The Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan

camping near the coast, to feel the welcome moisture on her skin. He had teased her, called her “Boston” when in fact she had rarely gone to the seaport city. As she plodded along in the dark, she thought of sleeping together in their warm sleeping bags along the coast of California. Anything to keep her brain sharp right now, anything to keep her attention on something other than the extra effort that it took to hike at this altitude carrying a child.
    How did she lose the road? Was it when the first rustle of leaves announced an unlikely wind from the north? The Maya didn’t trust a north wind; it was an indicator of trouble or disturbance that could take any form: weather, illness, domestic unhappiness. They paid respectful attention to the wind that poured across the lake and in the final analysis, the lake was annoyed by a north wind and it ruffled in irritation. Did she lose the road when the dark clouds rolled across the sky in military formation, or when the first rain began to fall, a light mist, then torrential within the hour?
    Water poured off her hat. Kate pulled the child around to the front to offer her more protection. She stopped near the base of a broad-leafed tree and pulled out what remained of her research papers. She stuffed them around the girl for insulation. She could no longer see the glint of the moon in the child’s eyes, so she patted her face and murmured to her in Spanish, “ Bueno, Sofia, bueno .” The child had not spoken since the hotel and the silence rattled Kate almost as much as the darkness. Had the shock of the gunfire blotted out the memory for the child, or would it be etched in stone?
    Her feet were the coldest part of her body. She pictured her Nikes back at the hotel, warm and snug, a likely home for the scorpion by this time. She wore the sandals from Chichicastenango, the ones that had been fitted to her feet by the shoemaker in his stall. The soles were made from old tire treads and the top was rich leather with bands crisscrossing over her feet. They had been so perfect until this night.
    What if the soldiers came looking for her? What if someone at the gringo bar said that they had seen the woman and the child? Every step she took crackled and exploded with noise; they could be following her and she’d never hear them. She had to keep going, to put as much distance as possible between her and the lake.
    The rain fell harder still, as impossible as that seemed. The sound of so much water crashing on the dense vegetation was deafening. Every surface in the mountain jungle pinged from the rain, clattered, shook in a collectively deafening roar. If she was not soaked by the torrents that fell from the sky, she was splashed by rain that splattered off the ground, seeking any dry spot on her. It was now impossible to see any remnants of the trail and the dirt moved like marbles beneath her feet. Mudslides were a constant danger in the rainy season. Entire villages had been buried in mud, the land resculpted. But this was not the rainy season and surely the ground could absorb the runoff.
    She formed a mantra and repeated it from beginning to end for hours.
    I have to survive. I have to bring this little girl to safety. It’s just too bad if you’re terrified. You have to suck it up.
    She never had to be brave before, not in this way. Her mother’s death had not made her brave. It had scattered her into pieces. She had seen her mother’s bravery though, the quiet power and determination to stay alive, the iron will that had startled even the doctors. Had Kate been brave when she left Massachusetts and her father for the West Coast? No, that was something else, an attempt at a geographic balm.
    The terrain was unbearably steep and she had never carried a child before. Her center of balance was thrown off and the weight of the child threatened to pull her off her feet, ricocheting from the mountain. Kate had long since lost sight of the