Road to Paradise. Paullina Simons

      PAULLINA SIMONS

      ROAD TO PARADISE

Copyright

      Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2007

      Copyright © Timshel Books 2007

      The extract from “i walked the boulevard” is reprinted from COMPLETE POEMS 1904–1962, by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage, by permission of W.W. Norton & Company. Copyright © 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust and George James Firmage.

      Paullina Simons asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

      Source ISBN: 9780007241583

      Ebook Edition © MARCH 2015 ISBN: 9780007283439

      Version: 2015-03-09

Map

Dedication

      For my husband’s mother, Elaine Ryan, from

      the time she was twenty, a mother first

Epigraph

       Earth’s crammed with heaven,And every common bush afire with God;But only he who sees, takes off his shoes

      ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

       And all my former life is seenA crazy drowsy beautiful and utterlyappalling dream

      ALEXANDER BLOK

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

Map

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue: “Motel”

One: The Car

1. Topless Imponderables

2. Emma

3. The Gift

Two: Mary’s Land

1. The Pomeranians

2. The Vedantists

3. The Black Truck

Three: On the Erie Canal

1. Ned

2. The Chihuahuas

3. Two Todds

Four: The Light at Picnic Marsh

1. Candy

       2. The Price of Stamps

       3. Comfort

       Five: The Road to St. Louis

       1. A Little Buddha

       2. A Full Bladder

       3. The Least of Candy

       Six: Isle of Capri

       1. Eighteen and Twenty-one

       2. Five Flower

       3. A Race Not to the Swift

       Seven: New Melleray

       1. Hours of the Divine Office