Fiore della Morte

But to go back into the history of writing Butterfly on a Wheel and its companions, I realized early on in the writing process that David was queer—a boy into other boys, to be precise. It took a decade of wrangling with him, his presentation, his “vibes”, and such, before I realized he was trans. Except I didn’t have a word for it yet. It was 2008 or 2009 and even queer writers still used she/her terms for, say, Brandon Teena. But a very early version of the frank conversation on “girl parts" between David and Nicky on page 493/494 got written around that time, shortly before I put the manuscript down for more than 10 years. I’d hit a dead end in what I was capable of circa 2009.

When I resumed work on FdM in late 2021, it was a different world. I’d spent the prior decade getting an education in gender and sexuality online and had let go of a lot of outdated concepts about trans people that’d been the current thought in say, 1999. The idea that David was always David instead of his deadname, even in his teens when he’s dolled up in girly mod fashions, now made sense. But of course, the series still takes place starting in 2001; David doesn’t have the vocabulary of the 2020s for himself either. He has moments of fluidity and ambiguity in his presentation, steps forward fully out of the closet and then back into it. He’s exploring himself and exploring the limits of what he’s permitted in society, year to year.

It’s just how they roll, whether it’s David concealing a life-threatening illness, Jeanette misrepresenting how much she drinks, or Nicky fooling himself about his sexuality.

The Narrator!Jeanette of the present day is also keeping a rather large secret from the reader. It’s progressively hinted at in several places: 

Chapter Four: a mention of her “pre-existing conditions” on Page 88

Chapter Seven: a mention of her lifting her breast (singular) for Tick Check

Chapter Thirteen: she has a “magic bracelet,” a gift from Lindy for luck, incorporating pink beads even though pink is most certainly not her color; she has her cemetery plot already picked out despite being in her mid-thirties— and it’s not where her late husband is buried.

Only in the introduction to Chapter Nine do we come close to the truth: “[I] had to submit to a scan to make sure the spots on my lungs remained stable.” She’s got these deliberately ambiguous “spots” and is being scanned (CT? PET? MRI? All of the above?) on a regular basis to monitor them. Hmm.

That’s it. It’s left to the reader to piece together the pre-existing conditions, the missing breast, the cemetery plot, and of course the bout of early-stage breast cancer Jeanette chronicles beginning in Chapter 11 and realize, Ouch. It came back. Again, selective presentation. Jeanette could at any point choose to be less vague, mentioning her mastectomy scar, the medication she’s on, or being straightforward about the spread to her lungs, but that’s not how she rolls. 

NOPE!

Twenty-eight recurs frequently in the book and the Fiore della Morte universe. Jeanette’s birthday is 7/28 (it’s a birthday she shares with the late Rick Wright of Pink Floyd). The wedding anniversary of Nicky and David is 12/28. The wedding anniversary of Jeanette and Allie Roberts will be be exactly six months later, on 6/28. The date 10/28 plays a role in the WIP sequel The Stardust of Failure and a major turning point in Jeanette’s life comes when she’s twenty-eight years old.