The Butterfly Forest

NINETY-THREE

We made coffee and sat at the bar inside Jupiter. I told Elizabeth what Pablo Gonzales had said. She listened then asked, “What are you saying, Sean? Are you suggesting that it’s safe for me to go back to the restaurant, to go back to a world I don’t even recognize since Molly was taken away from me?”

“They’ll come for me, Elizabeth. I don’t want you here to risk your life when they come. I’m going to put you in safekeeping, somewhere no one can find you until I stop Gonzales.”

She stood from the bar and watched a trawler chugging into the marina with a white-haired man behind the wheel on the fly-bridge and a woman less than half his age in a bikini lounging on the seat beside him, a tall Bloody Mary in her hand. Elizabeth turned back toward me, her eyes capturing the ruby reflection of the sunset off the bay. “You went back into that forest for me, for Molly, too. I’m not going to abandon you. Not now. No damn way. I won’t give Gonzales permission to intimidate me. I can shoot a gun—”

“I appreciate what you’re saying, but you can’t stay here. Gonzales will—”

“Shhh,” she said, stepping up to me. I stood as she tenderly reached out to touch my shoulder. “Does it hurt?”

“Only when I breathe.”

She unbuttoned my shirt, her fingers gently touching the dressing. She lifted her eyes to mine, the pools of green filled with compassion, her lips wet. She said nothing as she guided my right hand to her cheek. She pressed her body against me, her eyes locked on mine. I cupped her face with both hands and leaned down as we kissed. Her lips were warm and soft, no trace of lipstick. She smiled and said, “Make love to me, Sean.

“I don’t know if this is the right time—”

“This is the best time, Sean. Time is all we have, and I don’t want to waste it with things that aren’t important in my life.”

She reached for my hand and led me down the three steps to the master berth. As I closed the door to the cabin, I glanced back up at Max. She sat on the couch in the salon, ears cocked, eyes following something outside, something farther away than the dock in front of Jupiter.

Inside the cabin, I looked out the porthole for a second, and watched the setting sun cast the marina in shades of cherry and black. I pulled the curtains shut. Maybe Max saw nothing menacing, her little radar catching something that wasn’t hostile.

I turned to Elizabeth as she unbuttoned her shirt, her face alluring, eyes filled with conviction. We kissed again, long and passionate, then undressed. She looked at my bandage for a second, her eyes blinking back tears. I kissed her again and could feel the heat radiating from her skin. Then I lay on my back and guided her over me. She looked into my eyes, slowly mounting me, her eyes closing, a deep breath, her hair cascading on both sides of her face, brushing against my chest and shoulder, the pain in my arm extinguished. Elizabeth’s soft moans were drowned by a diesel engine cranking a few slips away. A single tear rolled down her cheek and fell in the center of my chest. She leaned down to kiss me and I felt her body quiver.

Thunder rolled over the sea and buried the sound of a single bark from Max, a subconscious alarm in my head, an obscure omen beyond the cusp of the horizon.