Prologue

"Why do we have to choose!", exclaimed Harry.

There was no way that his daughter was going to survive much longer where she was and the doctor made it very clear that there was also no way his wife, Julie, was going to survive the damage to her body that would be necessary to get the baby out fast enough to save her precious new life. Harry's world became transparent. His face literally felt hot and numb at the same time, almost like it weighed five hundred pounds, pulling his head down. Down to Julie as she struggled to stay conscience enough to meet her baby.

"Honey, I have seconds to figure out why I can't experience life with the two most beautiful people I've ever met and then try to decide who I would rather experience alone," said Harry.

Julie took what Harry felt were minutes to open her eyes and focus on his enough to tell him all he needed to know. "Harry, I love you. Make sure our baby feels butterflies," she whispered.

Harry's tanned forehead wrinkled in a vain attempt to pull his tear filled lashes out of the way so he could find Julie's hand. "Don't go, she's comin', Corinna's comin'," he told her from no more than inches from her face. A face that somehow still held the anxious excitement a new mother has regardless of the knowledge that she was slowly dying.

Upon hearing Corinna's name she became stern with Harry, "So you finally decided what to name her. Typical Harry, another little assignment put off to the last minute."

He barked out a surprised chuckle and thought to himself how fortunate he was to have Julie in his life. Even here in this moment so wrought with pain and death in the air he could see past the frantic doctors and the cold surfaces of the hospital walls. He could hear behind the noisy machines keeping his wife alive and the shouted commands trying to bring his daughter into his life. He reached beyond all this and realized that it did not have any effect on her beauty. She was still there with him. Her cheeks whose bones on anyone else would have been too high. Her sarcasm which from anyone else would have been offensive. For a moment he stopped to take her in. Forgetting that these were her final moments, forgetting that his face weighed five hundred pounds, he just stared in belated appreciation for the person that she allowed him to be with for so many years. His thoughts melted together in a mixture of warm honey until Corinna broke his line of sight.

Corinna! Harry was morbidly jolted back to what he had hoped was his imagination. The doctor placed Corinna on Julie's barely moving chest. Corinna's wayward gaze landed on her mother's eyes. Harry nestled his head next to Julie's and for a few brief moments they were a family. A happy family. With a single breath left in her body she chose the follow the encouragement of the love in her heart and remind Harry, "Don't forget."

Harry would not forget and as he knelt there next to his wife he swore he felt the blood in her hand slowly come to rest confirming the unimaginable. At that moment as if she knew, Corinna shifted the direction of her frosty blue eyes to meet his telling him that her mother was gone and it was up to him now. It was up to him to make sure that she felt the butterflies. The same butterflies that him and Julie felt in the depth of their hearts every time they saw each other for the past twenty eight years. He looked into her eyes and saw Julie. He saw the beauty that drove him crazy because he could not explain it. He saw what shut the mouths of lions and what calmed the appetites of wolves. He saw it there and he knew that she would without a morsel of question feel the butterflies.