Butterfly in a Blizzard

I was fourteen when my grandpa first shoved a rifle in my hands and seventeen when he died. I never shot the thing. I was ten when my father first took me fishing, he tried again at thirteen, then fifteen. At sixteen he gave up.

I was eighteen when I made my mother cry with the news of wanting to attend school for web design, I watched my father take his hat off and hang his head. Also a first.

I was twenty-two when I got the call a drunk driver in a Ford pickup killed em'.

Being their only child, their only flesh and blood, they envisioned me taking over our tiny farm in Ohio. A few hundred acres of corn, two sheds, eleven crows (yes, crows) and a tractor older than I was. Sure, I was born into it. But they couldn’t beat it into me if they tried.

The plane tires slid against the wet tarmac at 6:23am on a frigid Sunday in November. I missed the funeral on Saturday. Work got a little crazy and there was a data leak. I hadn’t talked to my parents in months, since I moved out west to San Francisco for a developer position.

I pulled up to the farm with nothing but a backpack and spent the next twenty-four hours rummaging through cupboards and closets. The attorney insisted I go through belongings before listing the place. My old room was unrecognizable. My desk and monitor and books were replaced with a big leather chair and a sewing machine. Deer heads and antelope skulls bled onto the walls.

They didn’t care for what I liked, nor did I care for what they did.

The small single-story house smelled like mildew and Pine-Sol. There was a hint of musk, like fabric that has been sitting for too long. Collecting dust. I opened up every window that would and sat out on the back porch that overlooked a whole lot of nothing. In the 18 years I lived here I had never sat out there. Trees, brush. To my right in the distance, the shed. To my left the other shed. More shit, I thought to myself. I leaned back into the worn iron patio furniture and closed my eyes.

I had no plans on staying at the house. I'd driven the extra twenty minutes from my hotel. My purpose there was strictly to clean up the place enough to sell. I had just finished my final walkthrough when I noticed a car coming down the long, typically barren road. There was zero road traffic besides those comin and goin to the house. It sat at the end for a reason. Desolate.

I stood at the edge of the drive as a black Mercedes kicked up dust.

The attorney. He pulled up and rolled down the passenger window; I hunched down to see the porky fella.

“Hey Leon! Ya know I am just so glad you are still here”, he exclaimed as he clasped his big ring filled hands together.

I pushed up my glasses and smiled, “Hey good to see you Kane, I was just finishing up here actually.”

“Oh well I am very glad you are still here then actually”, he leaned over the center console. Sweat glistened along his brow, matching his black Rolex Daytona.

“Is that right?”, I took my hat off and leaned in the passenger window. The inside seemed clean but smelled of cigar smoke and fake cherry.

“Yeah, you’re not an easy man to reach Leon. Say there was one more thing I forgot to go over with you on our call. Might be another thing to add to your “more shit” list.”

“Oh yeah what’s that?”

Kane reached into the backseat and reveals a black leather book bag. He pulled out a manila folder and placed it on the passenger seat.

“Well, if it’s something to sign something you could’ve just sent it over like ya did everything else”, I joked.

Kane smirked but I could tell he didn’t find it funny. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and spoke slowly.

“There’s a cabin in West Virginia, just across the border”.

I knew exactly what he meant. The place the entirety of my family had poked and prodded and pried at me to go to. Never did.

I guess the wide look in my light eyes and the silence was noticeable enough for Kane to break eye contact.

“You alright kid?”, he asked after I failed to respond. "Your father told me you wanted it, had me put it in the will years ago."

“Yeah sorry, just forgot about it that’s all.”

I never forgot about it. I had simply buried it. I grabbed the folder off the seat and thanked him.

He gave me a rather sad look. “Take care Kane, seriously.”

I stood there as the shiny black Mercedes kicked up dust and turned into a spec.

Back in the house, I threw the folder on the chipped island and walked back out to the porch. For the second time in my life I sat and stared at the nothingness.

The cabin. Thing had been passed down from generation to generation since what seemed like the beginning of time. I had never been out there, one of the many places I refused to go. I couldn't figure out why the hell he thought I would want it.

The next morning, I headed toward the outskirts of Davis, West Virginia. I left just about everything in the house except my father’s parka, a thermos and a can of soup. I had no intention of going back. The two-lane highway that split through the dense forest was empty and frost-covered. I looked over at the papers on the passenger seat, contents of the manila folder. There wasn’t even an address, just coordinates. Two pieces of paper were stapled with it, directions printed from the early 2000s. I had put the coordinates into my phone GPS and the pin dropped off an unmarked road about 4 hours southeast. As long as the weather stayed good it would be a day trip. That’s it.

“As long as the weather stays good”, I whispered to myself as the wall of dark gray plagued the sky ahead of me.

It wasn’t long before I found myself in a whiteout. By the time I reached the small, secluded town of Davis it was 2:00pm, yet so dark it looked to be early evening. My phone had lost service an hour prior, yet the maps stayed. It had been 140 miles of straight and a singular right. 10 more miles of straight than 2 miles to the left. There were no road signs, just clearings or a tree with a ribbon or rope you had to catch at the last second. I had never been on a road trip before. I had never seen these highways or these towns, the river.

The dirt road leading up to the property was reclaimed by the earth, even the worn path beaten by years of tire tracks were barely visible. Snow didn’t help.  It was coming down, the flakes so heavy I had to hang out and wipe the windshield with my arm every few minutes.

Suddenly, the trees and brush that narrowly lined my path vanished into black. A clearing. A window peeked out from the blanket of white and reflected the headlights back. The cabin. The closer I got, the more visible it became. Still wasn't much, couldn't make out much besides the slant of the A frame roof and the single window marking the front door. I threw the car in park and stared out the windshield before me wondering if there were stairs or a porch or a shit, bear trap. I grabbed the folder off the seat and shook it. The key thudded against the floorboard. I got out of the car and was met with thigh deep snow. There were indeed stairs, and a small porch. No bear traps though. I trudged slowly, making a path from the car to the first stair which was maybe 50 feet. Slowly I made it up the 4 narrow stairs, holding onto the rotten railing. Ice is unforgiving. 5 feet to the door. The wind was almost unbearable. There wasn’t much for visibility or light but between the flurries was enough. I cleared the snow from the brass lock and shoved the key in. Turned it to the right, nothing. To the left, no dice. I stood there with snot frozen to my face and my coal black hair turned soggy and white wondering why the hell I didn’t just tell Kane to do whatever he wanted with the place. I had already made it this far and there was no way in hell I was going anywhere in this. I stuck the key back in and forced it right. Click. Dice.

Inside was similar to outside, dark and cold and so quiet. It faintly smelled of stale cigarettes and kerosene. As my eyes adjusted, I quickly noticed the place was a single room, a mere 400ish square feet. The kitchen took up the entire back wall, refrigerator, sink. A window on each side wall, one with a cot and a what looked like a neat pile of worn bedding and the other some sort of table with a box. A wood burning furnace sat dead center of the place. Piled in the corner to my right was wood and warmth seemed to be just about the only thing I wanted besides sleep. I had never built a fire before, never needed to. Just have to get through the night then I'll be gone. The furnace door creaked as I opened it to reveal a box full of gray ash. I threw two logs in, grabbed the matchbox sitting on top of the thing, struck it and threw it in. No dice. After an hour and some twigs and scraps of cereal boxes, the thing finally caught. I grabbed the soup can out of the coat pocket and placed it on the sun-bleached counter. I started my search for a pot. There was not much in the kitchen. 2 spoons, 2 forks, 2 steak knives in one drawer. Tongs, a spatula and a ladle in the other. Two mugs hung from one of the many DIY hooks drilled into the open shelf. A fry pan and small pot took up the others. Bingo.

While the soup warmed on the furnace I made the cot up with the worn bedding. I noticed it was my parents' old quilt that they used to put on their bed, 15 years ago. My mother's smirk flashed in my mind, the one she'd have when she saw me jumping on the bed from down the hall.

I sat in the quiet, nothing but the crackle of the wood and the slurping of my soup.

The next morning, I woke up to the bright sunrise of a morning after a storm. The fire was nothing but embers, the empty pot sat beside me on the floor. My mind felt quiet. The world was quiet. Only thing I could hear was my own breathing. I look over towards the table across the room and noticed the stack of papers that appeared to take up the entire left side was indeed something else. A computer. I threw the quilt off and got up. The thing was a dinosaur, boxy and from the early 2000s.

My computer.

A few different keyboards laid stacked along the floor, next to a power cord plugged into an extension cord that ran along the wall and out under the front door. Puzzled, I started opening the desk drawers.

My desk drawers.

My father had despised technology; he despised what I liked.

The second drawer revealed a yellow legal pad. Something scribbled on it. Each line started with a dash. It looked like a to-do list.

The date read 10/15/11. Next to it, Before Leon Comes.

• Run outlet to desk

• Get computer

• Internet?

• Check generator

• Move hunting gear. Leon won't touch it.

I just about dropped the legal pad.

He cared. My entire life.

The desk, the keyboards, the old monitor.

He thought maybe I would come if there were things I liked.

The tears began streaming as I stormed outside in disbelief, slamming the door wide open as I kicked the snow in front of me.

I hadn’t cried once, not even when I heard they died. Through watery eyes I stared out across the frozen meadow, the ice-covered pine trees circling. I shut him out every chance I could, everyone, all of it.

The morning sun had melted most of the east-facing porch, enough to where I could tell the entire thing was made from old, chopped timber logs. All by hand. As I went to touch the railing, something flew under my nose. It landed on the railing.

A butterfly.

Yellow with black detail, it sat gently in the snow. Softly, it fluttered its wings. In the midst of a freezing November, I stared at it. My father’s parka hung heavy around my shoulders.

He’d spent his whole life trying to get me out here, and I spent mine making sure I never came.

I smiled through the tears.

A butterfly in a blizzard.

For once, I understood.