Broken Butterflies

PART I

The extraordinary is always prowling around at the fringes of our ordinary days, 

waiting for the opportunity to transform us.

Chapter 1

August 30, next year

10:10 pm

Astoria walked through the quiet house fighting back panic. Marcus was late and he was never late. He was too much a man of order, a man of structure and discipline. Although he was in a new career now, his naval training never betrayed him. She scrolled through the unanswered texts she left him and called his phone again. She didn’t leave another message. 

On her way down the hall, she stopped in the doorway of Michael’s room. His cheeks were bright with sleep, his breath slow and steady as he dreamed under the Spider Man sheets. The new book she’d given him for his seventh birthday lay propped open on top of the blankets. She picked it up and found a place for it in his crowded bookcase. 

Gabrielle was in her room too, splayed across a bed strewn with her journal, pens of every color, and magazines. Astoria could hear music leaking from her ear buds while the girl’s thumbs danced across her phone. 

She returned to the family room, wrapped herself in the old blue quilt, and settled into Marcus’s recliner, shivering even though it was warm in the room. She rocked, clutching a novel she didn’t open.

She hadn’t drawn the drapes when the sun went down so she could see him when he came home. She loved to watch the square of his shoulders, the trained confidence in his stride. It made her feel safe and lucky. But it wasn’t Marcus coming up the walk. Instead, two men with heads down slowly mounted the front steps. One reached to press the doorbell. The other removed his cap and smoothed his hair with a careful hand. 

It seemed a great distance as she crossed the living room. She watched her hand pull open the front door.

Astoria stared into the face of the man wearing a Shanghai International Cruise Lines uniform, like the Marcus left the house in five weeks ago. A Seattle police badge glinted on the chest of the other. Their voices buzzed in her ears. She swallowed hard and the floor flew up to catch her.

* * * *

5:30 pm

Lily walked across the wide, uneven planks of Pier 66, cursing her high heeled shoes. She’d wanted to make sure she wasn’t dwarfed by the podium, but the Camuoto heels, as lovely as they were, were taking a toll on her feet.

On the cusp of autumn, the summer air was full of salt and the sun laid dense on her skin. The sky burned blue overhead. It was a day to justify all the gray days endured and left her feeling grateful she lived in Seattle. 

A crowd had gathered on the pier, a mix of supporters, activists, reporters, and curious tourists clutching maps and ice cream cones. Lily smoothed her hands down her sleeveless navy shift and pulled a compact from her purse. She checked her earrings, silver dangles that had been her mother’s, and fluffed her unruly chop of thick gray hair with her fingers. She snapped the compact shut and pulled out a small stack of note cards, scanning the key points of her speech. 

This speech was important. She’d scattered pithy sound bites throughout, highlighted in yellow so she couldn’t miss them, to make sure her words could be easily edited for the news. The long fight for the future of the waterfront was almost won. The decrepit viaduct, the subject of decades of debate and one significant earthquake away from collapse, was finally being torn down. A broad underground tunnel now swept traffic under the city. The waterfront would be transformed, opening up the buildings along Western Avenue to a glorious view of Puget Sound and a lush pedestrian park. Only one obstacle remained: the foreign cruise ships. 

Lily threaded her way through a satisfyingly large crowd, past the media wrestling with equipment and doing sound checks, looking for her new assistant, Forest. A fervent young man, he’d been a dedicated volunteer in her environmental organization over the last several months. He’d lobbied hard for more responsibility and a paid position. With the monumental workload she shouldered as executive director, she’d assigned him to managing this event— a task he’d been keen to take on. She didn’t see him anywhere.

She mounted the five steps to the podium, eyes on her shoes careful to keep her heels from catching in the metal grate. The Shanghai International vessel was sliding in the last hundred yards to the pier. Curious Chinese passengers, eager for their first close-up view of Seattle, lined the ship’s rails. She felt a little like David facing Goliath, a microphone for a sword. 

Her eyes searched the crowd for Forest. He was supposed to be shepherding the press, making sure the cameras shot what they needed for social media and that reporters connected with their interviews. She was out of time. It all had to happen now, before the passengers disembarked. They were a necessary part of the drama too. Finally, she spotted Forest on the gangway that arched overhead between the ship and the terminal. His arms propelled in a curious wave, his hair wild, and a maniacal grin contorting his face. 

Then came a flash of light blinded her, a sound like thunder and she was falling.

* * * *

6:30 pm

When Cassandra pressed the ignition button of her Tesla, public radio automatically powered on too, filling the car with the urgent voice of a KUOW reporter, sirens blaring in the background. She didn’t understand yet, that it was the sound of her world detonating.

* * * *

5:00 pm

“Get back, Daddy! Back!”

Jacob tackled Theo’s tall, lanky frame with all the determination his four-year-old body could muster. The cruise ship bearing down on pier looked like it would burst through the wall of windows at terminal 66 waiting area.

“Whoa! Buddy! Take it easy. The captain knows what he’s doing.” Theo swung Jacob up onto his own broad shoulders and pointed, his long finger punctuating the length of his arm. “Do you see him up there, with his white hat? Look, he’s waving at us!” 

Jacob chanced a peek through his fingers.

After a string of days and many late nights at the hospital where he served as chief of reconstructive surgery, Theo had signed out at noon. Friday afternoons were set aside for Jacob. And the Seattle waterfront was Jacob’s favorite place to spend those afternoons―a chance to ride a ferry, chase the bold, overfed seagulls, and buy ice cream from one of the street vendors. But this was the first time Jacob had seen a cruise ship land. 

Together they absorbed the magnificent white vessel, 12 decks high and nearly a thousand feet long, as it finished its glide through the blue-gray chop of Elliott Bay. Gauzy gray islands softly mounded along the horizon and the deep blue sky stretched out to sea. 

Jacob wiggled off his father’s shoulders and grinned, brave now in the secure nest of Theo’s arms. Theo took in this miniature mirror of himself: the high forehead and broad nose, the sculpted head crowned with a mat of black hair, although his piercing dark eyes were Cassandra’s. Theo’s hugged his boy to his chest in a sudden rush of love.

“Maybe we should go find Mom now,” his son said into his shoulder.

“Mom’s got a meeting. She’ll text when she’s parking.” Theo checked his phone. Cassandra was late, but with the demonstration clogging the waterfront, Friday afternoon traffic would be even worse than normal. “Let’s go out on the deck and see what we can see.”  

They made their way across the observation room and onto the crowded outdoor deck, two stories above the pier. The commotion below boiled through the air, as picketers shouted slogans and waved hand-made signs: “NO to cruise polluters,” and “Ship OUT.” Strident commands issued from megaphones as organizers attempted to corral the chaos of protesters, tourists, and anti-protesters.

“Angry face,” said Jacob, pointing at one young man. 

“He doesn’t like those cruise ships coming here.”

“Maybe he’s scared too.” 

As they watched, a stocky gray-haired woman in a plain navy dress and very high heels stepped onto a temporary stage. She steadied herself on the podium. Just as she pulled the microphone to her mouth to speak, she looked up, as if searching for someone, when a spark flared on the docking ship behind her. Everyone froze for an instant as a dazzling flash electrified the waterfront. A deep thud rocked the steel and stone building and a violent seizure knocked Theo’s feet from under him with Jacob on top of him. Then a blast of flames and debris belched from the ship, shattering the glass wall and rocketing Theo’s body in the air, wrenching Jacob from his arms.