Page 111 of The Candlemaker

Instead of looking happy or relieved or proud, the only thing I saw on her face was concern. “You already are, honey. You have nothing to prove.”

I tensed. She’d said those words to me countless times in the few years before the dementia set in. So many times, it was one of the recurring arguments we’d had. That I was toofocused on proving myself to the world, tohim,and she worried.

I didn’t want to argue with her now. I wouldn’t. So, I swallowed down the bitter pill of disagreement and simply said, “I love you, Mom.” The times I’d have left to say this to her, where she was this lucid, were dwindling.

“I love you, too, honey.”The concern in her eyes deepened. She pulled her hand from mine and reached for the butterfly photo again.“Do you know why I love the monarchs?” She handed it to me.

I knew why she loved these photographs, but the butterflies themselves… “Because they’re pretty?” I guessed.

“Well, they are.” She nodded and rested her hand on my arm. “That was what drew me to them, but monarchs in particular are an incredible story of what is passed on.”

I turned to her.

“Monarchs can’t survive the North American winter, so every year, they migrate south all the way to Mexico. Four thousand eight hundred some miles.” Her finger traveled along my arm like she was tracing their path. “But the incredible part is the ones that fly south aren’t the butterflies that return north the following spring. It’s their children’s grandchildren that make the journey back north, back to the very same milkweed plants their great-grandparents left the fall before.” Her hand steadied on my heart. “They come back. To a place they never knew. Only the future revisits the past.”

“Mom…” I placed my hand over hers, my throat tightening.

“How do they do it? How do those great-grandchildren find their way back to a place they’ve never been?”

I swallowed over the lump in my throat and teased hoarsely, “Breadcrumbs?”

Mom gave me a gentle swat and then a soft smile. “There’s always something that ties us to what’s important. To what hasbeen. Even when the people and the memories we thought anchored us there are gone.”

I couldn’t speak. My tongue felt like a thousand pounds, and my eyes burned with unshed tears.Even when she was gone—when the part of her that remembered me, remembered this, and remembered herself was gone—there would still be something greater that tied us together.

“This is your future, Chandler; she’s your future.” There were tears in her eyes, and I could tell this was one of those increasingly rare moments, not only when she was lucid enough to remember me and the past, but also to be aware of what was happening to her. Of what she was losing. Of what I was losing with her. And of what she was worried I’d lose without her. “Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

She looked to the door, and I realized she was speaking about Tom. “He deserved all of me, and I was too stubborn to give it until it was too late.”

“Mom.” I squeezed her hand, watching her lip quiver. “Tom loves you?—”

“And I should’ve loved him better. Should’ve loved you better?—”

“No—”

“Instead, all I showed you was that proving your father made a mistake—proving that I didn’t need anyone else—was the most important thing.”

“Tom knows you love him.” I couldn’t argue anything else. I couldn’t turn off that drive inside me. I couldn’t.

“Now.” She nodded. “Don’t make her wait that long.”

I handed the framed butterfly back to her, the symbolism making me understand why she loved them the way that she did. A reminder of the strength of the things that bound us together even when they couldn’t be spoken or seen.

The bathroom door opened, and Frankie appeared, our eyes meeting.

Sometimes light isn’t the only way out of the darkness.

“Is everything okay?”

I glanced at Frankie, realizing I’d been silent since we’d left Edgewood.

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“You just seem distracted since your phone call.”

I exhaled slowly. It wasn’t the phone call that distracted me; it was the way Mom looked defeated when I’d left the table at dinner to take it.

“It was just an update on an acquisition. Confirmation really.”

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