“Cash showed me a real old one. It was all beat up, with hair coming out of it.”
“Exactly. Animal hair. The mothers cooked up a stew made out of that, and fed it to the boys when they came home for lunch. The boys were disgusted. They said, ‘This is pig food!’
And the mothers said, ‘Well, if that’s true then you must be pigs.’ The boys got up from the table and went down to the stomp grounds and ran in circles around the ball court, just yelling. The mothers ran after them, ready to forgive their rowdy boys and forget the whole thing, but right in front of their eyes the boys started turning into pigs.”
“Law,” Alice says earnestly. “They must of felt awful.”
“They did. They tried to grab their sons by the tails, and they begged the spirits to bring them back, but it was too late. The pigs ran so fast they were just a blur, and they started rising up into the sky. The spirits put them up there to stay. To remind parents always to love their kids no matter what, I guess, and cut them a little slack.”
Alice looks up for a long time. “I swear there’s seven,” she says.
The owl hoots again, nearer this time.
“Maybe so,” Annawake says. “The Six Pigs in Heaven, and the one mother who wouldn’t let go.”
31
HEN APPLES
IN THE ROAD AHEAD, A dead armadillo lies with its four feet and tail an pointed at the heavens. The stiff, expectant curl of its body reminds Taylor of a teddy bear, abandoned there on its back She reaches into the glove compartment and puts on her sunglasses so Turtle won’t see her eyes.
Alice is backseat driving from the front seat, because she knows the roads. Turtle got used to the front seat on their long drive from the Northwest, and has now staked out a place between her mother and grandmother. She flatly re-fused the backseat when Taylor suggested it. Earlier today, Taylor confided to Alice that Turtle seems to be in a baffling new phase of wanting to have her own way; Alice replied,
“About durn time.”
“That was your turn right there. You missed it,” Alice says.
“Well, great, Mama. Why didn’t you let me get another mile down the road before you told me?”
Alice is quiet while Taylor turns the wheel, arm over arm, exaggerating the effort it takes to pull the Dodge around. Taylor can’t stand it when she and Alice are at odds.
The three female generations sit staring ahead at the Muskogee Highway, torn asunder, without a single idea of where the family is headed.
Alice speaks up again, this time well before the turn. “That stoplight up there. You’ll turn into the parking lot light after that. Her office is in there next to a beauty shop, says Turnbo Legal something or other on the door.”
Taylor pulls into a fast-food restaurant before the light.
“I’m going to drop you two off right here, okay? I need to talk to her first. You can have a snack and play around a little bit, and come on over to the office in fifteen minutes or so. That sound okay, Turtle?”
“Yeah.”
“No milk shake, okay, Mama? She’s lactose intolerant.”
“She’s what?”
“She can’t drink milk.”
“It’s because I’m Indian,” Turtle says with satisfaction.
“Well, aren’t you the one?” Alice asks, helping her out of the car, doting on Turtle as she has since their arrival in Oklahoma. The two of them are getting on like thieves, Taylor observes.
“Fifteen minutes, okay, Mama?”
“Right. We’ll see you.” She pauses before slamming the door, bending down to peer under the top of the doorframe at Taylor. “Hon, we’re all upset. But you know I’m pulling for you. You never did yet let a thing slip away if you wanted it. I know you can do this.”
Taylor pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head and wipes her eyes, suddenly flooded with tears. “Do you have a hanky?”
Alice shakes a wad of pale blue tissues out of her purse.
“Here. One for the road.”
“Mama, you’re the best.”
“You just think that cause I raised you.” Alice reaches in to give Taylor’s shoulder a squeeze, then closes the door.
Turtle is already off, her pigtails whipping as she runs for the glassy box of a restaurant. Taylor takes a breath and drives the two final blocks to her destiny.
In the row of commercial fronts, between a realty office and a place called Killie’s Hair Shack, she locates the law office. It seems deserted, but when she knocks on the glass door, Annawake appears suddenly behind the glare. The door slants open. Annawake’s face is an open book of nerves, and her hair is different, a short, swinging black skirt of it around her face.