The Bean Trees

"Do you remember the day we walked in the desert? And you asked why Esperanza was staring at Turtle, and I told you she looked very much like a child we knew in Guatemala." I nodded. "The child was Ismene."

I was afraid to understand this. I asked him if he meant that Ismene was their daughter, and Estevan said yes, that she was. She was taken in a raid on their neighborhood in which Esperanza's brother and two friends were killed. They were members of Estevan's teachers' union. He told me in what condition they had found the bodies. He wasn't crying as he told me this, and I wasn't either. It's hard to explain, but a certain kind of horror is beyond tears. Tears would be like worrying about watermarks on the furniture when the house is burning down.

Ismene wasn't killed; she was taken.

Try as I would, I couldn't understand this. I was no longer so stupid as to ask why they didn't call the police, but still I couldn't see why they hadn't at least tried to get her back if they knew the police had taken her, and where. "Don't be upset with me," I said. "I know I'm ignorant, I'm sorry. Just explain it to me."

But he wasn't upset. He seemed to get steadier and more patient when he explained things, as if he were teaching a class. "Esperanza and I knew the names of twenty other union members," he said. "The teachers' union did not have open meetings. We worked in cells, and communicated by message. Most people knew only four other members by name. This is what I am saying: In Guatemala, you are careful. If you want to change something you can find yourself dead. This was not the-what do you call? The P.T.A."

"I understand."

"Three members had just been killed, including Esperanza's brother, but seventeen were still alive.

She and I knew every one of those seventeen, by name. Can you understand that this made us more useful alive than dead? For us to go after Ismene is what they wanted."

"So they didn't kill her, they just held her? Like... I don't know what. A worm on a goddamn hook?"

"A goddamn hook." He was looking away from me again. "Sometimes, after a while, usually... these children are adopted. By military or government couples who cannot have children."

I felt numb, as if I had taken some drug. "And you picked the lives of those seventeen people over getting your daughter back?" I said. "Or at least a chance at getting her back?"

"What would you do, Taylor?"

"I don't know. I hate to say it, but I really don't know. I can't even begin to think about a world where people have to make choices like that."

"You live in that world," he said quietly, and I knew this, but I didn't want to. I started to cry then, just tears streaming out all over and no stopping them. Estevan put his arm around me and I sobbed against his shoulder. The dam had really broken.

I was embarrassed. "I'm going to get snot on your clean shirt," I said.

"I don't know what it is, snot."

"Good," I said.

There was no way on earth I could explain what I felt, that my whole life had been running along on dumb luck and I hadn't even noticed.

"For me, even bad luck brings good things," I told him finally. "I threw out a rocker arm on my car and I got Turtle. I drove over broken glass on an off ramp and found Mattie." I crossed my arms tightly over my stomach, trying to stop myself from gulping air. "Do you know, I spent the first half of my life avoiding motherhood and tires, and now I'm counting them as blessings?"

Turtle showed up in the doorway again. I don't know how long she had been there, but she was looking at me with eyes I hadn't seen on her since that night on the Oklahoma plain.

"Come here, pumpkin," I said. "I'm okay, just sprung a leak, don't you worry. Do you want a drink of water?" She shook her head. "Just want to cuddle a few minutes?" She nodded, and I took her on my lap. Snowboots jumped onto the sofa again. I could feel the weight of him moving slowly across the back and down the other arm, and from there he curled into Estevan's lap. In less than a minute Turtle was asleep in my arms.

When I was a child I had a set of paper dolls. They were called the Family of Dolls, and each one had a name written on the cardboard base under the feet. Their names were Mom, Dad, Sis, and Junior. I played with those dolls in a desperate, loving way until their paper arms and heads disintegrated. I loved them in spite of the fact that their tight-knit little circle was as far beyond my reach as the football players' and cheerleaders' circle would be in later years.