The Paper Garden

by Caitlin Vance

  “Do you know how much sugar is in this?” I ask. Grandpa could stand to shed a few pounds. In Phys Ed we play a game where some children are fat cells and other children are regular cells. The game is just tag but with science mixed in. It is meant to teach us to fear fat cells.

  Grandpa talks with his mouth full. “I don’t know or care,” he says. “I’m an old man.” He isn’t that old. “Sugar is one of the few pleasures in life. I’ll eat all the sugar I want.”

  I shrug. Whatever floats your boat. I imagine Grandpa in a boat, rowing through a river of syrup. I eat my own chicken and waffles plain.

  “How was Hailey?” Grandpa asks Grandma.

  “She seemed fine,” says Grandma. “Tired.”

  Grandpa sighs. “She’s always tired. What does she have to be tired about? She’s only twenty-four. I’m fifty and I have more energy than her.”

  “The meds make her tired, Hank,” says Grandma.

  “Maybe she should stop taking the meds, then.” He stuffs his mouth up with more waffle. “She could help around the house when she comes home. Get a job again.”

  “She can’t stop taking the meds. You know that.”

  “Well, they don’t seem to help, do they? This keeps happening.”

  “Hank,” Grandma says, then points to me and mouths my name again. “Maybe we can talk about this later.”

  “Oh, all right,” he says. “How is school, Anna?”

  “Fine,” I say.

  “What did you learn today?”

  I shrug. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? Why are we sending you to school, then?”

  “It’s the law,” I say. “You have to go to school until you’re sixteen.”

  “Nonsense,” he says. “I dropped out when I was only fourteen. I helped my parents with the farm. I did real work.” The rules were probably different back then, or maybe he was breaking the rules and nobody noticed. I decide not to bother saying this.

  “School is real work,” says Grandma. “Anna got her mid-term report card. Straight fours.” She pats me on the back. “I’m so proud of her.”

  “What is a four?” asks Grandpa.

  “It’s like an A,” I say.

  “Well, why don’t they just call it an A?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t make the rules.” I take my last bite of waffle and wipe my mouth with the napkin like Grandma tells me to do. “Thank you for dinner, Grandpa.”

  I start clearing off the table so I can do the dishes. “There you go, real work,” he says. “That’s what I like to see.”

  Sally lays on my bed with me while I write in my notebook. I’ve done this every night since I was six, when Mom gave me my first notebook. She writes in notebooks too. Some people call them diaries, but boys at school make fun of that word so now I just say notebook.

  There’s a knock on the bedroom door. “May I come in?” asks Grandma, and then she comes in before I can answer. “It’s time to turn the light out and go to sleep, Anna,” she says.

  From down the hall Grandpa’s voice says, “I can’t afford to be paying out my ass for electricity!” Ass is a curse word. I learned so at school. Grandpa says cursing is also one of the few pleasures in life. Curse words are words that adults are allowed to say, but not children.

  Grandma comes over and kisses me on the forehead. Sally barks. Grandma leaves the door open a little so Sally can leave my room when she wants. Sally is like a baby, she doesn’t sleep through the night.

  Every night I say a prayer, even though I secretly think God’s not real. I’ve thought about it, and it just doesn’t make sense. If God made the world, who made God? Why do bad things happen? How does he live on top of clouds, which are made of gas and not solid? Still, I pray just in case, and because it’s a habit.

  Mom says I have to close my eyes when I pray because it shows God that you’re focused on the prayer, not distracted. But sometimes even though I close my eyes, I think of other things and forget I’m praying. When this happens, I say sorry to God. And sometimes I fall asleep before I say Amen.

  In my prayers, I list people who I want God to protect. I’m scared that if I forget anybody, something bad will happen to them. It takes me a long time. Then even after I spend a long time, I’m scared I forgot someone, so I ask Him to keep everyone in the whole world safe.

  I also pray for Peter. I can’t remember how long he’s been around. He’s eleven. I like older men, like the woman on The Bachelorette, Grandma’s favorite TV show. I’m sick of boys. So immature, the woman said. I need a real man. Peter’s not real though. He plays with me during the day, but only when Grandma and Grandpa aren’t around. Sometimes he’s in my dreams. Sometimes not.

  The next day after school, I ask Grandma if I can go outside. “Sure,” she says, not looking up from the TV. She is watching The Bachelorette. On this show, they are all real people, not pretend like most of TV.

  I go outside and walk into the woods.

  The woods are a maze of trees. There are trails of dirt. If you go off the trails, you’re in the real wild.

  The trees are tall and covered in new leaves for spring. Except the pine trees, those are always green. Moss covers some of the trees, and birds fly between them like they’re searching for the perfect tree to build their homes in. Squirrels too. If I go back far enough in the woods I find the stream. That’s where I always meet Peter, my imaginary boyfriend. Sometimes, we play witches. Other times we get into the stream and walk, see what we can find. Tadpoles live in the stream, which grow up into frogs. The only fish are tiny and silver like needles. I’ve never gone past the place I’m not supposed to go past, where the blackberry bushes make a wall across the stream. Mom says that’s where the bad guy lives. Grandma says the bad guy’s not real but it’s dangerous back there just the same.

  I hear things in the woods that I can’t identify. There are howls, breathing, screams, purring, growling, songs, whispers. Animals or monsters. Monsters are just animals that humans haven’t discovered yet.

  Peter shows up to the stream wearing a T-shirt. On the shirt, he has drawn a big tree, but all the leaves are hearts. Peter’s parents buy him blank T-shirts and special markers you can use to draw on clothes so the picture doesn’t come off when you wash it. Peter is an artist. He is skinny like how I want to be. Grandma says men get metabolism they don’t deserve, same with long eyelashes. Peter’s eyelashes are as long as the legs of house centipedes, but not scary. His hair is blue, because his parents let him dye it. They let him do whatever he wants. That’s because they’re imaginary.

  Peter helps me collect eight sticks, one for each new emotion. Tomorrow I will take the sticks to school and color each one the right color with markers during free time. We don’t have any markers at home.

  Peter kisses my cheek and I blush. At least I think I do, that’s what they say happens on TV. I ask him if I blush.

  “Of course you do,” he says. He kisses my cheek again, where I’m blushing.

  I wonder if I should wear blush like adults. That’s a kind of makeup. “Do you think I’m pretty?” I ask Peter.

  “You’re the prettiest girl in the world,” he says.

  Peter’s nice. “You’re the handsomest boy in the world,” I say. I kiss him on the cheek, too.

  We decide to make a potion. We dig a hole in the ground to use as a mixing bowl. We gather all the different materials we can find: mud, leaves, pine needles, an unripe berry, small shavings of bark, and a worm. We have made all kinds of potions before: a love potion (which was kind of pointless, because we are already in love), a poison (which we never used), and a potion to make us happy (that one worked).

  Today we create a potion that will make any wish come true. I stir the ingredients with a large stick, except the worm.

  “I’ll put the worm in,” Peter says.

  “No, don’t do it,�
� I say. “The worm will suffocate or drown.”

  “But we need him for the potion.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “Do you want the potion to work?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we need him.”

  Killing is wrong, I think, not out loud but in my head.

  “Killing is usually wrong,” Peter says, “but it’s more complicated than that.” Peter can read my thoughts, because he’s imaginary, which means he lives inside my head. I don’t know why I even bother speaking out loud. I worry I’m getting a little old for imaginary friends or boyfriends. Soon I will be a teenager, then an adult, then a senior citizen, almost dead.

  Peter says, “For example, we kill animals to eat them.”

  “I don’t kill the animals,” I say.

  “Someone does.”

  “I guess you’re right, someone does.”

  “And a worm is an animal. Killing an animal is less of a big deal than killing a human.”

  “Why?”

  “It just is.”

  I shrug. “Mom wants to kill the bad man,” I say.

  “Yes,” he says. “Killing is complicated. If he’s bad, maybe it’s okay to kill him even if he is a human. Like how they killed Osama Bin Laden.”

  “I guess.”

  “So,” Peter says, “I’ll put the tadpole in.” He drops the tadpole into the hole in the ground. I don’t stop him. I mix the potion. I stab the tadpole with my stick. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever killed, so far.

  When the potion is ready, Peter drinks some. “I wish to live forever,” he says.

  “I wish—” I say, but I’m too embarrassed to say it out loud, even though Peter can hear me either way. In my head I say, I wish Mom never tries to cut me out of her belly again.

  Peter smiles. I drink the potion and nearly throw up.

  We say goodbye. Peter walks across the stream to the other side, the place I’m not allowed to go. That’s where Peter lives too, there and inside my brain. I watch him walk until he’s a tiny dot in the distance, and he disappears behind some trees. I think I see a flash of another face, with long hair like moss. It’s a woman’s face, sort of like Mom’s. It scares me and I look away. When I look back, she is gone.

  Before I go to sleep, I look out my window and see two full moons in the sky. I blink and look again, but there’s still two. They’re identical. They shine equally bright, like two big cat’s eyes. I don’t know which is the regular one and which is new. I point them out to Sally and she barks.

  “Grandma!” I call, and Grandma runs in.

  “Is everything okay?” she asks.

  “There are two moons in the sky,” I say, pointing.

  Grandma looks out the window. “Don’t be silly,” she says. “That’s just one moon, like always.”

  I frown. “Sally saw it,” I say.

  “Sally’s a dumb dog,” Grandma says.

  “You can say that again!” yells Grandpa from across the hall. “Go to bed, Anna.”

  Grandma kisses my forehead and leaves.

  I look at Mom’s empty bed. There’s no curtain so I divide our room in half with an invisible witch force. We keep our own things on our own sides: books, toys, clothes. Even when Mom’s gone, I keep my things on my side. I suddenly realize this is stupid. I take my Raggedy Ann doll and carry it to Mom’s bed. I tuck her in with her face turned down on the pillow, so she can’t watch me. I pray, and ask God to explain the two moons to me, and also everything else.

  It’s Easter Sunday, so the mind hospital has longer visiting hours and a special event. They do this every Easter. It’s kind of like at school on holidays, where it’s a regular day except we also eat cupcakes and do an art project. But some kid or other always finds something to cry about, and ruins the fun. Sometimes I wonder why people bother with special events at all.

  Pink and yellow streamers hang on the walls of the big lunch room, which is also the group therapy room and the special event room. On the long grey tables there are plastic bins full of old colored pencils and crayons mixed together, and coloring sheets: Easter eggs and rabbits. A song about Jesus plays out of an old boombox in the corner. Already, one patient is yelling next to the boombox. “I am not a Christian!” he says. “This music is offensive to me!” A nurse goes to the boombox and changes the CD to a Halloween mix. “The Monster Mash” comes on. The patient smiles and goes back to coloring his rabbit.

  “Do you want to color a picture, Anna?” asks Grandma.

  “Sure,” I say. I’m okay at coloring, but not great. Mom is great, but she never does it anymore, so it doesn’t matter that she’s great. I choose the rabbit because it will take longer. I’m glad to have something to do.

  “Do you think Jesus really rose from the dead?” Mom asks.

  “Of course not,” says Grandpa, who came with us today because it’s Easter. “What are you, five? Everyone knows that story’s a load of crap.”

  “Hank!” Grandma says, and hits him on the arm. “Yes, sweetie, Jesus really rose from the dead.”

  “I’m not saying he wasn’t a nice guy and all,” Grandpa says, “just that they embellished the story a little. You know, to help with book sales.”

  Grandma hits him again. I laugh a little, then cover my mouth when I see Grandma glaring at me. A patient at the other end of our long table gets a paper cut, and a nurse rushes over to clean up the blood and make sure he didn’t do it on purpose.

  “What do you think, Anna?” Mom asks.

  I look at my coloring sheet to avoid making eye contact with anyone. “Well,” I say, “It doesn’t seem real that someone could rise from the dead, but I’m not a doctor.”

  Mom laughs a little.

  “Maybe some people are magic,” I say. “Like witches.”

  “Jesus was the son of Mary,” says Grandma.

  “Oh yeah? And who was the father?” asks Grandpa.

  “God.”

  “I mean the human father.”

  “He didn’t have one.”

  “How can that be?”

  The man who got a papercut butts in. “I don’t have a human father.”

  Grandpa frowns. “Everyone has a human mother and a human father. It’s science! Even if you never met them, you still—”

  “Hank!” Grandma hits him again. She turns to the man. “I’m sorry. My husband never learned to control his manners.”

  The man shrugs. “It’s okay.”

  I am really glad to have my picture. I’m coloring it as slowly as I can. Grandma keeps glancing at me like she is nervous I’ll get sad about never meeting my “father.” I don’t care about any father. I don’t have one.

  Some hospital kitchen workers come through the doors with two silver carts full of cupcakes. Several patients cry out in a happy way. It’s just like school. A few people get up and go straight for the carts.

  “Calm down,” says one of the nurses, holding out her hand like a stop sign. “We’ll form a line here. There’s no need to panic. Everyone will get a cupcake.”

  The nurses hand each person a paper plate and a napkin with hearts on it, leftover from Valentine’s Day. I wait until everyone else has gone before I take Mom’s hand and we go get our cupcakes.

  “Well, aren’t you polite,” says the nurse, smiling at me.

  I shrug.

  “She’s so sweet,” the nurse says to Mom. Mom pats me on the back.

  Peter and I leave our shoes under a tree and wade through the creek. We do this often. The further along we go, away from all the houses, the deeper the creek gets, the more wild the surroundings. Stranger and louder noises from animals, thicker trees, colder. There are more and more blackberry bushes growing along the sides of the stream, covered in thorns. They grow in towards the stream and above our heads, crowd us in like a tunnel. We continue un
til the blackberry bushes from the left and the right come together in a wall in front of us, keeping us out of whatever lies beyond. The only way to get past the wall would be to swim underneath, and even if we did that we’d still get scratched.

  On our walks through the creek we always find interesting items: ripped pages with the words smudged out, beer cans and cigarette buts, a tire, and once even a doll’s head.

  “Peter,” I say, “did you see the two moons in the sky last night?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Of course. How could I miss them?”

  “Nobody else saw them,” I said.

  “Hmm.”

  “Maybe they’re imaginary.”

  “Or,” he said, “maybe they’re real, but only we can see them.”

  “Maybe,” I say, to be polite, even though that is ridiculous. “Why do you think there are two?”

  “Maybe the regular moon found a friend. Or she had a baby.”

  I shrug. We are almost to the end. “Peter,” I say, “Should I swim under today?”

  “Your Grandma will get mad,” he says. “You’ll get your sweater wet, not just your pants.”

  “I don’t care,” I say.

  He says nothing.

  “What’s back there?” I ask. But, of course, he doesn’t know. Even if he does live there, he’s not even real. He only knows what I know.

  The blackberry bushes become transparent, and I think I see a woman’s face peeking out from behind a distant tree again, her hair like moss. She looks like Mom. She sees me and pulls her face back all the way behind the tree. But her arm sticks out and points right at me, then points towards the place where the blackberry bushes meet.

  I take a deep breath and dive in.

  Underwater, it’s like I’m in a cave, floating in the liquid, but I can’t breathe. I have to hold my breath, otherwise choke until I die. Shiny little fish swim around me, like knives bending in the light. They turn into knives with faces. They all look at me like I’m meat to be cut up, my heart roasted over a fire. They look at me and lick their lips. Here they come.