The Paper Garden

by Caitlin Vance

  “What’s so good about Noah’s Ark being true?” I asked. “Why did God want to flood the Earth, anyway? All those people died. And the cats, too.”

  “I can’t answer that, honey,” she said.

  “Was it because people were bad?”

  “Yes, because people are bad.”

  “I thought God was nice and the devil was mean.”

  “God is nice not to flood the Earth now,” she said. Then she went away to feed Oscar.

  Sometimes I wished God would flood the Earth. I wanted rain, so much that I’d float on top of it, a lake covering the whole Earth. I would have a raft, and I’d take all my best things on it with me: my cat, my binoculars, my tulip and my necklace. I’d splash myself to quiet the sun’s loud rays.

  That summer, my grandma had a lot of private conversations with my mother, which I often listened to even though I wasn’t supposed to. This time, they were in my mother’s room, and I crouched outside, my ear pressed against the closed door.

  “You have to stop moping around,” said my grandmother. “You have to do something. If not for yourself, then at least for Saige. She needs you.”

  “It’s not like I’m doing this to hurt Saige,” said my mother. “I’m not the one who left; he is. This isn’t my fault.”

  “I know you’re upset, but you need to push past that. Think of Saige. She’ll—”

  “She’ll turn out like me?” Her voice was raised. “She’ll drop out of school and get pregnant? That’s what she’ll do if I don’t get out of my chair?”

  “Oh, that’s not what I meant,” she said. “But I think it’s time for you to get a job. What would you like to do? You used to love music—”

  “Why did you tell that woman across the street all about my life?”

  “Oh, stop it. She seems like a good person. She has a Bible study, you know, for children, and Saige—”

  “Saige is not going to her Bible study.”

  There was a silence. “I think I need a glass of water,” my grandmother said.

  The floorboard creaked; my grandma was moving towards the door. I quietly scampered down the stairs and into the kitchen. I heard my grandma coming close behind me.

  “Saige, were you listening?” she asked. She looked angry, but behind her anger I saw comfort in being able to take it out on me, a small child misbehaving, rather than on my mother.

  “No,” I said.

  “Eavesdropping is wrong and lying is wrong. You should know that. Your mother wants—”

  “My mom doesn’t want to help me,” I said.

  “Saige!” she said, gasping. “Don’t say those kinds of things about your mother.”

  “But it’s true,” I said, “and you just said lying is wrong. She doesn’t want to get a job to buy food for me. I need to eat or I’ll die! She is just like a demon wanting to kill all the people.”

  “Saige!” she said again. “That is extremely rude and is not true. Your mother is doing her best. I don’t want to hear you say anything like that again. Children obey and respect their parents and you will do the same.”

  She washed my mouth out with soap and said no Jell-O for me. She went back upstairs to my mother, closing the bedroom door behind her.

  I got the Jell-O out of the fridge and stuck all my fingers into it at once. I didn’t even want to eat it; I didn’t even like Jell-O. My mom said it was made out of cow’s feet. I scooped up pieces of it and shoved them in my mouth. It was slippery, like little fishes about to die, not sure if they should swim down my throat or out my lips. I wondered if they took fish on Noah’s Ark even though they could live underwater. I left the plate on the counter, most of the Jell-O still on it.

  I went outside to my gravel, careful to close the door quietly behind me. My mother was not like she used to be. She had opened up the top of her head, and allowed the cloud that held her soul to float out. She was like the watercolor I painted and left out too long in the sun: she had dried up and faded out.

  I noticed a sign on Scarlett’s house that said, “Bible Study Tonight, 7 pm.” That meant it was happening now, and that meant I was going, because even if my mother didn’t want to help me, God would want to help me, and Scarlett would, too.

  I made my way into Scarlett’s overgrown yard and to her window. Peering in, I saw Scarlett standing beside an easel, attaching several felt shapes to it: a camel, a person, a boat. Four children I’d seen around the neighborhood sat in front of her, singing. A man came out of the kitchen, holding a tray of cookies. He looked right at me, and I ducked.

  I was kneeling in their flower bed under the window; they would be so mad I was trampling their flowers. I noticed a tulip plant, and thought of the tulip Scarlett had bought me from the bucket.

  “Hey there!” said the man, stepping out the door. “You must be Saige. Scarlett’s told me all about you. I’m her husband, Daniel.”

  How did he know I was Saige? He looked like he was waiting for something, so I nodded.

  “Nice to meet you, Saige. Would you like to come inside? We’re having Bible study.”

  The hum of the setting sun got louder and higher-pitched, as if God had instructed an orchestra to begin the crescendo.

  “Oh, that’s right, your mother doesn’t want you to come,” he said. “Okay, I understand. Well, have a nice evening!” Daniel turned to leave, but Scarlett appeared in the doorway at just the right moment.

  “Saige!” she said. “What are you doing out here alone? Where’s your mother?”

  “She’s in the house with my grandma,” I said.

  “Oh, well, why don’t you come inside? The two of them might like some time alone. Daniel made cookies!”

  I realized I was actually going to go inside the house across the street, and my heart and stomach did a few somersaults around each other.

  “I’ll explain it to your mother later. It will be fine,” she said. Her eyes looked right into mine, like they were not just her eyes but mine as well, and everyone’s. I felt like liquid as I stood up, dusted off my shorts, and followed Scarlett into the house.

  “Scarlett,” I said, “did you put those flowers in the bucket?”

  “Of course not!” she said. “Don’t be silly. I was just as surprised to see them there as you were. But they sure were beautiful.”

  She led me into the living room, where I sat by the other children.

  The house looked normal, which seemed strange. There were couches, some photographs of Scarlett and Daniel’s wedding, a few plants. A painting of a flower. A painting of a boat.

  “Now, Saige, we were just discussing Noah’s Ark,” said Scarlett. “Do you know that story?”

  I had heard the story, but I wasn’t sure if that meant I knew it, the way you could know your address, or the color of your hair, or the name of your neighbor.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Well,” I said, scrunching my forehead, “I’m not sure. I don’t know why God would want to kill all the people. I thought God was perfect and never sinned, and that’s why we have to trust Him. My mom says he flooded the Earth because people are bad.”

  “Saige!” she said, shaking her head. She was looking directly and only at me, as if the other children had vanished. “People aren’t bad. They sin, but that’s just because they’re imperfect. They’re human. But they don’t deserve to die.” On the wall, I noticed a cross-stitched picture of Jesus hanging on the cross, and I liked how small and perfect the stitches were. “Some people believe stories like Noah’s Ark are parables—they aren’t true facts, but made-up stories intended to teach us lessons. Noah’s Ark teaches us that we should obey God, or there will be consequences. But God doesn’t want to kill everyone.”

  Daniel passed around the cookies. Everyone was eating; it seemed the lesson was over.

  “I’m so
glad you could make it to Bible study, Saige,” Scarlett said. “Ever since I met you, I knew you were special. I knew you were one of God’s favorite children.”

  “My pastor says God loves everyone,” I said. The other kids smiled and nodded.

  “Oh, He does!” she said. “The point is, Saige, we’re so glad you could be here.”

  Daniel came over with his plate of cookies. “Scarlett made a special cookie just for you, Saige!” he said. He handed me a cookie shaped like a tulip.

  I asked to use the bathroom.

  “Yes, of course,” Scarlett said. “There’s one on this floor—just there to the left. You don’t need to go upstairs. It’s an awful mess!”

  I nodded.

  I crept around the whole floor, but could not find a bathroom. I knew Scarlett said not to go upstairs, but I couldn’t help it. I tiptoed up and moved to the right.

  Soft, violet light shone out of one door. I pushed it open and snuck inside.

  This was not a bathroom at all, but some kind of room I had never seen before. Someone had stuck thousands of silver push pins into the walls. It seemed the person had been very careful about how they stuck each one in, as if the wall had skin and could feel pain. The pins made a picture of a tulip and a little girl’s face. There was nothing else in the room, except for a tin box of pins in the middle of the floor.

  I plucked a single pin out of the wall, a piece of the girl’s mouth, and dragged it lightly over my hand.

  I thought of the tulip Scarlett bought for me after planting the bucket there and waiting for me to come find it. I noticed the girl on the wall had big eyes, but that she looked only at the tulip, as if hiding from anyone who might see the picture. She was scared. Again, a cavity in my chest filled with hot liquid. This was my face, and Scarlett had stuck all these pins in the wall. It must have taken hours and hours, and she barely even knew me, and my mother would never do something like this. Why would Scarlett make this? Was Noah’s Ark a real story or a fake story? Why didn’t my mom want to get a job so she could buy more cans of soup for us? Where did my dad go, and why didn’t he want to buy me soup? And if God was so nice, why would He let any of this happen? I was too tired to stand. I sat on the floor.

  I heard the door creak open and quickly stuffed the pin into my pocket. Scarlett was standing there, hands on her hips. “Saige,” she said, her voice a little less sweet than usual, “I told you not to come upstairs.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but my voice got caught in my fear. I had to try a few times to get the sound to come out. “I’m sorry,” I said, quietly. “I couldn’t find the bathroom downstairs. I really couldn’t find it.” I was about to ask if I could ask a question, but was interrupted by a heavy sigh puffing out of Scarlett’s mouth.

  “You want to know why all these pins are in the wall,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. Scarlett had a way of knowing what I was thinking.

  “I stuck them in,” she said. “I’ve been working on it for the past few days. I bought thousands and thousands of pins. I studied a single tulip and a photograph I took of a little girl. I stuck the pins in one by one, slowly and deeply, thinking all the time about the girl and how happy she’d be when she saw it. I think I did a pretty good job, don’t you?”

  As she looked at me for approval, I noticed how long her eyelashes were, like legs of a wolf spider.

  “You did a good job,” I said. I didn’t want to upset her, to find out what she turned into when provoked.

  “And do you know whose face this is?” she asked, coming closer to me.

  Yes, I knew whose face it was. I knew whose picture she had studied. I knew because I was always sneaking around, hiding behind doors and listening to conversations, spying. Scarlett was just like me, only she was older, so she had thicker curtains and sneakier tricks. She’d been watching all along.

  “No,” I said.

  “Saige, it’s your face,” she said. “Don’t you love it? I made it for you. It was supposed to be a surprise, for later, but you found it on your own. I guess God wanted you to see it tonight.”

  “When did you take the picture?” I asked.

  “Never mind that,” she said. “Saige, you’re very special to me.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. “Thank you,” I said.

  “Saige,” she said, moving still closer, “I see that you’re unhappy. And I want to make you happy. Your grandmother told me about the trouble your mother is going through, and how she won’t give you what you need.”

  She looked at me, as if waiting for me to tell her she was right. “My mom doesn’t want to get a job,” I said, “but my grandma says she’s trying her best.”

  She shook her head like a disappointed teacher. “Saige, you deserve to have someone who loves you.” Did she mean my mother didn’t love me? My mother was sad, but she still kissed my forehead every night, and she still prayed for me, and she let my grandma scoop us up in the U-Haul, maybe because she thought it would be better for me. Scarlett sat down next to me and took my hand. “You see, I can’t have children of my own. I have a condition. But if I could, I would love them so much I’d make them a new push-pin picture every day.”

  I was sorry she couldn’t have children, and I wondered what kind of condition this was. I imagined a little demon in her belly, keeping all the babies away. “Scarlett,” I asked, “why does God let bad things happen?”

  Her face was closer to mine than it had ever been and I saw she had wrinkles. She was much older than my mother.

  “You know, Saige,” Scarlett said, slowly, and already I knew she wouldn’t answer my question, “I think God brought us together for a reason. Sometimes children are born into bad homes, but it’s not their fault. There are others out there who can help, who can take them away from those bad homes and care for them. And Saige, I want to help you.”

  She stroked my cheek with the backs of her fingers, rocking slowly back and forth, her eyes not really focused on anything. Then she stroked my hair, then my legs, then my stomach, beginning to hum.

  I stood up. “I have to go now,” I said. I moved towards the door as quickly as possible, not looking back at her.

  I heard her say, in a voice like barnacles, “Saige, be careful of the choices you make. God will make you sorry.”

  As I hurried down the stairs, the sound of her voice grew legs and chased me, banging against the walls and floor like a stream of tumbling boxes. It was trying to pull me backwards to her, saying over and over “God will make you sorry, God will make you sorry.” As I ran away, I planned what I would do.

  I’d go home and help my grandmother wash the carrots and the bed sheets. I’d wash my nightgown I’d worn outside, my hair and my feet. I’d wash my mother’s hair; I’d scrub and scrub until she begged me to stop because I was hurting her scalp. I’d wash my nightstand, which was dirty from the tulip I’d laid there days before. I’d wash my insides with gallons and gallons of water.

  Then I’d leave. I’d scoop up everything I needed in a pillowcase: my cat, my binoculars, a few loaves of bread, the necklace, the pin, some of my mother’s photos. I’d go towards the ocean, away from the screech of the sun, which, as it now dipped almost completely out of the sky, made the sound of a banshee’s scream, muffled by the pillow God pressed over her mouth. I’d float into the ocean with the things in my pillowcase, holding the pin between two fingers, not wanting to keep it, but not wanting to toss it away because of what it might do to a fish.

  Instead, I told my mom what happened. She stroked my hair, said everything would be okay, and sang me to sleep. She and I stayed at my grandma’s a few more weeks, until she finally got that job at the music store. Then my grandma said we could move back home, and grandma would come over and babysit me for free when Mom needed it. During those last few weeks at my grandma’s I mostly stayed inside coloring—not drawing, but coloring, so all
I had to do was choose a crayon and fill in the shape, already there in such clear black lines. Oscar stayed close to me.

  I peered out my window at Scarlett’s house. One morning, I saw her place a white bucket filled with flowers on the sidewalk. She took the bucket away that evening, but it didn’t look like any of the flowers were gone. A few times, I saw her walk out her door and take a few steps toward the street, only to stop dead for minutes in the middle of her lawn, as if thinking about something very confusing, before turning around and going back inside. I wondered what things she saw me do out her window.

  The Bible study sign appeared the few more Tuesdays we were there. Whenever we went back to my grandma’s house after that, I pulled my hood over my face for the walk from the car to the door. I didn’t let myself look in that direction. Still, I felt Scarlett’s eyes on me.

  I finally made it to the ocean. My grandma took us on a camping trip there a few months later. Standing on the shore, my mind drifted back to Scarlett. Water had a way of pushing my thoughts along like clouds in quiet wind. I stuck my hand in my pocket and found Scarlett’s pin in there, like a little demon scale or an angel’s earring, depending on how you looked at it. I couldn’t help but wonder what my life would have been like if I lived by the ocean instead of in the desert, if my cat had been a dog instead of a cat, if my mom had left instead of my dad. I told my mom some of these things but I’d never tell her that, although Scarlett was strange and scary, I had to wonder what my life would have been like if I’d been Scarlett’s daughter instead of my mother’s. Probably it would have been part good and part bad, just like people were part good and part bad, and so was everything. I wondered if this included God. I looked out and saw where the water met the sky, like a blue sheet of paper folded and propped up against something else. I thought of Hell underground and Heaven in the sky, and I wondered if I floated out far enough, I could reach that sky and touch it, and touch the cloud God floated on, and say Hello.