Many of my memories of life before Stella were like catching fireflies on warm summer nights. If you planned it just right, you could move in time to scoop them into a Mason jar before their tiny lights blinked off.
Stella liked to pretend she was a butterfly, daintily prancing from vine to vine. I once read butterflies like the taste of blood.
Outside our room, greenery glistened. The sweet, heavy smell of Montañita’s version of honeysuckle saturated the air and reminded me of Georgia summers. Lesroy, Stella and I would pick the blossoms from the vines and suck nectar from them.
My sister would never have risked being out in a storm. If she’d been by herself, she would have stayed within eyesight of the shore and, at the first hint of bad weather, would have headed in.
Katherine Nichols Author 