I went into the guest room. My brother looked happy. He looked like a cloud.
“Guess where we are,” he said.
“The middle of your dream?”
“Monterey, California,” my brother said.
He was still here. Right here with me. And I was grateful for that.
Carlos and Eliza took him out to their van, and rested him in the back. An ambulance might not want to go as far into the forest as we meant to go. I got in the front seat while Eliza hooked up Ned’s IV and gave him all his meds. It was another ride, but it wouldn’t be as long. Carlos got behind the wheel. He worked for the parks department.
“We try to keep this week secret,” he said. “So we don’t have tourists up the ying-yang. Plus we never know exactly. All fall they arrive in dribs and drabs and then all at once. They’re everywhere. That’s why it was all so spur-of-the-moment. But you made it in time, Ned,” he called to my brother.
It didn’t take that long to get there, but the road was curvy. It was the most beautiful place I had ever been. “Can you see out there?” I called to Ned.
Lying on his back, he could see the sky.
“Cirrus,” he called back.
His voice was a hundred years old. But he sounded happy. When I walked into the kitchen all those years ago, Ned was tossing something into the trash; he was piling the dishes into the sink. Our mother had left us two bowls of cereal, two glasses of juice, our vitamin pills, the sugar bowl, two spoons, blueberry muffins, cut in half.
My eyes were filled with sleep when I walked into the kitchen that morning. My brother had looked guilty because he knew something I didn’t know. He looked ashamed, as though he had a secret that was too bad to share.
It’s too early. Go back to bed.
Beautiful long, stretched-out clouds drifted all along the ocean. Big black rocks. The curving road. The smell of something. I stuck my head out the window, breathed deep. The here and the now of it blew me away. But I didn’t wish for anything. Not more. Not less. I was exactly where I was, head hanging out the window, feeling the wind, tears in my eyes. The scent of this place was amazing.
“Eucalyptus,” Carlos said. “It’s what attracts the butterflies. The groves.”
I had no sense of what time it was. I think we had traveled through a day and a night. It was still morning, Eliza told me. I felt more for her than I had for people I’d known for years.
“He’s holding up,” she said, but the way she said it made me know, not for long.
We pulled into a parking lot. There was the Santa Lucia Range in front of us. And nearer, Mt. Lion. All rocks and trees. The ocean was so blue I couldn’t believe it. We were in a picnic area, but it was early and the lot was empty. Luck for once. Pure luck.
“We’ve got it all to ourselves,” Carlos said. “And a day without fog. That’s a miracle.”
The three of us got Ned onto the stretcher, into the fresh air. I carried the IV pole.
“Green,” Ned said.
It was. It was a eucalyptus grove. So delicious. Like the world was brand-new. We went up a path, slowly; pine needles make you slip, so carefully, carefully. The air was cold and warm at the same time — cool in the shadows, lemony in the sun. We crested a ridge. I thought there were falling leaves at first. All those orange things. Everywhere.
But no.
I leaned down and whispered to my brother, “You won’t believe this.”
We went into the sunlight and they were everywhere. In front of us were several picnic tables made of redwood, and we hauled the stretcher up on one. Settled it down, slowly.
“My, my, my,” my brother said.
There was a whirlwind of monarchs. You could hear the beating of their wings. I stood there with my arms out and they lit upon me, everywhere; they hung on my fingers, walked in my hair.
Carlos and Eliza were standing on a picnic bench, arms around each other.
“More,” they both said, and they laughed and drew each other near so that the butterflies swirled between them.
There were too many to count, everywhere, thousands of them, sleepy, slow, whirling. It was the height of their migration, and they were exhausted and beautiful. So orange they were like rubies, red, red, red.
I borrowed Eliza’s cell phone. The service was bad, but when I put the phone up to my brother’s ear he could hear Nina. He knew it was her.
“Everything has just changed a thousand times over.”
It took all of his effort to say that. When he had, we turned off the phone and waited. I had the desperate urge to turn my brother around. Quick, I would say, we have to do it now. Put your feet where your head is resting. Play the final trick. Let Death pass over; let it pass by. Please, let us try. But I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything.