The Butterfly Manifesto

Thanksgiving this year was held at my uncle Dwayne’s ranch house in western Wisconsin. It was a typical Brown family event, with my uncles, aunts, and cousins gathering together. I always had a bit of a disconnect with my extended family in this timeline, and apart from Grandma Lola, I didn’t feel more than a polite, perfunctory connection with them. I had the feeling that some of my more conservative relations never quite reconciled themselves to Matthew abruptly becoming Maya, but that was long ago and never discussed.

I usually spent Thanksgiving sitting with Grandma Lola, who was a little frailer with each passing year. This year we were relegated to preparing the potatoes at the kitchen table while most of the family watched the Lions play the Bears on TV.

“Your last letter said you were enjoying the city,” said Grandma as she gathered her discarded peels into a bowl.

“I love Chicago, Grandma,” I replied. “I live right next to the lake. It’s beautiful. You should come visit.”

She shook her head. “The big city is a little too much for me. I hope it’s not too much for a young woman all by herself.”

“I’m not all by myself,” I assured her. “I have…friends in the city.”

She patted my hand. “I’m glad to hear that. Always keep your friends close, Maya. A smart girl knows she can’t do everything by herself.”

“Yes, Grandma.”

I smiled sadly, my eyes on the table before me. I glanced over to the kitchen, where I saw Mom wiping off a plate and casually listening in. When she noticed me looking, she turned away quickly. She’d had one of her trademark faces of concern.

When dinner was served, I couldn’t help but observe my family and push aside the dissonance I always felt. Every family gathering was a reminder of how much divergence occurred as a product of my existence. My oldest cousin Nancy, for example, was here with her husband and their new baby. I didn’t recall her ever marrying in Matthew’s timeline.

What was even more jarring were my younger cousins. Several from Matthew’s memories simply didn’t exist, much like Jane. But in their place were other children, with different ages and different names, just as much my family as the ones they supplanted. Born simply because my mere existence randomized their conception.

Whether or not I changed history deliberately, the universe marched on with no cause for concern or alarm.

This year, my uncles had planned a fishing excursion in northern Wisconsin for Thanksgiving weekend. It happened every few years, in Matthew’s timeline as well, when he, Dad, and Tim had accompanied my uncles to brave the cold for some pike. The invitation was never extended to me, however. While I had no desire to trudge through the woods for days, a part of me felt excluded. In any case, Dad and Tim had taken a separate car, leaving Mom and me to make the trek back to Minnesota on our own.

Mom was oddly quiet for most of the trip, and it wasn’t until we reached the state line that she spoke up.

“Maya,” Mom started as we crossed the St. Croix River, “I talked to Mrs. Janski recently. She said that you and Catherine aren’t speaking.”

I looked up from my Nokia, which hadn’t been able to get a signal all day. “Yeah. For weeks, now.”

“Tell me what happened.”

I stared at the dashboard. “It was nothing.”

“If you two haven’t been speaking for this long, it can’t be nothing.”

“I said it was nothing.”

Mom’s voice gained an edge to it. “Why are you keeping things from me?”

I looked to the side window. “I’m not keeping anything from you.”

“Really.” Her voice dropped an octave. “Maya, I have had months to think about your situation in Chicago. About your apartment, about these designer clothes you’re wearing, about how we haven’t gotten a single notification about your tuition. Nothing adds up.”

I froze. “Like Dad said. It’s…an internship…”

“Don’t give me that. I am not your father—he sees what he wants to see. What kind of internship gives an eighteen-year-old an apartment with a doorman?”

I went silent. As she navigated the Thanksgiving Day traffic, I could see Mom grip the steering wheel the longer I didn’t answer. As we approached St. Paul, my Nokia suddenly blared to life with notifications as we finally got within cellular range. With a curse, I powered it off as Mom stared at the tiny chrome device.

“I don’t suppose you’d tell me who was calling you, or why my eighteen-year-old daughter has an obviously expensive telephone in the first place.” Her eyes returned to the road. “Something tells me it wouldn’t be Catherine.”

I grimaced, stuffing the phone into my purse. “No. It’s not Catherine.”

She took a deep, cautious breath. “Is it…is it that man? Mr. Thorne?”

“What?”

“I can only think of one way a girl your age comes into this kind of lifestyle, Maya. Is he…keeping you?”

“Oh my god, Mom! No!” The nausea hit me instantly. “It’s not like that at all!”

Mom exhaled. “Then what is it? Does Catherine know what this is all about?”

“She barely knows anything,” I stammered. “I…I can’t tell you. It’s for your own good.”

“Goddamnit, Maya!” Mom slammed her hands on the steering wheel. “I don’t know why you do this to me—leave me in the dark like this. And now…for our own good!? I don’t even know what to do with that. Why can’t you just talk to me?”

At that moment, something inside of me broke, like a long-healed scar that suddenly pulsed open. I didn’t explode, and I didn’t get angry. I had too much control to lose my temper.

Instead, I laughed. It was a bitter, mirthless laugh.

“Why?” I scoffed. “Why don’t I say anything? I was ten years old, Mom. The world discovered…something intensely personal about me, and I was sent to a psychiatric ward. I was prodded and studied, and my entire life was systematically erased over the course of that summer.”

Mom inhaled sharply. “We…we didn’t have a choice, Maya. You would have been taken from us,” she whispered.

I crossed my arms. “You think I don’t know that? I told those doctors everything they wanted to hear, did everything they wanted just to get out of that place. And I smiled the whole time, even when I was forced into dresses, because I knew the alternative.”

Her lip quivered. “But…it worked. You were—”

“What, corrected? Because I grew my hair out, wore makeup, and became a ‘normal’ girl? Yes, I started liking it—being Maya. Because at some point I finally got to choose to be who I am now.”

I gritted my teeth. “But it all started with a gun to my head.”

Mom swallowed hard, and I saw tears form. “Maya…”

“So you’ll have to excuse me. If you, or Catherine, or the fucking government wants to know anything about me,” I turned my head to glare out the window. “I’m inclined to keep it to myself.”

She didn’t say another word, and we drove the rest of the way home with her staring at the road and me trying to not blubber like a child. When we pulled into the garage, she shut the door behind her and slunk into the house. We’d had our share of yelling matches before, but this was visceral. I had forgotten, after so many years of being blissfully drunk in my life as Maya, how angry and hurt I was when I first awoke in the past.