Being around Mattie causes Taylor to look at her own lack of child-rearing skills. She feels incompetent as a parent and questions whether she is doing what is best for Turtle by keeping her. Kingsolver interjects a feminist viewpoint as Mattie goes to assist a customer. Taylor watches her and feels proud to see that a woman is accepted for doing a "man's" job.
As Mattie and Taylor walk out to Mattie's garden, Taylor hears someone walking overhead without shoes on. This reference to someone overhead further emphasizes the mystery that surrounds Mattie. Again, however, Taylor trusts that Mattie is in control and knows what is upstairs. She is beginning to trust Mattie more and more.
Note that Kingsolver relies on her background in natural history to describe the bugs and spiders that surface after the hail and rain, as well as the vegetable and flower garden thriving in the dry, desert soil behind Mattie's tire shop. Kingsolver's biology background becomes evident when Taylor later inquires about work at the Red Cross plasma center and refuses to sell her blood because "Blood is the body's largest organ."
