The Bean Trees

  Reverend and Mrs. Stone seemed greatly relieved to see us, since they had apparently expected us a day or two earlier, but no one made an issue of it. They helped carry things up a sidewalk bordered with a purple fringe of ageratums into the small house behind the parsonage. Meanwhile Estevan and I worked on getting possessions sorted out. Things had gotten greatly jumbled during the trip, and Turtle's stuff was everywhere. She was like a pack rat, taking possession of any item that struck her fancy (like Esperanza's hairbrush) and tucking another one into its place (like a nibbled cracker). Turtle herself was exhausted with the events of the day, or days, and was in the back seat sleeping the sleep of the dead, as Lou Ann would put it. Esperanza and Estevan had already said goodbye to her in a very real way back in Mr. Armistead's office, and didn't think there was any need to wake her up again. But I stood firm.

  "It's happened too many times that people she loved were whisked away from her without any explanation. I want her to see you, and see this place, so she'll know we're leaving you here."

  She woke reluctantly, and groggily accepted my explanation of what was happening. "Bye bye," she said, standing up on the seat and waving through the open back window.

  I think we all felt the same exhaustion. There are times when it just isn't possible to say goodbye. I hugged Esperanza and shook hands with Reverend and Mrs. Stone in a kind of daze. The day seemed too bright, too full of white clapboard and cheerful purple flowers, for me to be losing two good friends forever.

  I was left with Estevan, who was checking under the back seat for the last time. I checked the trunk. "You ought to take some of this food," I said. "Turtle and I will never eat it all; it will just go to waste. At least the things there are whole jars of, like mustard and pickles." I bent over the cooler, stacking and unstacking the things that were swimming in melted ice in the bottom.

  Estevan put his hand on my arm. "Taylor."

  I straightened up. "What's going to happen to you here? What will you do?"

  "Survive. That has always been our intention."

  "But what kind of work will you find around here? I can't imagine they have Chinese restaurants, which is probably a good thing. Oh God," I put my knuckle in my mouth. "Shut me up."

  Estevan smiled. "I would never pray for that."

  "I'm just afraid for you. And for Esperanza. I'm sorry for saying this, it's probably a very nice place, but I can't stand to think of you stuck here forever."

  "Don't think of us here forever. Think of us back in Guatemala with our families. Having another baby. When the world is different from now."

  "When will that ever be," I said. "Never."

  "Don't say that." He touched my cheek. I was afraid I was going to cry, or worse. That I would throw my arms around his ankles like some lady in a ridiculous old movie and refuse to let him go.

  When tears did come to me it was a relief. That it was only tears. "Estevan, I know it doesn't do any good to say things like this, but I don't want to lose you. I've never lost anybody I loved, and I don't think I know how to." I looked away, down the flat, paved street. "I've never known anybody like you."

  He took both my hands in his. "Nor I you, Taylor."

  "Can you write? Would it be safe, I mean? You could use a fake return address or something."

  "We can send word by way of Mattie. So you will know where we are and what happens to us."

  "I wish that didn't have to be all."

  "I know." His black pupils moved back and forth between my eyes.

  "But it does, doesn't it? There's no way around the hurt, is there? You just have to live with it."

  "Yes. I'm sorry."

  "Estevan, do you understand what happened back there in that office, with Esperanza?"

  "Yes."

  "I keep thinking it was a kind of, what would you call it?"

  "A catharsis."

  "A catharsis," I said. "And she seems happy, honest to God, as happy as if she'd really found a safe place to leave Ismene behind. But she's believing in something that isn't true. Do you understand what I'm saying? It seems wrong, somehow."

  "Mi'ija, in a world as wrong as this one, all we can do is to make things as right as we can." He put his hands on my shoulders and kissed me very, very sweetly, and then he turned around and walked into the house.

  All four of us had buried someone we loved in Oklahoma.

  I called Mama from a pay phone at a Shell station. I dug two handfuls of coins out of my jeans pockets, splayed them out on the metal shelf, and dialed. I was scared to death she would hang up on me. She had every right. I hadn't said boo to her for almost two months, not even to congratulate her on getting married. She'd written to say they'd had a real nice time at the wedding and that Harland was moving into our house. Up until the wedding he'd always lived in a so-called bachelor apartment, which means a bed plus hot plate plus roach motel in his sock drawer, in back of El-Jay's Paint and Body.

  There was static in the line. "Mama, I'm sorry to bother you," I said. "I'm just outside of Oklahoma City so I thought I'd give you a ring. It's a lot closer than Arizona."

  "Is that you? Bless your heart, it is you! I'll swan. Now weren't you sweet to call." She sounded so far away.

  "So how's it going, Mama? How's married life treating you?"

  She lowered her voice. "Something's wrong, isn't it?"

  "Why would you think that?"

  "Either you've got a bad cold or you've been crying. Your sound's all up in your head."

  The tears started coming again, and I asked Mama to hang on just a minute. I had to put down the receiver to blow my nose. The one thing Lou Ann hadn't thought of was that I should have packed two dozen hankies.

  When I got on the line again the operator was asking for more coins, so I dropped them in. Mama and I listened to the weird bonging song and didn't say anything to each other for a little bit.

  "I just lost somebody I was in love with," I finally told her. "I just told him goodbye, and I'm never going to see him again."

  "Well, what did you turn him loose for?" Mama wanted to know. "I never saw you turn loose of nothing you wanted."

  "This is different, Mama. He wasn't mine to have."

  She was quiet for a minute. We listened to the static playing up and down. It sounded like music from Mars.

  "Mama, I feel like, I don't know what. Like I've died."

  "I know. You feel like you'll never run into another one that's worth turning your head around for, but you will. You'll see."

  "No, it's worse than that. I don't even care if I ever run into anybody else. I don't know if I even want to."

  "Well, Taylor honey, that's the best way to be, is not on the lookout. That way you don't have to waste your time. Just let it slip up on you while you're going about your business."

  "I don't think it will. I feel like I'm too old."

  "Old my foot! Lordy, child, look at me. I'm so far over the hill I can't call the hogs to follow, and here I am running around getting married like a teenager. It's just as well you're not here, you'd have to tell everybody, Don't pay no mind that old fool, that's just my mother done got bit by the love bug at a elderly age."

  I laughed. "You're not elderly," I said.

  "It won't be as long as it has been."

  "Mama, shush, don't even say that."

  "Oh, don't you worry about me, I don't care if I drop over tomorrow. I'm having me a time."

  "That's good, Mama. I'm glad, I really am."

  "I've done quit cleaning houses. I take in some washing now and again to keep me out of trouble, but I'm getting about ready to join the Women's Garden Club instead. The only dirt I feel like scratching in nowdays is my own. They meet of a Thursday."

  I couldn't believe it. Mama retired. "You know what's funny?" I said. "I just can't picture you without an iron or a mop or something like that in your hand."

  "Oh, picture it, girl, it's a pretty sight. You remember Mrs. Wickentot? The one always wore high heels to the grocery and thou
ght she was the cat's meow?"

  "Yeah, I remember. Her kids never would give me the time of day. They called me the Cleaning Lady's Girl."

  "Well you can put it to rest now, because I told her off good when I quit. I told her if I had the kind of trash she has in her closets, and the way she lets those boys run wild, what I found under their beds, I just wouldn't act so high and mighty, is what I told her."

  "You told her that?"

  "I did. And then some. All these years, you know, these ladies get to thinking they own you. That you wouldn't dare breathe a word for fear of getting fired. Now I think they're all scared to death I'm going to take out an ad in the paper."

  I could just see it, right on the back page under the obituaries and deed-of-trust announcements. Or better yet, on the society page:

  "Alice Jean Greer Elleston wishes to announce that Irma Ruebecker has fifty-two pints of molded elderberry jelly in her basement; Mae Richey's dishes would be carried off by the roaches if she didn't have hired help; and Minerva Wickentot's boys read porno magazines."

  I couldn't stop laughing. "You ought to do it," I said. "It would be worth the thirty-five cents a word."

  "Well, I probably won't. But it's good for a gal to have something like that up her sleeve, don't you think?" She chuckled. "It makes people respect you."

  "Mama, you're really something. I don't know how the good Lord packed so much guts into one little person." The words were no sooner out of my mouth before I realized this was something she used to say to me. In high school, when I was having a rough time of it, she said it practically every other day.

  "How's that youngun of yours?" Mama wanted to know. She never failed to ask.

  "She's fine. She's asleep in the car right now or I'd put her on to say hi. Or peas and carrots, more likely. You never know what she's going to say."

  "Well, she comes by that honest."

  "Don't say that, Mama. That means it proves a baby's not a bastard. If it acts like you, it proves it's legitimate."

  "I never thought about it that way."

  "It's okay. I guess I'm just sensitive, you know, since she's not blood kin."

  "I don't think blood's the only way kids come by things honest. Not even the main way. It's what you tell them, Taylor. If a person is bad, say, then it makes them feel better to tell their kids that they're even worse. And then that's just exactly what they'll grow up to be. You remember those Hardbines?"

  "Yeah. Newt. I especially remember Newt."

  "That boy never had a chance. He was just doing his best to be what everybody in Pittman said he was."

  "Mama, you were always so good to me. I've been meaning to tell you that. You acted like I'd hung up the moon. Sometimes I couldn't believe you thought I was that good."

  "But most of the time you believed it."

  "Yeah. I guess most of the time I thought you were right."

  The operator came on and asked for more money. My pile of change was thinning out. "We're just about done," I told her, but she said this was for the minutes that we'd already talked. I was out of quarters and had to use a whole slew of nickels.

  "Guess what?" I said to Mama after the coins had dropped. "Here's the big news, Turtle's my real daughter. I adopted her."

  "Did you? Now aren't you smart. How'd you do that?"

  "Kind of by hook or crook. I'll tell you about it in a letter, it's too complicated for long distance. But it's all legal. I've got the papers to prove it."

  "Lord have mercy. Married and a legal grandma all in the same summer. I can't wait to see her."

  "We'll get back there one of these days," I said. "Not this trip, but we will. I promise."

  "You better watch out, one of these days me and old Harland might just up and head for Arizona."

  "I wish you would."

  Neither of us wanted to hang up. We both said, "Bye," about three times.

  "Mama," I said, "this is the last one. I'm hanging up now, okay? Bye. And say hi to Harland for me too, okay? Tell him I said be good to you or I'll come whip his butt."

  "I'll tell him."

  Turtle and I had a whole afternoon to kill in Oklahoma City while we waited for some paperwork on the adoption to clear. After her nap she was raring to go. She talked up a storm, and wanted to play with Esperanza's medallion. I let her look at it in the side-view mirror.

  "You have to keep it on," I told her. "That's St. Christopher, the guardian saint of refugees. I think you'd count. You're about as tempest-tossed as they come."

  A tempest was a bad storm where things got banged around a lot. "Tempest-tossed" was from the poem on the Statue of Liberty that started out, "Give me your tired, your poor." Estevan could recite the whole poem. Considering how America had treated his kind, he must have thought this was the biggest joke ever to be carved in giant letters on stone.

  I tried not to think about Estevan, but after a while decided it felt better to think about him than not to. And Turtle was good company. We cruised around in Mattie's Lincoln, a couple of free-wheeling females out on the town. Her favorite part was driving over the speed bumps at the Burger King.

  During this time we had what I consider our second real conversation, the first having taken place at the foot of a pine tree at Lake o' the Cherokees. It went something like this:

  "What do you want to do?"

  "Okay."

  "Are you hungry?"

  "No."

  "Well, where should we go, do you think? Anything in particular you want to see, as long as we're here in the big city?"

  "Ma Woo-Ahn."

  "Lou Ann's at home. We'll see her when we get home. And Edna and Virgie and Dwayne Ray and everybody."

  "Waneway?"

  "That's right."

  "Ma Woo-Ahn?"

  "That's right. Only let me tell you something. Starting right now, you've only got one Ma in the whole world. You know who that is?"

  "Yes."

  "Who?"

  "Ma."

  "That's right. That's me. You've got loads of friends. Lou Ann's your friend, and Edna and Mattie and all the others, and they all love you and take care of you sometimes. And Estevan and Esperanza were good friends too. I want you to remember them, okay?"

  "Steban and Mespanza," she nodded gravely.

  "Close enough," I said. "I know it's been confusing, there's been a lot of changes in the management. But from here on in I'm your Ma, and that means I love you the most. Forever. Do you understand what that means?"

  "That beans?" She looked doubtful.

  "You and me, we're sticking together. You're my Turtle."

  "Urdle," she declared, pointing to herself.

  "That's right. April Turtle Greer."

  "Ableurdledear."

  "Exactly."

  On an impulse I called I-800-THE LORD, from a public phone in the City Library where we'd come after Turtle decided she'd like to look at some books. I don't know what possessed me to do it. I'd been saving it up all this time, like Mama and our head rights, and now that I'd hit bottom and survived, I suppose I knew that I didn't really need any ace in the hole.

  The line rang twice, three times, and then a recording came on. It told me that the Lord helps those that help themselves. Then it said that this was my golden opportunity to help myself and the entire Spiritual Body by making my generous contribution today to the Fountain of Faith missionary fund. If I would please hold the line an operator would be available momentarily to take my pledge. I held the line.

  "Thank you for calling," she said. "Would you like to state your name and address and the amount of your pledge?"

  "No pledge," I said. "I just wanted to let you know you've gotten me through some rough times. I always thought, 'If I really get desperate I can call I-800-THE LORD.' I just wanted to tell you, you have been a Fountain of Faith."

  She didn't know what to make of this. "So you don't wish to make a pledge at this time?"

  "No," I said. "Do you wish to make a pledge to me at this time? Would
you like to send me a hundred dollars, or a hot meal?"

  She sounded irritated. "I can't do that, ma'am," she said.

  "Okay, no problem," I said. "I don't need it, anyway. Especially now. I've got a whole trunkful of pickles and baloney."

  "Ma'am, this is a very busy line. If you don't wish to make a pledge at this time."

  "Look at it this way," I said. "We're even."

  After I hung up I felt like singing and dancing through the wide, carpeted halls of the Oklahoma City Main Library. I once saw a movie where kids did cartwheels all over the library tables while Marian the librarian chased them around saying "Shhhh!" I felt just like one of those kids.

  But instead Turtle and I snooped politely through the stacks. They didn't have Old MacDonald Had an Apartment, and as a matter of fact we soon became bored with the juvenile section and moved on to Reference. Some of these had good pictures. Turtle's favorite was the Horticultural Encyclopedia. It had pictures of vegetables and flowers that were far beyond both her vocabulary and mine. She sat on my lap and together we turned the big, shiny pages. She pointed out pictures of plants she liked, and I read about them. She even found a picture of bean trees.

  "Well, you smart thing, I would have missed it altogether," I said. I would have, too. The picture was in black and white, and didn't look all that much like the ones back home in Roosevelt Park, but the caption said it was wisteria. I gave Turtle a squeeze. "What you are," I told her, "is a horticultural genius." I wouldn't have put it past her to say "horticulture" one of these days, a word I hadn't uttered myself until a few months ago.

  Turtle was thrilled. She slapped the picture enthusiastically, causing the young man at the reference desk to look over his glasses at us. The book had to have been worth a hundred dollars at least, and it was very clean.

  "Here, let's don't hit the book," I said. "I know it's exciting. Why don't you hit the table instead?"

  She smacked the table while I read to her in a whisper about the life cycle of wisteria. It is a climbing ornamental vine found in temperate latitudes, and came originally from the Orient. It blooms in early spring, is pollinated by bees, and forms beanlike pods. Most of that we knew already. It actually is in the bean family, it turns out. Everything related to beans is called a legume.

  But this is the most interesting part: wisteria vines, like other legumes, often thrive in poor soil, the book said. Their secret is something called rhizobia. These are microscopic bugs that live underground in little knots on the roots. They such nitrogen gas right out of the soil and turn it into fertilizer for the plant.