My Butterfly

Chapter Eighteen The Call

I cradled my phone in the palm of my hand. There was only one light on — a small lamp. Otherwise, the room was dark. Lately, the station seemed to be the only place where I could concentrate — and maybe that was because I had no memory of Jules being there.

I used my finger to scroll through the contacts in my phone. Her number was still on speed dial — number two—only because one was already assigned to voicemail. But tonight, I skipped the speed dial. Scrolling through the contacts gave me more time to think — what I was going to say and how I was going to say it.

If time were what she needed, like Rachel had said, I had given her some time. She deserved that. And despite what I had let Jeff believe, I had no intentions of moving on. What I did plan to do, however, was move forward — do something, anything to get Jules back.

I finally found her name but wasn’t any closer to figuring out what I was going to say. I stared at the phone’s screen for five, solid minutes, then I closed my eyes and pressed the button that sent the phone dialing her number. A deep breath in and a slow, uneasy exhale followed.

I heard the first ring, and it sent my heart into overdrive. I anxiously waited for the second ring, and then it came just as the first had — unexpected but deliberate. My heart continued to race. But, oddly, the sound of the rings, one after the other, was comforting somehow — that was until the fourth ring. On the fourth ring, I started to panic. And by the fifth ring, the sound of the solid tone was shrilling and unsettling. By that time, I knew that I wasn’t going to have the chance to talk to her. I took another deep breath and waited for her voicemail to pick up. Then suddenly, the ringing stopped, and a familiar, robotic voice poured through my phone’s speakers.

“The caller you are trying to reach does not have a voicemail box set up yet. Please try again. Goodbye.”

And with that, the other end of the line went silent.

I sat there on the edge of the cot, phone again cradled in my hand and my eyes locked on the phone’s screen. I waited there for minutes, willing the screen to glow and for her name to appear in bold letters across it. But when the minutes passed in silence, I couldn’t bear to hear the deafening sound of the quiet anymore. I lowered my head and cradled my face in my hands. I wasn’t sad. It felt more like anger, but it wasn’t anger either. It was like nothing. I felt numb. At least with sadness, I could mope away my sorrows. But with this strange pain, it was as if there was nothing I could do to make it go away.

I took another deep breath in and tried to collect myself. Then, I refocused my attention onto my phone, and it suddenly came to me: I could text her.

I started typing, but I only got to “Jules, I need to” when a sound at the doorway made me look up.

“Why are you still here?” asked a tall, shadowy man.

The man was the station’s chief. He wore a New Milford Fire Department tee shirt — just like the one I was wearing — but he also had short, wavy, graying hair and a mustache. In fact, he kind of reminded me of Clark Gable from that long movie Jules always loved to watch.

“I, uh, was just working on some homework,” I said.

He eyed the phone in my hand.

“In the dark?” he asked.

I glanced over at the small table next to the cot with the lamp and an opened book on it.

“I can’t concentrate with too much light,” I said.

He shot me a suspicious look, held it on me for a few seconds, then started to leave but stopped.

“Something on your mind, son?” he asked, turning back toward me.

I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t really in the mood to talk.

“Aah,” he said. “It’s a girl, isn’t it?”

My eyes turned up.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Because that’s the only reason a young man, such as yourself, ever sits in this station in the dark with a frown that wide on his face,” he said.

I tried to laugh.

“I’m right, though,” he said, dragging a fold-up chair to the cot.

I smiled, but it felt unnatural.

“What did you do?” he asked.

I flashed him a puzzled look.

“Come on,” he said. “I also know you did something stupid. I forgot to mention that every young man, such as yourself, that comes into my station with a frown that big on his face has also done something stupid to a girl.”

I dropped my head and slowly shook it back and forth.

“I let her go,” I mumbled.

My eyes locked onto the phone in my hand again.

“You let her go?” he asked.

“Yeah, I should have said something when she said it wasn’t working, and I should have followed her that night on New Year’s,” I said.

After a couple of moments, my eyes turned up from the phone, and I realized he didn’t have a clue as to what I was talking about.

“I let her go,” I repeated.

“I see,” he said, nodding his head.

“We’re talking about Julia, aren’t we?” he asked.

I nodded my head.

I watched his eyes travel to the lunch bag he had been holding in his hands. He turned it over a couple of times and then looked up.

“Sometimes, you just have to let go,” he said. “She’ll come back, when she’s ready.”

I sat there for a second in silence. Then, he reached over, patted me on the shoulder and chuckled.

“Happiness is like a butterfly,” he said. “The more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”

By the time he had finished, my eyebrows were in a heap at the center of my forehead.

“It’s Thoreau,” he said, chuckling some more. “Didn’t you ever learn that in school?”

I laughed.

“Can’t say I did, sir,” I admitted.

A moment passed, and my smile started to fade.

“Does that really work — the whole letting go and coming back thing?” I asked.

His eyes fell to the tiles on the floor before they found my stare again.

“Some of us spend our entire lives hoping it does,” he said. “And for some of us lucky ones, it does. But, boy, I have a good feeling that for you, it’ll work. Just be patient.”

I smiled and lowered my head again as he got up and scooted the chair back to its place against the wall.

“And don’t do anything stupid in the meantime,” he said over his shoulder as he made his way to the door again.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ll try not to, sir.”

“Oh, and by the way,” he said, stopping at the doorway, “didn’t you just get some big, fancy job on the department in St. Louis?”

I smiled.

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

“That’s no small feat,” he said, shaking his head. “But if you’d ask me, I’d say they got the better deal. You’re a damn good firefighter, Stephens.”

My eyes traveled to the floor.

“Thanks, sir,” I said.

“And Will,” he said.

I looked up again.

“Turn some lights on. You’re going to end up lookin’ like me by the time you’re thirty,” he said, smiling and tugging on his glasses.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

My stare remained on the dark doorway for a few seconds, even after the chief had disappeared through it. Then, eventually, I lowered my eyes to my phone’s screen again, and I retraced the letters I had formed just minutes ago. Slowly then, I watched each one disappear as I backspaced the message out of the phone and repeated the chief’s words in my head: Just be patient.