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"Please don’t panic I’ you that your adoption papers et approval froet it"

"And what if they won’t give it?"

Annawake can’t think of the right answer to that question

Taylor demands, "How can you possibly think this is in Turtle’s best interest?"

"How can you think it’s good for a tribe to lose its children!" Annawake is startled by her own anger--she has shot without ai her head back and forth, back and forth

"I’hter

If you walked in here and asked ht think about it But you don’t get Turtle"

"There’s the child’s best interest and the tribe’s best interest, and I’s"

"Horseshit" Taylor turns away, facing the

Annawake speaks gently to her back "Turtle is Cherokee

She needs to know that"

"She knows it"

"Does she knohat it means? Do you? I’ll bet she sees Indians on TV and thinks: Hos and arrows That isn’t e are We have a written language as subtle as Chinese We had the first free public school system in the world, did you know that? We have a constitution and laws"

"Fine," Taylor says, her eyes wandering over the front yard but catching on nothing We have a constitution too, she thinks, and it is supposed to prevent terrible unfairness, but all she can rerade "We the people," she says out loud She walks over to the sink and picks up a soup ladle, then puts it back down The voice outside sings, "I can’t feel it You know they’re stealing it fro belly under her hands "I’ood mother," she says "I can tell that"

"How can you tell? Youa hand in the air "You don’t know the first thing about us"

"You’re right, I’ You seem to care about her a lot But she needs her tribe, too There are a lot of things she’ll need growing up that you can’t give her"

"Like what?"

"Where she cos, like milk, for instance I’ll bet she won’t drink ainst the ot so me who o when she was on death’s front stoop"