The Bean Trees - Barbara Kingsolver [88]
“She’ll do fine,” I said. “Remember, I’m used to cantankerous cars.”
“I know. You’ll do fine,” she said, but didn’t seem convinced.
After we had gotten in and fastened our seat belts, on Mattie’s orders, she leaned in the window and slipped something into my hand. It was money. Esperanza and Estevan were leaning out the windows on the other side, spelling out something—surely not an address—very slowly to the elderly woman, who was writing it down on the back of a window envelope.
“Where did this come from?” I asked Mattie quietly. “We can get by.”
“Take it, you thick-headed youngun. Not for your sake, for theirs.” She squeezed my hand over the money. “Poverty-stricken isn’t the safest way to go.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“It comes from people, Taylor, and let’s just leave it. Some folks are the heroes and take the risks, and other folks do what they can from behind the scenes.”
“Mattie, would you please shut up about heroes and prison and all.”
“I didn’t say prison.”
“Just stop it, okay? Estevan and Esperanza are my friends. And, even if they weren’t, I can’t see why I shouldn’t do this. If I saw somebody was going to get hit by a truck I’d push them out of the way. Wouldn’t anybody? It’s a sad day for us all if I’m being a hero here.”
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