Almost Paradise

by Corabel Shofner

  When Mother hesitated, I jumped in and said, “I can do it. I cook all the time.”

  Aunt Eleanor lined all the squash and tomatoes up on the counter and said, “I know you cook, Ruby Clyde, and everything else that a mother should do. But I’m going to teach your mother how to behave like a mother. Stand up, Barbara,” she said firmly. And Mother obeyed.

  I scooped a jar of piglet chow, and as I headed out I heard Eleanor explaining the importance of properly washing vegetables before you eat them. My mean grandmother had taught me that much. Eleanor must have learned it from her; she was their mother after all. Grandmother must have taught them the same things she taught me. Had Mother known this and forgotten, or had she never known? Was Aunt Eleanor right that Mother had always been babied? I don’t remember my mean grandmother ever asking Mother to do anything, always me. I was more like Aunt Eleanor, if you think about it. I had the strangest thought that I might be the baby that Eleanor gave away … but that’s entirely impossible. Eleanor wouldn’t have left me at home; she gave her baby up for adoption, and besides, he was a boy. And more than all that, Mother loved me too much. I knew that even when I was cross with her.

  Once outside on the porch, I poured the pellets into Bunny’s dish and filled the water bowl from the spigot. I noticed that I’d need to get bigger dishes for Bunny. He’d outgrown the little bowls.

  From inside I heard Eleanor say, “Do you honestly call this clean? You don’t just run it under the water. Use this scrub brush.”

  Bunny pointed his snout up at me as if asking what was happening. I suspect he had been harshly trained to drive that Cadillac back at the IQ Zoo.

  “Don’t worry, Bun. You are just fine—a free little pig. I’ll take care of you. All you have to do is eat and sleep and roll around in the sun. That’s your job.”

  * * *

  After dinner, Eleanor sat us down on the front porch and cut our hair. She evened Mother’s up and gave mine a trim. She swept the hair off the porch while we went upstairs to shower and get ready for bed.

  Aunt Eleanor asked if we would like to watch a little television, a nature show. I didn’t know she had a television until she rolled it out of the closet and plugged it in. She adjusted these things on top that she called an antenna until the screen came clear.

  It was a show about giraffes. A mother giraffe gave birth on television. It was nerve-racking because her legs were so long. That baby would drop ten feet. The mother giraffe stood there by the fence, her legs planted, and she pushed and pushed, her head bobbing. This big balloon came out of her. You could see some tangled-up shape inside the balloon, and the zookeeper was yelling, “There’s the leg! There’s the nose.” The balloon got stretched bigger and bigger, like a giant teardrop. Then it snapped and fell to the ground.

  The baby giraffe tore out of the wet bag and flailed around in the sand. The mother licked the baby, who was trying to stand up on those spindly legs, his knees like basketballs. But he collapsed over and over. After about a minute the little fellow pulled himself up on all four feet, wobbling and weaving, legs splayed.

  Here’s the question: how did he know to stand up, soon as he was born? That’s what I wanted to know.

  * * *

  Eleanor busied herself in a flurry of activities: keeping track of Joe Brewer and the trial, digitizing records for the Library of Congress, and training Mother. The woman gave new meaning to faith, but she was a nun after all, so faith was her business. Bunny was my constant friend, and we pretty much stayed out of her way.

  She banged away at her computer, humming to herself. Joe Brewer had asked her to research some legal things. Sentence fragments slipped out of her mouth. Didn’t see that—Oh for crying—just as I—really, some people.

  Every day, she’d walk down to Frank’s to use the telephone. A constitutional, she called it, meaning exercise, and she’d force Mother to walk with her. Mother had to learn to take care of her health, she said. She’d walk down the long drive, her habit swirling in the dust. Mother followed, taking two steps for every one of hers.

  For a while my mind wouldn’t rest enough to allow me to read Oliver Twist. I warded off the worries by watching television. And like Eleanor Rose, I enjoyed the nature shows. All that nature could engage my whole mind. At least I wasn’t alone in the jungle. Lions were not going to spring out and eat me. That’s something.

  One week all they showed was fish, things that live on the ocean bottom: crabs, octopuses, flounders. Did you know flounders are born with eyes on both sides, but since they lie on the sand so long, one eye wanders around to the top so it can be with the other eye?

  I’ll tell you something else too. If you go down deep enough in the ocean you will find fish that make their own lights. Live things can get used to all kinds of situations, but it takes time and terrible need. Like the need to get your eyeball out of the sand. Or the need to see through endless dark.

  * * *

  Joe Brewer visited often. We always knew he was arriving because Bunny would suddenly jump up and run around in circles, chasing his tail like a dog. Bunny knew a good man when he met him.

  Joe Brewer’s visits always calmed me because he was hopeful about Mother’s chances in court. He really believed that we had the law on our side. He believed that they needed hard evidence to find Mother guilty of armed robbery. And they didn’t have that. She wasn’t even an accomplice, since she’d had no idea that the Catfish planned to go into the Okay Corral and shoot them up.

  But one evening, after sharing a soup that Mother cooked all by herself (Eleanor had even taught her how to make homemade bread to go with the soup), Joe Brewer began to share his growing concern. He’d been filing motions all summer—a motion is what a lawyer does before trial. He’d asked the judge to throw the case out because they didn’t have any evidence. But the prosecutor said she was working on a witness list, and Joe Brewer couldn’t imagine who, besides the filling station owner, would be on the list.

  “I can be a witness,” I said. “I can, I was there.”

  “No!” they all said in unison.

  Joe Brewer saw all that yelling made me uncomfortable, so he reminded me that we had already talked about that. “Thankfully, the prosecutor doesn’t know you were present during the crime, and we’d just as soon keep it that way. We don’t want to give the judge any reason to think your mother is unfit.”

  “Why would he think that?” I asked, but I knew. I was a minor child at the scene of a violent crime. Mother’s face had fallen into a deep sadness. I reached for her hand and said, “She loves me.” And I tried to forget that she let the Catfish drag us across the country like that.

  THIRTY

  Eleanor set about teaching Mother the basics of life. That’s what she said: the basics of life. Apparently I already knew the basics of life because she insisted I not do things like laundry, so Mother could be a mother. One time I found Mother out back in the sun, pinning my socks to the clothesline. I sat on the steps and watched her. A gentle breeze swirled her summer dress and I realized that a part of me wanted so badly to let her take care of me. But my heart couldn’t let go.

  One day, as the three of us rocked on the porch, Eleanor Rose said, “We need to see about getting Ruby Clyde in school.”

  “School!” I cried. Bunny rocked his head up at my distress, then lolled back onto the floorboards.

  “Yes, Ruby Clyde. We have schools here. Just down the road toward Johnson City.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. And I do, so hard, try to think of everything.

  “But it’s still summer. I feel like school just let out.” School hadn’t actually let out for me. It was about to let out when they dragged me out of bed and across the country in the middle of the night.

  “They start up the last week of August,” she said.

  “It’s not August,” I said.

  “Yes it is,” she said.

  “I don’t wanna,” I revolted. “What would I do with Bunny while I’m at schoo
l?” At that Bunny rolled up on his haunches and waited for the answer.

  “I don’t care.” Eleanor Rose resisted his charms. She turned to Mother and said, “Barbara, as a mother, do you want to step in here?”

  Mother had never had a hand in my schooling before, but she looked at me and said, “Eleanor is right. I should have thought of it myself. You need to go to school.”

  “But I need to help around here,” I begged.

  Mother rocked back and forth, twice, then said, “You want to help. You can go to school.”

  Aunt Eleanor smiled as big a smile as I have ever seen from her. It almost burst out of the little square nun hat. She said, “Registration is next week. We’ll need to get Ruby Clyde’s health records. Are her shots up-to-date?”

  Mother wouldn’t have known that. Grandmother always took me to the doctor.

  “Certainly you had her vaccinated. Barbara? Tell me you’ve had this child vaccinated.” Then she turned to me and asked if I had been in public school.

  I had.

  “Good, then she has had all of her shots. We just need to get the records. Who was your doctor?”

  But I knew Mother wouldn’t know that. I hardly remembered the place Grandmother had taken me.

  “The school nurse back home is my friend. She helped me after Grandmother died. I bet she has all my information.” But it felt weird to say back home. It had long since quit feeling like home.

  Eleanor turned to Mother and instructed her to locate the number of the school nurse and call to request my records. “If you need help, let me know. But I think you can do it yourself.”

  “When you talk to the nurse,” I said, “would you tell her I said hi and that I’m okay and ask her to tell my friend Bunny that I’m sorry I left without saying goodbye?”

  “Of course,” Mother said, then she rocked rocked rocked, and cleared her throat. “Ruby Clyde, I need to say something.”

  “Okay.” I waited.

  “I am sorry, deeply sorry for everything. I should never have let this happen to you.”

  “Okay,” I said, a little embarrassed by her feelings and also for mine. But still, I was glad she said it.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I don’t know how long it took Aunt Eleanor to teach Mother to drive. It was days and days of watching them buck down the long drive to the crossbar, turn toward the Red Eye, and weave along the big road. At least once, I heard an oncoming car honk long and angry. She must have been driving down the middle of the road.

  Mother was driving.

  Imagine that.

  Eleanor Rose used every dog-training skill she ever had to keep Mother from running into a ditch, or into a telephone pole, or through the fence and across the pasture. Eleanor was a woman of great faith.

  The first time they invited me to ride with them, I said, “What about her driver’s license?” I remembered she never had one back home. Mean Grandmother drove us everywhere, and after that I had to bike to the store and school. “What if a policeman stops us?”

  “We’ve got my driver’s license,” Eleanor said. “Other than the wimple and glasses, they will never know the difference.” They both laughed, remembering a time when they could fool everybody. “But don’t worry, everybody up here knows my blue van. You won’t get pulled over.”

  I was less worried about getting pulled over and more worried about running off the road, through the fence, and into a Longhorn bull. I couldn’t think of a good reason to stay back, but Bunny was no fool, he flat refused to get in the van with Mother behind the wheel. He peered up at her, then twirled and trotted back to the porch, where he flopped down between the rocking chairs. There are certain advantages to being a pig.

  We made it safely to the Red Eye, and in time, Mother and I made the trip by ourselves, Aunt Eleanor standing on the porch waving proudly as we rolled away.

  Most mornings, Mother would drive in silence. Eleanor had shown her how to drive a few extra miles past the Red Eye. She hadn’t seen as much of the Hill Country as I had and she was still absorbing the stark beauty of the rocks and twisty trees. Looked like photos of the Holy Land, she said.

  Once my medical records came in the mail, Eleanor taught Mother how to make an appointment to get the rest of my shots and how to register me for school. That was a bit ambitious, if you ask me, but they didn’t ask me.

  The next thing I knew we were driving down to the city, Mother at the wheel, no less, all the way down the highway for an hour and into town, stoplights and all. Aunt Eleanor sat up front and wasn’t the least bit frightened, not even when Mother stopped at the green light and almost went through the red. In a calm voice Aunt Eleanor started to give her directions long before the intersections, saying red means stop, green means go, instead of assuming Mother was on top of it.

  We parked in front of the clinic. Mother had to back out and come in straighter, and then all of us got out and walked in the clinic door. Aunt Eleanor expected Mother to handle all of the talking and paperwork, which she did just fine. She was even conversational with the doctors, nurses, and receptionist. Eleanor had given her some topics to discuss: the weather, my school, peaches.

  I got two shots in my bottom, because the nurse said my arms were too skinny. I didn’t like that at all. Not the shots, and not being called scrawny. But I didn’t say a word.

  I marveled as Mother pulled out my medical records and made sure the doctor updated my shot report and signed his name. She thanked everybody personally and took my arm to leave.

  Eleanor had that little thin-lipped smile all the way to the van. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had given Mother a dog treat as a reward, but she didn’t.

  A few days later Eleanor gave Mother directions to the school so that Mother could visit and make sure I was registered properly. Eleanor looked over the papers and nodded. Again, she stood proudly on the porch and waved as we drove away from the peach trees, to find what would be my new school. As we passed under the Paradise Ranch sign, Mother laughed and said, “Look at us. I feel like I’m going to school to take a final exam.”

  She was, and she passed.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Finally, for the first time since waking up in Hot Springs, I felt harmony. How did that happen? We had healed. All of us from different wounds.

  I believe places can heal. I believe science can heal. I believe God can heal. And I believe my hands can heal. It is best to use all of the above to get maximum results.

  We’d fallen into a pattern of eating dinner early, then walking up to the top of the hill to watch the sun set. Sometimes I’d walk with them; other times Bunny and I would skip ahead, then circle back to catch some of their conversation, then bolt ahead again.

  They talked a lot about my mean grandmother, who was, of course, their mother. Imagine having a mean mother. I’d rather have a felon for a mother than a mean one.

  I bolted forward, then crossed the creek, leaving wet footprints on the stone path as we set out on our daily walk. I walked to the top of the hill. Bunny lagged behind, herding Mother and Eleanor to the top.

  Nature kept happening all around me, just like all we needed to be happy on this earth was take a deep breath and be part of it. A lizard stared at me from his perch on an exposed root, while a scorpion—his poison tail pinched like links of sausage—scurried under a rock. A quick breeze blew dust into a tiny tornado that swirled and vanished.

  I stepped onto the rock ledge, then climbed my favorite live oak, which reached over the edge of the cliff. I wrapped my legs around the limb and felt the bark press into my thighs. That was a place to force myself to trust. It was God’s limb and I knew very little about it, really. The sky was so high above me and the earth so far below. Still the limb held, and I had nothing to do with it.

  A huge black bird circled upward from the valley, his long wings spread wide, though he never flapped his wings. Even so, he rose. He banked the curves in ever widening circles, catching an unseen power that lifted him up. When the
bird was well overhead, he broke from his circle and coasted into the distance until he was just a speck against the pale blue sky.

  Mother and Eleanor sat on the ledge right beside my limb, close enough to talk.

  “Aunt Eleanor,” I began. “Do you think that you can stay a nun? Go back to Mr. Gaylord Lewis and … well, undo whatever you did? And we can all live here. The three of us and Bunny and maybe even Joe Brewer, if he wants.”

  Eleanor looked over at me on my low-slung branch. “We just have to be realistic, Ruby Clyde.”

  Realistic! If I were a realistic person I would have landed in the orphanage back at the Okay Corral, that’s where being realistic would have gotten me. I wasn’t going to start being realistic now. And frankly, I didn’t see any reason to be reasonable.

  In time, the sun set orange. The sky blued and grayed and swirled into night. I climbed out of the tree and lay back on the hard rock ledge, next to Mother, and watched as the stars appeared one by one. The constellations told a much different story than back at the crime scene. I saw the twins, side by side in the dark sky; between them twinkled a cowgirl with hat and boots, and a little pig, of course, with a corkscrew tail.

  THIRTY-THREE

  But harmony doesn’t stick, no matter how sweet. Life goes up, around, and down. All good things come to an end, my mean grandmother used to say, and she always seemed happy to be right about that, like maybe you get points for thinking happiness is stupid.

  Joe Brewer showed up late one afternoon, and I knew from his face that he was not happy: a wrinkle between his eyebrows, his smile strained. Before coming inside he gave Bunny a peanut butter dog treat, something he’d taken to keeping in his pocket, which is probably the reason Bunny chased his tail whenever Joe Brewer pulled up in front of the house.