February 2021 Flash Lit 8 - When the Fog Lifts

“And certainly the glass was beginning to melt away, just like a bright silvery mist.” Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 1

 

 

 

Butterfly could have done without Colt’s parting gift, a cold.  She got to choose between the fog of decongestants or the continual dripping of snot.  Mostly she chose decongestants.

 

She took the whole week off.  Clive was pissed, but she had the sick time saved up and all the paperwork would still be there when she got back.  She shuffled from bed to bathroom to kitchen leaving glasses with the white residue of Alka Seltzer Plus Cold medicine in the bottom all over.  Sometimes she looked at the little pile of papers on the table, the ones that had her practicing her new name in her head.

 

Butterfly.

 

The third day of the cold, her mom called.  Butterfly thought about not answering, but that wouldn’t work for long.  “Hello?” she said thickly.

 

“Bonnie, are you all right?” her mom said.  “You sound terrible!”

 

Better get it over with, Butterfly thought.  “Well, Colt moved out, I have a cold, and Uncle Magnus died and left me his house and some money if I change my name to Butterfly, so I’m doing it.”

 

She heard her mother choke on her coffee.  When the spluttering subsided, her mother said, “What?”

 

Butterfly repeated herself.

 

“But Bonnie!  What will people think?  You can’t!”

 

“Actually, I’ve decided I can.”

 

“But Colt will come back…” her mother protested.

 

Butterfly smiled wryly to herself.  “No, I don’t think so.”

 

“He’s such a nice man.  With a good job.  And polite.”

 

Butterfly faked a fit of coughing.  “I need to go rest.  I’ll talk to you later.”  And she hung up.

 

That was about what she expected, Butterfly reflected.  God forbid other people might think something about her.  And of course her mother took Colt’s side—he was better than Butterfly deserved in her mom’s opinion.  She could hear her mom in her head saying, “You’re not getting any younger, dear.  I wish you’d do something with your hair.”

 

After another nap, Butterfly thought maybe she should have asked her mom about Uncle Magnus.  What had made him disappear from the family?  Next time, she decided.  I’ll stick with the conversation until I get some info.

 

Her phone rang again.  It was Colt.  She was halfway to answering it when she realized she had nothing to say to him.  Especially since she was pretty sure he was calling because her mom had told him about the house.  She fixed herself some bouillon and filled out name change papers while she drank it.  She took a hot bath, so hot that the mirror stayed fogged up for a good fifteen minutes after she drained the tub and wrapped herself in her old pink bathrobe.

 

Butterfly went back into the bathroom after the fog cleared to get more Alka Seltzer Plus.  In the mirror, she saw a woman in her fifties with damp graying hair and clear blue eyes.  Blue Morpho, she thought.  That’s the kind of butterfly I am.