How It All Goes Down
Narrating her story from an unspecified point in the future, Taylor Greer begins The Bean Trees by summing up her childhood and adolescence in Kentucky—the place where she, much like the Soggy Bottom Boys' " Man of Constant Sorrow," was "borned and raised." In case that tune wasn't already in your head from reading those pages.
Anyway, after working hard and saving up money for five and a half years after high school, Marietta "Missy" Greer buys a beat up old '55 Volkswagen bug. After saying goodbye to her Mama, she hits the road for good, not intending to ever look back. To mark the occasion, she changes her name, reinventing herself as Taylor Greer after stopping for gas in Taylorville, Illinois. No, not after Taylor Swift.
Hundreds of miles later, ex-Missy is forced to stop for repairs in the plains outside of Oklahoma City. After grabbing a cheap bite to eat at a bar, something totally unexpected happens.
We know, you were totally expecting something unexpected. But come on, you can't expect newly named Taylor to have known.
Here we go: as Taylor gets into her car and prepares to drive away, a Cherokee woman comes out and taps on the windshield. The woman removes a small child from under the blanket she's wearing, and insists that Taylor take the child with her when she goes. Um, what?
At least, that's pretty much Taylor's reaction: she's too baffled to do much of anything, and the woman takes off before she can refuse. Soon, everyone else from the bar is gone too, and Taylor is left with an unknown child on her hands. Thinking that a good night's rest might help her to think things through, she gets back on the road, and looks for a motel.
So what do you do when you've got a strange kid in a motel room? You make them take a bath, of course. But this isn't a scene for rubber ducky: as she takes off the little girl's clothing, Taylor sees something that makes her sick to her stomach: the child has been badly abused. Cue the violins and the rising sympathy. Later that night, after the kid falls asleep, Taylor makes the decision to keep her.
After spending a couple of weeks working for room, board, and minimal pay at the same motel, Taylor gets back on the road with the child, whom she's named Turtle. Yes, Turtle. Is she trying to make it sound more Native American? Is she just confused after her own re-naming experience? Yet another of the profound debates of The Bean Trees. Anyway, the two drive west until two flat tires take them off the road for good in Tucson, Arizona. Which is as good a reason as any to decide to stay there.
After scraping by as best she can for a few weeks, Taylor eventually nails down a job and a place to live. The job is at Jesus Is Lord Used Tires, which is bound to be as good a marketing strategy as any, where she works for a new friend named Mattie. The place is a room in the home of Lou Ann Ruiz, another new friend who'll soon become a permanent fixture in Taylor's life.
As you might guess, time passes. And as it does, Taylor gets to be part of a close community of neighbors and friends. Isn't that lucky? As she and Lou Ann work and raise their children, Taylor also learns more about the dangers and injustices that life can bring. Through new friends like Estevan and Esperanza—Guatemalan refugees on the run from police tyranny and dictatorial state control—Taylor's eyes are slowly being opened to a world she never knew. And it all started with changing the ole name!
While Taylor is learning more about the harshness of the world, Turtle is slowly recovering from the physical, mental, and emotional effects of the abuse she lived through in her early life. Under Taylor's care, and with the help of friends and neighbors like Lou Ann, Mattie, and others, Turtle is growing, opening up, beginning to speak, and becoming more happy and trusting. Wouldn't you like to cue the rubber ducky song again?
But it's a novel, so you know positive movement early on ain't gonna last. One terrible night, Turtle is attacked in a local park. Although the physical harm is not as bad as it might have been, the trauma sends her back into the catatonic state she was in when Taylor first took her away from Oklahoma. Faced with Turtle's trauma and regression, Taylor sinks into a deep depression of her own. For a little while, things look pretty grim.
The attack has another consequence too: Arizona's child services learn that Taylor has no real claim as Turtle's legal guardian. Taylor is faced with the possibility of losing the kid, but decides to fight for her. Following the advice of a sympathetic social worker who says she's on Taylor's side, Taylor decides to drive back to Oklahoma to find Turtle's family, and have them sign over the child for good.
Taylor's decision solves another problem too. Up to this point, Estevan and Esperanza have been living at Mattie's place, but Mattie has been increasingly worried that a raid by Immigration might be coming soon. She's been wanting to move Estevan and Esperanza to a new safe-house in Oklahoma, but hasn't had the means to do it. Since Taylor is planning to drive there with Turtle, she offers to bring Estevan and Esperanza along. Yes, the whiffs of increasing drama are getting stronger.
Soon, Taylor, Turtle, Estevan, and Esperanza light out for the Oklahoma flatlands. Road trip! Okay, not that kind of road trip. Still, aside from one dicey encounter with Immigration on the way, they make it to the Great Plain without so much as an out-of-service sign at a gas station. Estevan and Esperanza want to help Taylor find Turtle's family, so the group decides to stick together for a little while.
But don't expect things to be so easy. Once Taylor makes her way back to the bar where Turtle was given to her, she discovers that its previous owner is gone, and there's no one left who might recognize the woman she describes. Think going back to the place you went to high school and instead it's a hospital where no one's ever heard of Mrs. Baker, but they'll give you a shot for hepatitis if you're lucky.
Dealing with the fear that she'll never find Turtle's family, Taylor decides to spend one last day in Cherokee Nation territory. She rents a cabin nearby-ish at a spot called Lake o' the Cherokees, and she, Turtle, Estevan, and Esperanza enjoy their final day together.
That night, after Turtle is sound asleep, Taylor asks Estevan and Esperanza if they'll do her one last favor. If you can't tell, it's kind of a big deal. They agree. Do you feel the suspense??
The next day, Taylor, Estevan, and Esperanza take Turtle to the office of a public notary in Oklahoma City. There, Estevan and Esperanza pretend to be Turtle's birth parents, and they make an official statement that they want Taylor to be Turtle's legal guardian. The notary—who is not a member of the Cherokee Nation—accepts their story, and signs off on the whole thing. Yep, that Spanish accent just isn't enough for some folks to distinguish Guatemalan illegal immigrants from the Cherokee folk right yon down the road.
Afterwards, Taylor drives Estevan and Esperanza to their new safe-house, and leaves them there after a painful goodbye. She and Turtle kill some time in Oklahoma City while they wait for the last of the adoption paperwork to be done, and then, together, they start the long drive back to Tucson. Because that's the place that's going to be their home. So adopted mom and kid get to stay together. Happy ending, right? Let's leave it at that for now.