Gunny’s focus on the game isn’t great. He loses track of moves, forgets whose turn it is. Sometimes he gets caught up in a rambling story and doesn’t realize he hasn’t made his move yet. I don’t try to remind him, unless he looks confused. To be honest, I’d much rather be hearing about him and his buddies getting blitzed on fine wine in an abandoned chateau and trying to teach a cow to ski. It’s a little hard to picture this old man having that kind of energy, but he couldn’t have been much older than me when he got shipped out.
Every now and then Yelp looks at our board and shakes his head, giving me a wry look. I shrug, but don’t try to explain. My reasons are my own.
Gunny dozes off halfway through our second game. One of the Korea vets, who introduces himself as Pierce, drapes another blanket over the older man’s shoulders, tucking it up under his chin and over his hands. “Store offered to let us use their café,” he says gruffly, embarrassed, I think, by his own kindness. “Gunny said he’s old, not dead, and we’ll be out here or nowhere.”
“Nothing wrong with a little pride,” I reply. “At least not when you’ve got brothers to temper it with a bit of sense.”
He blinks at me, startled, and then smiles.
“I should probably head out anyway. There’s schoolwork I need to look over before tomorrow.” I ease off the bench, stretching stiff, aching muscles. “I’ll be back on Friday, if that’s okay.”
“Come on back whenever you want, Blue Girl,” Pierce says. I have a feeling Gunny will be the only one to call me Priya. “You’re welcome here.”
A little bubble of warmth blooms beneath my sternum. I’ve been allowed into a number of chess groups over the years, but this is the first time I’ve been truly welcomed since Boston.
I fix my coat, pull my hat back on, and head across the parking lot into the Kroger to get a hot drink. The space heaters keep the pavilion comfortable, if a bit on the chilly side, but the walk back home is long enough I’d rather have cocoa to keep me company.
It’s a pretty long line in the café, which seems to be the result of a new barista, working solo, trying to fill the constantly changing orders of a horde of older women in purple and red.
Is there a collective noun for the Red Hat Society ladies?
Next to the line, just a few feet away from me, someone settles into a chair, draping his heavy brown coat over the back of another chair. It’s the nothing man from chess. He pulls a book from the pocket of the coat, a large paperback so battered and busted it’s impossible to know what it is. The pages curl at the sides, the spine is cracked in too many places, and the front and back covers are gone. Just gone. He opens the book, but he’s not looking at it.
He’s looking at me. “A drink does sound just the thing.”
Then why isn’t he in line?
I shift my weight, sidling a few inches away. He’s not even that close, really, it just feels invasive. And I probably shouldn’t keep calling him the nothing man; that’s the kind of thing that spills out by accident and causes problems. “I don’t think I ever got your name.”
“I don’t think I ever gave it.”
I shuffle forward as the line moves. One of the red-and-purple ladies is scolding, and the barista looks about to break down.
“It’s cold outside,” the man says after a little too long being silent.
“It’s February in Colorado.”
“It makes for a cold walk,” he continues, either missing or ignoring the sarcasm. “Would you like a ride?”
“No, thank you.”
“You like the cold?”
“I need the exercise.”
I don’t turn, but I can feel his eyes move down, then back up. “You don’t, not really. You’re fine as you are.”
What the hell is wrong with people?
I move forward again, a little too far away for him to politely speak, and after another couple of minutes, up to the register. “Venti hot chocolate, please.”
“And your name?”
“Jane.” I pay, get my change, and slide along the counter to the pickup spot. The Red Hat ladies are flocked around the condiments bar, gradually migrating to a corner where they push all the tables together.
“Jean!” calls the barista. Close enough.
I wade through the last of the purple-and-red horde, doctor my drink, and start toward the door.
“It gets dark early; are you sure you don’t want that ride?” offers the nothing man as I pass him.
“I’m sure, thank you.”
“My name is Landon.”
No, his name is Creep.
But I nod to acknowledge and walk off.
Creepy men are an unfortunate fact of life. I watched Chavi get harassed from a young age, and I had to put up with it myself even before I got walloped with the puberty stick. I’ve never seen anyone brave enough to be inappropriate to Mum, but I’m sure it happens. It probably just comes out in more subtle fashion.
There’s only one surprise when I check the mail: a plain white envelope with a return address I don’t recognize, but my info is written out in Vic’s blocky print and the frank is from Quantico. Inside the house, I peel off layers and hang them in the front closet, then turn to the spindly, tile-topped table at the base of the stairs. A butterfly with open wings spans the four tiles, all soft, dreamy greens and purples, but it’s almost completely covered with a circle of yellow silk chrysanthemums, a fat red candle, and a picture frame.
That’s where Chavi lives now, in that frame and others like it. The frame is coated in gold glitter, worn away to the gold paint beneath in the upper left corner. The three of us spent a long time deciding which picture to put in there. We knew which one we wanted, which was the most quintessentially Chavi, but it was also the one the police and media used, the one that was plastered all over the Web and the papers and the posters asking if anyone had information. Eventually, we went with it anyway. It was Chavi.
It was her senior photo, and even against the standard mottled-grey background and the self-consciously awkward chin-on-fist pose, the things that make her her blaze out. There’s a light in her eyes, framed with heavy black wings and shimmering white-and-gold shadows, with a bright slash of red at her mouth to match the streaks in her hair. Her bindi and nose stud were red and clear crystal, set in gold, bold and warm like the rest of her. Her skin was darker than mine, dark like Dad’s, which just made the color stand out that much more. What made the photo most Chavi, though, was that she’d completely forgotten that was the day of her appointment. She’d spent the morning playing with a new box of oil pastels, then had to rush to get ready, and she managed to look flawless—save for the rainbow smear of pastels on the outside of the fist propping up her chin.
Digging out the box of matches from the tiny drawer under the tabletop, I light the red candle and lean over to kiss that worn corner. This is how we keep Chavi with us, part of our lives in a way that doesn’t feel too clingy or creepy or crazy.
We don’t have a picture up of Dad, but then, Chavi didn’t choose to leave. Dad did.
Settling onto the couch, I turn the envelope over in my hands, looking for clues about the contents. I don’t really like mystery mail; I got too much of it after Chavi died, people all over the country finding our address and sending us letters or cards or flowers. Hate mail, too; it’s astonishing how many people feel the need to write complete strangers to tell them why their loved one “deserved” to die. Vic’s handwriting is reassuring, but also strange. For anything more than a card, he usually warns me to keep an eye out for it.
And it is definitely not Vic’s writing inside. The script matches the return address, the letters elegant but simple, easy to read. There isn’t a greeting, just a launch straight into:
Victor Hanoverian tells me you know what it’s like to put yourself back together after terrible things.
I do too, or I used to. Maybe I still do, for myself, but there are others now, and I’m not sure what to tell them, or how to help them. Not the way I used to know or be able to guess.
My name is Inara Morrissey, and I’m one of Vic’s Butterflies.
Oh holy shit.