Page 39 of Justice for JoElla

“A butterfly farm. They raise butterflies and all kinds of insects, like praying mantises, walking sticks, moths, beetles, flies. All kinds of things. They sell them to zoos and museums and use them for educational purposes. And you can buy starts of vegetables and flowering plants in their shop, like butterfly bushes and things like that.” Then a little bolt of panic roared through him. “I asked you if you’re scared of bugs, right?”

That scowl. It ruined her pretty face every time she flashed it, and that was often. “Do I look like I’m scared of anything?”

“Some people are. I think they’re fascinating. Come on.” Only three or four cars sat in the parking lot, and his door opened to the sounds of birds in the trees. “Wow. The air is so fresh out here.”

“Yeah. Fresh air,” she repeated in a mocking tone.

“Exactly.” He stopped and held out a hand to her, but she stared at it like it was on fire, so he dropped it and headed to the building with her right beside him.

There was a little orientation film that they watched, and it was pretty simple. “Please do not touch the butterflies. If one lands on you, allow it to sit until it’s ready to leave. There are benches throughout the garden. Please check the seat before you sit down, and please be mindful of little visitors on the paths. We wouldn’t want you to wear one of our little friends home on the seat of your pants or on the bottom of your shoe.” That would’ve normally gotten a laugh out of Brandon, but not at that moment. He just stood there with her until the film was over and they headed out into the dome.

It was a beautiful place?a huge, dome-like structure made of steel and mesh, and one look revealed additions here and there throughout the years. The breeze blew through, and the plants inside waved back and forth gently. Little gravel paths branched off to the left and right, and it was hard to decide which way to go. Ahead on one path, Brandon could see a small structure. He pointed and asked, “What’s that?” She just shrugged. “Come on.”

It was a little shelter with a flat lattice-like top and four ornate posts, and a few vines grew over and through it. Under it was a beautiful wooden bench covered in carvings of leaves. Brandon sat down on it and looked around. Everywhere he gazed there were flowers, and a staggering assortment of butterflies and bumblebees flitted about. It was peaceful, and the fragrances of the flowers and the grass were heavenly. The sun was warm on his face, and Brandon closed his eyes and tipped his head back to let the beams bathe his skin as they filtered through the open squares in the shelter’s roof.

There was movement right beside him, and he figured she’d finally taken a seat, but he didn’t look. It all seemed so weird to him, to bring someone to a place like that with him, to have her right beside him, and to feel so utterly alone. Something tickled his nose, and he cracked open one eyelid.

A butterfly sat right on the tip of his nose, and he let out a little chuckle. It perched there as though it were considering him, then flew away, so he closed his eyes again and smiled. Except for her prickliness, it was a beautiful day filled with simple pleasures. He thought about Maria. She would’ve hated a place like that. There was no one to watch her, to envy her clothes or be intimidated by her money, and he realized she’d been that way the entire time he’d known her. Thoughts swirled through his mind, and he all but forgot JoElla was even there. Then he heard something and turned his head just far enough to look.

What he saw made him sit up poker-straight. There beside him on the bench, JoElla sat with her hands on her thighs, butterflies everywhere around her. They sat on her shoulders, on her head, some on her arms, one on her knee, and a few on her hair, with even more circling. “Oh my god,” Brandon whispered. But something else caught his eye.

JoElla sat very, very still, observing the butterflies in her field of vision, and as he watched, a single tear slipped down her cheek. In that moment, Brandon thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful as that woman sitting there, butterflies of every color either on her or hovering around her. Was it her shampoo? Makeup? Perfume? Whatever it was, they were being drawn in by the droves, and it was positively magical. He had to say something, and it had to be the right thing. Then he remembered something a teacher had told them when he was in early elementary school. “I had an elementary teacher who told us that every butterfly is an angel’s kiss. They want us to be able to see them, but we can’t, so they send the butterflies to kiss us.”

JoElla’s eyes closed and tears rolled down her cheeks. Brandon didn’t quite know what to do, but he knew one thing for sure. He didn’t want to interrupt that moment. Something was happening, something extraordinary, and it was important. Very carefully, he stood, then knelt in front of her, careful not to touch any of the butterflies still resting on her. As he looked up into her face, he smiled. “You have no idea how beautiful you look sitting there like that. And look at all the kisses the butterflies are giving you. They know you’re very special.” His palms rested lightly on her knees and he whispered, “Do you know which angels they are?”

JoElla nodded. “My mom and my GrannyFaye.”

“Can you tell me about your mom?”

“She was really pretty. Very pretty. She had the prettiest eyes in the world, and a beautiful smile.”

“You said she died. What happened to her?”

“She had breast cancer. She died when I was five. GrannyFaye helped my dad take care of me, but she had a stroke when I was seven. After that, it was just me and my dad. So really, it was just me.”

A little girl alone in the world. Brandon thought about how he’d felt in the first two weeks after his dad had relayed the hospital board’s verdict. Alone. It was horrible. He had no job and no money. There were no friends?he’d only had coworkers and people in his circle of influence in the medical community. He had no home and no family, with Maria and the kids booting him. Talking to his mother had been difficult; talking to his dad seemed impossible. And after the way he’d treated Landon, Liella, Jerrica, and Breckin, he was pretty sure none of them wanted anything to do with him. He hadn’t been lonely. It was very different. Having absolutely, positively no one to turn to had twisted his gut and made his heart hollow. Utterly and completely alone, that’s what he’d been. He knew exactly how she felt, and yet it had only lasted for a couple of weeks in his case. Once he contacted Landon and Jerrica, he had family again, and the Ligons had welcomed him into their clan with open arms too.

But not JoElla. She’d had no one most of her life. “Didn’t you have aunts or uncles or somebody?”

She shook her head slowly so as not to dislodge the butterflies. “No. There was no one. My dad’s family had written him off because he was an alcoholic, and my mom’s family had written her off because she’d married him. GrannyFaye was my mom’s grandmother, and she was already in her seventies when my mom died. My grandmother?her daughter?had passed away too, and there was no one left on that side of the family. My dad refused to call any of his people. So that was that.”

“So you had nobody.” She shook her head. “I’m so sorry.”

The clouds on her face contorted into a full-blown cyclone. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t feel sorry for you. I’m just sorry that you were alone. That’s different.”

She snorted. “Doesn’t feel different.”

“It is. Feeling sorry for you is pity. Sorry that you were alone means that it’s a shame nobody bothered to be there for you, and I wish I could’ve somehow changed it, but I couldn’t. Do you see the difference?” When she didn’t answer, he tacked on, “Because if I could’ve, I would’ve.”

“No. You wouldn’t have. You were a big fancy doctor. You wouldn’t have cared.”

Ouch. She goes for the gut, his brain whispered. “You might be right, but I’d like to think you’re wrong. Regardless what my social and professional positions were, I took an oath to care about people, JoElla, and not just their physical wellbeing. I’m bound by oath to take care of their psychological and emotional wellbeing also.”

“So now I’m mentally ill?”

“No! Stop trying to put words in my mouth and justlistento me, please? What I’m trying to say is that I can’t imagine how you felt, a little girl responsible for herselfandher father with no one to help her. That had to be an impossible thing for a child to do, and I’m sorry you went through all of that. You shouldn’t have had to do that, and for that, I apologize. Not for myself, but for a community that wasn’t sensitive enough to notice that a child needed help.”

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