have the kind of Christmas we’ve always had before. I don’t want to be recovering from surgery over the holidays or, worse, waiting for the pathology reports. This way, we can stop thinking about it for a while and just enjoy the holidays.”
“Stop thinking about it?” He lowers his voice. “I can’t stop thinking about it for a second, much less over two more weeks.”
Neither can I. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try. And I don’t confess that part of me is relieved to have a delay in the surgery. At the Wonderland Café, the holidays are always bustling with activity, and I’m often involved with numerous town events as well, none of which I want to miss.
We have to organize the Wonderland gift-giving tree for foster children and the Sunday teatime for the women’s shelter. We need to decorate both the café and the Butterfly House with Christmas trees, lights, and wreaths. There’s the annual holiday art fair, Victorian Christmas tours at the Langdon House, the Historical Society party, and the new “Christmas Through the Ages” exhibit at the museum.
It will be difficult for me to organize and help with all of that if I’m recovering from surgery or stressed out about the results of the pathology report.
Which won’t reveal anything new anyway.
“This is the way it is,” I tell Dean, stirring a pot of soup on the stove. “Nothing we do will magically change Dr. Turner’s schedule, so either we deal with it or get angry over nothing.”
Dean’s mouth tightens. Because of course he’s not angry over nothing.
He turns and leaves the kitchen, his shoulders stiff. I watch him go, feeling that increasingly familiar frustration of my own that I don’t know what to do for him.
“Mom!”
“In the kitchen, honey.”
“Look what I found.” Nicholas barrels in from the foyer, several envelopes falling from beneath his arm. He’s holding a wide, flat box wrapped with shiny red paper and a gift tag reading For Liv.
I set down my spoon and take the box from him. “It was by the mailbox?”
“Yeah. I don’t know who brought it.” He hops from foot to foot with excitement. “Bella, come here. We got a package.”
She hurries over, clambering onto a stool at the counter. “Oh, pretty paper.”
“Open it,” Nicholas says.
“It’s from Santa?” Bella asks.
“I don’t think so, sweetie,” I say. “Santa is still at the North Pole getting ready for Christmas.”
I set the box in front of them. Nicholas takes hold of the lid on one side, and Bella grabs the other. On the count of three, they both lift the lid to reveal a nest of purple tissue paper. Nicholas opens it up.
“Wow. Cool.”
“A butterfly,” Bella announces.
Nicholas reaches into the box and holds up a stained-glass sun-catcher of a beautiful monarch butterfly, the orange-and-black wings spread against a pale blue background.
I rifle through the tissue paper for a note or card, but there is none.
“Who’s it from?” Nicholas asks, squinting to peer at the kitchen lights through the glass.
“I have no idea. Someone who cares about us, that’s for sure.”
“A butterfly for the Butterfly House,” he remarks. “Where should we hang it?”
We decide the sunroom is the best place, and I nail a hook to the window frame so the butterfly can catch all the light streaming into the house.
“Who do you think sent it?” Dean asks at dinner.
“I don’t know. Maybe Florence or Kelsey?” I glance at the sun-catcher, which also seems like an Allie Lyons kind of gift, except that her reaction to the news of my illness doesn’t fit with gift-giving.
“I guess we’re not supposed to know,” I say. “It’s a message that we’re cared for.”
“Hey, why is this place called the Butterfly House anyway?” Nicholas asks. “The only place we have butterflies is the garden sometimes.”
“This house was built in the 19th century by a man who was a famous naturalist,” I explain, adding more mashed potatoes to Bella’s plate. “Leonard Morris. He traveled the world studying butterflies and other insects. He built a big greenhouse in the backyard and started collecting live butterflies.
“He’d bring them back from Africa and South America and keep them in the greenhouse along with all sorts of exotic plants and flowers. I read that at one point he had a hundred different varieties of butterflies in the greenhouse. People came from all over to see them, but he never charged admission. He just wanted people to enjoy the beauty of butterflies.”