The Stories of John Cheever

Moved by anger, or perhaps by the drinks I had had at the club, I went up three or four flights at a brisk clip and then found myself suddenly winded; forced to stop short in my climb and engage in a humiliating struggle for breath. It was several minutes before I could continue, and I went the rest of the way slowly. Flora had tacked one of her calling cards to the door. I knocked. “Hi, Daddy,” she said brightly, and I kissed her on the brow. Oh, this much of it was good, fresh, and strong. I felt a burst of memory, a recollection of all the happiness we had shared. The door opened onto a kitchen and beyond this was another room. “I want you to meet Peter,” she said.

“Hi,” said Peter.

“How do you do,” I said.

“See what we’ve made,” said Flora. “Isn’t it divine? We’ve just finished it. It was Peter’s idea.”

What they had made, what they had done was to purchase a skeleton with an armature from a medical supply house and glue butterflies here and there to the polished bone. I recognized some of the specimens from my youth and recognized that I would not at that time have been able to afford them. There was a Catagramme Astarte on the shoulder bone, a Sapphira in one eye socket, and a large cluster of Appia Zarinda at the pubis. “Marvelous,” I said, “marvelous,” trying to conceal my distaste. Compared to the useful tasks of life, the thought of these two grown people gluing expensive butterflies to the polished bones of some poor stranger made me intensely irritable. I sat in a canvas chair and smiled at Flora. “How are you, my dear?”

“Oh, I’m fine, Daddy,” she said. “I’m fine.”