Pigs in Heaven - Barbara Kingsolver [101]
“I’m sorry. I’m nervous as a barn cat,” she says, sliding into the booth across from Annawake.
“Me too,” Annawake confesses. “How long have you been in Heaven? You finding your way around all three blocks of it?”
“I can’t complain. Sugar’s looking after me. My cousin. I mentioned her on the phone, didn’t I?”
Annawake feels wary. She’d said Sugar Hornbuckle on the phone, but she hadn’t said cousin. “So you and your daughter have ties here in the Nation?”
“Oh, no. Sugar and me grew up together down South. But I never knew Roscoe till he hollered howdy at me two days ago in the bus station.”
“Oh,” Annawake says, and they look each other in the eye.
Alice exhales slowly. “Well. I had all this stuff to say, that I was practicing on my way over here. I was supposed to start out being real high and mighty, but that’s never been my long suit.”
Annawake smiles. She has seen so many people show up for court armored in suits and lies. But this bright-eyed little old lady turns out for Greer vs. Fourkiller in an African-print dashiki from Wal-Mart, and an attitude to match. “I think I know what you were going to say,” Annawake tells her. “Can I give it a shot?”
“Go ahead.”
“Miss Fourkiller, you’ve got no business butting into our lives this way. You might think you know what’s best for our little girl, because she’s Indian and you are too, but that’s just one little tiny part of what she is. You weren’t there while she was growing up, and it’s too late to be claiming her now, because she’s already a person in our family.”
Alice frowns. “I’ll swan.”
“Coffee, hon?” the waitress asks as she fills Alice’s cup. She’s a very short, very broad woman with blunt-cut black hair and a face as round and flat as a plate. “I don’t think I know you. I’m Earlene.”
“Earlene, this is Alice Greer,” Annawake says. “She’s come to town on some business.”
“Uh-oh,” Earlene says, noticing the sugar volcano.
“I made a little mess,” Annawake admits.
“You know what that means. Means somebody’s a-gettin’ a new sweetheart.” Earlene looks at the two women, beaming. “Which one, you reckon? I know Annawake’s on the market. How about you, you married, hon?” she asks Alice.
“Not so’s you’d notice,” Alice replies. Earlene laughs so hard her bosom heaves and the coffee slides dangerously in the glass pot.
“I’ll bring back a rag directly and get that up,” she says. “I’m sorry if it takes me awhile to get back to you. I’m the only one here today. You all want the soup of the day? It’s beef barley, it’s real good.”
“That would be fine,” Alice says, and Annawake nods. Their water glasses vibrate with Earlene’s footsteps as she makes her way back to the kitchen.
“There’s one thing you left out,” Alice says. “In my speech.”
“What’s that?” Annawake blows into her coffee.
Alice looks out the window when she speaks. “She was abused.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Alice takes her straight on now. “That’s not enough. You don’t know what that child goes through. She’s still not over it. Whenever she feels like she’s done something wrong, or if she thinks Taylor’s leaving, she just… I don’t know what you’d call it. It’s like her body’s still there but her mind gets disconnected some way. It’s awful to watch.”
“It must be,” Annawake says.
“What I think,” Alice says, folding her paper napkin, “is that you people had your chance, and now it’s Taylor’s turn. And she’s doing a good job.”
For the first time Annawake feels a stirring of animosity. “When you say ‘you people,’ who do you mean exactly? Indians in general, or just the Cherokee Nation?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t see how a thing like that could happen to a little baby girl.”
“I don’t know why it happens here, because we love our children more than money. And there are almost always enough good-hearted people in a family to fill in for the hardship cases.”
“Everybody loves kids, that’s nothing