Read Online Butterfly's Child by Angela Davis-Gardner - Free Book Online Page B

would love her as he once did.
    One morning Frank came in from the barn, leading Benji by the hand. Both of them were grinning. “He said
cow
,” Frank said. “Just as plain as day.”
    â€œThat’s nice,” she said. “Good boy, Benji. I’ve pointed out cows on many occasions,” she added. It wasn’t fair he’d speak his first new words with Frank, after all the effort she’d made.
    Over the next few weeks, there was a flurry of nouns—
foot, bath, dog
—and, before long, verbs—
run, eat, sit
. He had trouble with
l
and
r
sounds, but Miss Ladu thought this would pass in time. By Thanksgiving he was doing so well that he could name several of the pictures in his Sunday school book, but, to Kate’s disappointment, not Jesus.
    One snowy evening as they were clustered around the parlor stove, he said his first sentence: “Benji want milk.”
    â€œListen to that!” Mrs. Pinkerton said, nodding her approval at Kate.
    â€œIsn’t he a smart boy?” Kate said, looking at Frank. Surely he would recognize her hard work with Benji.
    â€œAn
American
boy too,” he said. “Finally wanting his milk.”
    In the kitchen, while Kate was waiting for a pot of milk to warm, she opened the door and looked out at the snow slanting down in the dark, a cold, melancholy sight. It hadn’t been a baby yet, Dr. McBride had told her; she shouldn’t continue to grieve after all these months. There would be another before long.

 
    It was bone cold
in the shed, where Frank sat scraping dirt and rust from the point of the turning plow. It was snowing again, but December’s ice had sealed the cracks in the walls; he started a fire in the stove and waited, chipping at the bolts with his penknife. It was a relief not to be in the parlor, Kate still morose over losing the baby, even after three months. He had tried to reason with her, to no avail. She snapped at him for the least thing and seemed to have no regard for his own disappointment. It was unnatural.
    His mother was patient with Kate; trouble and illness always brought out her best. When he had earaches as a child, his mother would put him to bed, a boiled onion in the throbbing ear, then sit by his side, knitting. His father had complained that she was coddling him. Nothing made the old man angrier than a show of weakness, unless it was disregard for the farm tools and equipment. The used blade is always sharp, he liked to say, quoting Benjamin Franklin. He would be disgusted with Frank, not to have tended to the plow right after planting season.
    He opened the stove and tossed in a shank of wood. The log caught quickly, buds of flame along its length. For surviving the winters in Japan, there were kotatsus: an open pit in the house where coal was burned; over the pit were a table and a heavy quilt. He thought of sitting at the kotatsu with Butterfly, heat spreading up through their bodies. They carried the warmth with them to bed.
    It was wrong of him to think of Butterfly, disloyal to Kate, but scenesfrom the early days in Nagasaki rose in him unbidden—her fragrant hair like satin, her legs wrapped around him.
    â€œDamn you.” He scraped harder at the rust. She wouldn’t leave him in peace; it was her revenge.
    The door swung open and the Swede blew in like Jack Frost, his hat and coat muffled in snow. He must have seen the stove’s light from the bunkhouse. “Better get up there,” he said, gesturing toward the house with his thumb. “Looks like a blizzard.”
    Frank closed the stove after he left and stepped outside. The house was barely visible through the white curtain of snow; his father used to tie ropes between the house and outbuildings during the winter, so they could find their way during a blizzard. He’d scoff at Frank for having forgotten. Sloth is a fool’s virtue, he could hear the old man say.
    He bent forward, leaning into the