"Springer-ChasingButterfly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Jan)

going away again, the Yellow Swallowtails and Red Admirals and others she
doesn't know, one kind velvet black with a blue fringe, another sort tawny with
white leopard spots. The dog bounces up to her, then rears like a pony with
excitement. In the strong Florida sunshine, shadows of butterflies on the wing
scud sharp and dark across the sand. The dog pounces on a flitting shadow with
both forepaws, then jumps after it as it glides on, unaffected. His series of
leaps follow the butterfly shadow across the yard until he loses it in the shade
under the huge gray-mossed oak tree.

"Here!" Nona complains. "You never saw what I called you for."

He runs panting back to her, but immediately finds another shadow to chase,
Pogo-stick fashion, across the yard. His spring-loaded zigzags make him appear
more like a wind-up toy than the watchdog he is. Nona shakes her head at him.

"It ain't like that's a mouse or a rat," she tells him. "How would you even know
if you caught it? It ain't real."

It is real enough to satisfy him. Nona walks on, heading toward her mailbox, but
the dog remains behind, intent on chasing butterfly shadows.

The walk is long and slow but not hard. Most of the time Nona's lane lies under
pine forest, so she is not out in the heat and glare. At the roadside, though,
the sun beats down. Back in her yard, now, it will be making the azalea blaze
like fire, like the burning bush of Moses, and the butterflies will be going up
like sparks into the sky. Nona has trouble with the catch on the mailbox, but
eventually conquers it. The contents are worth her effort: a Fingerhut catalog,
a Carol Wright coupon packet, and a bright red-white-and-blue envelope that
declares, "You Have Been Selected for Grand Prize Eligibility." When Nona's
daughter, Lois, gets the mail, there is never anything good in it, just bills.
Nona suspects that Lois sorts out the interesting things and hides them under
her car seat before she drives back up the lane. She has never asked, and
certainly she will not go open Lois's car and look, but she feels sure this is
true. There has been no good mail since the day the Visa bill came and Lois saw
it and was aghast and cried out like somebody snakebit.

"Six thousand dollars, Mother!"

"It is just money," Nona said.

"Just money! Why, Mother, don't you realize, you could be paying on that forever
and never get anywhere!"

Nona does not care. "Forever" takes on a different meaning when you are
ninety-five, when each day is a pearl strung on a necklace that has its ends way
out of sight, up in eternity somewhere.

Anyway, Lois is away today, and Nona has gotten the mail by herself, and feels
exalted. She walks back to the house, taking her time, watching the little
longtailed garter-striped lizards whisk off the sunny spots in the lane and out