The Center of Everything Read Online Free PDF Page B

wrong, at least about something.
    “Why doesn’t he come over to visit like Eileen does?”
    She smiles, tilting her head back and forth. “He doesn’t like me very much.”
    I watch her face. “Why not?”
    “Next question, please.” She glances up at the mirror.
    “Is he nice?”
    She rubs her lips together. “He has a temper.”
    “You have a temper.”
    She looks at me. “No. No I don’t.”
    “Is he going to talk about Jesus all the time like Eileen?”
    She smiles. “Yes. But he likes to talk about God more. Eileen loves Jesus, and he loves God. That’s why they get along.”
    I hang my arm out the window, waving it in the wind. “Who do you love?”
    She laughs, putting her sunglasses back on. “I love you, Evaloo. I do I do.”

    Eileen and my nine-fingered grandfather have a real house and a real yard. The house is green with white trim, on the turnaround of a dead-end street. An American flag hangs in the front, and a tiny gold eagle is perched on the front of their mailbox. One side of the house is two stories with a brown front door, and the other side is a two-car garage. The other houses on their street have this same shape, but they are painted different colors, some brown, some white, some light yellow with brick. Shade trees rise over the backs of the houses, one with a tire swing hanging down. There are kids riding on bikes and skateboards, none of them wearing pink dresses. Two women sit on chairs on the lawn next to Eileen’s. They look up from their magazines when our Volkswagen pulls into Eileen’s driveway, Frank Sinatra floating out the windows.
    “It’ll be fine,” my mother says, even though I haven’t said anything. She holds my hand when we walk up the driveway, her hand tight around mine.
    The doormat is a picture of Jesus holding out his arms and smiling, WELCOME stamped in cursive over his smiling face. It looks like I am standing on Jesus, my white shoes on his neck, and this seems like it could bring bad luck. I step off.
    A boy opens the door. He is tall and thin, all throat and elbows, wearing a mesh football shirt and shorts. The visor of his baseball hat knocks into my mother’s forehead when he hugs her.
    “Daniel! Oh my God! Oh my God!” She holds him away from her, squeezing his shoulders. “You’ve gotten so big! You’re taller than I am.”
    “Well shit, Tina, I’m about seventeen.” He bends down and looks at me. He has Eileen’s nose, and a retainer. “Hey, is this my niece?” He looks up at my mother. “She looks like you. Weird.”
    We follow him inside. There is baby blue carpeting everywhere, two girls stretched out on it, playing Chinese checkers. They look up at us, saying nothing. They also have Eileen’s bony nose, my mother’s dark red curls pulled back from their faces with plastic bands.
    “This is Stephanie,” he says, pointing at the older one. “And this is Beth.”
    Aunt Beth. She could be eight. Daniel makes hand signals for them to stand up, like a policeman waving traffic through a stoplight. They do not stand up, but they smile, and when they do, they look like small, flat-chested versions of my mother. They look more like her than I do.
    “Hi,” the older one says. The younger one, Beth, says nothing. She’s just a watcher.
    “Hi,” my mother says. “It’s okay if you don’t remember us. I came by once when you were still just a baby, Beth. Evelyn was just a toddler, maybe three.” She nods at Stephanie. “You two played together, out in the yard. But there’s no way you could remember.”
    They say nothing. Daniel comes back, handing each of us a glass of ice water. My mother is smiling in a way that looks like it would hurt if you did it for a long time. “I used to baby-sit him,” she says, pointing at Daniel. “How do you like that?”
    Another boy walks in the front door, this one younger than Daniel, and he has a dog on a leash. He has the same red hair, and the same nose. The dog is a German shepherd