"You do say that," I said. "I do smell like gas."
"That's not funny."
"It's a little funny."
She wiped her face with the sleeve of her hoodie, hard, and then she looked at Mom. "You took her money?" she said. "For Orlando? Tonight?"
"I moved it," Mom said. "To pay the installment. I was going to pay it back."
"Put it back."
"Callie."
"Put it back. I'm not going. I'll tell Coach Tamika tomorrow. Mckenna can go. Mckenna's good. Mckenna's really good, actually, her full is cleaner than mine, she just doesn't throw it in the routine because she's scared. I'm not going to Orlando on Anca's lake money." She turned to me. "I'm not. I'm sorry. I'm not."
"That's not your call," Mom said. "Either of you. That's my call."
"Then make it," Callie said.
Mom stood there in the middle of the kitchen in her scrubs with the cartoon teeth on them, and her glasses on top of her head, and I watched her try to make it. I watched it go across her face. I had never seen her not know what to do. She always knew what to do. She was wrong sometimes, and she knew she was wrong sometimes, but she always knew what to do next. She looked at the laptop. She looked at the yellow pad with the column of numbers. She looked at Callie, and at me, and at her father, who was standing by the stove with his arms folded and his hands tucked in his armpits so we wouldn't see them shake.