The Bean Trees

She looked at me the way Mama would have.

“Stop it,” I said again. “You’re going to make me cry.” I started the engine and it turned over with an astonishing purr, like a lioness waking up from her nap, “This is the good life, cars that start by themselves,” I said.

“When I hired you, it was for fixing tires. Just fixing tires, do you understand that?”

“I know.”

“As long as you know.”

“I do.”

She reached in the window and gave me a hug, and I actually did start crying. She put kisses on her hand and reached across and put them on Esperanza’s and Estevan’s cheeks, and then Turtle’s.

“Bless your all’s hearts,” she said. “Take good care.”

“Be careful,” Lou Ann said.

Mattie and Lou Ann and the others stood in the early-morning light holding kids and waving. It could have been the most ordinary family picture, except for the backdrop of whitewall tires. Esperanza and Turtle waved until they were out of sight. I kept blinking my eyelids like windshield wipers, trying to keep a clear view of the road.

On Mattie’s advice we took one of the city roads out of town, and would join up with the freeway just south of the city limits.

Outside of town we passed a run-over blackbird in the road, flattened on the center line. As the cars and trucks rolled by, the gusts of wind caused one stiff wing to flap up and down in a pitiful little flagging-down gesture. My instinct was to step on the brakes, but of course there was no earthly reason to stop for a dead bird.

FOURTEEN

Guardian Saints

We were stopped by Immigration about a hundred miles this side of the New Mexico border. Mattie had warned me of this possibility and we had all prepared for it as best we could. Esperanza and Estevan were dressed about as American as you could get without looking plain obnoxious: he had on jeans and an alligator shirt donated from some church on the east side where people gave away stuff that was entirely a cut above New To You. Esperanza was wearing purple culottes, a yellow T-shirt, and sunglasses with pink frames. She sat in the back seat with Turtle. Her long hair was loose, not braided, and as we sped down the highway it whipped around her shoulders and out the window, putting on a brave show of freedom that had nothing to do with Esperanza’s life. Twice I asked if it was too much wind on her, and each time she shook her head no.

Every eastbound car on the highway was being stopped by the Border Patrol. The traffic was bottled up, which gave us time to get good and nervous. This kind of check was routine; it had not been set up for the express purpose of catching us, but it still felt that way. To all of us, I believe. I was frantic. I rattled my teeth, as Mama would say.

“There’s this great place up ahead called Texas Canyon,” I told them, knowing full well that none of us might make it to Texas Canyon. Esperanza and Estevan might not make it to their next birthday. “Wait till you see it. It’s got all these puffy-looking rocks,” I chattered on. “Turtle and I loved it.”

They nodded quietly.

When our turn came I threw back my head like a wealthy person, yanked that Lincoln into gear and pulled up to the corrugated tin booth. A young officer poked his head in the car. I could smell his aftershave.

“All U.S. citizens?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. I showed my driver’s license. “This is my brother Steve, and my sister-in-law.”

The officer nodded politely. “The kid yours or theirs?”

I looked at Estevan, which was a stupid thing to do.

“She’s ours,” Estevan said, without a trace of an accent.

The officer waved us through. “Have a nice day,” he said.

After we had passed well beyond the checkpoint Estevan started apologizing. “I thought it would be the most believable thing. Since you hesitated.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“You looked at me. I thought it might seem suspicious if I said she was yours. He might wonder why you didn’t say it.”

“I know, I know, I know. You’re right. It’s no problem. The only thing that matters is we made it through.” It did bother me though, just as it bothered me that Turtle was calling Esperanza “Ma.” Which was a completely unreasonable thing to resent, I know, since Turtle called every woman Ma something. There’s no way she could have managed “Esperanza.”

We got out at the rest station in Texas Canyon. It turned out there weren’t rest rooms there, just picnic tables, so I took Turtle behind a giant marshmallow-shaped boulder. Ever since I’d found out she was three years old, we’d gotten very serious about potty training.

When we came back Estevan and Esperanza were standing by the guard rail looking out over an endless valley of boulders. A large wooden sign, which showed dinosaurs and giant ferny trees and mountains exploding in the background, explained that this was the lava flow from a volcanic explosion long ago. Along with the initials and hearts scratched into the sign with pocket knives, someone had carved “Repent.”

The setting did more or less put you in that frame of mind. There wasn’t a bush or tree in sight, just rocks and rocks, sky and more sky. Estevan said this is what the world would