The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty Read Free Book Online

lets go. “Tina,” he says, slowly, carefully, still looking at Eileen. “I’m willing to forgive you. I suggest you start to show some appreciation for that, given the present situation you have gotten yourself into.”
    “Forgive me,” she says. “Oh that’s so big of you. What a nice man you are.”
    “Tina, honey.” Eileen’s voice is just above a whisper, pleading. “Let’s just try…”
    “No.” She pulls her hand away, standing up. “I gave it a try, but I see that things are the same. Come on, Evelyn. Come on. Let’s go. We’re leaving.” She claps the way Eileen did. No more talking about horses. She pushes the bench back from the table, and now we are up, moving quickly down the baby-blue-carpeted hallway, back toward the front door. I hear his heavy footsteps behind us, his low voice yelling. “This is my house. I’ll say what I want when I’m right!”
    But we are already out the door, moving down the stairs to the car. I worry he will chase us, but when we get outside, he stays at the top of the steps, holding on to the little black railing. My mother unlocks my door for me, and once I am inside, she turns and looks up at him. For a moment, they both stand where they are, staring at each other. He is breathing heavily, his eyes steady on hers.
    “Then don’t come back.” He crosses his arms in front of him and brings them down quickly, like an umpire in baseball. “That’s it!”
    My mother rolls her eyes. “You know, fuck you,” she says, pointing up at him. “Fuck you for calling me that. I don’t want to come back, okay?”
    The women in the lawn chairs in the other yard have pushed up their sunglasses and put down their magazines.
    My grandfather holds his hand up like he is going to wave good-bye, but then brings it down, swatting the air like he is sick of us anyway, like he has had enough. I don’t know if he thinks I’m a little pumpkin anymore or not, but it doesn’t matter. I’m on her side now. He made her cry.
    He goes back inside, Eileen passing him in the doorway. She touches him on the shoulder and jogs across the yard toward us, her hand over her mouth.
    “Tina, don’t leave like this,” she says, holding the edge of my mother’s window. “You don’t want to leave it like this.”
    “Yes I do, Mom. Okay? Let go.”
    “But honey, this might be your last chance.” She is speaking softly, reaching into the car to smooth my mother’s hair. “Come back inside, and the three of us can sit down and talk. Tina, in his mind, you did something wrong, okay? But we’ve been talking a lot, and he wants to forgive. He wants to forgive you, baby.”
    My mother puts her hands in front of her face. There are tears on her neck now, seeping into the collar of the yellow dress. She hiccups, wiping her face on her shoulder. “He thinks I’m a bad person, and I’m not.” She thumps her hand against her chest, and then the steering wheel. “And it feels like I’m sick, Mom. It really does. We’re leaving, okay? Just let us go.”
    She turns the key in the ignition, and the seat belt alarm and Frank Sinatra come on. Eileen lets go of the window, giving me a little wave, her other hand cupped over her mouth. My mother pulls on the gearshift once with both hands, and we roll away. The house grows smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror, until we turn, and then it’s just gone.

    She can’t drive straight. There’s a stoplight up ahead on a yellow light, and she steps on the gas, trying to make it, but it turns red long before we get there.
    “We’re never going back there, Evelyn, I promise you that,” she says, looking up at the light. She wipes her nose with the skirt of her dress. “Never again.”
    “Okay.” I reach over to pat her on the knee. “It’s okay, Mom. Don’t cry.”
    She smiles then. She isn’t really crying now, but her nose is still running. She leans over and kisses me on top of my head. Someone honks. The light has turned green. She