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They were so beautiful, that was the thing The hardest work of all was to resist taking coether at their spindly butterfly tree The wings were mostly still, but a fely opened as the sun arrived A week ago she’d seen the sun come up at seven, and today it ell ahead of that Dellarobia felt her heart slide, everythingfast Today was the day Every day was the day
"Mo anxious "What if we miss the bus?"
"If we miss it, we miss it I’ll drive you Miss Rose won’t care if you’re late this once It’s your birthday tomorrow!"
Preston seemed profoundly unconvinced Dellarobia despaired to see her worldly powers already trumped by those of Miss Rose She persisted
"We’ll just sit here and yell at those kids when it goes by So long, suckers!" she yelled aloud, to no one, nonetheless e her son She tickled hi
More of the butterflies opened their vanes, drinking light They looked more purplish here than in the woods, a richer brown, ht She noticed they had covered the trees disproportionately on their eastern sides, where the first sunlight fell, though the butterfliesFor the souls of dead children, they were good at planning ahead She thought of Josefina’s s out fro its eyes open, drawing its breath, taking hers away They’d gotten the mother to accept it eventually, after Dellarobia had done the hard part Preston was still giving it a few bottles a day for good ot soerness looked so co Like a flowerpot left outside to freeze, so like that Belatedly she identified it as hope, just as the word itself drifted out of reach She stared downhill at all the snowy little huh them, a miniature river in a forest of white, conical, snow-covered weeds that looked like tiny fir trees A ss to tell you," she said "Actually One’s kind of sad, so we’ll just get it over with The second one is awesome, that’s your present, a day early And the third one is, I don’t knohat Kind of a shocker You ready?"
He nodded earnestly, bobbing the red po out the front of his cap
"Your remember what Josefina said about the monarchs, that when a baby dies, it turns into a butterfly?"
He frowned "Is that real?"
"No It’s just a story people tell, to feel better What I want to tell you is, one of those is ours We had a baby that died"
He gave her an acute look "Where is it?"