Part 1 of Essay
Taylor (born Marietta) grew up in Pittman, Kentucky, a small rural town where families "had kids just about as fast as they could fall down the well and drown," and a boy with a job as a gas-meter man was considered a "high-class catch." She needs to get out to get ahead and to avoid pregnancy. She succeeds on both counts ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... travel to Tucson, Arizona, where more car troubles land them at a shop known as Jesus Is Lord Used Tires. The owner of this odd establishment is a woman named Mattie, a serene, big-hearted soul who shelters political refugees from Guatemala, and who gives Taylor a job. Taylor and Turtle find a room with Lou Ann Ruiz, a self-described "ordinary Kentuckian a long way from home," and her newborn baby Dwayne Ray. The relationship between these two single mothers, one never married, one divorcing, and their relationshi ....