All We Had by Annie Weatherwax

the guardrail, stooped and gazing down. Simple logic would never cheer my mother up. I knew her biggest weakness, though: she was squeamish. So I did the only thing that always worked: I rattled off all the most disgusting ways in which our lives could be worse. “We could have flesh-eating bacteria and uncontrollable diarrhea. We could have flesh-eating bacteria, uncontrollable diarrhea, and tapeworm. We could have flesh-eating bacteria, uncontrollable diarrhea, tapeworm, and elephantiasis.”
    â€œStop!” she finally said. “Okay, okay, let’s just keep going.”
    By the time we made it back to Tiny’s, the restaurant was dark. But the bare bulb hanging just inside the gas station still glowed. Mel was there, sitting behind the register reading his paper. He folded the two halves together, then turned the page.
    My mother pulled her brush out and ran it through her hair. She bent over and fluffed it upside down. She tossed her head back and when she shook it, her hair bounced in paisley swirls, then settled gently on her shoulders.
    â€œDo I look okay?” she tilted her face in my direction.
    A smudge above her eye went all across her forehead.
    I stuck my hand in my pocket. “Here.” I pulled out a napkin and wiped it off.
    â€œAnything else?” She moved closer. “Look carefully.” She turned her head side to side and presented each cheek to me. So I wrapped the napkin around my finger and blended in her rouge. Then I traced her mouth and tidied up her lipstick.
    â€œThere,” I said. “You’re perfect.”
    She sighed a half smile. “No, really.”
    â€œYou look gorgeous, Mom.”
    â€œ Oh, please .”
    â€œYou do. You look like an actress.” She loved it when I said that.
    â€œYou really think so?”
    It was true. Like in the movies, she looked beautiful, no matter how bad the lighting was.
    â€œTotally.”
    My mother shrugged a shoulder, batted her eyes, and, as if to prove my point, gave a bashful little smile just like Meryl Streep would.
    A breeze moved through the trees. A fragment of the moon dimpled the cloud above us. My mother pulled her tube top up and expelled one quick breath. “Okay, then,” she said, “let’s go.” With her head held high she took center stage and strutted across the parking lot.
    Mel saw us coming. He pulled his glasses off, put his paper down, and stepped out from behind the register.
    With me behind her, my mother marched right in, slapped our last five-dollar bill down on the counter, and started talking. She went on and on, the whole story tumbling out about how she’d distracted him and I had only pretended I needed to go to the bathroom. “But we were hungry,” she said, “and I don’t know if you’ve ever been hungry, but it can be blinding. And now my car won’t start.”
    There was a rip at the seam of her tube top held together by safety pins. There was a knot in the back of her hair that she’d missed. But she looked Mel in the eyes and she didn’t sound fake. She sounded like herself—strong and human and not ashamed of anything. This was who she really was, but she almost never showed it. “Keep your guard up,” she always told me. “Life, at any moment, will knock you down and kick you in the teeth.”
    â€œPlease,” my mother said. “I don’t have much, but I’m a real hard worker, and so is she.” My mother grabbed me and pulled me forward.
    Superheroes, I realized, don’t fly or look like Jesus. They driveused Fords like my mother’s and they take their kids with them no matter where they go.
    I took my hands out of my jean pockets, pushed my glasses up my nose, stood up straight, and smiled. Mel’s eyes shifted and when he saw me grinning, a piece of him softened.
    â€œYou got any waitressing experience?” he asked.

Part Two

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Work
    I t