The Bean Trees

very much,” I said, “but she had to go away and leave you with other people. The way things turned out is that she left you with me.”

Out on the lake people in boats were quietly casting their lines into the shadows. I remembered fishing on my own as a kid, and even younger going out with Mama, probably not being much help. I had a very clear memory of throwing a handful of rocks in the water and watching the fish dart away. And screaming my heart out. I wanted them, and knew of no reason why I shouldn’t have them. When I was Turtle’s age I had never had anyone or anything important taken from me.

I still hadn’t. Maybe I hadn’t started out with a whole lot, but pretty nearly all of it was still with me.

After a while I told Turtle, “You already know there’s no such thing as promises. But I’ll try as hard as I can to stay with you.”

“Yes,” Turtle said. She wiggled off my lap and returned to her dirt pile. She patted a handful of pine needles onto the mound. “Grow beans,” she said.

“Do you want to leave your dolly here?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Later that night I asked Esperanza and Estevan if they would be willing to do one more thing with me. For me, really. I explained that it was a favor, a very big one, and then I explained what it was.

“You don’t have to say yes,” I said. “I know it involves some risk for you, and if you don’t feel like you can go through with it I’ll understand. Don’t answer now, because I want to be sure you’ve really thought about it. You can tell me in the morning.”

Esperanza and Estevan didn’t want to think about it. They told me, then and there, they wanted to do it.

SIXTEEN

Soundness of Mind and Freedom of Will

Mr. Jonas Wilford Armistead was a tall, white-haired man who seemed more comfortable with the notarizing part of his job than with the public. Even though he had been forewarned, when all of us came trooping into his office he seemed overwhelmed and showed a tendency to dither. He moved papers and pens and framed pictures from one side of his desk to the other and wouldn’t sit down until all of us could be seated, which unfortunately didn’t happen for quite a while because there weren’t enough chairs. Mr. Armistead sent his secretary, Mrs. Cleary, next door to borrow a chair from the real-estate office of Mr. Wenn.

Mr. Armistead wore a complicated hearing aid that had ear parts, and black-and-white wires and a little silver box that had to be placed for maximum effectiveness on exactly the right spot on his desk, which he seemed unable to find. If he ever did, I thought I might suggest to him that he mark this special zone with paint as they do on a basketball court.

The silver box had tiny controls along one side, and Mr. Armistead also fiddled with these almost constantly, apparently without much success. Mrs. Cleary seemed during their working coexistence to have adjusted her volume accordingly. Even when she was talking to us, she practically shouted. It had an intimidating effect, especially on Esperanza.

But we all managed small talk while we waited. Which was all the more admirable when you consider that not one word any of us was saying was true, so far as I know. Estevan was an astonishingly good liar, going into great detail about the Oklahoma town where he and his wife had been living, and the various jobs he’d had. I talked about my plans to move to Arizona to live with my sister and her little boy. I think we were all amazed by the things that were popping out of our heads like corn.

Sister, indeed. I remembered begging my mother for a sister when I was very young. She’d said she was all for it, but that if I got one it would have to be arranged by means of a miracle. At the time I’d had no idea what she meant. Now I knew about celibacy.

Mrs. Cleary returned in due time, rolling a chair on its little wheels, and asked several questions about what forms would need to be typed up. We shuffled around again as we made room for Estevan and the new chair, and Mr. Armistead finally agreed to come down from his great height and roost like a long-legged stork on the chair behind his desk.

“It became necessary to make formal arrangements,” Estevan explained, “because our friend is leaving the state.”

Esperanza nodded.

“Mr. and Mrs. Two Two, do you understand that this is a permanent agreement?” He spoke very slowly, the way people often speak to not-very-bright children and foreigners, although I’m positive that Mr. Armistead had no inkling that the Two Two family came from any farther away than the Cherokee Nation.

They nodded again. Esperanza was holding Turtle tightly in her arms and beginning to get tears in her eyes. Already it was clear that, of the three of us, she was first in line for the Oscar nomination.

He went on, “After about six months a new birth certificate will be issued, and the old one destroyed. After that you cannot change your minds for any reason. This is a very serious decision.”

“There wasn’t any birth certificate issued,” Mrs. Cleary shouted. “It was born on tribal lands.”

“She,” I said. “In a Plymouth,” I added.

“We understand,” Estevan