It wasn’t until another rainy evening three weeks later—although Kent and I hadn’t spoken more than cordial hellos to each other—that I pulled his number out. In an exceptional moment of spontaneity, I picked up the phone, dialed the seven digits, and folded my lips against my breath awaiting his voice on the other end.

But he didn’t answer. An older man’s voice greeted me instead.

“Um, hi. May I please speak to Kent?” Walking with the cordless phone, I stepped out onto the deck. The bright blue sky of the day deepened to indigo, and Daddy’s roses, damp with the afternoon’s raindrops, glimmered with the radiance of rubies.

“He’s not here. Can I take a message?”

“Um, could you please tell him Tori called?”

“Mmmm,” he murmured so that I could almost hear the smile in his voice. “Does he have your number?”

Feeling foolish all of a sudden, I gave him the number and hung up. It was Saturday night. Who else was home besides me?

Resting my elbows on the weathered deck rail, I propped my chin up on my palms, eavesdropping on the conversation of crickets chirping in the yard. Their incessant banter amplified my loneliness and closing my eyes, I envisioned myself tiptoeing down the stairs barefoot across the grass with sandals in hand. At the corner of the house, I’d dash to Dante’s two seater parked lights off and motor running just down the street. He’d smile at me with that crooked smile before mashing the pedal to the floor, making the little black car fishtail as he spun it around and sped out of the neighborhood. But Dante wasn’t coming. And opening my eyes, I realized I hadn’t heard from him in weeks—not since sending him almost half my paycheck.

Sighing, I walked in the darkness toward the rose bushes lining the maple colored fence. A whisper of a breeze puffed their soft fragrance against my nose like the spray of perfume from an antique atomizer. I followed it, unexpectedly immersed in a childhood memory.

A pinwheel spun in the midst of a pot of pinky-purple roses. Angel Face Daddy called them as he poured water from a sunshine-colored watering can. He told me not to touch them; didn’t want me to stick my “pretty princess fingers on a thorn.” Of course being five and curious about the feeling of those pretty petals against my pretty princess fingers, I touched them anyway—as soon as his back was turned.

Touching the softness of the petals now, lost in self-pity, my finger wandered to prick itself on a thorn. In my mind I could hear Daddy yelling: Didn’t I tell you not to touch them? And my five-year-old-self yelling: you’re a bad girl! just as loud inside.

A dot of blood appeared on my ring finger. Muttering an expletive, I sucked on the finger to soothe it. Then stomping back onto the deck, I grabbed the phone to go inside and numb my pain with a plate of brownies and some Three’s Company reruns. But no sooner than I’d picked it up, it rang.

(Secret of a Butterfly, pp. 35-36)

Have you ever, with great expectation, taken a leap of faith only to find yourself on your bottom instead of flying? It’s in these moments that we tend to ask ourselves “well what was the point of doing that?” But there is never an unproductive leap of faith; even the falling is learning when we dust off our sore bums, get back up again, and determine to fly.

Until next time…