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process the child’s reaction.
    “I’ll go with you,” Michael
announced.
    “What?” I was reeling from
all the floating and dragging.
    “To Eliza’s. We’ll go
together and see what’s going on.”
     
    ***
     
    Green bottles lined the wall,
covered every inch they possibly could until they had to start rounding the
corner to begin a new wall. The sun shining through the soft jade tint of each
bottle and jar should have been romantic, not disconcerting. Michael normally
chose decent restaurants, or at least places we both agreed were acceptable.
    I told myself I’d give his
choice a try, at least once.
    This place, this solitary
table where distorted emerald eyes waited to pounce on you when you weren’t
looking, reeked of sterilization. Each poultry slaughtering was a surgery, each
beef carcass a cadaver. It was hospital food, this strange meal we had stumbled
upon.
    Of course it was green curry
that I forced down, there in the watchful gaze of the jade glass. The table was
its own shade, a grass green I decided.
    “I feel uncomfortable here.
Can we go soon?”
    The blank stare on Michael’s
face spread through his body. Limp and lifeless, he had become a mannequin
staring back at me. But oh how I craved that lifeless lump, how my loneliness
called out for it.
    The solitary waiter, a
catlike man who might have clawed me at any moment, seemed to hiss in defense
at our every request. It was an inconvenience, asking for the bill. The bill
came on their terms, when they were ready.
    “Okay, I’ll pay this time.” Again .
    Rather than finding my debit
card in my purse, Gabi’s map came flying up at me. Yes, it was a used purse and
definitely not real leather. But that never completely explained why Gabi’s map
flew out if it so disappointedly, like it had never seen such an inferior
accessory.
    Its wings stretched, arched,
then flew toward the glass. It flew the way you’d imagine a treasure map would
fly, gracefully like any other butterfly. The first glass broke elegantly,
shattering and falling in fountains and arcs. It took only moments for the rest
of the jade glass to realize what had happened and follow suit. They burst out
like Niagra Falls, tumbling to the ground purposefully, beautifully. Tempted to
watch, I instead grabbed Michael’s hand as I stood. My eyes hesitated, watching
the verdant rivers of glass.  
    “Michael, the map is still
fluttering. It’s waiting for something.” My words fell on deaf ears. How he
managed to get to his feet, I never knew.
    The last of the glass fell,
tumbling over our shoes. It moved far too much for my taste, far more active
than I preferred my glass.
    Michael stood there beside
me, sill mute and staring off into nothingness. My dummy and I watched as
Gabi’s map fluttered in slow, choreographed motions. The map was making up for
the vitality that Michael lacked.
    The more the map butterfly
danced, the more the room filled with deep contrasts of blue and yellow. The
breaking of the glass had revived the original primary colors. Each pigment
returned to its owner; the jade glass picked itself up, separated into two
sides, and reformed according to yellow or blue.
    The map would not come back
to me, even as I held out my falconry glove– well okay, my Target
glove – to retrieve it. Only when I turned to leave the room did it
finally come back to me.
    It refused to be near
Michael.
    I turned softly back to look
at him, partly regarding him and partly giving him my farewell. Part of me knew
that I was walking away from more than just a meal. The map sat perched on my
shoulder as I watched him. In his vacant body staring off into what was once a
green glass wall, his neck tilted a bit. He was thinking of something, or
someone.
    “Goodbye,” I whispered. It
never bothered me that a map flew in butterfly spirals, that glass flew out at
us. What bothered me was that I just walked away from Michael.
    I knew without looking. I
knew what sprawled across the arched