Butterfly Sunday by David Hill Page A
Authors: David Hill
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Suspense, Psychological, Family, Juvenile Fiction, Man-Woman Relationships, Political, Adultery, Parents, Female friendship, Clergy, Mississippi, Women murderers
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several things she hadn’t discovered. The first of them was that Ty hadn’t left the country at all. Ty was in South Carolina playing football for the university at Columbia. He’d been awarded a scholarship during his senior year. Leona had known all about that, but Ty had insisted he didn’t want to go that far away from her. He’d wanted to attend the University of Mississippi like his father and grandfather.
The women shook their heads and clucked and, using as much grace as possible, they explained that Gloria London, the steady girlfriend who’d jilted him last year, was already enrolled in summer school there. Several weeks back Ty and his parents had gone to Columbia, where he and Gloria, who was expecting a baby next month, had been married. His mother had stayed on for a few weeks to help them settle and prepare a nursery.
“You’ve proven yourself with Charmaine!” one woman pressed on. “You’re a genius at wedding decorations.”After the drugstore failed, Leona had worked part-time with a local florist, helping the inept fool plan and design weddings. “You get yourself straightened around and avail yourself of a good floral concern!” another chimed in. “This is all just a bad year, baby,” mused a third.
Later Leona would look back at those women and see that she had been their sacrificial lamb. Almost all of them had or would shortly drive their own unmarried, pregnant daughters to the anonymous sanctity of distant cities for abortions. Therein lay the dangerous differences between individuals and groups.
Of course, she wasn’t listening to them anyway. She didn’t hear a word. She was struck deaf and dumb by the cold, hard fact that Mr. Crockett had lied to her. Leona felt the fire die out of her passion and grief. Nothing grand had been lost, nothing mystical or destined or poetic was gone. She was one more stupid, sorry bad girl in a jam.
Yet his abandonment and the insensitive indifference of the sanctimonious world around her were merely burdens beside her mother’s death. That was incomprehensible and cruel, as if life had waited for this difficult summer to bare its teeth with a haughty smirk.
As she lay in bed that night, watching a moving armada of clouds sail past the moon, it seemed as if the army of death were surrounding her, seizing her future and tossing her along with it into prison. It seemed that her mother’s dying had permeated every cloud shape, every leaf on every tree. And when she slept, it was only to chase her mother, who outpaced her as she fled through the meaningless void.
7
FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 1998
12:00 NOON
Mr. Crockett’s office was at the back of the Bank of Fredonia, a gray marble temple of finance built in 1899 with NeoClassical faith in the impending twentieth century. The receptionist was at lunch. Mr. Crockett, who was the first vice president, didn’t go to lunch. He liked to work straight through from seven A.M. to three P.M., when he headed for the country club golf course. She slipped down the polished granite corridor, leaning one hand on a carved Corinthian pilaster beside his open door. He looked up before she could speak. He pasted on an affable smile and jumped to his feet, moving toward the door to prevent her from taking a seat. He was an unpleasant, fastidious man who always seemed about to fly into a rage. She had a childhood memory of her father leaning over her head in church to commentto her mother that Mr. Crockett was a man tormented by secrets.
“Hey.” His smile shifted into a sympathetic look. “We’re all so devastated about poor Viola.”
“Poor Viola’s troubles in this miserable world are over,” she replied with distant cool, raising her palms slightly to prevent him hugging her. He became as neutral and matter-of-fact as he could. “However, my troubles are growing by the minute,” she continued, choosing the tasteless expression in an effort to express her disdain by arousing his. He crossed
The women shook their heads and clucked and, using as much grace as possible, they explained that Gloria London, the steady girlfriend who’d jilted him last year, was already enrolled in summer school there. Several weeks back Ty and his parents had gone to Columbia, where he and Gloria, who was expecting a baby next month, had been married. His mother had stayed on for a few weeks to help them settle and prepare a nursery.
“You’ve proven yourself with Charmaine!” one woman pressed on. “You’re a genius at wedding decorations.”After the drugstore failed, Leona had worked part-time with a local florist, helping the inept fool plan and design weddings. “You get yourself straightened around and avail yourself of a good floral concern!” another chimed in. “This is all just a bad year, baby,” mused a third.
Later Leona would look back at those women and see that she had been their sacrificial lamb. Almost all of them had or would shortly drive their own unmarried, pregnant daughters to the anonymous sanctity of distant cities for abortions. Therein lay the dangerous differences between individuals and groups.
Of course, she wasn’t listening to them anyway. She didn’t hear a word. She was struck deaf and dumb by the cold, hard fact that Mr. Crockett had lied to her. Leona felt the fire die out of her passion and grief. Nothing grand had been lost, nothing mystical or destined or poetic was gone. She was one more stupid, sorry bad girl in a jam.
Yet his abandonment and the insensitive indifference of the sanctimonious world around her were merely burdens beside her mother’s death. That was incomprehensible and cruel, as if life had waited for this difficult summer to bare its teeth with a haughty smirk.
As she lay in bed that night, watching a moving armada of clouds sail past the moon, it seemed as if the army of death were surrounding her, seizing her future and tossing her along with it into prison. It seemed that her mother’s dying had permeated every cloud shape, every leaf on every tree. And when she slept, it was only to chase her mother, who outpaced her as she fled through the meaningless void.
7
FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 1998
12:00 NOON
Mr. Crockett’s office was at the back of the Bank of Fredonia, a gray marble temple of finance built in 1899 with NeoClassical faith in the impending twentieth century. The receptionist was at lunch. Mr. Crockett, who was the first vice president, didn’t go to lunch. He liked to work straight through from seven A.M. to three P.M., when he headed for the country club golf course. She slipped down the polished granite corridor, leaning one hand on a carved Corinthian pilaster beside his open door. He looked up before she could speak. He pasted on an affable smile and jumped to his feet, moving toward the door to prevent her from taking a seat. He was an unpleasant, fastidious man who always seemed about to fly into a rage. She had a childhood memory of her father leaning over her head in church to commentto her mother that Mr. Crockett was a man tormented by secrets.
“Hey.” His smile shifted into a sympathetic look. “We’re all so devastated about poor Viola.”
“Poor Viola’s troubles in this miserable world are over,” she replied with distant cool, raising her palms slightly to prevent him hugging her. He became as neutral and matter-of-fact as he could. “However, my troubles are growing by the minute,” she continued, choosing the tasteless expression in an effort to express her disdain by arousing his. He crossed
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