Butterflies.
I have an idea. A great idea that gives me shivers.
“What?” he asks. “Where do you want to go?”
I shrug like it’s nothing. “Just somewhere. I need to look it up online.”
“We’ll go wherever you want,” he says. “My treat.”
But not today. Today will be my treat.
I keep quiet and eat my breakfast, and he does too. He looks at me curiously, as though he’s trying to read me, but I keep a poker face, determined not to ruin the surprise. I so want to surprise him.
I clear our plates as soon as we’re done.
Chapter Twenty
Nick
She’s bursting to tell me where we’re headed, clutching her phone so tightly as she relays the directions from the navigation software. Her voice bubbles with excitement. A surprise, she insists.
I can’t remember a time someone gave me a surprise like this. Not even Louisa. Louisa was sweet and vivacious, but she wasn’t thoughtful. I enjoyed spoiling Louisa, just as I enjoy spoiling my little Laine, but the creature in the seat beside me is turning out to be a very different girl altogether.
“Don’t I get a clue?” I ask.
Her hair shimmers as she shakes her head. “No. You’ll like it, though. At least I hope you will.”
I’m already liking it. Being with her is enjoyment enough all on its own.
I keep my eyes on the road, none the wiser of our destination as I take the roads she points out.
“Not far,” she says. “Take a right, up here.”
And that’s when I see it. A brown tourist sign on the roadside. Butterfly Zoo.
“Crap.” She groans. “I didn’t know that would be there. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
But it is a surprise. It’s such a surprise I’m lost for words. I was just a boy when I last took my net and disappeared into the countryside to indulge my fascination with butterflies.
Now I only admire them dead. So many lifeless specimens, pinned and mounted in frames on my wall.
The excitement in my stomach is boyish and unfamiliar. An innocence long since forgotten. Buried, with the rest of my life.
“You do want to go, right?” she asks. “You do still like them?”
“I love them,” I tell her, and my heart pounds with the thrill as we pull into the car park.
I park up in a space and turn off the engine, then sit, staring in wonder at the bright painted wings over the entrance doors.
I want to tell her how strange I feel inside, how her thoughtfulness has moved me to nothing but stunted silence, but it’s all I can do to smile and take her hand in mine.
Her fingers squeeze. “They’ve got over two hundred species here. Some rare ones, too. I looked it up online.”
“This is really something, Laine,” I tell her.
“So, let’s go,” she says. “Show me some butterflies. I can’t wait to see.”
Neither can I.
We check in at the entrance, and as I pay the fee I ramble on to the attendant with an enthusiasm so alien. I hand Laine the complimentary spotter pamphlet with a smile.
I won’t need it. I know so many by heart.
The place isn’t busy, not on a cold December morning. The crowds are sparse, even though the glass ceilings bathe us in beautiful warm sunlight. We enter the main butterfly dome unhindered by queues.
A mass of exotic plants. Colour and life and beating wings. Thousands upon thousands of butterflies that overload my senses. I gawp, like an imbecile, so taken by the sight that my breath catches in my throat.
“This is amazing!” she says, and it’s all I can do to nod.
An emerald and black butterfly takes lazy flight in front of us, its wings big and shimmering with metallic beauty. Laine frantically thumbs through the spotter guide, but I still her with a squeeze of my hand on her shoulder.
“Papilio blumei,” I tell her. “Found only on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. It’s a peacock, otherwise known as a green swallowtail.”
“It’s beautiful,” she says, and her eyes follow it all the way out of sight.
“I’ve got one on the wall.”
“I’ve seen it.” She smiles. “But it’s so much more beautiful when it’s flying, don’t you think?”
I’m sure there’s no deeper meaning intended behind her words, but I feel it nonetheless.
“Yes, Laine. It’s so much more beautiful alive.”
“I feel alive,” she tells me.
“Me too, sweetheart. Me too.”
I wander amongst the plants, leading Laine so gently along the paths marked out. So many butterflies, and I tell her about them all. I tell her their Latin names and where they’re from. I tell her if they’re endangered, and what sizes they grow to.
She listens in wonder, hanging onto every word I say. I think she may love them nearly as much as I do.
Her steps are light and bouncy, her gasps genuine. “That one!” she squeals, pointing up ahead. “It’s so beautiful!”
And it is.
Of course it is.
The Maculinea Arion is the largest and rarest of the blue English butterflies. Little, blue-eyed Laine reminds me of one – so beautiful in her fragility. So graceful and delicate. Such a rare delight. I tell her so, and her smile melts my heart.
“That’s really nice.”
“And really true, sweetheart.”
The Arion flutters close, and my breath hitches, the thrill palpable. I see the butterfly’s path, see so clearly that it’s going to land. It couldn’t be more perfect, and it makes me shiver. Fate, she would say, and I’m beginning to believe her. I step away and take out my phone, just quickly enough to call up my camera app.
The butterfly dithers around her head before it lands, perches and flaps its wings once, twice, three times before it rests, so blue against Laine’s pale blonde hair. I watch my beautiful girl crowned by the beautiful butterfly, my heart full to bursting as so many others flutter around us.
Her shock is divine, her expression of wonder so beautifully innocent, and I know it for certain. Laine will love butterflies as much as I do. I can see it in her eyes.
I capture the moment and I know it’s one I will savour forever.
Talk is so easy on the way home. Laine flicks through the spotter pamphlet as though it’s a treasured possession, reading me out the names in Latin to make sure she has the pronunciation right. Her sweet voice makes them ethereal. Magical.
Wonderful.
“Maybe you could teach me how to spot them in the wild,” she says. “It sounds fun.”
“Harder work than the zoo.” I smile to myself. “It’s a different kind of fun, Laine, but no less enjoyable.”
“I think I’d like it,” she tells me, and I do too.
A few weeks ago I’d have struggled to ever imagine myself trekking into the countryside with jars and nets, but not today. Today anything feels possible.
“Better than crosswords, right?” she asks.
That makes me laugh. “Yes, Laine, considerably better than crosswords.”
“Better than TV, too,” she says.
We stop for dinner at a fancy little restaurant on the outskirts of the city, and I stare at her as she scours the menu.