The Butterfly Effect
All I've got is a photograph.
Luke scratched absentmindedly at the dry skin on his forearm while he waited for some indication of emotion on the coffee shop owner’s otherwise stoic face. Sorting through prints didn’t usually take this long, but every moron with enough money for a DSLR was a world class photographer these days, so his work was getting harder and harder to sell.
“So. What’s the deal?” Luke sighed through his question. The silence and apathy from his potential customer could only be endured for so long.
“I’ll take…uh, this one,” he said, holding up a photo of several sets of hands held together in prayer, “but that’s all for right now. Sorry, Luke, but our walls can’t be a one man show.” The man placed what Luke imagined was meant to be a comforting hand on his shoulder before gathering up the rejected photographs and handing them back.
Luke smiled a resigned half smile, tossing his artwork carelessly into his messenger bag and lifting it onto his shoulder. “Always a pleasure.” He began to walk out but the owner gestured for him to stop. “…Yes?”
The man seemed uncomfortable with Luke’s eager movements to leave, and so the next thing he said felt like it was coming out a bit…well, forced. “I just. Uh. What’s it called? The photo.”
Luke smirked briefly at his own private joke, despite the fact that no one else would find it funny even if he explained it. “We’re All Too Small.”
---
Luke had been grappling with religion ever since he could remember. Flashes of moments stuck in the pitch of his memory always crept back whenever he was otherwise unoccupied. He remembered the CCD teacher—who never even told them what CCD stood for—explaining that if you held your hands wrong when you prayed, the devil could climb up on them and crawl in your ears. He remembered the Eucharist when he was younger, terrified that the chunk of breaded Jesus would stick to the roof of his mouth and the blood of our Lord wouldn’t be enough to wash it down. He remembered when Father Richard died of cardiac arrest and he remembered when Father Looney came to preach and he remembered never going back in the sanctuary doors.
It was because of all these memories that he found it disconcerting to be sitting in a homey basement full of teenagers giving up their Friday night to sing and laugh about how much they loved God. He wasn’t sure what had led him there, but he turned his back on religion so quickly that he often felt like he was missing something. It was strange. They all swore, they all joked around, and they were all wearing average teenage clothing. They just seemed…normal.
“Alright, folks.” A man wearing a university sweater and pressed jeans commanded the attention of the room of goofing off teens. “I know we all like to have fun, and that’s all fine and dandy, but when it all comes down to it, we’re here because we want to get into a closer relationship with God. We want to feel like Jesus is our best friend. And the best way to do that, weirdly enough, isn’t by going to church every Sunday, or by memorizing the Bible, no. It’s through prayer. Because what prayer is when you get down to it is a language that you can speak to God with.”
Every pair of eyes fell comfortably on the man preaching—Luke didn’t want to call him their leader; it sounded far too cultish. They all listened intently though, and Luke didn’t understand. Church didn’t matter?
“I want all of you, this week, to go out and find someone you don’t know, and just pray for them. Just be real specific and real heartfelt and you’ll do just fine.”
---
It was already Thursday and Luke was not doing just fine. He had tried and tried to figure out who he should pray for, but each time a thought crossed his mind, he fidgeted with his fingers, completely unsure how to begin. Talking to God seemed like such a daunting task. What if he fucked it up? Would God be upset and turn a deaf ear to his prayers and his questions?
The only thing he could do when he didn’t know what else to do was take pictures; it was his solace. When he lifted the camera to his face, his eye became the lens. The focus was merely an arm pulling his subjects closer or pushing them away. Luke slung his bag over his shoulder, blowing hot air into his palms and rubbing them up and down his pale arms. He braced himself for the late September air, yet still refused to put a jacket on over his t-shirt. Jackets were so bulky and often made too much noise; cotton was unobtrusive and didn’t frighten animals as much as waterproof polyester.
Armed with his second body, he set out into the park with thoughts of faith and God and whatever else weighing heavily on his mind. With all this extra baggage, he couldn’t seem to capture any shots he felt were worth keeping, but then again, he couldn’t immediately reminisce like the hipsters with their digitals. He had to wait for the wholly thought consuming process of developing film himself.
He kept gravitating to shooting the sky, even though it was a near cloudless blue, and there was no doubt in his mind that the coffee shop owner would never take a second look at those prints. Refusing to pull the camera away from his eyes, he searched and searched for anything that might make this trip worthwhile.
Just then, it caught his eye. A monarch butterfly flew down and touched upon a discarded piece of paper, as though that piece of trash were his throne. Luke crept around, trying to get closer without appearing a treasonous threat to the king. But the regal insect remained still, perched upon the paper with pride, no matter how close Luke or his camera were. He genuflected to the creature as any proper citizen would, and twisted his focus ever so slightly…click. He sighed, pleased that he had managed what promised to be a beautiful, if a little clichéd, shot.
---
In the darkroom, no thoughts were allowed except the most technical. It was such an acutely detailed chemical process that his full attention was required, and any deviation of thought would likely result in the ruining of some quality film. Luke welcomed the silencing of his overwhelmed mind and went through the process in his head, step by crucial step. He was disappointed, however, when he hung the processed film up to dry and reluctantly turned on the lights after only about twenty minutes, leaving him twiddling his thumbs while he waited for the film to quit dripping. As soon as it did, he searched for the butterfly picture and eagerly clipped the film into a section he could use. He was going to have to bring it to a printing store, as he was by no means made of money, at least certainly not enough to have his own printing machine, and the developing chemicals were expensive enough.
---
When Luke returned home, it was with a single print in his hand and a perplexed look on his face. “Did I bump the focus that much?” he mumbled to himself, annoyed at his messed up picture. What he saw when he looked at the shot was a slightly blurry butterfly with a perfectly clear piece of garbage. He could, of course, still justify the shot to his buyers, but he was nevertheless pissed. Upon closer inspection, something else caught his eye that he hadn’t paid attention to in his previous state of irritation. On the piece of paper, in chicken scratch handwriting, it said, “Carly Gilbert. St. Francis of Assisi Hospital.”
This led Luke to questions, as most things did. Why this information? Why did the butterfly he chose land on this particular piece of paper? Did he believe in signs? More importantly, did he believe in God?
---
Feeling completely naked without his camera bag by his side, Luke pressed onward towards St. Francis’. The street he was walking on felt windier than any other street; eventually he would have to give in and buy a coat. What compelled him to keep walking, he would never know, but for whatever reason, he was going to find Carly Gilbert.
“Excuse me,” he said, and his voice felt smaller than that butterfly’s feelers. He cleared his throat, piercing the already uncomfortable silence with ugly sounds. “Excuse me.”
“May I help you?” The receptionist’s voice was clipped, with a hint of exasperation.
“Um…do you know where I can find Carly Gilbert?”
She clicked and buzzed and whizzed through the computer system, which he was sure accurately filed hundreds of patients. Yet again came the tone like she really didn’t appreciate Luke’s presence at all. “Listen, only a very restricted group of people are allowed—”
And Luke had seen enough hospital shows and movies to guess what was coming next. He knew that the nurse would rudely tell him that only immediate family could see her, and he couldn’t very well say that he was a member of that, especially because he seemed completely unsure of himself. And yet, there was this unbridled curiosity he felt about this situation, and letting it end here when he had bothered the long and winding trek to the hospital seemed like he was giving up far too easily.
“I’m her boyfriend. Ma’am, please.”
“Oh. Well. Uh. I mean, you’re not family…” She seemed upsettingly flustered by his first three words, as if that really changed everything. He attempted to appear as though he couldn’t hold any more sadness inside, and he was no actor for sure, but he almost got a little tear to fall, and he had to resist patting himself gratuitously on the back. “You know what, fine. Just for a little while. Follow me.”
And he did. He followed the muted clickety-clack of her too-big regulation flats rhythmically sliding off her heel and back on again down the linoleum hallway to one of the intensive care rooms. Without another word, though with a sad attempt at a smile, she turned around and left.
He very gingerly stepped foot into the room, his fingers trailing along the wall as if he were little Lucy entering the closet to Narnia, and it might as well have been, with all the excess white hospitals had. Although when he turned the corner and saw the dim glow of lights, he was met not by a clumsy fawn, but by a bed with a girl who looked like she had been to hell and back. Scratches littered her face like snowflakes—some probably small scars from embedded glass, and bruises covered much of the visible surface area of her frail, weak-looking body. She was breathing, but slowly. Her heart was pumping, but barely. She was comatose, and he had no idea how long she had been that way. He decided that he couldn’t not pray for this girl. Out of some underlying chivalry or some overbearing guilt, though, he wasn’t sure.
“Um, okay well. Um. I, uh…I don’t know exactly how to start this out, but…” But he was certain he’d gotten it all wrong, and now more than ever he was hoping that God would be forgiving. He took a breath, trying to start over. “Okay, well, um, God, first off, I would like to apologize for lying to the nurse back there, because I’m pretty sure lying is one of the like, cardinal sins.” Right now, Luke pictured God pointing and laughing at him. “I’m sorry I’m not one of these great pray-ers, okay, God? This isn’t easy for me. I just…okay I don’t know what to do. Help me help her, God. That’s all.”
---
Every day Luke returned, always at an awkward time so as not to catch her family, and every day, he prayed. It took quite some time before he stopped stuttering and stumbling over his words, but he knew that all things took practice, so he was trying especially hard not to get down on himself. He had started to refer to God in particularly colloquial terms. “Hey God. ‘S me again.” “Ay yo God, whassup?” and so on.
He had heard many times that prayer had been medically proven to work in the past, and so he was hoping that his determination would eventually reap some benefits. He had even started talking to Carly. “Hi Carly. I, um. I really hope you’re feeling better. I hope you don’t mind that I’m holding your hand right now, but um, sometimes, I just like to hold your hand and pretend that you’ll one day just like, I dunno, grip mine back. I keep praying for your progress, and it’s worked before, so I don’t see why it shouldn’t work now.” He couldn’t help but feel more and more attached to her every time he came in, like she was a friend who just couldn’t talk back. He was pretty sure the nurse was on to him and his lie, but he was also pretty sure that the smile on his face when he knew he was seeing Carly was enough to keep her from saying anything.
“Hi Carly. How are you doing today? I’ve been coming here for a few weeks now, and I really feel like I’ve gotten to know you. I know it probably sounds dumb, but you’re sort of a constant in my life, and I think it’s sorta funny that you came along because of a crappy picture.” He looked down at his restless hands, absentmindedly flicking his untrimmed fingernails against his thumbs. He couldn’t make eye contact with God, but at this point, he didn’t want to try. He had heard that patience was a virtue, and that saying felt like such bullshit. When you pray about something, God is supposed to listen. He’s supposed to listen and understand and then help. But God wasn’t being any help at all with Carly.
---
In fact, it felt like God was doing the exact opposite. Every time Luke came, it felt like her breathing slowed, even just the smallest bit. It felt like his own heart had slowed to match the pace of hers, out of sympathy.
The nurses were always talking about how they didn’t think that her parents’ budget could keep her on life support much longer. They tried to do it in hushed gossiping whispers, but Luke still heard every word, soaking the news in with bitterness.
And then one day, his eyes hardened, and his teeth clenched together, and he swallowed a lump in his throat as the last inkling of hope felt like it physically left him. He stopped coming. He gave up. Not even his camera could take his mind away from the disappointment he felt. He almost thought he had made a breakthrough. He almost thought that God was going to answer his prayers. But then he just had this rush of feeling like he had thought wrong. Carly would never know him, would never know how much he cared, would never know that in the quietest hours, he sang to her, sweet and far too soft for anyone else to hear. She was just going to have to die, and God didn’t give a shit. These were the thoughts that plagued his mind as he stared at the photograph, the focus seeming to shift farther from Carly and more towards the butterfly. These were the thoughts that plagued his mind as he closed his eyes.
---
She opened her eyes. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Her mother was the one who saw it happen. Just a tender flicker, like a camera’s shutter. Carly actually opened her eyes. Luke was nowhere to be found, and had been nowhere around St Francis’ for several days. But the flicker meant hope. The flicker meant she was going to wake up.
Some weeks later, Carly was rehabilitated enough to be discharged from the hospital. She couldn’t wait to see something beyond her whiteout walls. She was so excited to start living her life again, only better. Except…she had a clear notion that something was missing. She remembered some fuzzy voice that didn’t sound like anyone in her family, but it had no other defining characteristics, making it nothing more than a nagging noise in the back of her mind.
“Honey, baby girl, Carly darling,” her mother said, soaking each word with love as though she thought she owed it to her daughter. Carly had heard that people are often overly tender post-trauma, but she felt like her mother was laying it on a little thick. “How would you like to go out for some tea?”
---
The flow of tea in her throat felt wonderful in the cool of November. Small talk with her mother was easier now because she had little to say; she only had to listen, and she didn’t even really have to, because her mother couldn’t blame her for zoning out. Actually, she couldn’t really blame Carly for anything at this stage of the game; it was far too early for her psyche to handle that pressure, according to her therapist. Her eyes rapidly glanced around, trying to find some spot where they could sit for longer than a nanosecond. Finally, they flew to a photograph hanging on the wall opposite her: a monarch butterfly so still she was almost impressed. But then it hit her. Despite the blur, the butterfly had landed on some piece of paper that clearly had her mother’s unmistakably terrible handwriting.
“Mom. Hey mom.”
“What?”
“Turn around.” She did. “Isn’t that your handwriting?” Her mother looked closer, squinting her tired eyes, before raising her eyebrows in confirmation.
“Why, yes. That’s the, uh…the paper that I wrote your information on when the EMTs called me after they pulled you from the car. I wonder why someone would take a picture of that. Hardly worth displaying.”
Not listening to a word from her mother’s mouth, Carly stood up to get closer and examine the picture further. Blurry or not, she was certain that the paper did not only contain her mother’s handwriting, but her name as well. She looked down to the title of the piece and the photo credit displayed beneath the picture, and noticed that the title was “Say a Little Prayer.”
“Excuse me,” she said, flagging down one of the employees. “I know this probably sounds weird, but…would you happen to know where this artist lives?”
---
Carly felt like a bona fide stalker right now, and she didn’t like it, but she needed answers. The wind whipped at her already dry face, making it redden from the outside temperature. She tentatively approached the door, closing her eyes and knocking three times, each knock as strong as the one before. When the door opened, all she saw was a shaggy mess of brown hair.
“Carly.”
“Luke, I’m guessing?”
He laughed quietly through a smile. “Thank God you’re here.”
“So. What’s the deal?” Luke sighed through his question. The silence and apathy from his potential customer could only be endured for so long.
“I’ll take…uh, this one,” he said, holding up a photo of several sets of hands held together in prayer, “but that’s all for right now. Sorry, Luke, but our walls can’t be a one man show.” The man placed what Luke imagined was meant to be a comforting hand on his shoulder before gathering up the rejected photographs and handing them back.
Luke smiled a resigned half smile, tossing his artwork carelessly into his messenger bag and lifting it onto his shoulder. “Always a pleasure.” He began to walk out but the owner gestured for him to stop. “…Yes?”
The man seemed uncomfortable with Luke’s eager movements to leave, and so the next thing he said felt like it was coming out a bit…well, forced. “I just. Uh. What’s it called? The photo.”
Luke smirked briefly at his own private joke, despite the fact that no one else would find it funny even if he explained it. “We’re All Too Small.”
---
Luke had been grappling with religion ever since he could remember. Flashes of moments stuck in the pitch of his memory always crept back whenever he was otherwise unoccupied. He remembered the CCD teacher—who never even told them what CCD stood for—explaining that if you held your hands wrong when you prayed, the devil could climb up on them and crawl in your ears. He remembered the Eucharist when he was younger, terrified that the chunk of breaded Jesus would stick to the roof of his mouth and the blood of our Lord wouldn’t be enough to wash it down. He remembered when Father Richard died of cardiac arrest and he remembered when Father Looney came to preach and he remembered never going back in the sanctuary doors.
It was because of all these memories that he found it disconcerting to be sitting in a homey basement full of teenagers giving up their Friday night to sing and laugh about how much they loved God. He wasn’t sure what had led him there, but he turned his back on religion so quickly that he often felt like he was missing something. It was strange. They all swore, they all joked around, and they were all wearing average teenage clothing. They just seemed…normal.
“Alright, folks.” A man wearing a university sweater and pressed jeans commanded the attention of the room of goofing off teens. “I know we all like to have fun, and that’s all fine and dandy, but when it all comes down to it, we’re here because we want to get into a closer relationship with God. We want to feel like Jesus is our best friend. And the best way to do that, weirdly enough, isn’t by going to church every Sunday, or by memorizing the Bible, no. It’s through prayer. Because what prayer is when you get down to it is a language that you can speak to God with.”
Every pair of eyes fell comfortably on the man preaching—Luke didn’t want to call him their leader; it sounded far too cultish. They all listened intently though, and Luke didn’t understand. Church didn’t matter?
“I want all of you, this week, to go out and find someone you don’t know, and just pray for them. Just be real specific and real heartfelt and you’ll do just fine.”
---
It was already Thursday and Luke was not doing just fine. He had tried and tried to figure out who he should pray for, but each time a thought crossed his mind, he fidgeted with his fingers, completely unsure how to begin. Talking to God seemed like such a daunting task. What if he fucked it up? Would God be upset and turn a deaf ear to his prayers and his questions?
The only thing he could do when he didn’t know what else to do was take pictures; it was his solace. When he lifted the camera to his face, his eye became the lens. The focus was merely an arm pulling his subjects closer or pushing them away. Luke slung his bag over his shoulder, blowing hot air into his palms and rubbing them up and down his pale arms. He braced himself for the late September air, yet still refused to put a jacket on over his t-shirt. Jackets were so bulky and often made too much noise; cotton was unobtrusive and didn’t frighten animals as much as waterproof polyester.
Armed with his second body, he set out into the park with thoughts of faith and God and whatever else weighing heavily on his mind. With all this extra baggage, he couldn’t seem to capture any shots he felt were worth keeping, but then again, he couldn’t immediately reminisce like the hipsters with their digitals. He had to wait for the wholly thought consuming process of developing film himself.
He kept gravitating to shooting the sky, even though it was a near cloudless blue, and there was no doubt in his mind that the coffee shop owner would never take a second look at those prints. Refusing to pull the camera away from his eyes, he searched and searched for anything that might make this trip worthwhile.
Just then, it caught his eye. A monarch butterfly flew down and touched upon a discarded piece of paper, as though that piece of trash were his throne. Luke crept around, trying to get closer without appearing a treasonous threat to the king. But the regal insect remained still, perched upon the paper with pride, no matter how close Luke or his camera were. He genuflected to the creature as any proper citizen would, and twisted his focus ever so slightly…click. He sighed, pleased that he had managed what promised to be a beautiful, if a little clichéd, shot.
---
In the darkroom, no thoughts were allowed except the most technical. It was such an acutely detailed chemical process that his full attention was required, and any deviation of thought would likely result in the ruining of some quality film. Luke welcomed the silencing of his overwhelmed mind and went through the process in his head, step by crucial step. He was disappointed, however, when he hung the processed film up to dry and reluctantly turned on the lights after only about twenty minutes, leaving him twiddling his thumbs while he waited for the film to quit dripping. As soon as it did, he searched for the butterfly picture and eagerly clipped the film into a section he could use. He was going to have to bring it to a printing store, as he was by no means made of money, at least certainly not enough to have his own printing machine, and the developing chemicals were expensive enough.
---
When Luke returned home, it was with a single print in his hand and a perplexed look on his face. “Did I bump the focus that much?” he mumbled to himself, annoyed at his messed up picture. What he saw when he looked at the shot was a slightly blurry butterfly with a perfectly clear piece of garbage. He could, of course, still justify the shot to his buyers, but he was nevertheless pissed. Upon closer inspection, something else caught his eye that he hadn’t paid attention to in his previous state of irritation. On the piece of paper, in chicken scratch handwriting, it said, “Carly Gilbert. St. Francis of Assisi Hospital.”
This led Luke to questions, as most things did. Why this information? Why did the butterfly he chose land on this particular piece of paper? Did he believe in signs? More importantly, did he believe in God?
---
Feeling completely naked without his camera bag by his side, Luke pressed onward towards St. Francis’. The street he was walking on felt windier than any other street; eventually he would have to give in and buy a coat. What compelled him to keep walking, he would never know, but for whatever reason, he was going to find Carly Gilbert.
“Excuse me,” he said, and his voice felt smaller than that butterfly’s feelers. He cleared his throat, piercing the already uncomfortable silence with ugly sounds. “Excuse me.”
“May I help you?” The receptionist’s voice was clipped, with a hint of exasperation.
“Um…do you know where I can find Carly Gilbert?”
She clicked and buzzed and whizzed through the computer system, which he was sure accurately filed hundreds of patients. Yet again came the tone like she really didn’t appreciate Luke’s presence at all. “Listen, only a very restricted group of people are allowed—”
And Luke had seen enough hospital shows and movies to guess what was coming next. He knew that the nurse would rudely tell him that only immediate family could see her, and he couldn’t very well say that he was a member of that, especially because he seemed completely unsure of himself. And yet, there was this unbridled curiosity he felt about this situation, and letting it end here when he had bothered the long and winding trek to the hospital seemed like he was giving up far too easily.
“I’m her boyfriend. Ma’am, please.”
“Oh. Well. Uh. I mean, you’re not family…” She seemed upsettingly flustered by his first three words, as if that really changed everything. He attempted to appear as though he couldn’t hold any more sadness inside, and he was no actor for sure, but he almost got a little tear to fall, and he had to resist patting himself gratuitously on the back. “You know what, fine. Just for a little while. Follow me.”
And he did. He followed the muted clickety-clack of her too-big regulation flats rhythmically sliding off her heel and back on again down the linoleum hallway to one of the intensive care rooms. Without another word, though with a sad attempt at a smile, she turned around and left.
He very gingerly stepped foot into the room, his fingers trailing along the wall as if he were little Lucy entering the closet to Narnia, and it might as well have been, with all the excess white hospitals had. Although when he turned the corner and saw the dim glow of lights, he was met not by a clumsy fawn, but by a bed with a girl who looked like she had been to hell and back. Scratches littered her face like snowflakes—some probably small scars from embedded glass, and bruises covered much of the visible surface area of her frail, weak-looking body. She was breathing, but slowly. Her heart was pumping, but barely. She was comatose, and he had no idea how long she had been that way. He decided that he couldn’t not pray for this girl. Out of some underlying chivalry or some overbearing guilt, though, he wasn’t sure.
“Um, okay well. Um. I, uh…I don’t know exactly how to start this out, but…” But he was certain he’d gotten it all wrong, and now more than ever he was hoping that God would be forgiving. He took a breath, trying to start over. “Okay, well, um, God, first off, I would like to apologize for lying to the nurse back there, because I’m pretty sure lying is one of the like, cardinal sins.” Right now, Luke pictured God pointing and laughing at him. “I’m sorry I’m not one of these great pray-ers, okay, God? This isn’t easy for me. I just…okay I don’t know what to do. Help me help her, God. That’s all.”
---
Every day Luke returned, always at an awkward time so as not to catch her family, and every day, he prayed. It took quite some time before he stopped stuttering and stumbling over his words, but he knew that all things took practice, so he was trying especially hard not to get down on himself. He had started to refer to God in particularly colloquial terms. “Hey God. ‘S me again.” “Ay yo God, whassup?” and so on.
He had heard many times that prayer had been medically proven to work in the past, and so he was hoping that his determination would eventually reap some benefits. He had even started talking to Carly. “Hi Carly. I, um. I really hope you’re feeling better. I hope you don’t mind that I’m holding your hand right now, but um, sometimes, I just like to hold your hand and pretend that you’ll one day just like, I dunno, grip mine back. I keep praying for your progress, and it’s worked before, so I don’t see why it shouldn’t work now.” He couldn’t help but feel more and more attached to her every time he came in, like she was a friend who just couldn’t talk back. He was pretty sure the nurse was on to him and his lie, but he was also pretty sure that the smile on his face when he knew he was seeing Carly was enough to keep her from saying anything.
“Hi Carly. How are you doing today? I’ve been coming here for a few weeks now, and I really feel like I’ve gotten to know you. I know it probably sounds dumb, but you’re sort of a constant in my life, and I think it’s sorta funny that you came along because of a crappy picture.” He looked down at his restless hands, absentmindedly flicking his untrimmed fingernails against his thumbs. He couldn’t make eye contact with God, but at this point, he didn’t want to try. He had heard that patience was a virtue, and that saying felt like such bullshit. When you pray about something, God is supposed to listen. He’s supposed to listen and understand and then help. But God wasn’t being any help at all with Carly.
---
In fact, it felt like God was doing the exact opposite. Every time Luke came, it felt like her breathing slowed, even just the smallest bit. It felt like his own heart had slowed to match the pace of hers, out of sympathy.
The nurses were always talking about how they didn’t think that her parents’ budget could keep her on life support much longer. They tried to do it in hushed gossiping whispers, but Luke still heard every word, soaking the news in with bitterness.
And then one day, his eyes hardened, and his teeth clenched together, and he swallowed a lump in his throat as the last inkling of hope felt like it physically left him. He stopped coming. He gave up. Not even his camera could take his mind away from the disappointment he felt. He almost thought he had made a breakthrough. He almost thought that God was going to answer his prayers. But then he just had this rush of feeling like he had thought wrong. Carly would never know him, would never know how much he cared, would never know that in the quietest hours, he sang to her, sweet and far too soft for anyone else to hear. She was just going to have to die, and God didn’t give a shit. These were the thoughts that plagued his mind as he stared at the photograph, the focus seeming to shift farther from Carly and more towards the butterfly. These were the thoughts that plagued his mind as he closed his eyes.
---
She opened her eyes. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Her mother was the one who saw it happen. Just a tender flicker, like a camera’s shutter. Carly actually opened her eyes. Luke was nowhere to be found, and had been nowhere around St Francis’ for several days. But the flicker meant hope. The flicker meant she was going to wake up.
Some weeks later, Carly was rehabilitated enough to be discharged from the hospital. She couldn’t wait to see something beyond her whiteout walls. She was so excited to start living her life again, only better. Except…she had a clear notion that something was missing. She remembered some fuzzy voice that didn’t sound like anyone in her family, but it had no other defining characteristics, making it nothing more than a nagging noise in the back of her mind.
“Honey, baby girl, Carly darling,” her mother said, soaking each word with love as though she thought she owed it to her daughter. Carly had heard that people are often overly tender post-trauma, but she felt like her mother was laying it on a little thick. “How would you like to go out for some tea?”
---
The flow of tea in her throat felt wonderful in the cool of November. Small talk with her mother was easier now because she had little to say; she only had to listen, and she didn’t even really have to, because her mother couldn’t blame her for zoning out. Actually, she couldn’t really blame Carly for anything at this stage of the game; it was far too early for her psyche to handle that pressure, according to her therapist. Her eyes rapidly glanced around, trying to find some spot where they could sit for longer than a nanosecond. Finally, they flew to a photograph hanging on the wall opposite her: a monarch butterfly so still she was almost impressed. But then it hit her. Despite the blur, the butterfly had landed on some piece of paper that clearly had her mother’s unmistakably terrible handwriting.
“Mom. Hey mom.”
“What?”
“Turn around.” She did. “Isn’t that your handwriting?” Her mother looked closer, squinting her tired eyes, before raising her eyebrows in confirmation.
“Why, yes. That’s the, uh…the paper that I wrote your information on when the EMTs called me after they pulled you from the car. I wonder why someone would take a picture of that. Hardly worth displaying.”
Not listening to a word from her mother’s mouth, Carly stood up to get closer and examine the picture further. Blurry or not, she was certain that the paper did not only contain her mother’s handwriting, but her name as well. She looked down to the title of the piece and the photo credit displayed beneath the picture, and noticed that the title was “Say a Little Prayer.”
“Excuse me,” she said, flagging down one of the employees. “I know this probably sounds weird, but…would you happen to know where this artist lives?”
---
Carly felt like a bona fide stalker right now, and she didn’t like it, but she needed answers. The wind whipped at her already dry face, making it redden from the outside temperature. She tentatively approached the door, closing her eyes and knocking three times, each knock as strong as the one before. When the door opened, all she saw was a shaggy mess of brown hair.
“Carly.”
“Luke, I’m guessing?”
He laughed quietly through a smile. “Thank God you’re here.”