The Bean Trees

by Barbara Kingsolver

  The rhizobia are not actually part of the plant, they are separate creatures, but they always live with legumes: a kind of underground railroad moving secretly up and down the roots.

  "It's like this," I told Turtle. "There's a whole invisible system for helping out the plant that you'd never guess was there." I loved this idea. "It's just the same as with people. The way Edna has Virgie, and Virgie has Edna, and Sandi has Kid Central Station, and everybody has Mattie. And on and on."

  The wisteria vines on their own would just barely get by, is how I explained it to Turtle, but put them together with rhizobia and they make miracles.

  At four o'clock we went to the Oklahoma County Courthouse to pick up the adoption papers. On Mr. Armistead's directions we found a big bright office where about twenty women sat typing out forms. All together they made quite a racket. The one who came to the front counter had round-muscled shoulders bulging under her pink cotton blazer and a half grown-out permanent in her straight Cherokee hair--a body trying to return to its natural state. She took our names and told us to have a seat, that it would be awhile. The waiting made me nervous, even though no one here looked important enough to stop what had already been set in motion. It was only a roomful of women with typewriters and African violets and pictures of their kids on their desks, doing as they were told. Still, I was afraid of sitting around looking anxious, as if one of them might catch sight of me fidgeting and cry out, "That's no adoptive mother, that's an impostor!" I could imagine them all then, scooting back their chairs and scurrying after me in their high-heeled pumps and tight skirts.

  I needed to find something to do with myself. I asked if there was a telephone I could use for long distance. The muscular woman directed me to a pay phone out in the hall.

  I dialed Lou Ann. It seemed to take an eternity for all the right wires to connect, and when she finally did take the call she sounded even more nervous than I was, which was no help.

  "It's okay, Lou Ann, everything's fine, I just called collect because I'm about out of quarters. But we'll have to keep it short or we'll run up the phone bill."

  "Oh, hell's bells, Taylor, I don't even care." Lou Ann relaxed immediately once she knew we hadn't been mangled in a car crash. "I don't know how many times this week I've said I'd give a million dollars to talk to Taylor, so here's my chance. It just seems like everything in the world has happened. Where in the tarnation are you, anyway?"

  "Oklahoma City. Headed home." I hesitated. "So what all's happened? You've decided to take Angel back? Or go up there and live in his yurdle, or whatever?"

  "Angel? Heck no, not if you paid me. Listen, do you know what his mother told me? She said Angel just wants what he can't have. That I'd no sooner get up to Montana before he'd decide he'd had enough of me again. She said I was worth five or six of Angel."

  "His own mother said that?"

  "Can you believe it? Of course it was all in Spanish, I had to get it secondhand, but that was the general gist. And it makes sense, don't you think? Isn't there some saying about not throwing good loving after bad?"

  "I think it's money they say that about. Good money after bad."

  "Well, the same goes, is what I say. Oh shoot, can you hang on a second? Dwayne Ray's got something about ready to put in his mouth." I waited while she saved Dwayne Ray's got something about ready to put in his mouth." I wanted while she saved Dwayne Ray from his probably nineteen-thousandth brush with death. I loved Lou Ann.

  Turtle was playing the game where you see how far you can get without touching the floor, walking only on the furniture. She was doing pretty well. There was a long row of old-fashioned wooden benches with spindle backs and armrests, lined up side by side down one wall of the hallway. For some reason it made me think of a chain gang--a hundred guys could sit on those benches, all handcuffed together. Or a huge family, I suppose, waiting for some important news. They could all hold hands.

  "Okay, I'm back. So there's one more thing I have to tell you. Remember about the meteors? I called up Ramona Quiroz in San Diego, long distance. There wasn't any meteor shower. Not at all! Can you believe it? That was just the absolute last straw."

  "Well, thank heavens," I said. It occurred to me that nobody else on earth could have understood what Lou Ann had just said.

  "So that's the scoop, Angel's history. Now I'm seeing this guy from Red Hot Mama's by the name of Cameron John. Cameron's his first name and John's his last. Can you believe it?"

  "I had a science teacher like that once," I said. "So does Red Hot Mama's give out a sex manual for the chile packers--how to do it without touching anything?"

  "Taylor, I swear. He does tomatillos, and I just boss people now, as you very well know. Anyway I can't wait till you meet him, to see what you think. I know Mama would take one look and keel over dead--he's about seven feet tall and black as the ace of spades. But, Taylor, he is so sweet. My biggest problem is I keep feeling like I don't deserve anybody to be that nice to me. He invited me over for dinner and made this great something or other with rice and peanuts and I don't know what all. He used to be a Rastafarian."

  "A what?"

  "Rastafarian. It's a type of religion. And he's got this dog, a Doberman pinscher? Named Mister T, only Cameron didn't name it that, somebody gave it to him. It's got pierced ears, Taylor, I swear to God, with all these little gold rings. I can't believe I actually went out with this guy. I've gotten so brave hanging around you. Six months ago it would have scared the living daylights out of me just to have to walk by him on the street."

  "Which, Cameron or Mister T?"

  "Either one. And oh, I can't tell you, he was so good with Dwayne Ray. It just made me want to cry, or take a picture or something, to see this great big man playing with a little teeny pale white baby."

  "So are you moving in with him, or what?" I tried my best to sound happy for her.

  "What, me?" No! Cameron's sweet as can be, but I'm real content with things the way they are now. To tell you the truth, I'm sure you're a lot easier to live with than him and Mister T."

  "Oh. Well, I'm glad."

  "Taylor, remember that time you were made at me because you didn't want us to act like a family? That all we needed was a little dog named Spot? Well, don't get mad, but I told somebody that you and Turtle and Dwayne Ray were my family. Somebody at work said, 'Do you have family at home?' And I said, 'Sure,' without even thinking. I meant you all. Mainly I guess because we've been through hell and high water together. We know each other's good and bad sides, stuff nobody else knows."

  It was hard for me to decide what to say.

  "I don't mean till death do us part, or anything," she said. "But nothing on this earth's guaranteed, when you get right down to it, you know? I've been thinking about that. About how your kids aren't really yours, they're just these people that you try to keep an eye on, and hope you'll all grow up someday to like each other and still be in one piece. What I mean is, everything you ever get is really just on loan. Does that make sense?"

  "Sure," I said. "Like library books. Sooner or later they've all got to go back into the night drop."

  "Exactly. So what's the point worrying yourself sick about it. You'd just as well enjoy it while you've got it."

  "I guess you could say we're family," I said. I watched Turtle climb over the armrests onto the last bench by the front door, which stood wide open to the street. She turned around and looked for me, and started making her way back.

  There was silence on the other end of the line. "Lou Ann? You still there?" I asked.

  "I can't stand the suspense, Taylor. Do you still have her?"

  "Have who?"

  "Turtle, for heaven's sake."

  "Oh, sure. She's my legal daughter now."

  "What!" Lou Ann shrieked. "You're kidding!"

  "Nope. It's done, for all practical purposes. There's still some rigamarole in court for getting a birth certificate that takes about six months, but that's not too bad. It takes longer than that to make a kid f
rom scratch, is how I look at it."

  "I can't believe it. You found her mother? Or her aunt, or whatever it was?"

  I looked down the hall. "I can't really talk here. We'll be home in two days at the outside, and I'll tell you everything then, okay? But it's going to take all night and a lot of junk food. Do you know what? I missed your salsa. The medium, though, not the firecracker style."

  Lou Ann's breath came out like a slow leak in a tire. "Taylor, I was scared to death you'd come back without her."

  We had cleared Oklahoma City and were out on the plain before sundown. It felt like old times, heading into the low western horizon. I let Turtle see the adoption certificate and she looked at it for a very long time, considering that there were no pictures on it.

  "That means you're my kid," I explained, "and I'm your mother, and nobody can say it isn't so. I'll keep that paper for you till you're older, but it's yours. So you'll always know who you are."

  She bobbed her head up and down like a hen, with her eyes fixed on something out the window that only she could see.

  "You know where we're going now? We're going home."

  She swung her heels against the seat. "Home, home, home, home," she sang.

  The poor kid had spent so much of her life in a car, she probably felt more at home on the highway than anywhere else. "Do you remember home?" I asked her. "That house where we live with Lou Ann and Dwayne Ray? We'll be there before you know it."

  But it didn't seem to matter to Turtle, she was happy where she was. The sky went from dust-color to gray and then cool black sparked with stars, and she was still wide awake. She watched the dark highway and entertained me with her vegetable-soup song, except that now there were people mixed in with the beans and potatoes: Dwayne Ray, Mattie, Esperanza, Lou Ann and all the rest.

  And me. I was the main ingredient.

  About the Author

  BARBARA KINGSOLVER grew up in eastern Kentucky. She is the author of eight books, including three other novels (Animal Dreams, Pigs in Heaven, and most recently, The Poisonwood Bible), a collection of stories (Homeland), and a book of essays (High Tide in Tucson). Since writing The Bean Tress, she has had two children, whom she raises with her husband, Steven Hopp. They live near the mountains outside of Tucson, Arizona.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Extraordinary Praise

  for

  Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees

  "THE BEAN TREES IS THE WORK OF A VISIONARY."

  --Los Angeles Times

  "A LIVELY NOVEL.... AN EASY BOOK TO ENJOY."

  --The New Yorker

  "LOVELY, FUNNY, TOUCHING AND HUMANE."

  --Kirkus Reviews

  "A SPIRITED, WARM BOOK, WRY AND AT THE SAME TIME REFRESHINGLY GUILELESS."

  --Ella Leffland

  High Tide in Tucson

  "A DELIGHTFUL, CHALLENGING, AND WONDERFULLY INFORMATIVE BOOK."

  --San Francisco Chronicle

  "Barbara Kingsolver's essays should be savored like quiet afternoons with a friend.... [SHE] SPEAKS IN A LANGUAGE RICH WITH MUSIC AND REPLETE WITH GOOD SENSE."

  --New York Times Book Review "THE ACCLAIMED NOVELIST'S EXTRAORDINARY POWERS OF OBSERVATION AND UNDERSTANDING OF CHARACTER SERVE HER BEAUTIFULLY IN THIS COLLECTION OF ESSAYS."

  --Entertainment Weekly

  "MS. KINGSOLVER POSSESSES THE RARE ABILITY TO SEE THE NATURAL WORLD WITH THE KEENNESS OF BOTH THE POET AND THE NATURALIST."

  --Washington Times

  Animal Dreams

  "KINGSOLVER IS A WRITER OF RARE AMBITION AND UNEQUIVOCAL TALENT.... Animal Dreams is a complex, passionate, bravely challenging book."

  --Chicago Tribune

  "KINGSOLVER PROBES THE HUMAN HEART WITH UNCOMMON WISDOM. Animal Dreams is a gracefully written, large-spirited novel. Anchored on the earth, it dares to soar into the ethereal."

  --New York Newsday

  "ONE OF THE YEAR'S BEST WORKS OF FICTION."

  --Detroit News and Free Press "ANIMAL DREAMS IS A NOVEL THAT FEELS CLOSER TO THE TRUTH ABOUT MODERN LIVES THAN ANYTHING I'VE READ IN A LONG TIME.... An astonishing book that ought to put Barbara Kingsolver in the first ranks of fiction writers."

  --Louise Bernikow,

  Cosmopolitan

  "Rich, complex, witty.... This is a sweet book, full of bitter pain; a beautiful weaving of the light and the dark. THIS ONE WILL BE WITH US FOR A LONG TIME."

  --Ursula K. Le Guin,

  Washington Post Book World

  Pigs in Heaven

  "A NOVEL FULL OF MIRACLES."

  --Newsweek

  "FULL OF WIT, COMPASSION, AND INTELLIGENCE."

  --People

  "THERE IS NO ONE QUITE LIKE BARBARA KINGSOLVER IN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE. Her dialogue sparkles with sassy wit and the earthy poetry of ordinary folks' talk; her descriptions have a magic lyricism rooted in daily life but also on familiar terms with the eternal."

  --Washington Post Book World "Possessed of an extravagantly gifted narrative voice, Kingsolver blends a fierce and abiding moral vision with benevolent, concise humor. HER MEDICINE IS MEANT FOR THE HEAD, THE HEART, AND THE SOUL."

  --New York Times Book Review Homeland and Other Stories

  "EXTRAORDINARILY FINE, Barbara Kingsolver has a Chekhovian tenderness toward her characters.... The title story is PURE POETRY."

  --Russell Banks,

  New York Times Book Review

  "KINGSOLVER'S HUMANITY SOUNDS THE CLEAREST NOTE...telling us about characters in the middle of their days, who live as we really do, from one small incident of awareness to the next."

  --Los Angeles Times

  "READ HOMELAND AND OTHER STORIES AND YOU WILL FEEL GLAD TO BE ALIVE. You are delighted by a gifted storyteller. You are strengthened by the toughness and tenderness she discerns in humanity's daily rounds."

  --New York Newsday

  Books by

  Barbara Kingsolver

  FICTION

  Prodigal Summer

  The Poisonwood Bible Pigs in Heaven

  Animal Dreams

  Homeland and Other Stories The Bean Trees

  NONFICTION

  Small Wonder: Essays

  High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never

  Holding the Line: Women in

  the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983

  POETRY

  Another America

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE BEAN TREES. Copyright (c) 1998 by Barbara Kingsolver. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition (c) APRIL 2007 ISBN: 9780061809699

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