Butterfly's Child by Angela Davis-Gardner Read Free Book Online

pocket and pointed to it but Benji shook his head.
    For a while they threw sticks for the dog to fetch and then played tug-of-war with the dog, using a long stick. After that they played tug-of-war with each other. Eli was stronger, but Benji held on to the stick so that he was pulled along like the dog. He made growling noises and pretended to bark and Eli laughed so Benji barked louder. The dog began to run around them, barking and jumping for the stick. Benji fell down and Mama’s ball rolled out of his pocket. The dog almost got it, but Eli snatched it up first. Since Eli had saved it, Benji let him hold the ball and look at it, but he didn’t like it when Eli threw the ball up and down. He held out his hand for Eli to give it back and he did.
    They went into the house and Benji showed Eli his blocks and topthat were in the parlor and went to put the ball in his room, under the pillow.
    When Eli left, Benji went into his room and reached under the mattress for the kimono. If he put the ball inside the kimono no one could find it.
    He unfolded the kimono all the way and put the ball in the middle. There was something inside the kimono he hadn’t seen before, a square of cloth near the hem. Although the square was the same color as the lining, there were stitches along the edges, and what was underneath the cloth felt stiff.
    He tried to loosen the thread and then bit it with his teeth, just like Suzuki used to do. He tugged the thread out of one end of the square and reached inside.
    â€œ
Okasan!
” he whispered. It was a picture of Mama standing by a chair. Papa-san was sitting beside her, holding a watch. Mama’s head was turned a little to one side, as if she was listening to him. He held the picture against his face. It was cool and smooth and smelled like tatami.
    He heard Blue Eyes and the old woman talking in the kitchen so he put the picture back in the cloth and folded the ball inside it, in a place where it wouldn’t hurt the picture, then put the kimono under the mattress. When he left his room and went into the kitchen, everything looked different to him because of his secret. The house was like a picture of a house but he was real, walking around in it. Even if it was a kappa world, nothing was going to hurt him.
    That night, when he changed from the scratchy nightshirt to the kimono, he didn’t have to sleep on the floor because Mama was next to him. He had a dream about her that he couldn’t remember in the morning but it made him happy. When he went out to do chores, he felt Mama still with him, and as he carried in sticks and eased the eggs from beneath the chickens, he told her in his mind what he was doing, and whenever he was by himself, in the pasture with the cows or wading in the creek, he told Mama everything about this place, whispering to her in the language he was supposed to forget.

 
    Life in Plum River
would be easier to bear, Kate thought, if they could attend the First Presbyterian Church in the nearby town of Stockton. Reverend Singleton was an intelligent, compassionate man; she might be able to confide in him. And if she was a regular attender of the services in Stockton, she could more easily make the acquaintance of cultivated people; she wanted to organize a women’s reading circle and to entertain interesting couples at dinner parties. The farmers and their wives, while by and large kind, were not intellectually congenial. If her marriage was a trial, she at least deserved a satisfactory spiritual and intellectual life.
    Since Kate had been raised Presbyterian, Frank was at first persuaded by her desire to continue worshipping in the denomination familiar to her. But Frank’s mother put up formidable resistance. The Pinkertons had been pillars of the Plum River congregation since the church was built, Mrs. Pinkerton declared as she and Kate were preparing brisket for dinner, and it would be unthinkable for them to desert Pastor Pollock and