The Bean Trees - Barbara Kingsolver [99]
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 said.
“I just want to make absolutely certain.”
“We know Taylor very well,” Estevan replied. “We know she will make a good mother to this child.”
Even though they were practically standing on it, Mr. Armistead and Mrs. Cleary seemed to think of “tribal land” as some distant, vaguely civilized country. This, to them, explained everything including the fact that Hope, Steven, and Turtle had no identification other than a set of black-and-white souvenir pictures taken of the three of them at Lake o’ the Cherokees. It was enough that I, a proven citizen with a Social Security card, was willing to swear on pain of I-don’t-know-what (and sign documents to that effect) that they were all who they said they were.
By this point we had run out of small talk. I was over my initial nervousness, but without it I felt drained. Just sitting in that small, crowded office, trying to look the right way and say the right thing, seemed to take a great deal of energy. I couldn’t imagine how we were all going to get through this.
“We love her, but we cannot take care for her,” Esperanza said suddenly. Her accent was complicated by the fact that she was crying, but it didn’t faze Mr. Armistead or Mrs. Cleary. Possibly they thought it was a Cherokee accent.
“We’ve talked it over,” I said. I began to worry a little about what was going on here.
“We love her. Maybe someday we will have more children, but not now. Now is so hard. We move around so much, we have nothing, no home.” Esperanza was sobbing. This was no act. Estevan handed her a handkerchief, and she held it to her face.
“Try, Ma?” Turtle said.
“That’s right, Turtle,” I said quietly. “She’s crying.”
Estevan reached over and lifted Turtle out of her arms. He stood her up, her small blue sneakers set firmly on his knees, and held her gently by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “You must be a good girl. Remember. Good and strong, like your mother.