“No kidding,” Taylor says. “Wish I’d thought of that twenty years ago.”
“Your daughter. That’s Turtle, the apricot lover?”
“That’s right.”
After another long minute of quiet, the teakettle begins to rattle. Taylor lifts it and pours hissing water into the coffee grounds. “She’s not here at the moment. She’ll be real surprised when she comes back and sees those birds gone.” Taylor smiles down at the counter in a way that surprises Annawake because it is almost timid. Private. It passes, and Taylor looks back at Annawake. “Jax took her and a neighbor kid to see these two new rhinoceroses they got in at the zoo. He and Turtle are trying to write a song about endangered species.”
“What’s the story of that name?”
“What, Turtle? Well, not as good as yours. It’s just a nickname more or less, because of her personality. Turtle is…well, she holds on. From the time she was little she’d just grab me and not let go. In Kentucky where I grew up, people used to say if a snapping turtle gets hold of you it won’t let go till it thunders. Do you take cream or anything?”
“Black, please.”
“That’s the story,” she says, serving Annawake and sitting down opposite. “There’s not much about us that hasn’t been in the papers already. To tell you the truth, I think we’re storied out. No offense, but we’re hoping to just get back to normal.”
Annawake shakes her head slightly.
“You’re a reporter, right? I just assumed you saw us on TV. You said you’re here for some kind of a journalist convention?”
Annawake holds her coffee mug in both hands and takes a sip. “I’m sorry, I’ve misled you,” she says carefully, one phrase at a time. “I did see you on television, but I’m not a reporter. I’m an attorney. I’m in town for a Native American Law conference.”
“A lawyer? I never would have guessed a lawyer.”
“Well, thanks, I guess. I Work in an office that does a lot of work for the Cherokee Nation. That’s what I want to talk with you about. Turtle’s adoption might not be valid.”
Taylor’s cup stops an inch from her lips, and for nearly half a minute she does not appear to breathe. Then she puts down the cup. “I’ve been through all this already. The social worker said I needed adoption papers, so I went to Oklahoma City and I got papers. If you want to see, I’ll go get them.”
“I’ve already looked at the records. That’s the problem, it wasn’t done right. There’s a law that gives tribes the final say over custody of our own children. It’s called the Indian Child Welfare Act. Congress passed it in 1978 because so many Indian kids were being separated from their families and put into non-Indian homes.”
“I don’t understand what that has to do with me.”
“It’s nothing against you personally, but the law is crucial.
What we’ve been through is a wholesale removal.”
“Well, that’s the past.”
“This is not General Custer. I’m talking about as recently as the seventies, when you and I were in high school. A third of all our kids were still being taken from their families and adopted into white homes. One out of three.”
Taylor’s eyes are strangely enlarged. “My home doesn’t have anything to do with your tragedy,” she says. She gets up and stands at the window, looking out.
“I don’t mean to scare you,” Annawake says quietly. “But I want you to have some background on the problem. We need to make sure our laws are respected.”
Taylor turns around and faces Annawake, her hair wheeling. “I didn’t take Turtle from any family, she was dumped on me. Dumped. She’d already lost her family, and she’d been hurt in ways I can’t even start to tell you without crying. Sexual ways. Your people let her fall through the crack and she was in bad trouble. She couldn’t talk, she didn’t walk, she had the personality of—I don’t know what.
A bruised apple. Nobody wanted her.” Taylor’s hands are shaking. She crosses her arms in front of her chest and slumps forward a little in the manner of a woman heavily pregnant.
Annawake sits still.
“And now that she’s a cute little adorable child and gets famous and goes on television, now you want her back.”
“This has nothing to do with Turtle being on television.
Except that it brought her to our attention.” Annawake looks away and thinks about her tone. Lawyer words will not win any cases in this kitchen. She is not so far from Oklahoma.