Butterfly Spirit

“Mama? There’s a futter-by in my room.”

I rub my eyes as my four-year-old daughter tugs on the covers. It’s dark in the room. “Sabrina, what?” I murmur groggily. “It’s the middle of the night.”

Chances are this is just another attempt to get me to let her sleep in our bed. She’s come up with some doozies in the past six weeks; some successful, some not so much. The not so much ones are traumatic though, with her weeping and clinging as one of us carries her back to her room.

“A futter-by. It glows!” My adorable tow-headed child makes emphatic gestures as she explains what happened and how she came to be in my bed.

I struggle not to grin. The parenting books all said that this is a phase. That she’ll get the hang of being in her own room and in her own bed. That when she’s thirteen and surly I will look back on these days and wish she was as cute and agreeable as she is now. Agreeable save for sleeping in her own bed, that is.

Some of this probably has to do with her dad not being here. Another business trip, this time to the south of France. They FaceTime every night, but it’s not the same as when we are a united front in the whole “sleep in your own bed,” department.

“A butterfly? It glows?” Damian’s been gone for nearly two weeks. It would just be easy to have Sabrina sleep in our bed until he gets back. But the books (and my mother) point out that it will be like starting over again. With Damian’s schedule, we’d be seesawing on this point two weeks out of each month. Not going to happen.

“Yes!” Excited that I’m finally getting with the program, Sabrina squirms closer, her knees jabbing my side. “Want to see?”

“And it's in your room?” It’s got to be a moth or something, I reason. Butterflies don’t glow and they certainly don’t glow in little girl’s rooms in the middle of the night.

“My room,” she agrees, then pokes me in the shoulder. “Come look!”

Pushing back the covers, I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed, toes groping for my slippers. Sabrina slides off the bed and stands in front of me.

“You hafta be quiet,” she says.

Nodding solemnly, I stand. Sabrina reaches for my hand, and together we exit the bedroom and walk the few steps to Sabrina’s room.

Damian and I, God love us, consulted our daughter when it came to decorating her room. Four is too young for us to heap interior design questions upon, but we had a fun time perusing the paint and wallpaper departments at the local big box store. Sabrina even had a say in what bedroom furniture we chose.

My mother, when she volunteered her opinion on how the room turned out, managed a sour face and a sniff, along with a “well, she’ll want to change that soon.”

I think it’s beautiful because Sabrina chose it. It’s all in pink. All shades. Paint. Wallpaper. Rugs. Bedspread. Damian may have muttered something about one rug being a violent shade of Pepto Bismol, but our daughter loves it. And when she’s ready for other colors, we’ll trek back down to the big box store and have at it.

Tonight, though, it’s dark. Almost completely, save for the bit of moonlight filtering through the pink curtains.

“Where is it? The butterfly?”

Sabrina shushes me. Still holding my hand, we make our way to her bed. She gets in and pulls the covers up around herself then looks at me expectantly. I sit in the pink overstuffed chair that’s close by.

“Close your eyes, Mama. The futter-by only comes when you close your eyes.”

Obediently, I close my eyes. And wait. I hear Sabrina’s breathing evening out. She’s going to put herself to sleep, I think.

With the room so quiet I start to drift off, startling when Sabrina whispers loudly, “Mama. Mama look!”

I open my eyes, expecting to see nothing but a dark room. Instead, hovering about three feet above Sabrina’s bed is a glowing pink shape that seems to flutter its wings.

It’s butterfly-sized, all right. I keep looking. My daughter’s fingers wrap once again around mine.

“See? I told you. A futter-by. It’s so pretty.”

“You’re right,” I acknowledge. This is Sabrina’s room. It’s visiting Sabrina, whatever it is. Out of my depth, I ask her, “do you know why it’s here?”

She gazes up at it. “Papa told me a story tonight,” she whispers softly. “About a futter-by.”

She’s right. Damian and Sabrina were on FaceTime while I did the dishes. I was only half-listening. “The one about the butterflies in France?” She nods. I recall her rapt expression when Damian told her the short story before saying goodnight. “About how in France, butterflies are called Papillon. Where little girls go to sleep at night and their papa’s kiss their cheeks with papillon-kisses. Butterfly kisses.”

She nods, then points upward. “That’s Papa. He’s giving me kisses.”

I look up at the glowing, fluttering shape. “You could be right, my darling. Papa will always give you butterfly kisses.”

I give her one of my own butterfly cheek-kisses, then leave the room. My little girl will sleep in her own bed tonight.

***
900 words

Please write a story or poem that has the title: "Butterfly Spirit"
Also, please choose "Nature" as one of your genres.