| Butterflies and Spectacles The room is dark but for the soft light of the lamps scattered around it. The yellow glow falls on the wooden table, and the room seems tinted in orange, brown, and black. The vision is hazy, the words vague in my memory. The event is never quite as important as the emotions. I feel closed in, as if the darkness beyond this circle of gold light seeks to engulf me, and those whom I love. This idea is terrifying, for in the simplicity of youth, love is simple, and love is good. I am three, maybe four years old, and I feel that this night carries a weight that I have never before borne. Perhaps in that moment, I would not have described it as such, but retrospect always seems to make things clearer, even as it tints memory in the hues of sentiment. The people of this scene I can no longer picture in my mind's eye. They are different people now. Beside me is my sister, and I feel that she is fearful, almost as if she has done something wrong, but not quite. She is confused, and I know she knows no more about this meeting at night than I. Before us are our parents. They are side by side, a unit despite their differences: my mother, her emotions always quick to rise to the surface, quicker to laughter and quicker to anger, the best storyteller in the world; my father, placid as always, gentle and loving and strong, an idol to a child who has never heard of the Oedipus or the Electra complex, never heard of Freud. I have never heard him raise his voice. Then he is speaking, calm, soothing, and serious. Too serious. My mother is crying. This is not a movie, and I don't remember if I have ever seen her cry over something that isn't a movie. Soon my sister is crying, and this scares me even more than my mother's. My sister is tough. She climbs trees, and jumps off the roof, and rides the wind on her bike. She does not cry. Now there are tears on her cheeks and her chest heaves as she hiccups, and Daddy is still talking. Daddy is making us cry. I realize that I am crying, too. Daddy, what is a tee-you-mur? Fast forward. It's my fifth birthday, and I am going to have my party. Daddy has his orange juice in the morning. As he holds the glass his hands shake, and my mother puts her hands over them and brings the glass to his lips. He sleeps in the den now, with its carpet and its sliding doors. You don't have to go up any steps to get to the den. It's a good room for someone in a wheelchair. I help the nurse push him around the house, and through the garden while my brother rides on his lap. There are butterflies visiting the flowers. I point them out to him, saying, "Look, Daddy," and he looks, and smiles. Then I have my party, and he comes out in his wheelchair to watch me blow my candles. My friends stare, and pretend not to. Nobody else has a daddy who has to sit in a wheelchair, who doesn't have his hair anymore. Nobody else has a daddy who's going to die. I know all about death. I have a picture book that explains it. It is a natural part of life. The book ends with the picture of a boy with his hand held out. In it are a dead butterfly and a pair of broken spectacles. My dad wears spectacles. Six months later, it's Halloween. My sister and brother and I go trick-or-treating. Mom says we should, because it doesn't do any good to wait around in the hospital the way we've been doing. My daddy is at Makati Medical Hospital. Makati Med is where my doctor works, and my sister screams whenever we have to go and get injections, even if they are quick and we get to have candy afterwards. My dad has one that stays in his arm, and he doesn't get any candy. He has a tube that goes up his nose, and there is a machine that goes up and down and up and down beside his bed. Mom says it helps him breathe. I wonder if he has forgotten how, the way he has forgotten my name. His room has a window, but it only looks out into the hallway. When we are in the hospital we stay in the hallway, and look in through the window. My dad is always sleeping. I draw a picture and show it to the nurse. "I just want to show it to my daddy," I say. She sneaks me in. It's a big secret. Kids aren't allowed in the I-See-You. I come into the room, with its breathing machine and its tubes and its funny smell, and I show my dad the drawing, but he doesn't wake up. When Halloween comes we dress up, and we go through the village on roller skates with our candy bags and baskets. We come home past nine, we've never been out so late on our own, and again the scene seems tinged in colors of fire, earth, and darkness. Mom is home. She's never home this early anymore. We are told to go straight to her bedroom, and we do, because we want to show her our loot and our costumes. The hallway seems dark and long, and we three siblings huddle together to ward off who knows what as we cautiously skate through it. When we come into the room, our mother is crying, and she opens her arms and she hugs us and suddenly we're all crying together. I don't remember what happens next, but the next morning I wake up remembering butterflies and spectacles. Liana Smith Copyright ©2002 Liana Smith |
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