Butterfly by Rochelle Alers Page A

teachers, had married after a whirlwind courtship. No one, Seneca in particular, had expected Jerome to settle down. He’d dated so many women from every race and ethnic group that she’d thought of him as a modern-day Casanova. She didn’t know what it was about Maya, but the high school biology teacher had succeeded where the others had failed.
    The door opened before she could ring the bell. She grinned broadly at her sister, who seemed to have grown at least an inch since she last saw her earlier that spring. The similarities between the sisters were startling. Both had curly hair, but Robyn’s was a shade lighter, with reddish highlights. The fourteen-year-old had hinted she also wanted to model, but Dahlia had dashed her dream when she said one wannabe model in the family was enough.
    Seneca hugged Robyn. “What’s up, kid?”
    Robyn hugged her back, tightening her grip around Seneca’s neck. “Not much. Mom’s complaining…as usual,” they chorused, laughing.
    Seneca had tried analyzing Dahlia and failed completely. Dahlia had become a mother for the first time at sixteen, when she’d found herself pregnant with a married man’s child. Her life changed dramatically when she met and married Oscar Houston—a man nearly twenty years her senior. Jerome was six when Seneca was born, and six years later Dahlia gave birth to her second daughter.
    Leaving her bag in the entryway, she walked arm in armwith Robyn to the kitchen, from which wafted the most delicious smells. It was apparent Oscar was cooking. He’d honed his culinary skills during a ten-year stint as a merchant seaman, and when he returned to civilian life he’d continued to cook most of the family’s meals.
    Jerome held his son, gently patting his back to stop his crying while Maya shook a bottle filled with formula. Dahlia was setting the table in the dining nook as Oscar removed a roasting pan from the oven. A smile softened Seneca’s face at the scene of domesticity.
    Dahlia noticed her first. “I thought you were coming in earlier.”
    Seneca’s smile disappeared as she bit her lip until it throbbed. “Hello, Mother.”
    Although Dahlia had recently celebrated her forty-second birthday, she could easily pass for a woman in her early thirties. She was tall and slender, with smooth dark skin, and her chemically relaxed hair was fashionable styled to frame her perfectly rounded face. Intense black eyes, a short nose and a full, lush mouth had most men taking a second look.
    It had been her sultry looks that had attracted the attention of an older man who’d seduced her with money and gifts before taking her innocence and leaving her pregnant with his child. When Dahlia’s police-officer father came looking for him, the man and his family were gone—never to be seen again. She’d had to endure the shame and humiliation of being an unwed mother until she married Oscar.
    Dahlia frowned. “What’s with this mother business?”
    Seneca caught her brother’s warning look, but decided to ignore it. “You are my mother, aren’t you?”
    “Of course I am,” she snapped, “but when did you start calling me Mother? ”
    Waving a hand, Seneca walked over to her father and kissed his cheek. “Hi, Daddy.”
    Oscar smiled, tiny lines fanning out around his light-brown eyes. His cropped black hair was liberally streaked with gray. “Hey, baby girl. How’ve you been?”
    She kissed him again. “Wonderful. Love you,” she whispered sotto voce. “Can I feed him?” Seneca asked her sister-in-law.
    Maya set the bottle on the countertop, then tucked wisps of sandy brown hair behind an ear. Her light-green eyes crinkled when she smiled. “Of course you can.”
    “Let me wash my hands first,” she said, walking in the direction of the half bath off the kitchen.
    Minutes later, Seneca sat feeding James Scott, who sucked greedily from the bottle. Jerome and Maya had named their son for her father, who’d succumbed to kidney failure four months