In the Time of the Butterflies

by Julia Alvarez

“I was afraid,” she confessed, “that you wouldn’t live long, that you were already the way we were here to become.”

Better to abstain from the gardens of delectable delights than to be stuck planting them, dawn to dusk.

I was shaking like when a breeze blows through the sacristy and the votive candles flicker. This priest’s frankness had touched me more than a decree. We knelt there in that hot little rectory, and we prayed to the Virgencita. She had clung to Jesus until He told her straight out, Mamá, I have to be about My Father’s business. And she had to let him go, but it broke her heart because, though He was God, He was still her boy.

Oh God, it was bad news if the devil was refusing to take a bribe.

Beware what you ask God. He might just give you what you want.

Papá’s other family would be the agents of our salvation! It was ingenious and finally, I saw, all wise. He was going to work several revolutions at one time. One of them would have to do with my pride.

The little news, that’s what I like, I tell them. Bring me the little news.

I smile at her and say, “Look at that moon.” It is not a remarkable moon, waning, hazy in the cloudy night. But as far as I’m concerned, a moon is a moon, and they all bear remarking. Like babies, even homely ones, each a blessing, each one born with—as Mamá used to say—its loaf of bread under its arm.