The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty Page A

at the white Volkswagen bug.
    “That’s our car,” she says, like no one else knows this. She looks at Mr. Mitchell with her small eyes. “You gave them our car?” Mr. Mitchell gets out of the truck, letting the door slam behind him. We watch him pop open the back of the Volkswagen and stand there, looking at it and shaking his head. I’m scared to talk. Mrs. Mitchell is not saying anything, but something about her, something invisible coming out of the back of her head like ultraviolet rays, makes me scared to move, even my head, even my mouth. My mother isn’t moving either.
    Mrs. Mitchell reaches up to the rearview mirror, tilting it so she can see my mother’s face. “So, uh…Tina,” she says. The way she says this makes it sound like just my mother’s name is something bad, something you don’t want to be called. “You don’t have any family or anyone who could have come and picked you up?”
    My mother waits so long to answer that at first I think she won’t, but then she clears her throat and says, “Well, if I had, I suppose I would have called them.”
    “I suppose. How long have you been working for Merle?”
    “About four years.”
    Out of the corner of my eye, I can see my mother is actually biting her tongue, the pink tip of it sticking out from between her teeth. She reaches over the front seat and opens Mr. Mitchell’s door.
    “Let me out, Evelyn.”
    I get out quickly, shutting the door behind us.
    “No,” she says. “You get back in. I need to talk to Mr. Mitchell.”
    “With her? No way.”
    “Get in now.”
    I get back in the truck. Mrs. Mitchell and I watch my mother walk over to Mr. Mitchell, her body making a shadow like the number eight in the headlights. I’m hungry, and I’m sick of this day. If I were at home, I would be in bed by now, asleep or reading Nancy Drew, my teeth brushed, my hair wet from the shower. They shouldn’t have left me in the truck alone with Mrs. Mitchell. The keys are still in the ignition. She could drive away, take me with her.
    “So, Evelyn…It’s Evelyn, isn’t it?” she asks, turning around, smiling with only her mouth. “Why did you-all go to Wichita?”
    “To see Eileen.”
    “Who’s Eileen?”
    “My grandmother.”
    My mother and Mr. Mitchell are both peering into the engine of the car, winged insects swirling around their heads. My mother says something, and he laughs.
    “So, where’s your daddy?”
    “Huh?”
    “Your father. Where is he?”
    I shrug my shoulders. I don’t want to talk to her anymore.
    She clicks her tongue, frowns. “Do you know who your daddy is, honey?”
    I stare at her. She stares back, the muscles in her face tight and still. She reaches over the seat and tries to pat me on the hand. She has a diamond ring, a white flicker in the darkness. “You poor thing,” she says. “It’s not your fault.”
    Mr. Mitchell and my mother walk slowly back to the truck, Mr. Mitchell with his hands in his pockets, looking down at his feet. When Mrs. Mitchell gets out of the truck to let my mother in, she doesn’t look at my mother, and my mother doesn’t look at her.
    “If that car was a horse, I’d have shot it long ago,” Mr. Mitchell says, starting up the truck’s loud engine. “Even if you get the clutch figured out, the transmission’s bound to go next.”
    “Well,” my mother says. “At least it got me to work.”
    “Yeah. I’ll give you a ride until we can find something else for you.”
    My mother says thank you, but it is difficult to hear her because Mrs. Mitchell makes another hissing sound. Mr. Mitchell turns toward her, braking the truck so quickly that we all slide forward and then jerk back. He and Mrs. Mitchell look at each other, unblinking, for maybe three seconds.
    But it seems longer, sitting in the backseat.
    And now I know my mother shouldn’t have called Mr. Mitchell for a ride, even if it meant we had to hitchhike, or call the police. Now Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell are in a fight,