The wings stayed the same.
His hands learned how to lift them.
At twenty-one, Theo could draw the fine hairs on a butterfly’s body. At four, he had given it a smile large enough to be seen across the kitchen.
Now both butterflies were on his desk, and the older one was refusing to lie flat.
“Seventeen years in a cupboard,” his mother said. “It’s allowed to stretch.”
The One in the Folder
Theo had asked her to find his first butterfly drawing for a portfolio page. He remembered four enormous wings and a face in the middle. He had forgotten the antennae, which ended in round lumps nearly as large as the head.
His mother brought it upstairs in a folder, holding the paper by its edges.
“Age four,” she said. “You drew it while I was making soup.”
“Was I looking at a butterfly?”
“You were looking at me. You wanted to know whether butterflies had teeth.”
Theo bent over the little smiling face.
“Apparently I decided against them.”
He placed two clean erasers on the corners to hold the paper down. Its wings were uneven, their outlines wavering around empty circles. The narrow body had been coloured with such determination that the paper dipped beneath it.
His new drawing lay beside it: delicate veins, patterned edges, a soft shadow beneath wings that seemed to lift away from the page.
Closer Now
His mother leaned toward the new butterfly.
“I didn’t know there were so many lines inside a wing.”
“Neither did I, then.”
Theo turned his desk lamp slightly. Light caught the grain of the paper and the faint silver sheen of the darker pencil marks. Beside the drawing lay three sharpened pencils, a curled shaving, and an eraser worn to a small, dirty wedge.
“The shadow took ages,” he said. “Too dark, and it looked stuck to the table.”
“And this?” She pointed to the old butterfly’s body.
“One pencil. Considerable pressure.”
“Considerable noise, too. You kept announcing which wing you were doing.”
Theo smiled and moved the two pages closer. The first butterfly filled its space with broad loops; the second held together through tiny differences in shade.
He reached for his phone.
A Small Adjustment
On the screen, a corner of the old paper curled upward. He shifted the eraser, straightened the page, and checked again.
“There.”
His mother looked over his shoulder.
“You’ve covered its wing.”
Only a little. The eraser hid one wobbly circle near the bottom.
“I’ll crop that part.”
She lifted the eraser and held the corner down with one fingertip, outside the drawing.
“You were very particular about that circle.”
Theo lowered the phone. He studied the old page again, then widened the camera view to include the whole sheet. He shifted his new drawing so neither butterfly crowded the other.
“Stay there a moment.”
She kept her finger still while he took the photograph.
Side by Side
Theo added the ages beneath the pictures: four and twenty-one.
His mother read them, then looked from one butterfly to the other.
“This one looks as though it might fly off,” she said, pointing to the new drawing.
“Good.”
“The other looks as though it might ask what’s for lunch.”
Theo laughed. He opened the pencil drawer, took out a clean sheet, and began sketching a tiny curved mouth.
His mother glanced at the four-year-old’s drawing.
“You’re not correcting him?”
“No. Just checking whether I can still do that smile.”
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