Flight Behavior

Cub gave her a penitent look. The resemblance between him and Preston sometimes knocked the wind out of her.

“He came all this way to see our special blessing up there,” she offered carefully. “I thought maybe I could tell him some things about the butterflies. Since he’s interested.”

“You could,” Cub said. “That’s true.” She’d been bending Cub’s ear with everything she’d read on Wikipedia about the monarch butterflies. He would probably be happy to take the night off and let someone else take a shift.

A knock at the front door made them all jump. The whole family was wound up tight, even the kids. She would bet money on Cordie setting up a wail, just from the stress. Dellarobia whipped off her apron and scurried to get the door.

“Hello! Welcome to our home!” she said, sounding to herself like a Stepford wife. She led him to the kitchen and introduced him to Cub and the children, then grabbed some potholders and dived for the oven to desist with humiliating herself. She had changed out of her mom clothes into a pink knit tunic and leggings and hoop earrings, and now that felt wrong too. She was overdressed. Mr. Byron asked if he could use their facilities to freshen up.

“You certainly may. Of course! You’ve been out in the elements all day. Preston, honey, could you show Mr. Byron where it is?” She knelt to peer into the oven. Her original plan was meat loaf, but then she’d panicked: What if he was a vegetarian? It wasn’t unheard of, especially among those from other lands. Did sensible homemakers have a plan for the complete-stranger dinner party? She’d decided finally on a macaroni and tuna casserole, a slightly fancy recipe that called for a can of shoestring potatoes and two cans of French-cut green beans. That seemed safe. He surely wasn’t French.

Preston leaped from his chair when called upon to help the guest, but then took two sideways steps toward his mother and whispered in her ear: “What’s facilities?”

She whispered back, “The bathroom.”

Preston nodded and soldiered forth, with the towering stranger behind him. Dellarobia noticed that his hiking boots looked expensive but the rest of his clothes were fairly ordinary—a well-worn jacket, blue corduroy shirt, and jeans. If you could call a thirty-eight-inch inseam ordinary. He would have to cruise the extra-tall shopping lanes, that’s for certain. Or his wife would, if applicable. Dellarobia set the casserole on the table and spooned some of the soft, cheesy macaroni into Cordelia’s bowl, blowing to cool it. Cordie had a spoon in each hand and was beating the tray of her high chair, eerily like a heavy metal drummer, throwing her fuzzy head to the beat. When Preston returned to the kitchen he gave his sister the once-over and flung his mother a wide-eyed glance: Please tell me I was never that age. But at least she wasn’t wailing. Cub got the pitcher of sweet tea out of the fridge as she’d asked, and he wasn’t wailing either. So far, so good. When the guest returned and everyone was seated, Cub said the blessing: “Father we thank you for this food and fellowship amen.” She noticed Mr. Byron didn’t close his eyes for the prayer, either. They had that in common.

“So, Mr. Byron, tell us about yourself,” Cub said.

The man held up one long, narrow hand like a traffic cop. “Please! Just Ovid. You will make me feel like an old man.” An old mon.

“Of course,” Dellarobia said, though she knew Cub would not attempt a name that sounded so much like olive or oblong. She might be loath to try it herself, though she’d been forward with him at the outset. Now she feared the Bob Marley lyrics in her head would burst out of her mouth. No woo-mon, no cry. “Except for you, Preston,” she added. “You need to call him Mr. Byron.”

Preston nodded, his fork poised halfway to his mouth.

“Well, sir,” Cub asked, “what do you make of all that, up on our mountain?”

Ovid shook his head very slowly. He took a long drink of his iced tea. “I can hardly begin to tell you what I make of all that, up on your mountain.”

“They’re monarchs,” Dellarobia told him.

Ovid looked at her a little oddly.

“The butterflies,” she quickly explained. “Monarch butterflies. You wouldn’t believe it, but they are the most amazing of all insects. They gather up like that.”

The guest smiled broadly, appearing to understand now. “They do indeed. Gather up like that.”

“I mean, not just here, this once. Every winter they come from all over the United States and even Canada I guess, and fly south for the winter, and gang up together in a bunch like that. Just millions. We saw pictures on the Internet, Preston and I. It’s the same as what’s up there, clusters of butterflies hanging on the trees and practically covering up whole forests. Can you picture it? I mean, of course you can picture it, you just saw them. But can you picture such a little flimsy thing making that long trip?”

“My wife’s an expert,” Cub said proudly. “She’s the one that led us to find them up there in the first place.”

Ovid nodded, listening and chewing thoughtfully. “I would like to hear about that,” he said. She noticed he had tiny corkscrews of gray in his short-cropped hair, near the temples, and crinkly smile lines at the corners of his eyes.

She shook her head to fend off Cub’s compliment, but was nowhere near finished with the subject. “They fly thousands of miles to go south, like birds do. The only insect capable of flying great distances and even over ocean. They can go a hundred miles in a single day. It’s unbelievable. They hardly weigh more than a quarter, I bet.”

“Not even half that, I would say,” Ovid replied.

“Right. But here’s the part you will not believe.”

“Try me,” he said.

“Usually, they go to Mexico.” She set down her fork and leaned forward. “Millions of butterflies pile up in this one spot on top of a mountain in Mexico. Always the same one. I mean, why Mexico? What’s so special about that one mountain?”

“Good question,” Ovid replied.

“Well, I guess a few of them go to California,” she said. “I’m not sure how that part works. But about, I think, ninety-nine percent of them normally wind up in Mexico.” The visit from the Mexican family and their disaster darkened her mind, but she was not going to bring that up now. She would like just one beautiful thing to her name, with no downside. She pushed her hair behind her shoulders and beamed at the guest. “Year in and year out, they’ve been going to the same place I guess forever. Since God made them. And now for whatever reason, instead of going to Mexico it looks like they decided to come here. Here.”