'Turtles, He Said, Carry Their Homes on Their Backs' by Patricia Bender

One day, before they came and took him away, our Dad found a turtle and pretended it was a rock. He picked it up gesturing to us like he was going to put it in his pocket with the other rocks he’d been collecting to put in the garden. We could all see the turtle’s feet and the circles covering its shell and we shouted from the river’s edge: No, no that’s a turtle. Don’t put it in your pocket, it’ll be dark in there. Our Dad acted surprised that he mistook a turtle for a rock and told us how great they were, turtles, so smart and hardworking. And how their shells protected them. He apologized to the turtle and to turtles everywhere for his mistake. Because he told us what you do to one, you do to many. And he promised the turtle before he put it down by the water’s edge to be more careful. Later that morning we found a rock that looked like a turtle and brought it home. For a long time, we would point out the turtle rock in the garden, which for some reason our Dad had almost hidden under the blue hydrangeas, which we called snowballs. We told this story over and over, about the turtle and the turtle rock like it just happened. We told it to each other; we told anyone who would listen. After they took our Dad, we didn’t tell the turtle story or any other story about him because it made our Mother cry and that we had promised our Dad we would never do.