Heartlight (2 page)

He looked back at the garden gate, swinging slowly in the breeze. “There is no better place than a garden to see the changing of the seasons, Kaitlyn. Birth, death, then rebirth, all happen naturally, regularly, and peacefully. Flowers don’t fight against death like people do.”

He submerged in thought for a moment, then cast an eye toward Kate, his voice a whisper. “This was her favorite spot to sit, you know.”

“I know, Grandfather.” Kate wanted to reach over and hug him, but held herself back. She added gently: “This was her favorite tablecloth, too. I hope she wouldn’t mind our using it for a picnic.”

“She wouldn’t mind. She used it for quite a few picnics herself.”

Together, in silence, they unpacked the meal. Cumberland positioned himself nearby, his brown eyes filled with longing for a taste of lemon poundcake.

They ate quietly in the crisp autumn air. Every so often Grandfather’s misty eyes would glint in the sunlight. He seemed to be remembering other places and times, and Kate did not want to disturb him. Some of their best conversations, Grandfather had once observed, happened without any words at all. Often one of them would finish the other’s sentence; just as often, the sentence wasn’t even started and the other understood.

Nobody else but Grandfather made Kate feel so comfortable—just as she was, braces and all. Nobody else but Grandfather welcomed her endless questions (usually inspired by her forays into his vast collection of books)—unless, of course, he was in the middle of an experiment, in which case even an earthquake couldn’t distract him. To Grandfather it made no difference whether she asked about how the universe began or how the penny-farthing bicycle got its name: Both questions deserved an answer. One day last winter, a simple query about the formation of snowflakes prompted Grandfather to lead her outside in a raging snowstorm, where they caught the falling crystals on their gloves and talked about the endless variety until their numbed feet finally forced them to go back indoors. Rather often, it seemed, she would raise a question that even Grandfather couldn’t answer. At those moments, his bushy brows would climb skyward and he would reply: “Only God knows the answer to that one, Kaitlyn. But if you keep asking, perhaps He’ll give us a hint.”

Of course, having a famous astronomer as a grandfather wasn’t always peaches and cream. Grandfather’s image often haunted her at school, whether from the other kids’ teasing or from her tendency to daydream during class. Only last week, she hadn’t been listening when Mrs. Donovan, her seventh-grade science teacher, had assigned a special overnight homework project. When Kate arrived the next morning empty-handed, her classmates made great sport of her. Somebody slipped a small dunce cap into her book bag; somebody else taped a sign to the end of her braid that read: “Pull here to wake.”

Mrs. Donovan, who had a figure like an overstuffed shopping bag, took her out to the hallway. Shaking her head solemnly, she said: “Kate, Kate, Kate! You have no idea how hard I’ve tried to get you to show some interest in my science class! With no success at all, I’m afraid. At first I thought it was just a matter of time, but now—now I’ve given up. Don’t you share any of your grandfather’s interest in science?”

Kate didn’t respond. Answering such questions only made things worse.

“Really, Kate! How can someone with a family like yours be so lazy in school?”

She merely gazed at the floor.

Placing her hands on her nonexistent hips, Mrs. Donovan declared: “If you think having a famous grandfather allows you to daydream through my classes, I’ve got bad news for you.”

“I wasn’t daydreaming!” Kate objected. “I was thinking.”

Mrs. Donovan peered dubiously down at her. “Thinking about what?”

Kate hesitated. “I was thinking about sunspots—how they form, how they can even change our weather. I’m reading about them in one of Grandfather’s books.”

The teacher scowled, her several chins drooping in unison like a stack of frowns. “For someone who daydreams her way through school, you certainly do come up with some inventive excuses.”

“I wasn’t daydreaming!” protested Kate, her temper flaring like a solar prominence.

Grandfather never asked, nor did Kate explain, why she came home from school so early that day.

“Do you remember your grandmother, Kaitlyn?”

Grandfather’s question jolted her back to the present. “Yes, sort of. I mean, it was a long time ago that she died.”

“Not so long, really.” He glanced at the grape arbor. “She knew me, Kaitlyn. She knew that I much preferred the wild moors over any garden, that I missed the call of the curlew, the crumbling stone walls, the gorse growing wild that I knew as a child in Scotland. The moors are in my blood. If she’d left it up to me, this garden would look more like the Back of Beyond!” He laughed, remembering some distant moment. “But she taught me how to love a calmer place like this, as well as some of the wilder places within myself. Your grandmother could see further through a millstone than most.” He sighed. “The only thing she couldn’t teach me was how to accept the fact of death. That lesson has always been beyond my grasp, I’m afraid. She went so peacefully when her time came . . . while I’m certain I’ll battle it every step of the way.”

Kate thought about the large portrait of Grandmother as a young woman that hung in the hallway by the front door. Those deep brown eyes, the open face, the comfortable dignity of her posture, all made her seem so alive. And so lovely. There was also a slight touch of impatience at the corners of her mouth: It was clear she would much rather have been out working in the garden than sitting still for a formal portrait. Like Kate, she often wore her flowing blond hair in a braid, but unlike Kate’s slapdash knotting, it always looked effortlessly elegant. To have known such a person, and then to have lost her . . .

“She would have liked to have known you better,” he continued. “The two of you would have much in common.”

Kate flushed with doubt. “I don’t know. She was so wise and beautiful and everything.”

“You don’t think you’re wise?”

“Are you kidding? Just ask Mrs. Donovan! I’m at the bottom of my class.”

Grandfather shook his white mane. “Einstein was bored at school, too.”

“That’s different! He was a big brain! I’m more like a big dunce.”

“A dunce is one thing you’re most definitely not, my child. You have very special gifts. You have extraordinary insights. It’s only a matter of time before you discover how you want to use them. Try to be patient—”

“Patient! I’ve never been patient in my life!”

“I said
try
to be patient, Kaitlyn.” He extended a weathered hand to her. “This has been a hard year for you, hasn’t it?”

Kate nodded, and her round eyes began to fill with tears. “Sometimes I wish we’d never moved! I don’t have a single friend at school. Everybody’s always making my life miserable.”

He drew her near in a gentle hug. “You’re still my special friend, you know. You’re the same little girl I’ve always loved.”

“But I’m not!” she spouted, pushing away. “I’m not little! And I’m not the same! Nothing’s the same!” Her gaze fell to the ground. “Sometimes I feel like . . . like I don’t belong
anywhere
!”

“Kaitlyn,” said Grandfather quietly. “You still belong here.”

She looked at his eyes, sparkling in the same hazel-green hue as her own, and felt her tears welling to the surface. She buried her head in his familiar white lab coat.

For many minutes, Grandfather held her and said nothing. Gently he stroked her long braid, as the sound of her quiet sobbing filled the garden. Cumberland nestled his head between his paws.

In time, Kate lifted her face.

“Oh, Grandfather . . . this was supposed to be a fun picnic for you.”

“Who says this isn’t fun?” he answered with a twinkle. “I thought you were just working up an appetite for some lemon poundcake.”

Kate wiped her face on her sleeve. “Grandfather, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d probably eat off clean dishes, like normal people.”

Kate grinned, already feeling a little better. “Somehow you always—oh! Look!”

She jumped to her feet, pointing to a tiny glittering form dancing on the fountain. “There! What an amazing butterfly!”

Grandfather, too, was on his feet. “
Morpho nestira
,” he said softly in wonderment. “So you are still alive.”

As the butterfly settled upon the stone fountain, it began slowly to open and close its delicate wings, rhythmically, like a beating heart. Each time the wings opened, they flashed with iridescent blue, green, and violet—colors more brilliant than Kate had ever seen. As the wings drew closer together, the colors evolved from the deepest hues into an opalescent luster. The undersides of the wings, by contrast, were a simple shade of brown, with only a subdued pearly sheen around the edges providing any hint of the colors inside. Then suddenly: The wings reopened in a burst of brilliance, radiating blues and greens of impossible purity.

“Those wings are like rainbows,” Kate whispered.

“Yes,” answered Grandfather, “but even better. No rainbow has colors so intense. Those wings are covered with millions of microscopic prisms that concentrate and purify the light.”

“What did you call it?”

“
Morpho nestira
. It comes from South America.”

“South America! How did it get up here?”

Grandfather watched the pulsing wings thoughtfully. “I brought it back with me, on my last trip to the Southern Observatory in June. It took me three expeditions into the Amazon to find one. At the rate the forests down there are being destroyed, the butterflies’ habitat is being wiped out and they may soon be extinct.”

“You wanted it for your collection?”

“No. Not this butterfly.”

“Then why did you bring it back here?”

“I wanted to study its wings. How they move. How they refract light. How they
glow.
Kaitlyn, the wings of the morpho butterfly produce the purest colors found anywhere on Earth.”

For a split second, Kate turned from the butterfly to glance at Grandfather. His eyes shone with the excitement of discovery; he was utterly immersed in the present. This was the Grandfather she knew.

“No technology ever invented can do what those wings can do,” he continued. “What the morpho uses every day to frighten predators or signal courtship is really the nearest thing to
pure light
found on this planet.”

At that instant, the butterfly lifted off from the fountain. It rose into the air and then, with a sparkling swoop, fluttered in the direction of the chrysanthemums. For a moment it danced above the colorful petals, and then, whirling, floated slowly toward the picnickers. It hesitated for an instant, as the ocean sun hesitates on the horizon before setting, then landed softly on Kate’s forearm.

Her heart pounded as she watched the rhythmic opening and closing of the wondrous wings. Not daring to move, nor even to breathe, she felt a warm tingling sensation bathing her entire body. When the tiny legs of the butterfly shifted slightly, she could feel the pressure of each footstep on her skin, even through her heavy sweater. In that moment, time stood still. The universe became a suffusion of colors—brilliant, flashing colors flowing from boundless blues to radiant greens and violets. Grandfather was right: No rainbow could possibly compare with these radiant wings.

Finally, the butterfly stirred, and the glittering wings carried it skyward. Gracefully, it rode a breeze over the garden fence and out of sight. Kate quietly reached for Grandfather’s hand. Silently, they stood for several minutes, looking at the spot where the morpho had disappeared.

“Its wings are more than just colors,” said Kate at last. “You know what I mean?” She wasn’t quite sure herself what she meant.

“I think so,” replied the white-haired man beside her. “Those wings are
light,
Kaitlyn. Pure light.”

“That’s why they glow so much?”

Grandfather nodded. “And they’ll continue to glow like that as long as the butterfly remains alive.”

“Alive?”

His face grew somber. “Something changes when the butterfly dies. The wings grow dimmer, duller. The prisms still refract light, but it’s only a pale imitation of the living morpho.”

“Why?” demanded Kate. “What happens when it dies?”

“That, I’m afraid, is still a mystery.”

“Is that why you wanted to study it? Why you brought it all the way back here?”

“Not exactly. Let’s just say the wings of the morpho hold many great mysteries. When my experiments were done, I couldn’t bear to let it die in some little glass case in the lab. So I let it go, out here in the garden. That was over a month ago.”

“That’s a long time for a butterfly.”

“Yes,” replied Grandfather, again suddenly distracted. “And quite a month it’s been.” His brow wrinkled in concern, and he released her hand. “Time for me to get back to work, Kaitlyn.”

He pushed the remains of the lemon poundcake toward Cumberland. Before he could remove his hand, the dog snapped up the entire serving in one bite.

“What did you learn from the morpho’s wings?” pressed Kate. “Please tell me.”

The white eyebrows lifted. “Something I never dreamed possible.”

“About light, Grandfather?”

“That’s how it began. But . . .”

“But what?” pressed Kate. “Tell me, please.”

The aging astronomer pushed back a handful of white hair, then gazed at her for a long moment. At last, he spoke softly, so softly that she could barely hear. “One day, Kaitlyn, if I’m right, what I learned could make it possible for people to travel to the most distant stars in the universe.”

Kate’s gaze fell. “I guess that means you’re going to lock yourself up in the lab again.”

“I’m afraid so,” answered Grandfather. “I’m sorry, Kaitlyn. I hope it won’t be much longer. I’m really very close.” He reached out his hand and gently raised her chin. “But I’d love to join you for supper.”

She lifted her eyes. “Really?”

“Yes, Kaitlyn.” A warm smile illuminated his face and he drew a deep, satisfied breath. “I needed this picnic more than you know.”