“Oh, picture it, girl, it’s a pretty sight. You remember Mrs. Wickentot? The one always wore high heels to the grocery and thought she was the cat’s meow?”

“Yeah, I remember. Her kids never would give me the time of day. They called me the Cleaning Lady’s Girl.”

“Well you can put it to rest now, because I told her off good when I quit. I told her if I had the kind of trash she has in her closets, and the way she lets those boys run wild, what I found under their beds, I just wouldn’t act so high and mighty, is what I told her.”

‘You told her that?”

“I did. And then some. All these years, you know, these ladies get to thinking they own you. That you wouldn’t dare breathe a word for fear of getting fired. Now I think they’re all scared to death I’m going to take out an ad in the paper.”

I could just see it, right on the back page under the obituaries and deed-of-trust announcements. Or better yet, on the society page:

“Alice Jean Greer Elleston wishes to announce that Irma Ruebecker has fifty-two pints of molded elderberry jelly in her basement; Mae Richey’s dishes would be carried off by the roaches if she didn’t have hired help; and Minerva Wickentot’s boys read porno magazines.”

I couldn’t stop laughing. “You ought to do it,” I said. “It would be worth the thirty-five cents a word.”

“Well, I probably won’t. But it’s good for a gal to have something like that up her sleeve, don’t you think?” She chuckled. “It makes people respect you.”

“Mama, you’re really something. I don’t know how the good Lord packed so much guts into one little person.” The words were no sooner out of my mouth before I realized this was something she used to say to me. In high school, when I was having a rough time of it, she said it practically every other day.

“How’s that youngun of yours?” Mama wanted to know. She never failed to ask.

“She’s fine. She’s asleep in the car right now or I’d put her on to say hi. Or peas and carrots, more likely. You never know what she’s going to say.”

“Well, she comes by that honest.”

“Don’t say that, Mama. That means it proves a baby’s not a bastard. If it acts like you, it proves it’s legitimate.”

“I never thought about it that way.”

“It’s okay. I guess I’m just sensitive, you know, since she’s not blood kin.”

“I don’t think blood’s the only way kids come by things honest. Not even the main way. It’s what you tell them, Taylor. If a person is bad, say, then it makes them feel better to tell their kids that they’re even worse. And then that’s just exactly what they’ll grow up to be. You remember those Hardbines?”

“Yeah. Newt. I especially remember Newt.”

“That boy never had a chance. He was just doing his best to be what everybody in Pittman said he was.”

“Mama, you were always so good to me. I’ve been meaning to tell you that. You acted like I’d hung up the moon. Sometimes I couldn’t believe you thought I was that good.”

“But most of the time you believed it.”

“Yeah. I guess most of the time I thought you were right.”

The operator came on and asked for more money. My pile of change was thinning out. “We’re just about done,” I told her, but she said this was for the minutes that we’d already talked. I was out of quarters and had to use a whole slew of nickels.

“Guess what?” I said to Mama after the coins had dropped. “Here’s the big news, Turtle’s my real daughter. I adopted her.”

“Did you? Now aren’t you smart. How’d you do that?”

“Kind of by hook or crook. I’ll tell you about it in a letter, it’s too complicated for long distance. But it’s all legal. I’ve got the papers to prove it.”

“Lord have mercy. Married and a legal grandma all in the same summer. I can’t wait to see her.”

“We’ll get back there one of these days,” I said. “Not this trip, but we will. I promise.”

“You better watch out, one of these days me and old Harland might just up and head for Arizona.”

“I wish you would.”

Neither of us wanted to hang up. We both said, “Bye,” about three times.

“Mama,” I said, “this is the last one. I’m hanging up now, okay? Bye. And say hi to Harland for me too, okay? Tell him I said be good to you or I’ll come whip his butt.”

“I’ll tell him.”

Turtle and I had a whole afternoon to kill in Oklahoma City while we waited for some paperwork on the adoption to clear. After her nap she was raring to go. She talked up a storm, and wanted to play with Esperanza’s medallion. I let her look at it in the side-view mirror.

“You have to keep it on,” I told her. “That’s St. Christopher, the guardian saint of refugees. I think you’d count. You’re about as tempest-tossed as they come.”

A tempest was a bad storm where things got banged around a lot. “Tempest-tossed” was from the poem on the Statue of Liberty that started out, “Give me your tired, your poor.” Estevan could recite the whole poem. Considering how America had treated his kind, he must have thought this was the biggest joke ever to be carved in giant letters on stone.

I tried not to think about Estevan, but after a while decided it felt better to think about him than not to. And Turtle was good company. We cruised around in Mattie’s Lincoln, a couple of free-wheeling females out on the town. Her favorite part was driving over the speed bumps at the Burger King.

During this time we had what I consider our second real conversation, the first having taken place at the foot of a pine tree at Lake o’ the Cherokees. It went something like this:

“What do you want to do?”

“Okay.”

“Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Well, where should we go, do you think? Anything in particular you want to see, as long as we’re here in the big city?”

“Ma Woo-Ahn.”

“Lou Ann’s at home. We’ll see her when we get home. And Edna and Virgie and Dwayne Ray and everybody.”

“Waneway?”

“That’s right.”

“Ma Woo-Ahn?”

“That’s right. Only let me tell you something. Starting right now, you’ve only got one Ma in the whole world. You know who that is?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Ma.”

“That’s right. That’s me. You’ve got loads of friends. Lou Ann’s your friend, and Edna and Mattie and all the others, and they all love you and take care of you sometimes. And Estevan and Esperanza were good friends too. I want you to remember them, okay?”

“Steban and Mespanza,” she nodded gravely.

“Close enough,” I said. “I know it’s been confusing, there’s been a lot of changes in the management. But from here on in I’m your Ma, and that means I love you the most. Forever. Do you understand what that means?”

“That beans?” She looked doubtful.

“You and me, we’re sticking together. You’re my Turtle.”

“Urdle,” she declared, pointing to herself.

“That’s right. April Turtle Greer.”

“Ableurdledear.”

“Exactly.”

On an impulse I called 1-800-THE LORD, from a public phone in the City Library where we’d come after Turtle decided she’d like to look at some books. I don’t know what possessed me to do it. I’d been saving it up all this time, like Mama and our head rights, and now that I’d hit bottom and survived, I suppose I knew that I didn’t really need any ace in the hole.

The line rang twice, three times, and then a recording came on. It told me that the Lord helps those that help themselves. Then it said that this was my golden opportunity to help myself and the entire Spiritual Body by making my generous contribution today to the Fountain of Faith missionary fund. If I would please hold the line an operator would be available momentarily to take my pledge. I held the line.

“Thank you for calling,” she said. “Would you like to state your name and address and the amount of your pledge?”

“No pledge,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know you’ve gotten me through some rough times. I always thought, If I really get desperate I can call 1-800-THE LORD.’ I just wanted to tell you, you have been a Fountain of Faith.”