Chrysalis

Somewhere and Nowhere

Photo by Anita Jankovic on Unsplash

By the end, the roof was a series of tarps, the plumbing held together with duct tape and Eleanor slept on the floor, not her bed.

When Eleanor did speak, she screamed “milk!” in a voice that a passerby might have mistaken for a bird.

On good days–really good days– Eleanor took the milk Michael brought her and drank it, smiling thank yous with her eyes.

Most often she stared at it, sometimes she threw it.

Eleanor had a sister, Michael’s aunt , who cared for Eleanor until she fell, broke her hip and needed care herself.

When Michael pulled at the duct tape to attempt to fix the plumbing, Eleanor cried out as though he was physically hurting her.

“My tapestries, my tapestries!”

There was no money for a home, though Eleanor had once written songs, and still received small checks.

Michael’s boss called. They sympathized, but his position had to be filled.

Michael wished that he had saved, but it was too late for that now.

There were more bad milk days than good, days when the milk staying in the glass was a triumph.

Eleanor smiled on the last day, pointed at the sun streaming through the window and said “weather” like it was the name of an old friend.

She curled up in the fetal position on the bedroom carpet early, and in Michael’s memory he heard her snore.

She hadn’t been much of a mother, but she was the only one he had, so guilt chewed the edges off the comfort of relief.

The medical examiners came, and only nodded, removed Eleanor, giving Michael a look as though he placed her on the floor on purpose.

He called his aunt, who told him the important papers were in the basement in a piano stool with an embroidered bench.

Michael took them to an attorney.

He knew vaguely that he would receive her song royalties as her closest living heir.

It would be about thirty seven dollars a month.

But he could go back to work now, reclaim his life, having done his duty.

“There’s an account,” the lawyer said, and the way he said it made Michael grasp at a housefly of hope.

Eleanor had had success, drank it, frittered it, let it slip to beaus and sycophants.

The lawyer breathed in and he explained that it was binding. It was not an available account. It was a sum of money that had been earmarked, an endowment.

There was nothing the lawyer could, or would even attempt to do.

The Eleanor Witzely Butterfly Sanctuary opened at the Claymore Island Recreation Center in February of 2024.

Michael Witzely noted that the restrooms were much nicer than what his mother had lived with in her final years.

The place was beautiful, but made him sad.

He stayed at the dedication longer than he wanted and felt that familiar gnaw of guilt as he left when he did.

He was gifted a picture of himself in a ceremonial hardhat at the groundbreaking two years prior.

It was thoughtful of them, but not something that he would keep.It was  taken the day the city tore his mother’s house down.

He left the photo in the bus stop.

The butterflies had a sanctuary, and Michael Witzely would have to search for his own.

***