Almost Paradise

by Corabel Shofner

  As we bumped down the road, Frank started talking. “You should know that Sister Eleanor is a bit … odd. Don’t get me wrong, I love Sister Eleanor, we all do. She is a very devoted woman. All of the solitaries are.”

  “What’s a solitary?” I asked, but Mother had already explained it to me. I launched a half-baked lie. “I mean, tell me more about being a solitary. I’m here to write a school paper on nuns.” That was a bad lie but it just fell out of my mouth.

  Thankfully, Frank stopped me. “Look, girl, you’re in Texas, the land of the free. You don’t have to explain yourself in Texas.”

  Well yeah, I liked that. Texas was sounding pretty good.

  Frank said, “Anyway, a solitary, it means they live alone. They don’t talk much. But they are pretty flexible about it, doing work in the community. It is just that they value being alone and praying.”

  Frank hummed while she drove. It wasn’t far, like she had told Angie, just down the road, when we slowed at Eleanor’s crossbar, which Frank explained is a kind of door frame at the beginning of the driveway. A plank dangled from the crossbar with PARADISE RANCH painted on it.

  We turned and drove right under it, into Paradise Ranch.

  I looked over my shoulder and saw Angie in her yellow box, following right behind us.

  Frank made her way up the driveway, which curved toward a distant spread of trees, peach trees, Frank said. Right in the middle of the peach orchard sat Eleanor Rose’s house, firmly on the ground.

  “This is it?” I blinked a couple of times like it might disappear. “Sister Eleanor Rose lives here?”

  FOURTEEN

  Eleanor Rose’s house was not huge but it was strong; built with gray stones, like the walls had come straight out of the earth, right there on that ranch. It had a reddish tile roof, all bumpy. The front porch was deep and shady and home to a few rocking chairs. Red roses bloomed along the porch. Frank pointed at the flowers in the field leading down to the creek and named them: Mexican hats, Indian paintbrushes, and blue bonnets. Hills rose tall behind the house, rocky and dusty with twisty trees.

  Frank put the truck in park. I stepped out and put Bunny on the ground. “Paradise is right,” I said. I began to think that Eleanor Rose, a woman who lived in paradise, couldn’t be all bad. Well, Eve lived in paradise. She listened to that nasty serpent and all hell broke loose. Still, Eve wasn’t all bad. Adam was a wuss, blaming her, but that wasn’t all his fault, God made him weak.

  Angie pulled up beside us and parked. She got out and whispered to me, “Nice digs, Ruby Clyde.”

  Frank called out “Hooty hoo,” and a distant nun popped out from behind a peach tree. A jolt ran through me that it was Eleanor Rose and I still wasn’t ready, but Frank waved at the nun and said, “That’s Sister Joan. Always checking on the peaches.”

  Frank grabbed the pig chow from the back of the truck, walked up on the porch, and opened the front door. It wasn’t locked. Mother never locked things either; Catfish always locked things. I thought Eleanor Rose must be a very trusting person. She lived in Paradise and she was a trusting person—that was two good things.

  Frank took the pig chow to the kitchen. Angie and I trailed in behind her, all eyes.

  The inside of the house was restful. The rooms were cool and dark with black wood running across the ceiling and red tiles on the floor. The front room had a big fireplace, clean, but you could tell she made cozy fires in the winter because of the black soot on the inside, and she kept wood stacked nearby. The nun’s furniture was plain and hard. Leather bound. No fabric anywhere.

  I walked around the front room, stopping at her bookshelf. So many books, a dozen or more by Mr. Charles Dickens. Eleanor must have loved words as much as I did. Books! She lived in Paradise, was trusting, and loved books. Three good things.

  I lifted out the Oliver Twist book, the full adult version. It was larger and heavier than the short version I had read in school, but I could read it. Especially since I knew the story.

  Angie stood by my side. “You like Charles Dickens?”

  I nodded and flipped back and forth looking at the drawings. “Here’s where Oliver asks for more.” I remembered that was where all his trouble started—well no, actually, like me his trouble started when he was born. Only he was born an orphan, and I was afraid of becoming an orphan. I felt a little less afraid now that I had found that the nun lived in Paradise, was trusting, and loved books.

  We went upstairs to the bedroom where Frank told us to go while she fed Bunny. I put Oliver Twist on the bedside table and Angie put my new clothes in a drawer. “This is good,” Angie said, walking around the red-tiled floor. “And look, you have your own bathroom.”

  I couldn’t believe that, but she was right. And it was bright with painted tiles. A bathtub and a shower.

  “Are you still worried?” Angie sat on the bed.

  “No, not at all,” I lied. “It’s all good. You don’t have to stay.”

  “I do have another three and a half hours to go, at least.”

  “Go, please. I can take care of myself. Really, I can.”

  “I suspect you’ve been taking care of yourself for a long time, Ruby girl.”

  “Sure, I’ve taken care of myself. Hasn’t everybody?”

  “You’d be surprised,” she said. “But listen, I’ve given Frank my number, and if you are comfortable with her, I will drive on.”

  “I’m fine, perfect, go.”

  “Okay,” she said, “if you have any trouble at all, I want you to call me.”

  “Okay,” I said, thinking it odd that people were passing me around, but that was fine with me so long as they didn’t pass me to the orphanage.

  * * *

  Frank, who was rocking on the front porch, stood to say goodbye to Angie. They shook hands with chatty promises to take care of me. I walked Angie down the steps and to her car. I had become strangely attached to her, since she was the only one present who actually knew my mother. It was more difficult than I had imagined to let her go. That fear of being rejected by Sister Eleanor and ending up in an orphanage took hold again, but I forced myself to look calm. I stuck my hand out like a soldier.

  Instead of shaking it, Angie took my hand in both of hers, smiled, then she let go. “Goodbye, Ruby Clyde.”

  “You’re an angel,” I said.

  “Not hardly.” She laughed, then turned, and, with a bounce of her angel curls, settled into her yellow car. I watched her motor away, down the driveway, under the crossbar, and onto the road. I felt like she was taking my mother with her. It sliced my heart.

  I almost ran back to the porch and begged Frank to take me to see Mother in jail, but I didn’t know what that even meant. Where was jail? What were they doing to her? Would I even be allowed to see her? Angie had said these things take time, but what kind of things? What kind of time?

  I knew enough to keep my mouth shut.

  FIFTEEN

  Back on the porch I sat down in the rocker next to Frank. Bunny was at her feet. She began to talk. Frank was like that, just launching into the middle of stories.

  “I’ll tell you something about Sister Eleanor and those bad dogs, ones nobody could train. She had a way with them.”

  “She likes animals?” I asked.

  “Not really. Sister Eleanor is not particularly fond of animals; it is hard to know what that woman likes. I’m just saying that she has a gift, a special way with animals who are … broken and hurt. But she doesn’t do that anymore.”

  “Why’d she quit?” I asked.

  “She trained every dog in the county. They all heel, sit, and stay. That nun scared the bite out of them.”

  I thought about that and wondered why she hadn’t had a special way with her own sister. And I wished she had come home and trained my mean grandmother, her own mother. Why would a woman live by herself, go to silent retreats, and spend all her time with angry dogs instead of humans?

  Frank looked too soft to be a cowgirl, like maybe she prefe
rred making pies to roping cows. She said her family was originally from Germany, but had lived in America for four generations, settling in the Hill Country. They stayed. Germans are like that, she said. All over the Hill Country, schnitzels galore. I made a note to look up schnitzel. Her husband died many years back, she said, and she’d moved into some rooms attached to the back of the Red Eye. She didn’t want to live alone. She wasn’t like the solitaries. “I like the company,” she said. “The bus drivers, the ranchers, people like you.”

  Sister Joan finally walked over from the orchard.

  That nun’s face was all that poked out of her outfit. But it was a face with a lot of … something: black eyes, like coal for snowman eyes; thick black eyebrows, like caterpillars; and red lips, but not lipstick—it was like she’d eaten cherries. She carried a small suitcase in one hand and waved with the other.

  “Hi.” She smiled.

  “Hi,” I said back, thinking those eyebrows might start crawling.

  “Why do you wear that white thing around your face?” I asked. I’d seen nuns before, but they were modern, in shorter dresses and loose head coverings.

  She laughed out loud, and hers was a weird sound, like a noisy yawn. I didn’t know what it was at first. “We cover our heads for modesty,” she said. “Sister Eleanor got us wearing the full wimple. We could wear other veils if we wished, but something about being up here in the hills instead of a nunnery … I don’t know.”

  She sat down with us. Both of them lifted their feet when they rocked backwards. They chatted about the peaches, the Red Eye, Sister Eleanor, and the benefactor Gaylord Lewis.

  Neither of them asked me a single question about myself. My being there at Paradise Ranch suited them just fine. Texans! Imagine, a whole state where nobody butts into your business.

  After a bit, Sister Joan excused herself and headed toward the orchard. “I’m just out here if you need anything.”

  Frank stood up and said she needed to get back to the Red Eye.

  “Wait, what am I supposed to do?” I asked Frank as she walked away.

  “Whatever you want, Sugar Foot. Make yourself at home.”

  She smothered me in a big bosomy hug and off she went in her truck, down the long driveway. I eased into the rocking chair and pulled Bunny up in my lap. I rocked and wondered what might have happened if the Catfish tried to rob Frank. She might have just hugged him to death.

  * * *

  Frank had said I could do whatever I wanted so I decided to explore the Garden of Eden behind the house. Was it fair to enjoy this place with Mother in jail? Moping around wouldn’t do her any good. Bunny seemed to agree so we hiked down to the creek.

  We soaked in the emerald-clear water. We waded in the shallow places and swam in the deep places, then dragged ourselves up on the smooth sun-white rocks to bake like turtles.

  I lay on my back, water trickling off in streams. I said to Bunny, “How am I going to tell her who I am?”

  He snorted. I looked over, his pink body stretched out in the water with his head up on the bank in some yellow flowers.

  I practiced what I would say to Eleanor Rose. “My name is Ruby Clyde Henderson … the girl you hate.” Bunny didn’t like that. “Hi, I’m your niece and I need help.” Bunny sniffed approval but I didn’t think it would work. “I’m Clyde and I’m doing a school paper on nuns.” Bunny waited patiently. “Hear me out, please. I’m all alone and I have nowhere to go.” Bunny’s ear rotated.

  We both knew that I had no entire clue how to start the conversation, so I explained to Bunny that I would wait for Eleanor Rose to ask me about myself and then say whatever popped into my head. Bunny blubbered his lips in a little sigh.

  When we were sun-dried, we climbed a wide rocky path. They call it the Hill Country for a reason, you know. The hills around us rolled like somebody had shaken a giant bedsheet in the breeze. Tiny, dark green trees dotted the hillsides. Patches of grass spread in places, but it was mostly dirt. And the sky.

  Overhead, turkey vultures caught updrafts and soared. I’d seen them on the drive up, along the road tearing at the flesh of dead animals, such ugly birds. But when they fly, they are lifted by invisible strings—lovely black shapes against the endless blue sky.

  The top of the hill dropped off like a canyon. Along the edge was a great rock ledge. Beside the ledge a single live oak tree grew tall. One of those low-hanging limbs stretched over the edge, like a diving board. I pulled myself onto it and sat on the wide bark, then I scooted myself out over the edge until there was nothing below me, just the limb and the air and the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

  Sitting out there midair, I worried whether the limb would hold or if it would snap, sending me tumbling into the canyon. I wasn’t really afraid of falling.

  But Bunny was afraid of the tree; he made me get down. Like back at the Okay Corral when he dragged me into the bushes, that pig danced around and oinked until I said, “Okay, okay,” and crawled back to solid earth.

  After that Bunny was happy again. We sat together on the rock ledge, side by side, my legs dangling off the edge. I banged one boot heel on the rock lazily, wishing with all my heart that Mother could see it.

  This was a real home.

  It might have been the best day of my life, but that is probably because the day before had been the worst day of my life. I wasn’t comfortable being so content while Mother was in jail, and that is why I scooped up two handfuls of sharp rocks and squeezed. I squeezed hard until the palms of my hands stung and then ached. When the pain went numb I tossed the rocks away, out into the canyon below. My palms were full of dents and grit.

  SIXTEEN

  That afternoon my aunt, the solitary nun, Sister Eleanor, returned to her ranch. Sister Joan had just left. I was rocking on the front porch, being careful not to squash Bunny’s tail, and there she came, driving a baby-blue van up to the side of the house.

  I wasn’t ready.

  I scrambled out of the chair and backed up until I was flat against the wall of the house. Bunny was still asleep by the rocking chair.

  The nun got out of the van without a word. Standing there in the yard, she looked so much like my mother that my mind froze up. I had been practicing for that moment, knowing it was coming, knowing that what I said to Aunt Eleanor would make the difference in my entire future. There was an endless supply of clever answers to explain my presence, but then she stepped out of her van and I saw my mother—only with a nun’s dress (they call a habit), big heavy glasses, and a tight wimple—and, well, everything I had rehearsed flew out of my head.

  The nun in blue cowboy boots stared at me and then stared at my pig.

  What I said to her was “God sent me to you.” I thought that might be the way you were supposed to talk to nuns.

  “Bull,” she snorted.

  I gasped. “What’s a bull got to do with anything?”

  “This is Texas, girl. Ranching country. I call a bull a bull when I see it. Don’t try to play the God card with a nun, not this nun anyway.”

  You could have knocked me over with a blinking eyelash. Texans, whoa. And this was a different kind of woman—one that scared me. She didn’t act like my mother at all; she acted more like … me.

  She looked me up and down, studying the fire ant bites and bruises all over my bony legs, then said, “You got a name or should I just call you Bug Bite?”

  I was stumped, and before I could say my name she turned away, looked at her peach orchard, and said, “It’s good to be home.”

  Funny thing was, after that, she didn’t ask me any more about myself. Texans, you know.

  She marched toward the porch, kicking rocks, then about ten feet from the steps, she stopped and pulled a bag of something from a pocket inside her dress. It was nuts, raisins, and little chocolates. She poured some into the palm of her hand and then held it out to me.

  Without a word, she waited. I figured she was offering the treat to me, and I did like nuts and raisins and especially li
ttle chocolates, but getting some meant I had to push off the wall, go down the steps, and walk over to her. I wasn’t even 100 percent certain that she was offering to share.

  Still she waited.

  I looked at the food in her hand and eased off the wall. I stepped over Bunny and walked to the top of the steps.

  Aunt Eleanor never moved. She hardly blinked. Just looked at me, easy, and waited.

  Down the steps I went, looking and stepping, a few careful strides, until I was standing right in front of this woman who looked exactly like my mother.

  Her eyes glanced down to the food in her hand.

  I hesitated, then reached over and took a few pieces. I nibbled, and while the first chocolate melted in my mouth I reached again and again, until all of the nuts and raisins and chocolates were gone.

  She didn’t smile or anything, she just brushed her hand off and stomped up the stairs. When she reached Bunny asleep on the porch, she poked him gently with the toe of her blue boot. Bunny stirred and smiled up at her.

  “Huh,” she shrugged.

  Without looking back at me she said, “Get my bags, put them in my bedroom.”

  That’s what I did instead of telling her who I was. I got her bags and put them in her bedroom.

  All the while, I worried myself silly. It seemed she wasn’t going to ask me about myself either. But still, I imagined telling her who I was, her niece, Babe’s daughter. The stranged sister. Strange because of me. Funny thing was I had no entire clue where to start that conversation.

  It was important that I tell her I knew, otherwise she’d find out and think I was a terrible liar, which I wasn’t. I lied, sure, sometimes, when I had to, but I was not a terrible liar. I was a good and marvelous liar.

  Still, when I came back downstairs and tried to tell her my full name, it was like somebody put a cork in my throat. Can you imagine that? Me, Ruby Clyde Henderson, at a loss for words.