Flight Behavior

Dellarobia and Preston see a pair of monarchs that appear to be mating or, as Preston calls it, engaged in “family life.” Dellarobia explains to her son that this might be the sign Ovid was hoping for: If the butterflies wake up from their winter slumber and begin mating, they may end up surviving. She finds it awkward to watch monarchs copulating in the presence of her kindergartener, but Preston is fascinated.

Once Preston is off to school, Dellarobia heads back home. Ovid isn’t in the lab, and she debates going in and doing work there anyway. Cub is going to his parents’ house to help move furniture that his mother is donating to the town ministry. Dellarobia offers to go and help. They move boxes and a wardrobe out of the room that was not only Cub’s boyhood bedroom but also the room that Dellarobia and Cub stayed in for the first months of their marriage. The place hasn’t changed at all, and Dellarobia notes that she never really felt like a wife while staying in the room, but “more like a sister” (519). Cub, as usual, isn’t listening to her.

While waiting for additional bodies to move the furniture from the truck to the ministry, Dellarobia offers to take Cub out to dinner at the Dairy Prince. While eating their food, she notes that they have come full circle: “Right back where we started from” (524). Cub disagrees and says that the difference is that they have a different engine in their truck. Stunned, Dellarobia asks if they will ever talk about the difficulties they’ve gone through in their marriage, like the child they lost to miscarriage. When Cub argues that they should just let the past lie, Dellarobia angrily notes that everything changed with her first pregnancy. They should have used protection, and then they wouldn’t have married or be trapped in their current circumstances.

As the conversation progresses, Dellarobia tells Cub she loves him but doesn’t respect him. She had planned to go to college, and when he got her pregnant, her hopes of a future ended. He begins to shake with emotion as she tells him, “I’m thankful for our children. But I’m not what you need” (527). Cub states that she changed after she first saw the butterflies; Dellarobia tells him that she had started feeling differently about their marriage long before that discovery. She admits that she was running off when she found the butterflies, and Cub says he knows because Hester saw the CNN video where Dellarobia seemed to say she had considered suicide. Dellarobia explains to Cub that she didn’t try to die by suicide; instead, she planned to have an affair with another man. This admission doesn’t anger Cub, but he again blames the change in Dellarobia’s nature on the butterflies. That night, as Cub falls asleep right away, she decides that “Maybe she [doesn’t] want Hester to be right about her character” (530). If Cub can survive another 11 years of marriage as friends, she can do so too.

After breakfast the next morning, Preston points out a Black woman walking down the street in front of their home, heading toward Ovid’s camper. The woman is “lean and graceful like a slow-motion shot of a fashion model striding down the runway of this landscape” (532). The beautiful woman is Juliet, Ovid’s wife, whom he promptly brings to the Turnbow home to introduce to Dellarobia. She invites them to have dinner with them that evening.

During dinner, Ovid talks about how he met Juliet at a monarch conference. She was there as an artist and he as a scientist. Their mutual interest in the insects extended to their careers and their marriage. Now that the semester is over, Juliet has been able to join her husband in Tennessee and meet with the British knitters to discuss their art with them. As they eat, Ovid Dellarobia’s ideas about tribalism. They agree that it will take time to overcome, if it ever can be. It is as she watches Ovid and Juliet interact that Dellarobia finally sees and defines marriage. It’s the opposite of everything that she has known and understood in the 11 years she has been with Cub.

The next Sunday, the Turnbows go to church to meet with Pastor Bobby. After the service, they meet in his office, where he uses biblical passages to convince Bear to give up the logging contract. Dellarobia is shocked when Cub speaks up to remind his father about the potential for mudslides. Bear is annoyed that his son has turned on him. Dellarobia notices Hester looking at the family pictures on Bobby Ogle’s desk and imagines that Hester wishes her family turned out that well. Bobby tells Bear to pay back the earnest money to the logging company and sell off some of his equipment; the church community will pitch in to help give him business so that he can pay off his loans. When Bear resists, Bobby points out that he is committing the sin of pride. Cub stands up again and points out that his name is on the deed to the land too. Hester argues, “That land was bestowed on us for a purpose […] And I don’t think it was to end up looking like a pile of trash” (555). Bear finally gives in and agrees to preserve the land.

On the way home, Dellarobia drives with Hester and Cordelia. She remarks that Hester must be proud of Cub for standing up for himself for once. Hester doesn’t respond. Dellarobia then addresses the CNN video and points out to Hester that she never intended to die by suicide and that she is offended that after this long, Hester won’t accept her as family. Hester then confesses that she and Bear had a difficult start to their marriage because she became pregnant before they were wed; furthermore, Bear wasn’t the father of the baby, whom she gave up for adoption. Bear agreed to marry her as long as word never came out. The child Hester gave up was adopted locally, and though she knows who he is, she can’t do anything “but live with it” (564). She admits that she fears for Dellarobia, having gone through something similar, and states that the pressure is enough for a woman to consider suicide. It’s as they turn into the driveway that Dellarobia puts the clues together and realizes that Bobby Ogle is Hester’s son.