealed inside her airtight house, a feeling so entirely fa before they breathed up all the oxygen With mechanical hands she vacuu roo over its back, out at the road, having inferred that on this day s held the key

After a time she pointed "Mama look Lady"

The lady wore a short winter coat over a long skirt and strode slowly along the roadside, bearing her e head Dellarobia shut off the vacuu toward theraceful like a slow- down the runway of this landscape Maybe from one of those project shohere people fashioned fantastical outfits out of silk handkerchiefs and dandelion fluff The oversize head was an illusion, stout locks of hair e froift-wrapped head The blue print skirt with its manifold tiny pleats rippled like curtains in front of afan In the gravelat a drea recurved stem of her neck, with time stopped around her, it seemed No cars passed, the cattle did not look up Her skin was the brown color of winter pasture, her face a s: a completely impossible person to see out theDellarobia and both the kids watched wide-eyed as she turned up their driveway and proceeded without hesitation alongside the house toward their back field They all charged to the bedrooether to peer through the blinds The ca, it had materialized The lady moved unhurriedly toward the vehicle The lady went to the metal door and disappeared inside