The Butterfly’s Daughter (13 page)

“Luz, please,” she said, her usually upbeat voice now low in defeat. “I'm scared. I don't know anything about having a baby. I've
got no one. Oh God, Luz, I want to be with my mother. Please. Just get me to San Antonio. That's all I ask. I can catch a bus there. I'll find my way to my mother on my own. I just want to go home.”

Seeing the tears streak down Ofelia's bruised face, Luz realized she'd come to the end of her argument. Bubbling in her veins was a primal fierceness she'd never experienced before. No matter what, she was
not
going to leave Ofelia to go back to that creep who'd hurt her, and would again.

So here she was, driving south on this highway most of the night with her runaway friend and her soon-to-be-born baby, a runt of a dog, and her grandmother's ashes.

A soft moan caught her attention. Luz stole a quick glance at the passenger side. Ofelia was curled up against the door, her head on Luz's pillow and her outrageous satin coat serving as a blanket. Over the collar Luz caught a glimpse of bruises that were turning an ugly purple. In the rearview mirror she saw the small, thin Chihuahua snuggled up like a waif against the box of Abuela's ashes. Luz frowned, thinking that rotten little dog that had almost got them killed was always in the wrong place. She considered pushing the dog away from the box, but the poor skinny thing looked so peaceful after such a harrowing night, she didn't have the heart. Then she remembered how much Abuela had loved animals, little dogs especially. Luz released a reluctant grin. Her grandmother might even be enjoying the company in the backseat.

“Where are we?”

Luz startled at the sound of Ofelia's voice, gruff with sleep. For so many hours all she'd heard was the hum of the wheels on the road and a low, soft snoring. The inside of the car was dim with the soft, gray light of dawn.

“Southern Illinois, heading for St. Louis.”

Ofelia grunted, then shifted in her seat, pushing the satin coat to the floor. She moved slowly, muffling her groans as muscles complained.

“You okay?” Luz asked.

Ofelia sighed. “No . . . yeah. I dunno. I'm stiff all over, like I got hit by a truck.”

“You look like it, too.”

“Ha-ha,” she replied dryly. When she didn't find a mirror on the back of the visor, Ofelia reached up to turn the rearview for a peek at her face. She gently touched her left cheek and let her fingertips graze the scab over her eye. Then she pushed the mirror back into place and slumped back in her seat, her head against the window. “Why does he always go for the eye?”

“He hit you before?”

Ofelia nodded. “When he starts drinking, it can get bad,” she said in a low voice. “One time, I tried to make him stop. But that made it worse.”

Luz tried not to let her imagination go there. “What made this time different? Why'd you leave?”

“I was afraid for my baby. Oh, Luz, if he hit the baby . . .” She hugged her belly, rocking back and forth. “No way I'm gonna let him hurt my baby.”

“He didn't—”

“
No!
” She took a breath. “No. He only hit my face. He was so drunk, he passed out pretty quick.”

“Why did you stay with a guy like that?”

“I love him,” she said in a small voice. “You only saw his bad side. He can be real sweet, like your Sully, and he's always sorry. After he gets mad he spends good money and tries to make it up to me.”

“Hey, don't defend him to me,” Luz said with heat. “And don't
ever compare that bastard to my Sully. They're nothing alike.” She shook off the revulsion at the idea of Sully hitting a woman. “Angel's a big guy, with big muscles, but he's no man. He's a brute. He could've killed us both. I thought he was gonna try.” Her voice trembled. “I was scared.”

Ofelia sniffed, wiping her face with her palms, and said, “No. You were so brave.”

Brave? No one had ever called Luz brave before. She shook her head. “You were the brave one to get out.”

“Big deal. A phone call,” Ofelia said with sarcasm. “I'm a coward. I couldn't even help myself.”

“You made the call.”

“Yeah? I talk a good game,” Ofelia said. “But do you know what I was doing while you were standing up to Angel? I was locking the doors, crying like a baby. I should've stood up to that scum long ago. But I just take it. Over and over. If it wasn't for you”—her breath hitched and she reached out to grab Luz's arm tight—“you maybe saved my life. My baby's life. I'm nothing to you but you came to help. You're my hero.”

Luz didn't think she was a hero. That seemed such a grand word for what she'd done. She used to wonder what she'd do if she saw a stranger get hurt. She read in the paper a story about how a man got beaten on a city street and, even though people saw it happening, no one came to his aid. And there was also a girl who was jogging through the park and murdered in full daylight while people watched.

“It all happened so fast,” she tried to explain. “I guess it's not something you can prepare for. I just knew that I couldn't let him hurt you. It's like, you and me, we were one and the same.”

Ofelia's face crumpled with emotion and, closing her eyes, she
let her head drop back against the cushion. After a minute she said in a thick voice, “Well, one thing's for sure. A lot of people wouldn't have bothered.”

They drove for a while in silence as the wheels hummed beneath them, each passing mile a hymn of safety. The dim light of the snug car made the atmosphere intimate, like a confessional. Beside her, Luz heard the soft, muffled sound of crying.

“It's okay, Ofelia. You're safe now.”

In a broken voice Ofelia said, “He wouldn't stop hitting me. Even when I begged. I
loved
him! I tried so hard to be what he wanted me to be. But he never loved me.” She sniffed loudly and reached up to wipe her nose. “Sometimes, the way he looked at me . . . made me feel like nothing.”

Luz didn't respond.

The intimacy of the night had tapped into Ofelia's already waning strength. She leaned forward to rub her back, groaning softly. “My back is killing me.”

Luz looked at her nervously, focusing on her huge belly. “Like a backache or cramps?”

“Kinda both.” Ofelia stretched her spine and moved from left to right in her seat while her facial muscles pulled into a grimace. “
Maldito,
” she swore. Then she looked at Luz, her dark eyes limpid with fear. “I don't know if I'm gonna make it to Texas.”

Luz's heart raced. “You mean, you think you're in labor?”

“I don't know! I never had a baby before. But this lady told me that a backache is the first sign the baby's coming.”

The news slammed into Luz. “Jesus, Ofelia, what should we do? Go back to Chicago? To Suzanne? She'd help us.”

“No! You know I can't go back there.”

“Then where?” Luz felt panic rising in her chest.

“Let's just keep going. I'm not gonna have the baby now. Just, well, maybe sooner than I thought.”

“We need to think a minute,” Luz said, gathering her wits. She needed a plan of action. “One thing's for certain, you can't have the baby in my car. I'll take you to the nearest hospital,” she said decisively.

“I can't just go to some hospital! I don't have insurance and I'm not legal.”

Luz leaned back in her seat and with a free hand rubbed her temple. Did being legal make a difference? Her mind was working on only one cylinder. Her tired brain went over and over what choices they had, and whether the services she'd thought she could count on were available to Ofelia. It scared her that she didn't know.

“What are you thinking?” asked Ofelia anxiously. “Are you, like, planning to just dump me at the hospital and shove off? I guess I couldn't blame you if you were.”

“No, I wouldn't do that,” Luz replied, shaking her head, though in truth the thought had briefly crossed her mind.

“Thanks, Luz.” Ofelia's voice was very small.

Luz's fatigue hit her like a brick wall. She mopped her face with her hands and tried to come up with a solution to this new problem—and it was an enormous problem—but her brain felt like it was made of cotton. Why was this problem hers? she asked herself for the tenth time. And for the tenth time she told herself the answer. She had inherited the responsibility for Ofelia the moment she'd agreed to take her along on her journey.

“Okay,” she began slowly. “First thing you need to do is get checked out. There's got to be a hospital or clinic we can go to in St. Louis.”

Ofelia swung her head around to peer out the window, squinting
as though searching for something to identify on the horizon. “Is that where we are? St. Louis?”

“Pretty close. Why? Do you know someone there?”

“Not in St. Louis. Near Kansas City. That's not too far.”

“Who?” Luz asked with hope.

“My aunt.”

“Wait,” Luz said. It took her a minute to process the startling admission. “You have an aunt in Kansas City?”

“My
tía
Luisa, the aunt I told you about. She lives in Lawrence.”

“Why didn't you ask me to take you there in the first place?”

Ofelia picked at her nail. “I wanted to make it to Mexico, to be with my mother when the baby comes.” She looked up and her face was without guile, easy to read. “I know you lost your
abuela
. I know you want to bring her ashes home and you want to be with your family. After everything that's happened, I guess I wanted that, too.”

Luz thought of how lonely and frightened Ofelia must be now that she was on the verge of giving birth. She couldn't even imagine how much Ofelia must want to be close to her mother. “I only wish I could take you all the way to Mexico.”

Ofelia reached out to pat her arm. “Hey, girl. You've done plenty.”

“Right now, I just want to get you to Lawrence before the baby comes. How far is Lawrence from St. Louis?”

Ofelia grimaced as she rubbed her back again. “Not too far. It's a straight shot from here to Kansas City and from there, I dunno, maybe an hour more. If you take me there, I'm sure she'd take us in. We could spend the night, get some food. I mean, she has to. She's family, right? You could leave me there and I'll be out of your hair.”

Luz felt her shoulders sag with relief. “I don't want you out of my hair. I just don't want your baby born in my car, silly.” With one
hand steering the car, she reached far into the backseat, blindly rummaging through bottles of water, trail mix, and an umbrella to pull maps out of her canvas bag. Ofelia spread the map of the United States over her lap and found St. Louis. She traced west to find Kansas City. Just like she'd said, it looked to be a straight shot down I-70.

“I don't think it'll take more than four hours, plus however much extra time it's going to take to find your aunt's place.” Luz looked anxiously at Ofelia. “Can you make it?”

Ofelia nodded. “I'll make it. Can you?”

Luz exhaled and thought to herself that with lots of coffee, she could make it, too. She had to try. Ofelia's aunt was a lifeline. At least now they had someplace to go.

“Try to rest,” she told Ofelia, whose lids were drooping again. She was still in obvious discomfort. “Do you want anything? Should I stop at the next exit?”

“I just want to sleep.”

“I'll wake you when we get near Kansas City.”

Ofelia obliged, tugging the voluminous coat up over her shoulders and curling against the pillow. It wasn't long before Luz heard the soft, guttural sound of her snoring.

Narrow shafts of pale yellow and pink light stretched across the sky, brightening the horizon and revealing the vast, rolling farmland of southern Illinois. Luz thought of Ofelia's desire to be with her mother, and her thoughts drifted to her own mother, as they often did when she let her mind wander. Was it possible that Mariposa felt like Ofelia did when she found herself pregnant and abandoned with only very little money? Mariposa had been eighteen, like Ofelia. Still a girl, yet about to become a mother. And her father . . . All she knew about him was that he was a German
student studying in Mexico when Mariposa met him. They'd run off together and soon after, Mariposa discovered she was pregnant. Did they even talk about getting married? Or did her father simply do the cowardly thing and run off? What name fits a man who would leave a girl pregnant and penniless in a foreign country, utterly alone? Luz was ashamed to be the daughter of such a man. Would Ofelia's child feel a similar humiliation?

A new thought dawned as Luz's fingers tapped on the wheel. Was it possible that her mother had been physically abused, too? What if her father hadn't just abandoned her? What if he'd beaten her mother, and she'd fled, like Ofelia?

It could have happened like that. It would explain why her grandmother came running. Abuela would never have told Luz such a story about her mother. She'd only told stories of how clever and beautiful Mariposa was. Until the day before she died . . . Abuela had been intent on taking this trip with her. Luz now knew that Abuela had planned to tell her the truths about her mother that Luz, now an adult, could accept.
There is much you don't know about Mariposa.

Now she might never know the truth. The only hope she had was to find her
tía
Maria.

The early hours after dawn were always a time of hope for Luz. The sun was an enormous red ball in the gray sky hovering over miles of shadowy fields. Luz yawned and looked out over the highway that stretched long and flat for miles. She was beginning to see life as a long highway with a series of stops. She hadn't made many choices before, but now she was in the driver's seat. She saw the road with a new perspective. What the stops were in the future, she didn't know yet. But in her heart, she knew they would be important.