In the Time of the Butterflies

by Julia Alvarez

We must keep quiet and not visit with each other, but think only of our immortal souls. I am so tired of mine.

asked Minerva why she was doing such a dangerous thing. And then, she said the strangest thing. She wanted me to grow up in a free country.

And suddenly, I was crying in her arms, because I could feel the waters breaking, the pearl of great price slipping out, and I realized I was giving birth to something dead I had been carrying inside me.

We’ve traveled almost the full length of the island and can report that every corner of it is wet, every river overflows its banks, every rain barrel is filled to the brim, every wall washed clean of writing no one knows how to read anyway.

Carlos’s nice fundillos (Yes, we girls notice them, too!)

That room was silent with the fury of avenging angels sharpening their radiance before they strike.

She’s got two new teeth, and has learned to say, Free Mamá, Free Papá, every time she passes Trujillo’s picture in the entryway.

As we stood in the dark a while longer, calming ourselves, I had this eerie feeling that we were already dead and looking longingly at the house where our children were growing up without us.

“I want to be with them.” He said—I remember it so clearly—he said, “This is your martyrdom, Dedé, to be alive without them.”