The Bean Trees

with faded elbows. Esperanza had on a worn denim skirt and flat loafers. I had asked them please not to wear their very best for this occasion, not their Immigration-fooling clothes. It had to look like Turtle was going to be better off with me. When they came out that morning dressed as refugees I had wanted to cry out, No! I was wrong. Don’t sacrifice your pride for me. But this is how badly they wanted to make it work.

SEVENTEEN

Rhizobia

It had crossed my mind that Turtle might actually have recognized the cemetery her mother was buried in, and if so, I wondered whether I ought to take her back there to see it. But my concerns were soon laid to rest. We passed four cemeteries on the way to the Pottawatomie Presbyterian Church of St. Michael and All Angels, future home of Steven and Hope Two Two, and at each one of them Turtle called out, “Mama!”

There would come a time when she would just wave at the sight of passing gravestones and quietly say, “Bye bye.”

Finding the church turned out to be a chase around Robin Hood’s barn. Mattie’s directions were to the old church. The congregation had since moved its home of worship plus its pastor and presumably its refugees into a new set of buildings several miles down the road. I was beginning to form the opinion that Oklahomans were as transient a bunch as the people back home who slept on grass-flecked bedrolls in Roosevelt Park.

The church was a cheery-looking place, freshly painted white with a purple front door and purple gutters. When Mattie used to talk about the Underground Railroad, by which she meant these churches and the people who carried refugees between them, it had always sounded like the dark of night. I’d never pictured old white Lincolns with soda pop spilled on the seats, and certainly not white clapboard churches with purple gutters.

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