Even with this on her mind, she spent a lot of time talking with me about Turtle. She told me some things I didn't know. Obviously Mattie knew what there was to know about loopholes. She was pretty sure that there were ways a person could adopt a child without going through the state.

But I confessed to Mattie that even if I could find a way I wasn't sure it would be the best thing for Turtle.

"Remember when I first drove up here that day in January?" I asked her one morning. We were sitting in the back in the same two chairs, drinking coffee out of the same two mugs, though this time I had the copulating rabbits. "Tell me the honest truth. Did you think I seemed like any kind of a decent parent?"

"I thought you seemed like a bewildered parent. Which is perfectly ordinary. Usually the bewilderment wears off by the time the kid gets big enough to eat peanut butter and crackers, but knowing what I do now, I can see you were still in the stage most mothers are in when they first bring them home from the hospital."

I was embarrassed to think of how Mattie must have seen straight through my act. Driving up here like the original tough cookie in jeans and a red sweater, with my noncommittal answers and smart remarks, acting like two flat tires were all in a day's work and I just happened to have been born with this kid growing out of my hip, that's how cool I was. I hadn't felt all that tough on the inside. The difference was, now I felt twice that old, and too tired to put on the show.

"You knew, didn't you? I didn't know the first thing about how to take care of her. When you told me that about babies getting dehydrated it scared the living daylights out of me. I realized I had no business just assuming I could take the responsibility for a child's life."

"There's not a decent mother in the world that hasn't realized that."

"I'm serious, Mattie."

She smiled and sipped her coffee. "So am I."

"So how does a person make a decision that important? Whether or not they're going to do it?"

"Most people don't decide. They just don't have any choice. I've heard you say yourself that you think the reason most people have kids is because they get pregnant."

I stared at the coffee grounds that made a ring in the bottom of the white mug. Back in Pittman I'd heard of a fairly well-to-do woman who made her fortune reading tea leaves and chicken bones, which she kept in a bag and would scatter across her kitchen floor like jacks. On the basis of leaves and bones, she would advise people on what to do with their lives. No wonder she was rich. It seems like almost anything is better than having only yourself to blame when you screw things up.

"Taylor, honey, if you don't mind my saying so I think you're asking the wrong question."

"How do you mean?"

"You're asking yourself, Can I give this child the best possible upbringing and keep her out of harm's way her whole life long? The answer is no, you can't. But nobody else can either. Not a state home, that's for sure. For heaven's sake, the best they can do is turn their heads while the kids learn to pick locks and snort hootch, and then try to keep them out of jail. Nobody can protect a child from the world. That's why it's the wrong thing to ask, if you're really trying to make a decision."

"So what's the right thing to ask?"

"Do I want to try? Do I think it would be interesting, maybe even enjoyable in the long run, to share my life with this kid and give her my best effort and maybe, when all's said and done, end up with a good friend."

"I don't think the state of Arizona's looking at it that way."

"I guarantee you they're not."

It occurred to me to wonder whether Mattie had ever raised kids of her own, but I was afraid to ask. Lately whenever I'd scratched somebody's surface I'd turned up a ghost story. I made up my mind not to bring it up.

I called for an appointment to meet with Cynthia alone, without Turtle. In past appointments she had talked about legal claim and state homes and so forth in Turtle's presence. Granted Turtle had been occupied with the new selection of toys offered by the Department of Economic Security, but in my experience she usually got the drift of what was going on, whether or not she appeared to be paying attention. If either I or the state of Arizona was going to instill in this child a sense of security, discussing her future and ownership as though she were an item of commerce wasn't the way to do it. The more I thought about this, the madder I got. But that wasn't what I intended to discuss with Cynthia.

The appointment was on a Friday afternoon. I started to lose my nerve again when I saw her in her office, her eyes made up with pale green shadows and her hair pulled back in a gold barrette. I don't believe Cynthia was much older than I was, but you put somebody in high-heeled pumps and sit her behind a big desk and age is no longer an issue-she is more important than you are, period.