

When she gets home, she nurses Dwayne Ray. They have lived together since Ivy married.Lou Ann talks to her mother about that, as she is so far away from her family.Īfter the women get on the bus to go back to Kentucky, Lou Ann stops to buy vegetables from Bobby Bingo, who sells them out of his truck. Lou Ann's mother, Ivy, is always in a fight with her grandmother, Granny Logan. Angel moves back in so that the women will not know they are getting a divorce. Her mother and grandmother come to visit for two weeks. Taylor cannot afford to replace the tires.She looks for a job but wonders what she will do with Turtle while she is working.

Mattie's late husband gave the business its peculiar name. This causes her to meet Mattie, the proprietor of Jesus is Lord Used Tires. After the New Year, the two head onto the road again.ĭue to a hailstorm, Taylor ends up getting off the highway in Tucson, where she gets two flat tires. The child does not speak and seems developmentally delayed, but Taylor believes she simply has her own way of doing things. She gives the child the name Turtle till she can figure out her real name.

Taylor stays at the motel for a few weeks, earning some money. She is left alone and unable to reach down to take off her shoes.She goes to sleep in her pantyhose and shoes and cries. He takes many things he thinks of as his. While Lou Ann was never bothered by this, Angel changed after the accident.Now, she is seven months pregnant, and she knows their marriage has fallen apart.Īngel leaves Lou Ann on Halloween. Her husband, Angel, got into an accident three years ago and lost one leg. Lou Ann Ruiz comes from Kentucky and lives in Tucson, Arizona. Now she realizes why the woman wanted to find a safe home for the child and that she is destined to take care of it. She discovers that it is a girl who has been horribly abused and molested. Taylor finds a motel willing to put her up for free and bathes the child. In Oklahoma on the Cherokee Nation, an Amerindian woman gives her a toddler and asks her to take care of it. In this car, she escapes a life where the town low-life family, the Hardbines, is a symbol of the desperation a life in rural Kentucky could become. She gets a job in the local hospital and saves up enough money to buy an old car. She explains that she decided not to get pregnant and to finish school because she does not want to be tied down in Kentucky. However, she does not keep this name long, adopting the name of Taylor when she leaves Kentucky. Her name is Marietta, but everyone calls her Missy because when she was three she insisted upon being called "Miss," just like the rich children for whom her mother worked. The protagonist grew up in rural Kentucky.
