The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty Page A

coming out in just one breath.
    “I’m sorry,” I say.
    “Great. How are you going to get to school?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Great.”
    “Mr. Mitchell?”
    She laughs, but there’s no smile in it. “I don’t think so.” She puts another washcloth under the faucet and presses it against my mouth. “He can’t even give me rides anymore, okay? We’re screwed.”
    Something is wrong. Usually when I get home, she still smells like Peterson’s. But now she is already wearing jeans and the gray sweatshirt, her hair wet from the shower.
    “Why can’t he give you rides?”
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    I take the washcloth off my lip, looking down at the small circles of blood seeping into the cloth. If there was a fight between my mother and Mrs. Mitchell, my mother, younger and taller, would probably win. But maybe not. Mrs. Mitchell’s diamond ring would cut across my mother’s face, leaving blood, a long, deep scratch. My mother has no rings, and would have to fight bare-handed.
    “Evelyn, keep the washcloth up.” She pushes my hand against my face hard enough to make my head jerk back, and she moves her hand away quickly and goes back to the other side of the room. We look at each other, saying nothing.

five
    I WAIT UNTIL THE NEXT day, when she isn’t so mad, to tell her I won the science fair. We are in the bathroom, and she is still wearing her nightgown, dabbing stinging peroxide on the cut on my lip, but when she hears this, she stops and almost smiles.
    “Out of the whole class?”
    I nod.
    “Then stick with lima beans, Rocky,” she says, touching the cotton ball to my lip. “Stay out of the ring.”
    She says she will figure out a way for us to get to Topeka when the time comes, and I shouldn’t worry about that at all. But there is no way to get anywhere right now, to work or to school, so when Monday comes, we both just stay home. It should be fun, but it isn’t. All day there is a steady, gray rain that makes me want to sleep. We eat peanut butter and Wonder Bread. We watch game shows that run into each other until the whole day is gone. The school calls in the afternoon, telling her I’m not there, wanting to know why.
    “She’s sick,” my mother tells them, switching the phone to her other ear.
    They want to know what kind of sick. My mother frowns and looks down at me. “Carsick. She’ll be back next week.”
    We walk to the Kwikshop across the highway, and the manager tells my mother no, they aren’t hiring, but maybe something will open up in the fall. She buys milk and a box of oatmeal. At home, she calls restaurants, hotels, and banks. She tells secretaries and answering machines that she can’t type, but she can talk talk talk, to just about anybody, and that she will also need a ride to and from work. She will learn to type, she says. She is a fast learner. No one calls back. After a while, she stops calling and just looks out the window, watching the rain.

    On Tuesday, Mr. Mitchell knocks on the door, holding a bag from Taco Bell. “Hi,” he says, his eyes on my mother’s face.
    We eat together at the table. He tells me he made the tacos himself, and that the people at Taco Bell let him come in and use their kitchen anytime. My mother laughs, her hand over her mouth. I understand he is not supposed to be here, that his being here is somehow illegal. But he’s here anyway, like Mrs. Mitchell stopped existing, not just here, but anywhere. She didn’t win the fight after all. She made him choose, and he chose us.
    The next day, he comes back, this time carrying paper sacks of groceries from his truck, holding a red umbrella between his head and his shoulder. He is wet with rain and breathing hard by the time he gets to our door. “Ho ho ho,” he says, his hand on top of my head.
    I take one of the bags from him and look inside. Canned green beans. Frozen broccoli. But also ice cream, chocolate syrup. He lifts a head of lettuce out of another bag, two bars of