Butterfly's Child Read online

  She sat on the front porch with the beans, and when she saw Frank coming from the barn, fanning himself with his straw hat, she flew to the road to meet him, seeing herself as he might, the blue skirt belling out, her eyes ablaze with devotion.

  He stopped and frowned at her. His nose was sunburned. “What’s wrong?” he said.

  “Nothing. Why shouldn’t a wife come to greet her husband?”

  He laughed and shook his head, smacking the hat against his dusty trousers. “Mighty grimy husband,” he said.

  “Nonetheless handsome,” she said. He laughed again.

  She went with him to the back porch and after he washed up, handed him the towel.

  “To what do I owe this royal treatment?” he said, grinning, one eye shut, as he scrubbed his face dry. “You seen something new in the catalogue?”

  “Well …” She smiled and looked down at the bodice of her dress, but he was hanging up the towel and even at dinner didn’t notice the dress, though her mother-in-law did, her eyes fixing on every button and tuck, as if to measure the cost.

  After supper, Frank went upstairs to his study to work on the farm ledger, while Kate sat in the parlor with her needlepoint, Mrs. Pinkerton knitted, and Benji played with his blocks, the marmalade cat purring in his lap.

  He was a sweet little boy, but with him in the house it would be impossible for Frank to forget that woman. The mother of his child. The phrase sank into her like lead.

  She rethreaded her needle. She must keep in mind that she was partly to blame for this predicament. She should never have insisted on the trip to Japan—a second honeymoon, she pleaded, before they made the move to the farm. The Orient was an interest she and Frank had in common—she’d lived in China as a young child with her missionary parents—and he had some business in Japan, he’d told her, some money he’d invested, a considerable sum. Recovering the money would offset the cost of the trip, she’d pointed out.

  He’d not had a chance to look into his financial affairs, for that first morning an urgent note had come, interrupting their lovemaking. The paper had trembled in Frank’s hands. “What is it?” she’d asked. “Nothing,” he replied, but she’d found out soon enough.

  Cio-Cio. Butterfly.

  Kate had a glimpse of the woman before Frank shielded her view. Gleaming black hair, skin smeared with something like chalk, painted lips, and, beneath her, a river of blood.

  She shivered: a ghost slipping over her grave.

  “Time for bed,” she said in a bright voice. Benji looked at her. “Cookie?” she asked. That was one word he understood. He followed her to the kitchen, carrying the cat, which he kept in his lap while he ate his cookies at the table. She didn’t comment on the untouched glass of milk. The one time she’d insisted, he spat it out. She tucked him into bed, the cat beneath the covers. Mrs. Pinkerton disapproved of animals in the bedroom, but Kate saw no harm in it; the cat was Benji’s only comfort except for the ball.

  Frank was still in his office, staring out the dark window, the ledger book open before him. She put on her new gown and returned to him. He hadn’t moved. “Come sleep, darling,” she said. “You’re tired.”

  He followed her to the bedroom, undressed, and got into bed while she sat at the dressing table, brushing her hair. Not so long ago, he would have brushed it himself.

  She climbed into bed beside him, moved her pillow close to his. He was lying on his back, his eyes closed. His forehead was sunburned too, she noticed.

  “Frank,” she said. “I have … a wifely concern. That woman …” She hadn’t meant to begin this way.

  “What woman?” he said, opening his eyes to stare at her.

  “The poor Japanese woman—Butterfly. I know you’re suffering remorse, but you mustn’t blame yourself. A normal woman who is set aside will manage to survive, without … doing such a thing.” She thought of the searing moment in the garden when Richard McCann told her he had proposed to Emily Kettering, in spite of the understanding they’d had.

  “Suicide is more acceptable in Japan,” Frank said. “A matter of honor.”

  She studied his profile.

  “How long did you live with her?”

  He cut his eyes at her. “What does it matter?”

  “I’m interested—concerned. How long was it?”

  “Not long.” He yawned and stretched his arms behind him, knocking against the headboard. “A few months, or weeks …”

  “Do you think of her often?” Her heart began to pound.

  He hesitated, and in that hesitation she knew a lie was forming. “Of course not,” he said. “I love only you.” He shifted to his side, facing her, and kissed her cheek. “My dear wife,” he said. He put his arm around her and closed his eyes and murmured, “You’re right, I am tired.” Within a few moments his breathing began to deepen.

  He loved her, then, that woman. Tears stung her eyes. This was more than God could expect her to endure.

  It became harder to push herself through the days, hauling water from the pump, wringing the clothes, making conversation at mealtimes. She was bruised deep in her body, where no one could see.

  She tried to pray but felt spiritually dry. The pastor at the Plum River church was unlearned, his approach to religion primitive. She could not confide in him, and she had as yet no friend in the community. She was alone in a house with a husband who loved another, and their child. Butterfly’s child. Although she continued to attend to Benji, cooking dishes that might appeal to him, trying to teach him words and phrases of English, and although she constantly reminded herself that he had not asked to be born or to suddenly find himself in this alien world, she could not forget that he was the offspring of that woman.

  Often in the evenings as she sat with her needlework, an image of Butterfly clicked into her mind, like a colored lantern slide: black hair, elaborately arranged; a startling mask of white face; painted eyebrows and lips; like a mannequin but for the eyes that burned at her. In the next slide the woman was lying on the floor, one arm outstretched, a bloody sword beside her. On the back of her neck were strange white markings covering skin that was muddy brown like Benji’s.

  She was glad the woman was dead, glad as she punched the needle through the stiff template of her pattern—such a sinful thought that she pricked her finger, then blotted it against the back of the needlepoint. And she wished that Emily Kettering was dead too. To keep back thoughts of Emily dying in childbirth or falling down the stairs of her fancy new home in Galena or wasting away with consumption, her hair growing mousy and thin, Kate pressed the needle into the meat of her thumb. By the time she had finished her first new handiwork and hung it on the wall of the parlor, a constellation of rusty blood spots filled the back of the sampler that read: Amor Vincit Omnia.

  One Sunday after dinner, a boy named Eli came to play. Benji was helping clear the table but Papa-san said he could leave it and go outside with Eli. Benji had seen him at church, a tall boy with a loud voice and hair the color of sweet potatoes. He had his dog with him, white with black spots and one black ear. Benji squatted down to pet him and the dog licked his face. Both he and Eli laughed and Benji could tell Eli wasn’t a kappa because of his laugh that wasn’t scary and his nice brown eyes.

  Eli said some words Benji couldn’t understand. Benji didn’t know anything to say but hello; Eli said hello and for a while they made a game out of it, saying hello back and forth and laughing. Then Benji taught him to say “Konbanwa,” and they laughed some more. Eli saw Mama’s ball in Benji’s pocket and pointed to it but Benji shook his head.

  For a while they threw sticks for the dog to fetch and then played tug-of-war with the dog, using a long stick. After that they played tug-of-war with each other. Eli was stronger, but Benji held on to the stick so that he was pulled along like the dog. He made growling noises and pretended to bark and Eli laughed so Benji barked louder. The dog began to run around them, barking and jumping for the stick. Benji fell down and Mama’s ball rolled out of his
pocket. The dog almost got it, but Eli snatched it up first. Since Eli had saved it, Benji let him hold the ball and look at it, but he didn’t like it when Eli threw the ball up and down. He held out his hand for Eli to give it back and he did.

  They went into the house and Benji showed Eli his blocks and top that were in the parlor and went to put the ball in his room, under the pillow.

  When Eli left, Benji went into his room and reached under the mattress for the kimono. If he put the ball inside the kimono no one could find it.

  He unfolded the kimono all the way and put the ball in the middle. There was something inside the kimono he hadn’t seen before, a square of cloth near the hem. Although the square was the same color as the lining, there were stitches along the edges, and what was underneath the cloth felt stiff.

  He tried to loosen the thread and then bit it with his teeth, just like Suzuki used to do. He tugged the thread out of one end of the square and reached inside.

  “Okasan!” he whispered. It was a picture of Mama standing by a chair. Papa-san was sitting beside her, holding a watch. Mama’s head was turned a little to one side, as if she was listening to him. He held the picture against his face. It was cool and smooth and smelled like tatami.

  He heard Blue Eyes and the old woman talking in the kitchen so he put the picture back in the cloth and folded the ball inside it, in a place where it wouldn’t hurt the picture, then put the kimono under the mattress. When he left his room and went into the kitchen, everything looked different to him because of his secret. The house was like a picture of a house but he was real, walking around in it. Even if it was a kappa world, nothing was going to hurt him.

  That night, when he changed from the scratchy nightshirt to the kimono, he didn’t have to sleep on the floor because Mama was next to him. He had a dream about her that he couldn’t remember in the morning but it made him happy. When he went out to do chores, he felt Mama still with him, and as he carried in sticks and eased the eggs from beneath the chickens, he told her in his mind what he was doing, and whenever he was by himself, in the pasture with the cows or wading in the creek, he told Mama everything about this place, whispering to her in the language he was supposed to forget.

  Life in Plum River would be easier to bear, Kate thought, if they could attend the First Presbyterian Church in the nearby town of Stockton. Reverend Singleton was an intelligent, compassionate man; she might be able to confide in him. And if she was a regular attender of the services in Stockton, she could more easily make the acquaintance of cultivated people; she wanted to organize a women’s reading circle and to entertain interesting couples at dinner parties. The farmers and their wives, while by and large kind, were not intellectually congenial. If her marriage was a trial, she at least deserved a satisfactory spiritual and intellectual life.

  Since Kate had been raised Presbyterian, Frank was at first persuaded by her desire to continue worshipping in the denomination familiar to her. But Frank’s mother put up formidable resistance. The Pinkertons had been pillars of the Plum River congregation since the church was built, Mrs. Pinkerton declared as she and Kate were preparing brisket for dinner, and it would be unthinkable for them to desert Pastor Pollock and the Plum River parish. Her husband and elder son and Frank’s grandparents all lay beneath the cedars in the graveyard, and furthermore, her husband had left a sum in his will that had allowed the church to add its fine new steeple and belfry.

  Kate had come to dread the sight of Mrs. Pinkerton in the kitchen each morning. No matter how early Kate managed to rise, Frank’s mother was always there before her, cracking eggs in a bowl, rolling out biscuits, frying ham, all of her movements brisk and excluding. She wore loose flour sack dresses over her sagging body, heavy black shoes cut out to allow her bunions some ease, and thick glasses that magnified her washed-out blue eyes and the creases around them. Mrs. Pinkerton assigned Kate tasks, and no matter how simple—setting the table, making coffee—Kate felt the old woman watching her with a critical eye.

  She treats me as if I were a hired servant, Kate complained to Frank. She means no harm, Frank said, she’s been running the house for years. When Kate said that was the problem exactly, and wasn’t it time for her to move back to Cicero so she could help Frank’s sister Anne, now in confinement with her second child, Frank said she only wanted to help until Kate settled in.

  Kate felt already steeped in the lessons of drudgery: the long Monday wash days, Tuesday nights with the flatirons beside the hot stove, the endless preparation of meals, scrubbing floors, cleaning lamp chimneys and woodstoves, pumping the separator each morning, tending the vegetable patch.

  Kate wrote to her mother, pouring out the details of her grueling routine and, putting aside her pride, begging for money for a servant girl. I cautioned you, her mother wrote back, you’re not suited for such a life. Kate should always remember that she was welcome to come home for a long visit. Her mother did not mention the servant.

  Frank said they needed to buy a new harrow before the next season, but he would see if he could adjust the budget to hire a young girl; his mother, however, overruled him. Kate needed to learn how to manage the household in all its particulars before she could give directions to a maid.

  “I’ve learned it all,” Kate said, glaring at Frank over the table. “The concepts are quite elementary.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve done any canning.” Mrs. Pinkerton gave her a sharp glance.

  Then you would suppose incorrectly, Kate wanted to retort, but instead said in her sweetest voice, “Why, yes, I’ve done quite a bit of canning.” She’d watched her mother’s maid Lavonia put up strawberries; anything she didn’t know was available in books.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Mrs. Pinkerton said. “We need one hundred jars of canned goods per person each year. There’s a heap of beets down cellar—poor Elmer’s last crop. It would be a shame if they went to waste.” They would can them tomorrow, she said.

  “Why do you always take her side?” Kate asked Frank as they were getting into bed.

  “I don’t. But money is short just now. We’ll have a servant next year. Corn and wheat ought to be sky-high after this drought—we might have enough profit for two servants. Though what we need most,” he said, putting his arms around her, “is children.”

  “I hope they’ll be born full-grown,” she said, “and knowing how to can and plow.”

  He laughed and pulled her nightgown above her hips.

  “Is it just children you want from me?”

  “Of course not.” He looked at her, shocked. “I adore you, darling,” he said, gazing at her with that warm, grave expression that had won her.

  She kissed him. “Then take my side.”

  “I will,” he said, pushing into her as she tightened her arms around him. “I do. I take your side.”

  The next morning, after the men were off to the fields, Mrs. Pinkerton and Kate carried sacks of beets up from the cellar and mounded them on the kitchen table. Kate brought bucketfuls of water from the well, poured it into two dishpans, and she and Mrs. Pinkerton stood at the sink scrubbing the beets. Kate’s back ached. She wanted coffee and another biscuit.

  Mrs. Pinkerton inspected a beet Kate had finished and gave it a further scrubbing, her heavy underarms jiggling. “We can’t have grit,” she said.

  “No indeed,” Kate said under her breath. “No grit of that variety.” She put the coffeepot back on the stove to heat and pressed her thumbs into her lower back.

  “You may sterilize the jars now,” Mrs. Pinkerton said.

  “Thank you,” Kate said. Her irony was lost on the old woman, still washing the beets.

  Kate set the jars into the large copper bath and went outside for water. When she returned, Benji came into the kitchen. Mrs. Pinkerton gave him a cat’s head biscuit and he slipped out again.

  “Say thank you,” Kate called.

  The door slammed behind him.

  “I’m working on his manners.” Kate began pouring
water into the bath. “It’s very discouraging.”

  “He’s just like Frank as a child,” Mrs. Pinkerton said.

  Kate stared at her. Water splashed onto the stove top, making it hiss. “Boys will be boys,” she managed to say. “All over the world.”

  “I suppose so,” Mrs. Pinkerton said. “The boy problem must be widespread.” She looked into the copper tub. “Those jars have to be fully covered.”

  Kate returned to the well, hauling up the bucket with such violence that the rope burned her hand. She gazed down into the water—nothing but darkness—and dropped in a clod of dirt.

  After the first batch of beets were scrubbed, boiled, and peeled, the women sat at the kitchen table, layers of newspaper over the oilcloth, pans of beets before them. Mrs. Pinkerton began to quarter a beet and indicated with her eyes that Kate should do the same.

  Kate slid her knife through a beet—red, slick, and glossy.

  Mrs. Pinkerton began to complain about her lumbago, acting up something fierce today. “Could you manage from this point?” she asked.

  “Oh, certainly—please do have a rest.” After Mrs. Pinkerton left, Kate pushed the windows open further—a slight breeze, a promise of rain—and sat back down to her task. It was a relief to have the old woman out of the room. Her comment about Benji hadn’t meant anything, of course; she would never suspect her precious son of such a thing.

  Kate sliced and chopped until her hands were stained purple. A beet slid out from the knife, went skidding across the floor.

  She looked at the heap of unwashed beets. Too many for the jars, surely. She piled a good measure of them in a pan and ran to the compost pile at the far end of the garden, where she buried them beneath a layer of leaves and weeds. Elmer’s beets. She felt giddy, walking back to the house.

  After the jars were filled with the remaining beets, lidded, and rattling in the copper bath, she pulled the rocking chair to the window and began to reread Jane Austen’s Persuasion. This was the world into which she should have been born: the women poor but genteel, irresistibly witty, eventually marrying wealth. She rested the book in her lap. If she attended church in Stockton, she could become acquainted with Aimee Moore, wife of a prominent lawyer in town. Mrs. Moore was said to be quite intelligent, a graduate of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary; doubtless she’d have read Jane Austen.