Stranded Butterflies
Scotty clearly vexed his Governess by insisting on sitting by the door every day at precisely two P.M., in time to see the mail brought to the house by the bedraggled clerk with the red cap from the post office on the corner of Bradford Street. And like clockwork, the boy was disappointed when Mrs. Butler dolefully shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said, most kindly, "there are no letters today."
In hindsight, deep inside his heart, Scotty knew that writing his father was one, merely an exercise in penmanship, and two, utter futility. If his father had cared one iota, he would have been in contact with Grandfather. But there had been nothing.
For his part, Grandfather watched him from his chair, tutting here and there, as Scotty bent over his small desk to form the letters on the page into some semblance of a paragraph. Whether the tuts were over a misspelled word or splotch of errant ink, he couldn't tell. Yet his grandfather dutifully accepted each of the letters after they were written, and after the envelopes were properly addressed to California. He always slipped them into the center drawer of his own desk, to send them off to the mail the very next day, my boy.
Scotty looked again, just to make sure of what he was seeing. There were fifteen letters written by his hand, in the small drawer. Stacked neatly and corded with a blue band. Collected like butterflies, marked, and presented, but never flying anywhere.