We walked along the busy downtown street and crossed at the light to the big building where they kept people waiting for trial. It was attached to the court building, Mr. Joe Brewer said. And we would have to go through security.
“You left your guns at home?” He was teasing me but I didn’t see the joke. And I wondered how he knew I had cap guns and had, in fact, left them at home. Then I realized I had on my empty holsters.
Joe Brewer got to walk right through security, everybody in the building knew him. He was famous or something.
Eleanor and I had to stop and walk through a big Xerox machine. It’d beep if you had car keys or guns. If you got beeped, the guard yelled, “Wand,” and another one pulled you to the side and ran a wand all around your body looking for weapons and bombs. If you were carrying anything suspicious, you had to run it through another machine that could see right through things. One lady had all kinds of stuff in her purse. You could see it all in reverse shadows on the little TV screen: pens, lipstick, pacifier, notepad, sandwich, pill bottle. It all looked like skeleton bones.
When it came time for me to walk through the machine, I balked. I didn’t want people seeing right through me. I didn’t want them seeing my bones. But Aunt Eleanor, who had walked through first, reached back, grabbed my arm, and dragged me through. With that, I made it just fine. They didn’t even pull me over and wand me.
Then we were allowed inside. Joe Brewer clipped on a plastic tag that said ATTORNEY. Mine and Aunt Eleanor’s said VISITOR.
The thought of seeing my mother again made me shaky all over. Walking down the hall, I braced myself. My cowboy hat hung down my back; I licked my hands and flattened my hair off my forehead, even flatter than when Aunt Eleanor had yanked at the tangles.
When we got into that visiting room Eleanor looked back and forth between the guard and the door. “Does that door really need to be locked? I mean, we are not the criminals, now are we?”
“Har, har,” the guard said.
It was horribly hot in the jail. There was a soapy smell too, like the body odor of people who work in car washes on hot summer days.
Suddenly keys jangled at the door and it opened. Mother stepped inside. I looked down at my boots and then slowly raised my face to look at her. Her eyes did that thing I love. She opened her arms and I fell into them.
“Oh, baby,” she said. “You’re safe.”
I nodded my head into her chest. She didn’t smell like Mother, she smelled like car wash.
“Are you happy?” she asked. “Eleanor says your pig is happy on the ranch.”
I nodded again. I wanted her to know that I was safe and happy, but something stopped me from telling her how much I loved Paradise Ranch, that it was the best place I had ever lived. It didn’t seem fair, since she was trapped in jail.
I pushed out of the hug, looked at her, and shrugged. “It’s okay.”
Mother turned her attention to her sister and said, “Eleanor, I can’t get used to your habit. Looks like Halloween. Must you wear it every day?”
“Yes, Barbara. I choose to wear the habit every day.”
“I’m not used to being called Barbara,” Mother said.
“Adjust. You’re Barbara, not Babe. It is time for you to grow up. You need to get out of this dreadful situation and take care of Ruby Clyde.”
“I’ve messed up everything.” Mother waved a hand in front of her own face, like she was clearing smoke. “You take her, Eleanor. Ruby Clyde is better off with you.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. She couldn’t just give me away like that. I didn’t remember ever being cross with my mother, but she couldn’t just give up on me, not after all we had been through. I was so upset I barely heard what they said next.
Eleanor grabbed Mother’s wrist and shook it. “Barbara, you are talking nonsense.”
“What’s so wrong with nonsense? The world is full of nonsense. Why am I in here? I didn’t do anything wrong, yet here I am in this jail.”
Eleanor lowered her voice to a firm whisper. “That’s my point exactly, Barbara. We are going to find bail money so that you can get out and be a mother to your daughter. Ruby Clyde needs you.”
Mother looked overwhelmed. I wished she had the energy to fight for me.
The side effect of being cared for by someone like Eleanor is that you realize how far short your mother has fallen. I know it had been hard for her. Maybe my father, if he had lived, would have helped, but all my life, honestly … adults had worn me out. I was so mad all at once, I almost bit something.
The only thing that calmed me down was knowing that Eleanor Rose would take care of me. I had a home at Paradise Ranch in that peach orchard with all those nuns. To escape my emotions, I went up in my head. I imagined walking that back hill and crawling out on that limb hanging over open air and not being afraid because it was just me. And I stayed there in my imaginary world until it was time to leave the jail.
* * *
We stood outside the building, Joe Brewer and Aunt Eleanor talking about getting Mother out on bail. Mr. Brewer said the judge refused to set bail because she had no family or ties to the community, nothing to keep her from running off. But she did too have ties to the community; she had her sister, who was rich—just look at her big fat ranch. And Joe Brewer was a lawyer—lawyers have money, don’t they? I couldn’t make this add up. But then again, why bother? Mother didn’t even want to get out.
I watched cars and taxis and trucks, flowing down the streets, getting backed up at lights. Honking, like laying on the horn would help anything.
“Are you okay?” I barely heard Mr. Brewer’s voice through the blaring car horn. I assumed he was talking to me, but when I turned around I saw that he was talking to Aunt Eleanor. The little square part of her face that showed through the fabric looked like it had shrunk up and turned gray. She had both hands over her belly.
“It’s nothing,” she said. But it takes a liar to know a liar. She wasn’t okay.
“Shall we sit down?” Joe Brewer asked, but she shook her head.
“It’ll be fine. Since surgery, it’s always something.” She tried to smile, but it was not a happy one. “It can wait. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. Anyway, we need to work on Barbara’s case. I have an idea about bail…”
“Sister Eleanor?” Joe Brewer circled his arm around both shoulders and guided her to the bus stop bench. “We need to sit down.”
Aunt Eleanor melted into him, her legs listing out to one side, and I realized he was practically holding her up. “I’m perfectly fine,” she kept saying. But when he lowered her down to the metal bench, she took a few deep breaths and then said, “On second thought, we better drop by the hospital.”
I’ll tell you what, Joe Brewer was a man of action. He just picked her up off her feet and said, “Come on, Ruby Clyde.” Her head was on his shoulder, and her body, all wrapped in fabric, was across both his arms. Her little blue boots dangled out of the bottom of her skirt. He marched across the street to the parking garage and ordered me to open the door of his car, which was parked front and center in a VIP spot, I guess from him working there.
He placed Eleanor in the back, fastened her seat belt, told me to jump in. I rode beside her all the way to the hospital, holding her hand. At some point she fell asleep or something, because she quit talking and went limp.
She looked dead. I wondered if that was the way cancers killed you. Talking about bail on the sidewalk one minute, dead the next. I worried that we had killed her, me and my mother, coming into her solitary life and tossing everything around.
I leaned into her, searching for a sign of life. Her upper lip twitched. It drew in just a bit and showed teeth. “Can you hear me? Aunt Eleanor! Can you hear me?” Her head rolled to one side.
All that safe feeling I had with her vanished. It had only lasted about a minute. Now it was over and gone. I was back in the bushes, shivering.
I know I said some time back that I never cry, but something came out of my eyes. It was the salt water of a brand-new feeling; it was more than sadness or fear or anger. I felt like someone had sliced me open with a razor blade and all the stars of the universe spilled out on the floor.
I rubbed my healing hands together and touched them to her cheeks. I covered her ears, then moved my fingertips to her eyelids. I wrapped my healing hands around her head and kissed her on the forehead. My healing powers weren’t working fast enough. She was three shades of gray when Joe Brewer wheeled up to the emergency room doors.