A Penny on the Tracks

by Alicia Joseph

I stood and grabbed her hands. “Let’s leave, now.”

  “I don’t want to go out there. I don’t want to see my neighbors.”

  “We’ll go out the back door. Hop fences and cut through yards like we used to do. Nobody will see us.”

  We started for the door, but then Abbey turned back. “I need my things. Clothes.”

  I spun her back in my direction. “You can wear my clothes. I’ll come back later for whatever you need. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

  We walked through the kitchen hunched down as we passed the windows so no one would see us from the driveway. I heard voices I didn’t recognize speaking with an air of authority that I assumed belonged to the police officers.

  “We can’t allow this display of public disturbance. If she needs help, we can get her to the proper facility.”

  “Oh no! She’ll be fine. I’ll make sure of it,” I heard a woman say. “I’m going to stay with her, officer.”

  “Me too,” another woman added. “We’ll take care of her.”

  “This all needs to be cleaned up,” the officer said.

  “Of course, officer,” the woman replied.

  Abbey and I slipped out the back door, and I didn’t hear a further word.

  “ANOTHER FAMILY? WHAT do you mean he had another family?”

  I held a finger against my lips, urging my mother to lower her voice as Abbey was asleep in my room. She and Franklin arrived home less than ten minutes ago, but I had quickly dragged my mother into the kitchen and filled her in on everything that had happened that morning—excluding the part where Abbey walked in on me going down on Jess. That one was for another day.

  “Quiet. I don’t want you to wake Abbey up. They got a call late last night that her mother’s sister had died. Mrs. Hulling had just gotten back from there, but her sister seemed to be improving. So she came home yesterday morning and got the call last night. Then she phoned Mr. Hulling, expecting he’d come home early because he was supposedly on some business trip. And that’s when he told her he was never coming back. He has another wife, a younger one—the worst kind—and she just had a baby.” I ran my hands through my hair and pressed my body against the steady hum of the refrigerator. “The woman found out her sister was dead and that her husband had another family all in the same fifteen minutes.”

  “Jesus Christ.” My mother dropped her gaze and slid into a chair at the table. She cradled her head in her hands. If there had been any lingering relaxing effects carried over from her brief getaway, I imagined they were fading quickly. “How long has Abbey been sleeping?”

  “About an hour.”

  My mother breathed out a deep sigh and shook her head. “That poor girl.”

  “I told her she could stay here for a while.”

  “Of course.”

  Franklin walked into the room from outside, holding his and my mother’s overnight bags. “What’s wrong?”

  “Men. That’s what’s wrong,” my mother replied.

  Franklin dropped the bags with a loud thud to the floor.

  “Shhh! Abbey’s sleeping in my room. Don’t wake her.”

  “Sorry. Sorry.” Franklin walked to the fridge and pulled out a can of soda. He wore jean shorts that went down to his knee and a button-down short-sleeve silk black shirt that barely hid his growing belly. He plunked down onto a seat across from my mother and popped open his drink. After a large, thirsty gulp, he wiped his mouth with a brush of his hand. “Why’s she sleeping so late? Please don’t tell me you had a big party here last night and now she’s hungover.”

  “No. I didn’t have a party last night,” I said.

  He winked at me. “I mentioned that concern to your mother, because that’s what I would have done if I had the house to myself at your age. But your mother was sure you’d behave responsibly. And you did.” He stood, picked up the bags while still holding his drink, and gave me a peck on the forehead. “Thanks for being responsible. But remember, it’s okay to bend rules sometimes and live a little.”

  “Don’t tell her that,” my mother bellowed after him as he headed out of the room. “And just leave the dirty clothes in the bags. I’ll get to them later.”

  The mood in the room shifted back to its previous melancholy state. Franklin’s presence had been a distraction; a momentary reprieve from a harsh reality I couldn’t change.

  “What is she going to do now?” my mother asked.

  “Who? Abbey or her mother?”

  “Both. I don’t know how either one of them gets through this. Abbey’s going to need you now more than ever. You’re the only person she may feel she can trust right now.”

  There was no way for my mother to know, but her words ripped me apart inside and made me feel worthless. Abbey didn’t trust me anymore. She was only here because I had gone to her house and happened to show up at just the right time to snatch her away from a bad situation. I doubted she would have come to me on her own.

  I had let my best friend down when she needed me the most, and I wasn’t sure she’d ever trust me again.

  I LAY ACROSS my couch in the dark and quiet living room, whispering into the phone tucked tightly underneath my chin.

  “She’s sleeping in my bed right now. She woke up a little while ago and started losing it, really freaking out. It was frickin’ scary seeing her like that. My mom had Abbey breathe into a paper bag. Abbey calmed down a little after that, but then she had another episode. My mom gave her something to help her sleep, and Abbey’s been knocked out ever since.”

  “I can’t believe this happened,” Jess said. “Another family? Who does that?”

  “I know. It seems crazy, but when I think about it, I mean, really look back with clear eyes, this isn’t all that surprising. Her father was hardly around, and when he was, from what Abbey used to tell me growing up, he didn’t seem like he really wanted to be there. Her parents didn’t have a good relationship. That was easy to see. And he wasn’t involved with Abbey the way I saw the other fathers with their kids. Sometimes I got jealous of those other kids with great dads. But I never got jealous of Abbey. There was no need to. I didn’t want a father like hers. My mom was with Franklin only a couple weeks before he was taking us, including Abbey, to places. Her father never did that. Even when he was home, which wasn’t often, he never engaged with his family the way a father should.”

  “Still has to be hard,” Jess said.

  “Of course it is, but now all the pretending is over.”

  “Is the pretending over for us, too?”

  “Jess,” I pleaded.

  “Abbey knows. Why can’t other people?”

  “Do your parents know?” I asked.

  “You asked me not to tell anyone until you were ready. I’m waiting for you to be ready.”

  “Why is it so important to you that people know we’re together?”

  “Because I don’t like hiding, especially from my parents. When I hide it makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong. And we’re not doing anything wrong . . . you and me being together is not wrong.”

  I sighed softly into the phone. “I know. I know. But can we put this to the side right now? I need to get through Abbey’s shit first.”

  “Yes. Of course, but that needed to be said.”

  “I know. And you said it.”

  “So how’s Abbey handling catching us in bed?”

  I shut my eyes against the embarrassment I still felt. But all of the turmoil that had happened since then helped to ease some of the humiliation of Abbey discovering I was gay in such crude, in your face kind of a way. I imagined nothing could be worse than learning your father had a second family.

  Suddenly, being the lesbian best friend didn’t seem to be as life shattering as I had once thought it would be for Abbey.

  “She didn’t want to talk about it,” I said. “She has enough she’s dealing with right now.”

  “I know.”

  “All in one day she found out her father and her best friend we
re lying to her.”

  “You didn’t lie. You just kept something very personal from her.”

  “To Abbey that secret is the same as lying,” I said.

  “I need to ask you something, but I don’t want to get into a big fight about it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Why does Abbey have this dire right to know about us? I understand she’s your best friend, but you won’t even let me tell my parents, whom I’ve never had to keep anything from my entire life. And yet for two years, I had to sneak around and tell them I’m going places I really wasn’t going to and doing things I really wasn’t doing. I’ve had to . . .”

  “Lie?” I finished.

  Jess let out a frustrated breath. “Yes.”

  “The same way I had to lie to Abbey.”

  “But these are my parents. Abbey’s your best friend. My parents have more of a right to know about us than Abbey ever did. They’re gonna be really hurt I kept this from them. They’ll feel like I didn’t trust them enough to tell them.”

  “That’s how Abbey feels. I don’t know how close you were to your best friends back in California, but Abbey and I grew up together. We met when we were six years old in kindergarten. We didn’t have siblings. We had each other. She’s my family.”

  “I had a few close friends growing up back home, but I never thought of them as family. I didn’t have that kind of relationship with them. We just hung out together.”

  “Abbey and I never just hung out together. We experienced life together. We grew together.”

  I turned onto my back and stretched my legs across the long couch. The house was quiet and still. Exhausted from their weekend, my mother and Franklin had gone to bed hours ago.

  I reflected on mine and Abbey’s friendship—twelve years of loyalty that had never faltered until now. I knew Jess struggled to understand how our personal relationship could be perceived as a secret deception against Abbey, but it was complicated. Abbey and I told each other everything, and anything we didn’t tell each other was because words weren’t needed. We both just knew. But there was no way for Abbey to know this about me. She needed me to tell her.

  I thought about Derek and our Hideout. I shared most of my childhood memories with Jess, but none of them included Derek, or the place we went in secret. The summer of ’86 remained just for Abbey and me.

  Maybe it would have made Abbey happy to know she and I shared something that Jess knew nothing about.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I WOKE UP in the last position I remembered lying in. The couch didn’t leave much room to be adventurous. I lifted my head to the sound of opening cabinets and shuffling footsteps across the kitchen floor, as well as to the soft hum of my mother’s voice springing into the room.

  I went to my bedroom. The door was cracked open, and I peeked through the slot. I could see the steady rise and fall of Abbey’s breath. Not wanting to wake her, I turned and quietly walked to the kitchen.

  My mom was pulling a round tin of coffee from a cabinet shelf as I walked in the room.

  “Did I wake you? I was trying to be quiet.” She placed the coffee tin on the counter and tugged her white nurse’s shirt over her white pants.

  “It’s okay,” I replied.

  “It’s hard to be quiet enough not to wake you when you’re right on the couch. You hear everything in the living room.”

  “You hear everything wherever you are in this tiny house.”

  When Franklin moved in after he and my mom were married, I was petrified I’d wake up to the sounds of them having sex. Thank Christ that had yet to happen. Franklin had wanted to move into a bigger home, but the places he wanted to move to would have meant a different school for me, and my mother wouldn’t do that.

  “Is Abbey still asleep?” she asked.

  “Knocked out is more like it. What’d the hell’d you give her anyway?”

  “Something to relax her. She needed it.”

  “Does it mix well with vodka?” I popped a grape from a bowl on the kitchen table into my mouth.

  My mother narrowed her eyes at me. “Not funny at all.”

  “Kidding. Kidding.” I leaned over the counter on my elbows.

  “You hungry? I have a couple minutes before I have to leave. I can make you some eggs real fast.”

  “I’m okay. Is Franklin still home?”

  “No. He had an early meeting this morning.” She pulled a mug from the cabinet and poured herself a cup of coffee. “Do you know if Abbey spoke to her mother yet?” She took a sip of coffee.

  “I don’t think so. Her mom must still be out of her mind because she hasn’t called here looking for Abbey.”

  “You can’t fathom that kind of betrayal until it happens to you. Poor woman.”

  “You should have seen her,” I said. “She was going crazy. Throwing things across the lawn. She lost her fucking mind.”

  My mother placed her coffee on the counter. “Watch your mouth.”

  “Sorry, but seriously, the whole neighborhood was outside watching her lose it. Abbey was in her room trying to hide from it all, but it’s out there and she can’t take it back, or get away from it. This is her life whether she likes it or not. And it fucking sucks.”

  My mother put a hand on her hip. “I’m serious about that mouth. Enough.”

  “All right. All right.” I glanced toward my room. “Abbey’s gonna wake up soon, and I don’t know what the fu . . . heck I’m gonna say to her.”

  My mother tugged lightly at the edge of my sleeve. “You two have been there for each other your whole lives. But she’s really going to need you now, even more than usual.” She put her cup in the sink. “I have to pick up your slacks at the dry cleaners after work. They needed to be hemmed. I can’t believe you won’t wear a dress to your graduation.”

  “I’m not planning on wearing a dress even at my wedding. You’re lucky you got me to wear one for prom. It’s hard to even think about graduation with everything going on. So much has happened since yesterday morning. Life was relatively calm and then boosh,” I pantomimed an explosion, “chaos.”

  My mother gave me a warm smile. “Welcome to the real world.”

  A sound came from my room.

  “That must be Abbey finally waking up from the spell you put her under.”

  My mother laughed softly. “Very funny. I gotta get going.” Her expression turned serious. “Call me if anything happens.” She kissed me on my forehead, picked her purse off a kitchen chair, and headed for the door. “I’ll be back before five, but I can come home sooner if you need me.” She turned back to me. “Okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  I watched my mother walk out the door, and then I turned my attention to the hall leading to my room where Abbey was. I walked into my bedroom, and Abbey was making my bed.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said.

  “It’s okay.”

  She smoothed her hand over the pillow at the top of my bed and then straightened the comforter.

  “Did you sleep okay?” I lingered at the side of my bed.

  She nodded, but didn’t say anything else. She kept her gaze on my bed as she fussed over the already perfectly even bedspread. Then she slowly straightened. “Has she called?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Abbey ran her hands over her forehead with a strained expression on her face. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “I know.” I walked over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “But you’re not going through this alone. You know that.”

  “He had another family, Lyssa. He had another wife. Other kids.” Her face contorted into a twisted mess of heartache and hopelessness. “I don’t know where to go from here.”

  I sat down on my bed and pulled her to me. She collapsed into my arms. I held her tightly and told her I was with her now and that everything was going to be all right.

  Though I wasn’t confident what I said was true, I didn’t know what else to say.


  AS WE DROVE to Abbey’s house, neither of us made a move to turn on the radio, usually the first thing we did when riding in a car. Instead, we rode in silence. Listening to music didn’t occur to me that day, and I assumed the same was for Abbey, who spent most of the drive staring out her window.

  I pulled into her driveway. Abbey took a quick, deep breath before opening the car door. I followed her up the walkway and into her house. She had yet to speak to her mother since yesterday morning, when the woman was losing it in front of the entire neighborhood.

  Abbey had called her house before we left, but there was no answer. I suggested to Abbey that her mother could be staying with a neighbor. As we stepped into the house, we didn’t know for sure if her mother was even there.

  We walked past the stairwell toward the kitchen and living room area.

  “It might be better if she’s not here,” Abbey whispered. “I don’t really want to see her. I know my father is the one to blame, but who knows? Maybe she did something to drive him away. Maybe if she had been a better wife, he wouldn’t have wanted a different one. And maybe if I had been a better daughter, he wouldn’t have wanted a diff—”

  “Hey.” I grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “Stop. Don’t even think like that. This shit happening is your father’s to own and only his. Not yours. Not your mother’s. He is the one to blame.”

  Abbey moved out of my grip, and I followed as she continued down the hallway and into the kitchen.

  “What the hell?” Abbey stopped abruptly.

  The kitchen was a disheveled mess. Cabinet doors were splayed open with boxes of food hanging out of them, spilling remnants of food all over the counter, and scattered across the kitchen floor. An empty carton of eggs had been tossed into the kitchen sink. I stepped closer to find broken egg shells and running yolk splattered over the walls and across the ceiling, too.

  “What the fuck did she do?” Abbey gazed slowly around the room with a horrified expression on her face.

  Mrs. Hulling appeared to have lost her mind once again and gone crazy in the kitchen, just as she had in the garage. Although the front yard had been cleaned up from the previous day, we had walked into a new mess.