The Butterfly Tattoo Read online

  The Butterfly Tattoo

  M. D. Thomas

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  Copyright © 2020 by Matthew D. Thomas

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction in its entirety. All names, settings, incidents, and dialogue have been invented, and when real places, products, and public figures are mentioned in the story, they are used fictionally and without any claim of endorsement or affiliation. Any resemblance between the characters in the novel and real people is strictly a coincidence.

  ISBN 978-1-7344870-1-5 (eBook)

  For B, J, C, and G, always

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Acknowledgments

  BONUS MATERIAL

  About the Author

  One

  JON

  Moments before the car accident that would leave his son in a coma, Jon Young had a conversation about baseball. Baseball—or, to be precise, the standing of the Washington Nationals in the East Division of the National League—was the topic the Young family had been held hostage by during the holy months of April through October for the past six years, ever since Lee turned five.

  “Do you think they can win the pennant this season, dad?” Lee asked from the backseat of Jon’s beloved ninety-two Toyota Cressida.

  Jon glanced in the rearview mirror. There wasn’t much to see in the darkness, but he could just detect the ghost-white rise and fall of the baseball that always danced in his son’s hands. “Who do what?”

  “The Nats, dad,” Lee said, oblivious to his pretended ignorance. “What about the World Series?”

  “It’s only mid-April,” Jon said as he turned onto the Accotink Parkway, mystified as usual that he and Sarah had produced such a fanatical child.

  “Not this way,” Sarah said from the passenger seat. “It’s slower.”

  “Shorter though.” But the truth was that after an evening of watching Lee shine on the ball field he just felt good, and the parkway—wooded, winding, and yes, slow—reinforced that feeling. Sarah always wanted to get where she was going as soon as possible, never understood his perpetual desire to take the scenic route.

  “You just like to remember what you did here with your girlfriends when you were a teenager,” Sarah said, a hint of laughter in her voice.

  “That’s not true.” But he was glad the darkness hid his flushed cheeks.

  “What did you do here with girls?” Lee asked.

  “Nothing interesting.”

  Sarah convulsed with suppressed laughter.

  “What’s wrong with mom?”

  “Allergies,” Jon said, and Sarah howled.

  Well, I suppose it’s a little funny…

  “Can you believe that homer I got?” Lee asked, whatever curiosity he’d had about his parent’s lives before he was born already gone. “I really felt like I was Arky Vaughan when I was at bat. Like he was inside me or something. Then BOOM! Smack over the right field fence!”

  “I really do wish you’d idolize someone else,” Sarah said, the amusement gone from her voice. “Like someone alive.”

  “But he was awesome, mom. There’s nobody like him anymore.”

  “Arky Vaughan would’ve taken more walks,” Jon said with mock seriousness as he flipped on the high beams to better illuminate the bright yellow caution signs that peppered the side of the road, warning of the sharp curve ahead. For some reason Lee had become obsessed with Vaughan, a shortstop slugger who drowned not long after he retired from the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” Lee said, sounding deflated.

  “I was just kidding, Lee,” Jon said as he started to brake for the coming turn. No sooner had his foot touched the pedal then a set of headlights slashed across his own.

  “Jon!” Sarah’s fingers dug into his arm as the oncoming car hurtled toward them, its headlights glued to the Cressida instead of sweeping past as they should have.

  Better in the trees than broadsided…

  It was more an image in his mind than a coherent thought, and Jon floored the accelerator, kept the car pointed straight ahead even as the road bore left.

  Somehow the other driver managed to turn, but it was still too late. Their rear ends collided and Jon was slammed against the door as their car spun, as his consciousness fled, chased by the crunch of metal, by the explosion of shattering glass, by the vision of headlights spinning across the trunks of the nearby pine trees.

  “Jesus Christ… you think we killed them?”

  The woman’s voice penetrated the fog that clouded Jon’s mind but failed to clear it.

  “They’re both buckled up,” a man said. “They’ll be fine.”

  Jon’s skull throbbed and he felt… wrong. Buckled up?

  “You sure? There’s no airbags in this old piece of shit and he’s bleeding all over the place. Maybe we should call an ambulance?”

  “We can’t.”

  There was a pause, then, “You think that’s a good idea?”

  “The police show up and we’re looking at a felony hit-and-run. You ready to trade bartending for jail time?”

  Jon heard a low groan of pain. It took a moment to realize it came from his own throat. Both… He said both…

  “Time to go. He’s waking up.”

  “Goddamn, is he trying to talk?”

  Jon’s eyes felt heavy, but he managed to open them. Bright light was everywhere except for a shadow outside of the car door. A flashlight, moving slightly. He realized he was looking at the shape of a person, the body wreathed in a nimbus of light, the face indistinguishable. But they were upside down. His tongue felt dry as he tried to speak. “Lee… ”

  The shape leaned closer, blocked more light, but Jon still couldn’t see the face. “What did you say,
mister?”

  It was the woman. He tried to speak again. “Lee… Lee okay?”

  “Sounds like he’s got rocks in his mouth,” she said.

  She leaned even closer, turned a little, and her face came into focus, surrounded by a mass of curls. He had time to notice a small butterfly, half-again the size of a quarter, tattooed high up on her cheek, not far from the eye, and then the light moved and she was yanked backwards.

  “Come on. We gotta go.”

  “But he was trying to tell me something…”

  “Forget it, okay? Come on.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Take your hands off me. I’m coming. Jesus, I need another hit… ”

  The light disappeared, their voices faded, the butterfly faded, and Jon was left in darkness.

  Jon turned away from the door, fumbled to undo his lap belt and failed. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. With the light gone he couldn’t see a thing. He raised one jittery hand to turn on the dome light and was surprised when he hit the roof sooner than expected. His fingers searched, chittered across the headliner, and a moment later the overhead light—which was now below him—came on, revealed a caved in roof.

  We rolled…

  The moments before the accident came back, his thoughts still sluggish but becoming more coherent by the second. His head throbbed with the steady rhythm of a marching band drum line. Sarah hung next to him in the dim light of the overhead fixture, her straight blond hair dangling, the tips brushing the ceiling. She was breathing but not bleeding, her eyes closed and her mouth open.

  Her belt is on like the man said…

  Lee…

  Jon looked into the back of the car and noticed the rear passenger door was open and twisted on it’s hinges, saw nothing else but leather and Lee’s vintage Pirates hat, nestled among bits of safety glass in the middle of the roof as if he’d placed it there.

  “Lee? Lee!” Feeling like his guts had been plunged into ice water, Jon scrabbled at the lap belt latch button until the belt finally popped free. He fell onto the roof, vertigo washing over him, and struggled out of the shoulder belt, hitting his pounding head on the steering wheel as he tried to right his body. Ignoring the pain, he peered behind his seat.

  He’ll be there. He’ll be—

  But the space behind his seat was empty of everything but more broken glass.

  That was when his mind finally cleared enough to realize what had happened.

  “Lee!” Jon roared as he tried to open his door. It moved, but no more than an inch or two, something either blocking it outside or the frame bent too much by the rollover. He pushed harder, kicked at it frantically, but it didn’t budge so he wormed his way out of the window, glass tinkling onto the dead leaves below as he passed through. “Lee!”

  A wave of pain and nausea passed through Jon, so strong that he dry-heaved once and then vomited up the remains of the ball field cheeseburger he’d eaten almost two hours ago. He swiped his mouth with the back of one forearm and then pushed himself to his hands and knees, his fingers curling into dry pine needles, his nostrils filled with the green scent of spring overlaid by the vinegary bite of puke. Panting, he reached up and grabbed hold of the car door handle and pulled himself to his feet.

  “Lee!” he screamed again, searching the darkness.

  The Cressida had come to rest upside down on the treed slope halfway between the road and the Accotink below. The headlights were still on, pointing into the trees and illuminating the dark, narrow band that was the creek, the water sliding past. The night was quiet, even the insect chorus silenced by the collision of the two cars, the surrounding city forgotten except for the low thrum of the Capital Beltway in the distance.

  There was no sign of Lee in front of the car where the headlights still shone. His eyes beginning to adjust to the moonlit darkness, Jon stumbled toward the back of the Cressida, his left hand on the car to steady himself. His legs felt okay, but his head still swam and he thought if he let go he might fall over.

  “Lee!”

  Panic started to fill him, the urge to scramble around the car until he found Lee overwhelming.

  Be calm, Jun-Young… The thought was his, but the voice and image was of his father tending to the orchids in the back room of their Koreatown home. Before everything else you must be calm, Jun-Young. Be calm, think of what you need to do next, and then do it…

  Jon paused at the rear of the Cressida, his eyes still searching the ground around the car as his breathing deepened and slowed, as he tried to ignore the fear that filled him. What next?

  He had to get help. He dug into his pocket to find his cell, but there was only some change left over from buying Lee popcorn after the game ended.

  I took the phone out and left it on the console…

  Jon lurched back to the driver’s side door and looked through the busted window, the dome light still illuminating the inside, hoped he would spot the phone lying on the roof. But the rollover had thrown it somewhere out of sight, if not out of the car. Just like Lee…

  Calm…

  Jon looked around again and spotted Sarah’s purse below her. He pushed inside once more, and grabbed it, then turned the purse upside down. It was like breaking a dam open, as a pile of stuff fell out—mints, a hairbrush, a small notebook, loose change, enough pens and pencils to stock a classroom, lipstick, chapstick, fingernail clippers, a fingernail file and more.

  And right on top her cell phone.

  “Jon?” Sarah’s voice croaked as her head rolled toward him, her eyes fluttering. A rivulet of blood had crept down the side of her face.

  Jon ignored her and thumbed awake the cell as he pulled back out of the car into the darkness. On his knees, he selected the emergency icon when the pin pad came up and dialed 911.

  “911 emergency,” the operator said a moment later.

  “My family and I were in a car accident on the Accotink Parkway,” Jon said, voice wavering, “just a few miles south of the Franconia-Springfield Bridge.”

  “Is anyone hurt?”

  “My son was thrown out of the car. I… I haven’t been able to find him yet.”

  “Okay. Are you or anyone else injured?”

  “My wife was unconscious, but she’s waking up now. I don’t know how badly she’s hurt.”

  “Were any other vehicles involved?”

  “One other,” Jon said.

  “Any injuries to the people in that vehicle?”

  “I don’t know. They left.”

  “Okay. I need you to stay on the line until EMS and the police arrive.”

  Jon took the phone away from his ear, pulled up the function screen and tapped the small flashlight at the bottom. The camera flash LED lit up the ground.

  “Lee?” Sarah moaned again and Jon glanced up in time to see her eyes roll toward the empty back seat. They widened and she screamed, a guttural cry ripped out of her.

  Calm…

  Jon got to his feet and trotted around the car, moved the phone to illuminate the ground before and around him. It didn’t light up anything farther than a few feet away. When he passed Sarah’s door she was trying to get her lap belt off, screaming Lee’s name over and over. Jon ignored her and jogged past the front of the car, the light bouncing ahead of him. When he still hadn’t seen anything after a full circuit, he went ten feet farther out and circled around once more.

  Jon was on the third trip around the car when he spotted Lee, his dim form crumpled near the base of a pine tree close to the Accotink.

  So far… if the tree hadn’t stopped him, he would’ve gone in the creek…

  The absurd thought came to him that if they’d been the home team he would’ve seen Lee right away. The home uniform was bright white, away was gray.

  Calm…

  “Lee?” Jon ran over, his fear spiking when Lee didn’t respond. He pointed the phone at Lee’s face and recoiled. The right side of Lee’s head was a bloody mess, his cheek covered in abrasions, and his limbs were splayed around his body like a
rag doll. His glove was still on his hand.

  Jon fell to his knees beside Lee. Hand shaking, Jon reached out and placed his index and middle finger below the swell of Lee’s jaw, pressed his fingertips against the soft flesh there and felt for a pulse. At first there was nothing and his stomach started to roil again, but he shifted his fingers and detected the tiny flutter of Lee’s heart. It wasn’t strong, but it was there and constant.

  Calm…

  Every shred of his being urged him to pick Lee up and take him back to the road, to run toward the ambulances wailing in the distance. But it would be a mistake to move him. If his neck or back were injured, moving him could result in paralysis.

  Jon kept the small light trained on Lee’s face and grabbed hold of Lee’s right hand, needing to feel his son. The thought of Lee, who loved to run, to hit, and to throw baseballs, trapped in a chair, his legs useless, maybe his arms as well, chilled him to the bone. No, that won’t happen. He’ll be fine…

  The stillness of Lee’s small body argued otherwise. Jon smoothed the dull black hair on the side of Lee’s head that wasn’t injured, tears running down his cheeks. If there was a chance that his son was dying Jon didn’t want him to be alone, even if he was unconscious.