James Cain - The Butterfly

“I don’t mind.”

“I used to call you Pappy.”

“You remember that?”

“I remember a lot, and how sweet you was to me, and how much I loved you, and how tall you was.”

“Why not call me Jess?”

“Isn’t that fresh?”

“Kady does, but of course she is fresh.”

“It’s so wonderful about her.”

“... What about her?”

“Everything.”

She looked down at the floor, and you could see she was awful happy about something, and then she said: “You know about Danny?”

“Who’s Danny?”

“Didn’t she tell you?”

“Is that Danny in there crying?”

“He won’t cry after he’s fed. Kady took the truck and ran into town for a lot of things he’s got to have, because all you’ve got here, that he can have, is milk. But she’ll be back soon. And as soon as he gets a little something in his stomach he’ll be sweeter than sugar.”

“What’s Moke got to do with him?”

“Have you see Moke?”

I told her what had gone on in the hollow, and she doubled up her fists and said: “I hope I don’t see him. I might kill him.”

“Hey, hey, none of that kind of talk.”

“Moke took Danny.”

“First my wife, then my grandson.”

“Say that again, Jess.”

“He is, isn’t he?”

“I wasn’t sure you’d remember it.”

“I don’t forget much.”

“What Moke did, and how today I caught up with him, that’s part of what’s so wonderful. Last week, on account of Kady being gone and my mother not much caring one way or the other, little Danny was mine, and it was heavenly, because maybe I’ll never get married, but still I had one of my own. Then when I came home from the store one day he was gone, and Moke was gone, and I went almost crazy, but I knew it had to be Moke that took him, because he was so crazy about him.”

“Moke loves somebody?”

“Oh, he gets lonely too. And there I was, fit to be tied. Because Kady, that was my whole life before, was gone I had no idea where, and now with Danny stolen it was more than I could stand. But my mother said if Moke took him, he had to have some place to bring him to, and he still had his shack up in the hollow, and maybe it was there. So she drew it out for me how to get there, and I took the bus over from Blount, and even before I got to it I could hear Danny laughing and Moke playing to him on the banjo. So I wasn’t going to take any chance on a fight with Moke. Maybe he wouldn’t let me have Danny, but then he’d know I was around, and might run off again, somewhere else. So he said something to Danny about a drink, but I noticed there was no well out back.”

“He gets water from a neighbor.”

“I thought he might, and right away he came out with a pail and started across the clearing. I went in and grabbed Danny and ran down the path, and when I got to the road I made a man with a wagon give me a ride, because he said he was going as far as the bus line. But then, as we passed this cabin, who should I see but Kady out back, hanging out clothes! Jess, I jumped down, and ran over to her, and I wasn’t crazy any more, I was the happiest person on earth, because I had my two darlings back, my little baby, and my sister that I’d loved ever since I could remember.”

“How does Kady feel about it?”

“She loves it.”

I didn’t love it, and if Kady did, that wasn’t how she told it to me, the last time she had mentioned Danny. But when she came in with the stuff she’d bought, her eyes were like stars, and she went in the back room with Jane without even a hello to me. I sat there trying to tell myself it was all right, it was just what I’d been praying for. If she could love her child, and stop all this drinking and dancing and carrying on, it was the best thing all around, and I could get some peace from her, and not be teased into having thoughts about her that made me so ashamed I hated to own up to myself they were there. It didn’t do me any good. If she’d had a child, and she hated it, that squared it up, and I didn’t have to remember it. But if she didn’t hate him, it was between me and her, and would be, always. I sat there, while out back Jane explained how to mix this and how to cook that, and pretty soon they began feeding the baby, and his crying stopped and Jane began talking to him and telling him how pretty he was, and all of a sudden Kady was sitting beside me and picking up my hand.

“Want to see my baby, Jess?”

“I guess not.”

“He’s a pretty baby.”

“So I hear.”

“And he’s your grandson.”

“I know.”

“It would make me happy, Jess.”

“It wouldn’t me.”

“Then if that’s how you feel about it, I won’t try to change you. I’ll take him away. There’s a reason I can’t go back to Blount just yet, but he and Jane and I can stay in a hotel at Carbon and you won’t be bothered.”

“I didn’t ask you to leave.”

“If my baby’s not welcome, I’m not.”

“You’ve changed a lot, that’s all I can say.”

“Didn’t Jane tell you why?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Didn’t she tell you why Moke took him?”

“She said he was lonesome.”

“He loved Danny, and specially after the way Belle began fighting with him, just before I left. He was crazy about him, and then when he found out he was to be taken away, he went off with him.”

“Who was going to take him away?”

“Jane ran into Wash.”

“The father?”

“Yes.”

“Or it might be shorter just to say rat.”

“He’s no rat.”

“He skipped like a rat.”

“His father made him. And then, a week ago, Jane ran into him on the street, in Blount. And he asked about me, and Danny, and was friendly, and pretty soon Jane came right out with it and asked why he didn’t marry me, and give his little boy a name, and stop being—”

“A rat.”

“Anyway, Jess, what he said was wonderful.”

“What was it he said?”

“He said he was always going to, soon as he was twenty-one, whether his family liked it or not. He’s only twenty, Jess, one year older than I am. But now, he said they would give their consent too, before he was twenty-one. Because an awful thing happened to them. His sister, the one that married into the coal family in Philadelphia, had to have an operation, and now she can’t have any children any more. And now they know if they’re to have grandchildren, it’s got to be through Wash. And now they feel different about Danny. And — so do I. I’m so ashamed how I treated him before.”

“Well, it’s all fine.”

“Are you glad at all, Jess?”

“To me, a rat’s a rat.”

“Not even for my sake you don’t feel glad?”

“I rather not say.”

Tears came in her eyes and she sat there making little creases in her dress. It wasn’t one of those she’d been buying, but a quiet little blue one, that made her look smaller and younger and sweeter. I said she should stay on till it suited her to go and I’d go to Carbon, but she said she’d go, and I hated it, the way I was acting, and yet I couldn’t help how I felt. And then Jane was there, putting something in my lap, and looking up at me was the cutest little child I ever saw, all pink and soft and warm, with nothing on him but a clean white diaper. Kady reached over to take him, but I grabbed him and went over to one of the settles by the fire and sat there and held him close. And for a long time something kept stabbing into my heart, and I’d look at him and feel so glad he was partly mine that I wanted to sing. His diaper slipped down a little and I almost died when I saw a brown bug on his stomach, or what I thought was a brown bug, just below the navel. I reached for it with my fingers, but Jane laughed.