Over the Tracks (Suspended)

by Heather Duffy Stone

  I looked down at the table, folding back the corner of the place mat.

  “We’re all here for you, but we need you to step up. You did the opposite yesterday. Look at me, Lucy. Are you smoking pot?”

  “No!” I felt relieved I could say that in truth. “No, Aunt Rosie. I just. I don’t know . . . I thought if I could sell it, I could make . . .” But I stopped. I didn’t want to tell her about the money part. I didn’t want to tell her I felt like I needed something. “I know. I messed up.”

  “You’re going to need to show us that this isn’t going to be who you are.”

  “I know.”

  “And that’s going to take time.”

  “I know.” I waited for her to smile, to come forward and hug me, to look like herself and say something like she knew it would be okay. But she didn’t do any of that. After a second, she turned back to the stove.

  “Why don’t you get something to eat,” she said. “And go back to your room and get some work done.”

  I didn’t feel like eating anything, though. I felt like running out the front door. I felt like screaming. No one was getting mad at me or trying to help me. No one was doing anything except for telling me what an adult I was supposed to be. But I was still fifteen. Even if my mom was sick, I was still fifteen. I had no idea how to be an adult. I didn’t want to be an adult. I just got suspended. I was supposed to be in big trouble. Something serious was supposed to happen. But my mom just slept. Aunt Rosie stirred whatever was on the stove. And I went back to my room and laid on my bed and closed my eyes. I waited to feel different. I waited for something.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  At least when I was at school every day, I didn’t have to see my mom leave for chemotherapy in the morning. I didn’t have to see her come home in the car and get carried inside, almost lifeless. Most of the time I just got to see her at home in bed. But being home that week, it was like her sickness was everywhere, like I saw it in all these new ways. And it was like Mom wasn’t even trying to get better. When people get sick, they fight it, don’t they? They try to get better for the people around them.

  Having to spend so much time at home was really the only tough part about my suspension. Mrs. Leland and all of my teachers were so worried about my mom and about me not acting like myself that nobody was pressuring me to hand in homework. Mrs. Leland said I would have to go to counseling when I got back to school. But that was better than going to the police or anything.

  Even Pete started calling me all the time and not acting like I had weirded him out. He kept saying, “Are you okay?” which was nothing he had ever said to me before. I barely knew what to say in response. The longer I stayed at home, the emptier I felt.

  By Friday morning, I’d been home for five days. Five days that felt like five hundred. When Jeff came for Mom, he walked slowly down the hall and opened her door, and these strange sounds came out. At first I didn’t know what I was hearing—I thought that Mom was watching TV or that a cat had snuck into the house. I came to the door of my room, and I heard Jeff’s voice—soothing and even. But the other sounds were high and sharp, like the wails of an animal. I realized they were my mom.

  I moved back, pushed my door shut, and slid down to the floor. I covered my ears.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I was suspended from school, forced to stick around the house and overhear my mom maybe dying. I’d sold some of her pot to buy things I didn’t really want. I’d never even tried smoking it.

  And that was it. I’d never tried. Everybody probably thought I was this big druggie now, but all I’d done was get something from my mom and sell it. I didn’t even know what it felt like.

  I stood up and eased my door open. I listened for a minute, even though I knew Jeff had already taken Mom out of the house. Then I walked down the hall to Mom’s room. Her bed lay empty, her sheets in a messy pile. I tried not to look at the dent in her pillow as I opened her bedside drawer.

  But there was no bag. No canister of neatly rolled cigarettes either. I didn’t even find any pills in Mom’s drawer. She and Jeff must have hidden them. I felt a funny knot in my stomach—but then I wanted to smoke even more. Why not, if they weren’t going to trust me anyway?

  I moved through the room, opening drawers, feeling under piles of sweaters. I knew it had to be there. Something had to be there. But the pot wasn’t where I thought it would be. I found it in the pocket of a rain jacket hanging over the back of a chair. Jeff’s jacket.

  I spotted one of the neatly rolled cigarettes inside a Ziploc bag. I realized Jeff probably brought the rest to the hospital, in case Mom felt sick on the way home. They would definitely notice it was gone. But I didn’t care. I stuck it in my pocket and zipped my sweatshirt up to my chin.

  After walking to the front door, I slid my feet into my sneakers. I automatically knew where I was going. Down to the bridge—to the tracks. In the center of the railroad bridge, I was halfway between home and school—halfway between where everything was falling apart and where, well, I didn’t even know what school was anymore.

  I sat down on the edge of the tracks, dangling my legs over the river. This spot had always been mine and Pete’s. It had always been perfect. A little bit dangerous and hidden away but still safe and familiar. I walked these tracks every day. They brought me home.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the yellow lighter I’d taken from Jeff’s coat, along with the joint. I put it to my lips, lit up, and inhaled.

  My throat burning, I coughed wildly. I put everything down on the wood beside me, pulled out my phone, and texted Pete.

  Smoking pot on the bridge. I think I’ve finally lost it.

  Like telling him made it real.

  Scratchy throat or not, I was determined to inhale.

  Cough. Wait. Breathe. Inhale.

  I wanted to finish the joint, but I could only inhale four or five times before it was unbearable. Before it felt like . . . like enough, maybe. I sat still, letting the joint fall from my fingers and into the water below.

  What did I feel?

  When my mom and I first moved here, before I even went to the high school, we took a walk through these woods and over the tracks. She held my hand while I stepped from one rung to the next, the river flowing far down under us.

  “Never on your own, Luce,” Mom had said then. “Never come cross these on your own.”

  When Pete and I got older and came down here, we promised our moms we’d be careful.

  “Never without Pete,” Mom would say.

  And somewhere along the way, I just started to come down here alone.

  “I know you’re careful,” Mom said last year. “But I still don’t like you down on those tracks by yourself.”

  That was when she trusted me. That was when she thought I wouldn’t have to be alone.

  A hazy cloud seeped into my head. I could feel my heart racing, but my eyelids felt tired. Is this it? I wondered. Is this what it feels like? The river pounded in my ears. I wanted it to be over.

  And that’s when I saw him. Coming through the path from the high school. Running fast and out of breath. His face red and frantic.

  “Lucy, we gotta go!” Pete yelled, running toward me. “We gotta go! Something’s wrong with your mom. We gotta go.”

  I tried to stand, but I couldn’t find my footing. Pete pulled me up.

  “You need to pull it together,” he said. “It’s your mom. It’s bad.”

  Heat flooded my face. Nothing felt real. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out.

  Get to the hospital now, Aunt Rosie wrote.

  I started to run.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Pete and I rushed toward my house without talking. It wasn’t until we were standing in my yard that both of us realized we had no way of getting to the hospital. I just stood there, bent over my knees, trying to breathe. Whether it was the running or the smoking or the thought of my mom, I couldn’t get my breath back.

  I heard Pete
behind me rustling around. I heard him dial and ask for a taxi. I didn’t even know we had taxis here, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t say anything.

  The world kept moving in a blur as Pete held my hand. He pushed me inside when the taxi reached us.

  I didn’t know what I was going to see. The hallways of the hospital seemed to push inward as we walked, climbed stairs, walked more. I knew Pete was holding my hand and I knew where we were going, but I didn’t know anything else. Then, all I could see was my mom’s head against her pillow, not smiling—needing me to grow up. Needing me not to mess up. And here I was, messed up again.

  Pete brought us to a waiting room. There was a girl with blonde braids sleeping on her grandmothers’ lap. There was a couple holding hands. And then there was Rosie and Jeff, side by side on a brown couch, both of them staring down. Pete’s mom talked softly across from them.

  I’m not sure if I said anything or if Pete did—but they all looked up at once. As Jeff and Rosie stood, I felt myself back in my body. I ran toward Rosie and fell into her chest. I couldn’t let go, and she held me against her for a long time while I cried. It was like if I stopped, if I opened my eyes, if I pulled away from Aunt Rosie, then my whole world would fall apart. After a while, I felt Jeff’s hand on my shoulder. The only part of me that could think thought, What if this is all I have? What if it’s only Jeff and Aunt Rosie forever? What if I spent my last days with Mom as a screwup?

  I heard voices through my hair, through Aunt Rosie’s chest.

  “Let’s sit you down, hon,” Rosie said. She pulled me down next to her, and I felt everything slowing down—the sobbing and my brain and the fog. I opened my eyes after a while, and Pete and his mom were gone. Aunt Rosie’s arm was tight around me, and Jeff held out a bottle of water. I managed to take a few sips.

  “What’s going on?” I finally asked. I still didn’t know.

  “We don’t know much right now,” Jeff said softly. Aunt Rosie just held on to me. “Your mom was experiencing some intense pain this morning, and she started to have trouble breathing.”

  I could feel my heart racing again.

  “They had to intubate her—put a tube in to help her breathe—and we’re waiting. We’re just waiting now, Luce, to hear from the doctors.”

  “Okay.” I nodded. I couldn’t ask anything more. I couldn’t imagine . . . I couldn’t. She was my mom, and I needed her.

  “Okay,” I said again. I leaned my head on Aunt Rosie’s shoulder.

  I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke up, I was lying down with my feet in Jeff’s lap. Aunt Rosie was gone. My head felt heavy. I blinked my eyes and remembered where I was.

  “What’s going on? Where’s Rosie?”

  Jeff put his hand on my feet. “It’s all right,” he said. “She went for some coffee. We haven’t heard anything.”

  I pulled my elbow under my head and watched him. He kept his hand on my feet.

  “I smoked some of the pot today,” I said.

  He nodded. His face didn’t even change.

  “It was awful.”

  He nodded again and looked at my feet. He was holding on to them like he wanted to protect me. And I knew that was all he’d been doing all along. Not just because he loved my mom. But because he was my family too.

  “Is this Ms. Tarryton’s daughter?”

  I looked up. A doctor with a gray ponytail and round glasses was standing over us. She was smiling. I swung my legs down and sat up to face her.

  “Dr. Jensen?” Jeff said, his voice quiet.

  “She’s awake,” the doctor said. She put her hand on my shoulder. “She’s asking for you.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  They said Mom had a kidney infection. Infections were bad when you are sick, and the pain caused her to lose consciousness. Apparently chemo was hard on the kidneys too. But the doctors weren’t worried. They were able to give Mom some medicine to treat the infection, and her breathing was regular. They’d just have to watch her for a few days.

  She was awake when Jeff and Aunt Rosie and I went into the room. She sat propped up on pillows. We stood in a semicircle at the side of the bed.

  “My favorite people,” she whispered. And she smiled. For the first time in a really long time, her eyes seemed to smile at the same time.

  “You had us scared,” said Aunt Rosie. There were tears in her eyes.

  “I’m gonna be just fine,” Mom said. She looked right at me and held out her hand.

  “How’s my girl?” she asked.

  Even in all of that—even sick and with needles in her arm—she was acting like Mom. She was making sure I was okay. It was all I’d wanted for so long. And now it just made me want to take care of her.

  “I’m good, Mom. But you need some sleep.” I moved to tuck the white blanket close around her. I squeezed her hand before letting go, to let her know I was really okay.

  “You should go get some sleep too,” I said, turning to Jeff and Aunt Rosie.

  “Oh, no. We’ll stay with you,” Rosie said.

  “I can bring you home,” Jeff said.

  I shook my head. “I’m staying right here with my mom. You guys can come back in the morning.”

  They both looked to Mom. She was still smiling.

  “I guess we should listen to Lucy,” she said.

  Jeff and Rosie said their good-byes to my mom. It was then that I noticed how tired and red their eyes were, how they must have been crying too, how much they had probably hidden from me. When they left, Mom rang the nurse and told her I’d be staying. The nurse started to argue, but after one look at my mom, she said she’d find a cot.

  When we were alone, Mom patted the sheet beside her and I sat down.

  “This has been a bad year, Luce,” she said.

  “Really bad.”

  “It’s gonna get better from here.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  She looked up, and there she was again. Her serious eyes. Her Mom eyes.

  “I know this isn’t fair, Luce. I’m asking you to grow up a little faster. But this is life.”

  “I know. It’s just hard.”

  “It is hard. But I need you to rise up. Selling drugs? That can’t happen, Lucy.”

  “I know.”

  “No matter what.”

  “It won’t.”

  We stared at each other for a long time. Her face softened, and I reached for her hand. “I know,” she finally said.

  She closed her eyes, and after a while, I kicked off my shoes and lay down alongside her. I couldn’t believe who I’d been in the last month. I couldn’t believe what had happened to me this year. I couldn’t even imagine what my life was going to look like tomorrow. And all the days after. But that night, I could feel my mom breathing on my shoulder and I just wanted to sleep.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  All the windows in the classrooms were open, and the breeze down the hallways smelled like summer. Nobody could concentrate anymore, and our notebooks were filled with drawings instead of notes.

  When I came out of group, Pete was waiting for me. He pushed off of the wall and gave me a high five as we walked toward the door.

  “How was girl talk?” he asked.

  I punched his shoulder, but I knew he didn’t mean anything bad. He knew I sort of loved girls group—which Mrs. Leland had required me to join five months earlier. At first, I didn’t speak a word, but now I kind of loved going every week. Miss Leslie, the guidance counselor, ran a group for girls. All of us had stuff going on at home—parents splitting, sisters on drugs, and dads in rehab. But somehow coming together and talking to one another kind of worked. Most of the time, we didn’t even look at one another in the hallways, but that was okay. In Miss Leslie’s room, we took care of one another. And since Mom started to get better, my problems started to seem small when I was in girls group. Being around one another let us realize some things. It gave us some perspective. It made me feel lucky.

  “It was good,” I said. “Thank
God, I have someone to talk to.”

  Pete rolled his eyes. He knew he was still my best friend. I talked to him more than anyone. But it was good to have people in my life who had felt something like I did.

  As we came out of the front doors of school, the sun glinted off parked cars and students spilled onto the lawn. I could see Mom from across the parking lot—she’d started wearing these bright scarves while her hair grew back. She stood at the edge of the lot.

  I could tell Mom was looking for us, but she hadn’t seen us yet. She’d filled in during the last couple of months. She was wearing her old jeans and a white blouse rolled up to her elbows. She caught sight of us and waved. Pete waved back. Once we got closer, I could see her smiling. Her cheeks were red from the sun now, and her forearms were dark from the time she was spending in the garden.

  “I wonder if you’re the only tenth graders who let a mom pick you up,” she said.

  “You’re the coolest mom around!” Pete answered.

  “Well, most of the time,” I said as Mom planted a kiss on my cheek. Recently she’d been meeting me and Pete on Fridays. We’d walk home and get an ice cream or an iced tea on the way. She liked the exercise, and I wanted her to see me in school. I wanted to remember how lucky I was. She’d been healthy for two months, and we had scans every month, but every month that they looked good, we felt luckier.

  It wasn’t like everything was suddenly perfect. I still had mornings when I couldn’t breathe. That strange sickness still crept back in when I thought of losing her. But we had come through something and out the other side. We were climbing up a steep hill, but it was brighter at the top—I was sure of it.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Heather Duffy Stone is a writer and a school counselor living in Accra, Ghana.