“Relationship with God,” I say. “Let me think about that.”
She waits. The ice cubes arrange themselves around her swollen elbow.
I want to know more information before I answer. “Does everyone have one?”
“With different gods and in different ways, yes.”
“So it doesn’t have to be a go-to-church type thing?”
She smiles. “There are no wrong answers, Ruby.”
“I think there might be,” I say.
“What do you think happens when we die?” She sounds for a moment like a little girl asking about clouds.
“Atheist is the answer to the question you’re asking.”
“No God for you?”
“Sorry to say.”
“That’s all right. Each of us holds a piece of the puzzle.”
“Here’s a question: Is there a patron saint for everything? Like, disappointing movies? Or turnips? Socks you can’t find? And outlet malls?”
She asks if I still love Clive. I say, I love cigarettes, they are my only, truest love. Sometimes I am still in the middle of smoking one when I already long for another. You tell me what is more love than that.
…
Every night on the roof they switch on a giant, glowing Saint Teresa. Palms facing heaven, she implores her God. Her heart is on the outside of her chest; it shines in porcelain. The light fills the courtyard and squeezes through the bars on my window. It doesn’t bother me. I chain-smoke until dawn, blow smoke rings to her.
…
The first Friday night I am painting a ceramic cat and eating apples when I hear scuffling in the hall. Muffled whispering and the sound of a large door closing. In the hallway, the slippers are gone. I run to my window and stand on a crate.
The sisters are crossing the courtyard, quiet as secrets, each of them wearing a black coat. I can make out Sister Helena, the arms of her coat tied around her joyful shoulders. They move through the gate, the last one closes it behind her, and they are gone.
The next morning the slippers are back, pointed toward the wall in a perfect line, the toes immaculate arrows.
…
I water the tomato plants. I’m not a fan of tomatoes, I tell them. They make bread soggy. But I like tomato gravy and bruschetta. Is it broo-shetta or broo-sketta?
They don’t answer.
I list other things I like.
…
Every week I assist Sister Charlene at Sunday school. My job is to walk the kids to recess and church, administer their snacks, generally make their stay comfortable.
Charlene runs her class like she is half clairvoyant, half yoga instructor. “I’m wondering why I hear talking toward the back of the carpet.” She holds her hands out like a sleepwalker. “I’m picturing a class that is ready for snack time.”
Order is maintained by a giant construction-paper “stoplight” on the front board composed of a green, yellow, and red face. The green face holds a wide smile, the yellow face a constipated wince, the red a murderous frown. Every kid has a clothespin with their name on it, which begins every day clipped on green. If the kid misbehaves, their clothespin moves to yellow and the kid can’t participate in snack time. If the kid does anything mortal like strangle the goldfish, they move to red, although, Sister Charlene informs me, no kid has ever moved to red.
“Most stay on green the whole day.” She beams.
If everyone stays on green all day, it’s a gold-sticker day.
Sister Charlene passes a bookmark to each kid, facedown. She counts to three. On three, they flip them over. Whoever has the rainbow sticker gets to feed the goldfish. The kids seem jazzed about this possibility. Rachel, a girl who constantly touches her nose as if confirming it is still there, wins. She tosses flakes into the aquarium under the reverent gazes of her classmates.
A kid near me starts to cry. It’s the frog with the bowl haircut.
“I never get the rainbow sticker,” he says. He seems to have an ongoing argument with the letter r. I nevell get the rainbow stickell.
“Christopher,” Sister Charlene warns.
“It’s just a sticker,” I say. “Two ninety-five for a pack of ten.” Then I realize he probably doesn’t have money.
“But I want to feed the goldfish!”
“It’s just a goldfish,” I say. “Do you want an apple?”
He does not want an apple and won’t calm down. In his distress, he accidentally backhands a little boy named Sergio.
Sister Charlene moves Christopher’s clothespin to the yellow face. “You are on yellow. No snack.”
Christopher stumbles forward and back. He screams, “Yellow!” and “Why?”
Sister Charlene looks away. “No elephant tears.”
I want to explain to him that yellow is just an idea, an arbitrary way of maintaining order. At my job they would give us written warnings. In the comments section, they would write “belligerent with clients” or “sleeping at desk.” It’s the same thing. Belligerence is a matter of opinion anyway. I got that warning after my work revamping the Trix slogan. They had Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids for something like thirty years and asked for something fresh. I made up storyboards and posters for what I thought was a brilliant new direction: Stupid fucking rabbit, not everything’s about you.
…
Sister Helena and I work in the garden. She informs me what each plant needs and I inform her when a bee is near her by saying, “Bee.” She arranges the trumpet of a lily. “I think nature has within it the cures to all human illness.”
“I’m curious how you know that.”
“It’s a theory, Ruby. It’s my own.”
I am disappointed. “I thought you had some inside info.” Then I say, “Bee.”
She lets it land on her arm. “He’s part of the group.”
“Let’s see after your head swells to the size of a hot-air balloon.”
I tell the tomato plants about the rainbow sticker. I tell them I’ve begun to differentiate the nuns. I tell them who my favorites are. In order: Sister Helena, Sister Charlene, Sister Mary. My least favorite nun is fat Sister Georgia.
Fat Sister Georgia scares the creamy lord out of me. She is a rotund woman who takes up two chairs in the dining hall. When you smile at Sister Georgia she does not smile back. Her green eyes are unamused always, and she does not think I am funny, which bothers me. She arrived at the convent years ago with a letter from her parish in Germany and a small valise Sister Helena said smelled like bacon. Her sound is a clipped, disapproving tsk. She sits in the dining hall surveying those around her with the unimpressed look of a gymnastics coach. The other sisters regard her with respectful fear. The occasion of her waddling by is a five-minute holiday in the courtyard. The sisters pause their trowels, mark their pages, scuttle out of her way. Their eyes follow her sadly, as if she were a specter or a town crazy.
“Please stop calling me at work,” Clive says.
I hang up the phone.
…
I walk the Sunday school kids to recess, single file, index fingers poised over their lips.
“You are a line of quiet ducklings,” I remind them.
Christopher breaks rank and walks next to me, body completely out of his control, like he is shaking something off every limb. He talks. To himself, to others, to Jesus, to the goldfish. He is never not talking. He is already on yellow for interrupting morning prayer with his thoughts on robots.
“Where do butterflies sleep?” He swings his arms.
“In the forest,” I say. “Back in line.”
“I’ve been to the forest,” he says. “And I’ve never seen a butterfly sleeping.”
“Then they sleep in chimneys,” I say. “Back in line.”