Avril nods, eyes on the napkin, folding it over again. I’m staying today. This morning, anyway. I was going to call to let you know but you’re early.

Doesn’t matter. We can take it in turns. The lines around Laura’s eyes soften. So you’ve cancelled your appointments?

Yeah, only had one today. And Pascale. And they’re both OK. Oh, and I forgot to tell you last night. Wendy Casley said could you call her.

Laura spoons froth from the bottom of the mug. Mmm. Thanks.

That thing she left, she said she didn’t want to post it. Said it was old or something?

I haven’t even opened it yet. She pulls the envelope from the Landcare bag, tears it open, turns over the package inside it. She studies the writing on the brown paper wrapping. An intake of breath.

12

Laura

When Avril goes back to the ICU to sit with Cooper, Laura leans back on the chair, spent. Just a few moments to gather herself. When she opens her eyes again, there’s a moth flitting round the shade of the table-lamp. She waves it away, distressed, as always, at the prospect of fragile wings singeing against the hot light-bulb.

Why do they do that? she’d asked Gideon in despair one night, when one flew past her face and straight at the security light.

He’d pulled a beanie over his long hair and shrugged. There’s no definitive scientific explanation. We know it’s phototaxic—automatic movement to the light. But as to why?

He’d launched into a lecture, his fingers ticking off various theories: angles of light, mating, lunar migration … But Laura’s mind had wandered. She was thinking of her butterflies, grateful they were spared whatever instinct drove these other hapless creatures towards self-destruction.

The brown paper package is on the table and Laura leans forward to trace the words with the tip of a finger. Her skin cools with the thrill of it.

For Laura

per Clementina Laing

Meggie Duthie Tulloch

April 1975

Blue ink, swirls and loops, a loose cursive that brings back other times, remembered through years of birthday cards and notes. Times when people wrote down what they thought on paper.