Flutter

    There is a belief that all humans are inherently good.  Melanie pondered this carefully as she stared down at her sister's body.  This couldn't be true.  There wasn't anyone she knew whose first reaction to a bad situation wasn't immediate anger, closely followed by revenge.  THAT's human nature.  People tend to boil easier than they chill out.  The weight of her body gently shifted to her right foot.  She brought her hand up and rested it of the coffin.  The makeup was bad.  No, not just bad, it was horrible.  She hardly looked human let alone like Melissa.  The mortician isn't doing makeup for the stars or anything, but you'd think he or she could have at least tried not to make her look like a rodeo clown.

Damn.

Dammit.

What the hell?

    Last week Melissa had a deep, slightly toasty, olive complexion.  Her and David Ortega had spent the whole week after graduation in Galveston to celebrate Melissa graduating valedictorian.  That was just like her, spend a couple of days, forty-five minutes from home with your best friend since second grade.  No drinking, no partying, nothing extravagant.  She's never had the room to be extravagant.
    After graduation, when all Melissa's friends were headed off to parties...Melissa came home with some movies and tons of junk food.  David came over.  They laughed about all the crazy stuff everyone else was doing, how drunk everyone would get, and all the stories they'd hear the next day.  That's when the Galveston trip was planned.  They talked all night about watching the sun rise over the ocean, feeding sea gulls off the hotel balcony, and walking barefoot on the beach.

    I saw the story on the news.  Didn't even know it was David and Mel.  The drunk driver that hit them head on had  mangled his SUV around their rental car so bod you couldn't tell where one vehicle ended and the other began.  I watched that news report, brought to me LIVE from KHOU.  They didn't mention any names and I went to bed when the news ended.
    It wasn't until the next morning when I found dad in the kitchen and empty bottles everywhere.  I remember being pissed at him.  All those empty bottles should have lasted him at least a week, I knew he'd ask for money to go buy more, and we just didn't have it.  I shook my head at him and gave him my 'evil eye,' but ...nothing.  Just a blank stare.  The phone was on the floor.

    This didn't feel the same as when Mom had passed.  I was only eight when they found out about the cancer, nine when she died.  Dad had told us that mom had a quick onset and they just didn't catch it in time.  We later found out that mom was in pain, she had told Aunt Cathy that even if a doctor told her what was wrong with her, she couldn't afford to do anything about it, so why bother.  Just knowing that made her death weigh heavy deep inside me.  It didn't matter what kind of person Cynthia Maria Escobedo was,  how much she helped people or how much she was loved.  All that mattered was money.  Money may have saved her life.

    She reached for Mel's hand.  This is the last time she would touch it.  It would never again be there for her when she needed it.  There would be no more comfort, no more guidance.  What pained her the most was when she closed her eyes, she couldn't bear the thought of her beautiful sister being left to rot in a cold wooden box in the ground.

    Melissa was two years older than Melanie, and due to their situation, both were mature for their ages.  They called each other Mel...no one else did.  At school, Melissa was 'lissa to her friends and Melanie was, well, just Melanie.  Their day to day stuff was almost identical, just in different places.  School, work, home, cook, clean, study.  Study was the most important, Melissa would tell Melanie...everything else was just to get by, but studying was to get ahead.  Melissa had gotten her hardship license and a job a Jack in the Box after school and on weekends.  Melanie followed when she reached her fifteenth birthday.  Except she worked at McDonald's.  It's just been the two of them all these years since mom died.  Dad was an alcoholic, didn't work, help out around the house or pay any bills.  And as shitty as that sounds, the girls knew what the ache of losing mom had done to him and they still loved him.  Melissa made Melanie promise that they would both go to college and get out of this prison and both girls knew that they would just have to work harder than everyone else and in the end it would all work out.

    She didn't feel it, but she saw her hand trembling as she laid it on her sister's hand and looked into Melissa's clown painted face.  They must have been wearing blindfolds she thought just as she began to boil.  I gave them a picture, dammit.  Just then she felt she needed to yell at someone, and it might as well be these clown face painting fuckers.  How dare they?  She turned, clenched her fists and took in as much air as her lungs could hold...then closed her eyes, and released it through her pursed lips.  Melissa taught her to do that.  A nine year old who has to come home and clean the house, make dinner, wash the dishes and do her homework (tired as hell) while she can hear her friends playing up and down the street, needs to be taught how to handle her anger.  Besides, blowing up would ruin her last moments with Mel, and she wasn't going to let that happen.  She opened her eyes and looked out into an almost empty funeral home, turned and looked at the clown in the box and thought...this.  She couldn't even form any more in her mind than ...this.

    In the days after she buried Melissa, Mel's world started to blur.  Nothing seemed to want to fit into place.  She didn't go back to school and couldn't even force herself to go to work.  She watched her father wake up, drink, and fall asleep over and over again, all from a rolled up ball in the corner of her bed.  She could hardly breathe sometimes, and at first, there were hunger pains, but not anymore.  She felt like there were butterflies inside her, and they were trying to burst from her body through her tears.  No matter how much she cried, there were always more of them.

    David's younger brother, Chris, stopped by, I could tell it was sometime in the morning by the sunshine coming through the windows.  The smell must have been bad because he covered his nose and mouth with the sleeve of his sweater.  Normally, I'd be embarrassed.  Bottles everywhere, rotten food in the kitchen and the flies, man, there were a lot of flies.  He didn't stay long and left saying something about getting us some help.  Whatever.

    I hated the help that showed up.  Bunch of people.  They took me and I don't know where dad was or where he went.

    So, I was strapped into a bed, hooked up to an IV and all I could think of was that these people just washed me, like a fucking car.  They just scrubbed me down, dried me off and rolled me in here.  Most of this place is a blur.  Swallow the pill, stare at the walls, swallow the pill, don't shit on myself, and swallow another pill.  I don't know what the pills were for, but they kept the butterflies asleep, so I didn't mind taking them.  I could still feel them wake up sometimes, but then the pills would come.
    Dad came and got me.  I don't know why.  I'm not sure I hated it there, but I'm not sure if I liked it either.  He took me down to the Brazos River, we walked and talked for hours.  He was in AA, had a job, and wanted me to come stay with him.  Apparently, the 'help' that showed up worked out for him.  Don't know if I cared or not one way or the other.
    Then we passed the spot.  Me and Mel used to call it 'the jumping spot.'  There it was, just a shallow area of water, we used to swing from a branch and jump into it.  The branch is gone and as I stared at it I realized that it is actually just small puddle off the riverbank.  I just remember it being the best place ever.  Mom would sit three feet away and didn't really want us swinging and jumping into it... she was a worrier.  Dad stopped mid sentence.  I don't even know what he was talking about.  We just stared at the jumping spot.  I looked to my right.  That's where dad stood and took the picture of us that hung on the fridge... yeah, the butterflies.
    We went to his new place...pictures, pictures, pictures and more pictures.  Me and Mel, me and Mel, Mom and me, Mom and Mel, Christmas portrait, me and Mel with the dog that ran away, Mel, Mom, Mel, Mom, just over and over, everywhere.  My butterflies were awake now.
    I sat in the chair and stared at the floor.  Pain and numb shouldn't feel like the same thing, but sometimes they do.  This place had three bedrooms, and dad walked me towards the hallway.  He told me to pick my room, and I immediately thought of Mel, she always wanted to be where she could see the sun rise.  My butterflies started getting away.  Dad had a smile on his face that began to droop and he wiped the tears that had started rolling down my face.
    "No, baby, this is a good thing.  We'll remember the good times, we'll start new, everything will get better."
    Apparently, wherever his help came from did a pretty good job of washing him.  Just washed everything right out of his head.  And now I was mad.  Mad at him for being ok.  Mad at him for starting over.  Mad at him for hanging those fucking pictures.

    Melanie lived there with her dad for several weeks.  Then her dad realized Mel was getting worse and her condition was becoming severe.  She stayed in her room, rolled in a ball all day every day.  He brought her food, but she barley touched it.  He called the hospital that Mel had began treatment, then help came, again.  She heard arguing, then raised voices, then yelling from the living room.  Mel heard the footsteps and did not resist as hands grabbed her, picked her up and laid her on some kind of gurney.  Then the car wash, white robe, and the pills.  Ta-dah.  All better.  Sleeping butterflies.  She wasn't excited or even happy to be numb, she just was numb.
    Time did pass in that place, because that's what time does, but Mel had no way of keeping track of it.  There were different people who would come in and talk with her about her life.  She wasn't sure why, they just did.  She tried to answer their questions, too, although they didn't seem pleased with her answers.  She wasn't sure why either.  More time passed and question and answer time became easier.  The more she did it, the easier it became to talk about her past.  They began giving her fewer pills.  She could think about the butterflies without them getting out.  Mel's death came into focus.  And it consumed her thoughts.  But the butterflies sat on their branches inside her and gently stretched their wings, but didn't fly.  And Mel could see Melissa's coffin being lowered into the ground from a deep memory that had been made idle by the pills.  And Mel watched like it was a movie.  She watched all their years together flow past her eyes.  And the butterflies sat.  Mom walked in, moved through her memories and gracefully warmed Mel's heart again.  The butterflies fluttered their wings and began leaving the branches.  The pills were few and far between nowadays, buy luckily one showed up just in time.
    As the days came and went, she learned that the people asking her questions were doctors and they had finally narrowed it down to one specialist, Dr. Rachel Irick.  Rachel, as she told Mel to call her, had found Mel's happiest memories.

The time when mom built a fort for the sisters, then got them snacks, then best of all, climbed in with them and played fairy tale castle with a queen and two princes daughters. 
Thanksgiving, when they had a house full of people and mom was running around crazy...she noticed Melanie sitting alone, turned on the radio really loud and pulled her up...they danced until Melanie's cheeks hurt from laughing so much.
Her first day of school, when mom spent all morning giving her the 'big girl' pep talk, then seeing mom drop a tear as she left Mel in the class.
...and on and on....
    Mel could do this now with almost no pills.  She could remember her beautiful and loving mother and sister and just let the butterflies drift inside her.  From the pit of her stomach, up her throat, in her lungs and deep in her heart, they fluttered.  But they stayed inside.  And that was good.  Her memories were good.  Her life would be good again.

    Dad came and picked me up again.  They threw me a goodbye/got well party.  Balloons and cake and everything.  I hated to leave.  I had made friends in there, close friends, and not just with the doctors, with almost everybody.  We were almost like a family.  But Rachel said it was time and Dad was my family and he needed me as much as I needed him.  That made sense to me, but I still felt sad when I left... not AS sad, just sad.  This just made baby butterflies.   
    I started school again, I was behind, but I needed to finish because I promised Mel I would and I wasn't going to break that promise.  I started looking into which college I wanted to go to, Mel planned on University of Texas... which, at this point, was out of my league.  So I was looking into starting at a junior college.
    I made new friends, and Mel's old friends were starting to get in touch with me.  Chris stopped by every so often.  Dad always got upset, and at the time, I didn't know why exactly.  At first, I thought it was just because he was a boy, but then I realized it had more to do with what we talked about...Mel.  He'd come into the room, mid-conversation, and it would jump out of my mouth, "Hey Dad, remember when...blah, blah, blah."  That's where it always started and ended. 
    Well, Mel's birthday came.  Chris brought a small cake over.  Her favorite strawberry cake from the bakery down the street, with candles and everything.  I won't lie, my butterflies stirred, well, not just stirred though, they almost spewed out of my mouth like vomit.  And Dad walked in.  After all was said and done, (I don't want to go through the details of this event) Chris quietly left... with his cake.  I went to my room, passing the pictures of Mel in the hallway.  Rolled up in a ball, hugging blankets and pillows, my butterflies became uncontrollable.  Rachel had told me this might happen, and I had some pills in the bathroom, and I KNEW what I was supposed to be doing... but... I just couldn't move.  All I could do was lay there and be pulled into a deep, endless black pit inside me.  I didn't sleep, I didn't eat, I didn't get up, I hardly even moved.  And again, time must have passed because I remember sunshine in the windows and darkness, several times.

    Mel opened her eyes, she must have fallen asleep at some point and not realized it.  Her tongue was stuck.  It felt like it glued her jaw to the roof of her mouth.  She rubbed her face, ran her fingers through her matted hair and pulled her legs around so her feet could land on the floor.  Her body fell limp from weakness, which made her want to lie back down again, but she didn't.  She pulled herself up and focused on keeping her mind on moving her feet, and not on Mel.  She braced herself against the wall and slid her foot forward.  This was going to take a while.  Her hands were gently laid against the wall, but there was no way her arms could brace her if she fell.  She continued to slide her feet, one at a time till she reached the restroom.  Here, she stuffed her face into the sink, turned on the cold water and began lapping it up in gulps.  Splashing a few handfuls on her face and rubbing her eyes, she lifted her head and dried it off with a towel.  She slid her body through the restroom door and into the hall, making sure to keep her eyes down and away from any pictures.  As she walked, even though she wouldn't pick her eyes up, she could still see every picture on the wall, she knew exactly where each one was and what each one looked like from memory.  The best she could do was to try to block the images out of her head.  As she came to the opening into the kitchen, she could smell a strong stench of liquor.  She hadn't smelled that in ages, it was almost comforting.  That smell triggered something in her head that made her feel better, just for a second, because as she turned the corner and stepped into the kitchen, she saw him.  Faced down on the floor, surrounded by bottles.  The mucky looking fluid puddled around his mouth drew her attention first, then it was the color.  He was gray.  Mel turned on her heels toward the front door.  There was no strength in her, but that was okay because she was numb.  She gave no thought to anything outside as she stepped out the door.  Didn't notice that it was almost dawn, and the sun would be rising soon.  Didn't even notice the car parked dead center of the front yard instead of in the drive-way, where her father left it after a run no doubt.  Her feet kept moving, almost as if she was being pulled, but she wouldn't have known if she was anyway, because the numbness took over everything about her.  The direction she was going was north on Farm Road 2218 that ran in front of the house.  She walked and felt nothing, cars passed her and she saw nothing.  She followed her feet, because she had no choice.  They moved her all the way through town to highway 90, where they turned right.  The sun was up, morning traffic had already died down and her feet brought her to the bridge.  With butterflies pounding in her chest trying desperately to exit, she lifted her right foot onto the old abandoned bridge that overlooked the jumping spot.  This used to be where the trains crossed the Brazos, but they built a new and better one, so this one was left to rot.  She stayed on the left side of the tracks and walked effortlessly on the rail, always keeping the jumping spot in sight.  The river was moving fast beneath her and the water was high, which was unusual, there must have been a storm somewhere north.  She reached the middle, lowered her body and squeezed beneath the railings.  On the outer edge of the bridge, she looked down past her toes and yearned for relief.

With only numbness left in her soul...Melanie let her butterflies go.