Over the Tracks (Suspended) Read online

  Text copyright © 2015 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

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  Front cover: © Marie-Reine Mattera/Getty Images (teen girl); Cover and interior: © iStockphoto.com/Sorapop (ripped paper).

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.5.

  Typeface provided by Adobe Systems.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Duffy Stone, Heather, 1977–

  Over the tracks / by Heather Duffy Stone.

  pages cm. — (Suspended)

  Summary: After her mother is diagnosed with cancer, Lucy becomes distressed and begins selling her mom’s medical marijuana.

  ISBN 978-1-4677-5711-9 (lb : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978-1-4677-8098-8 (pb : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978-1-4677-8827-4 (eb pdf)

  [1. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Cancer—Fiction. 3. Marijuana—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.D878148Ov 2015

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014046174

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – SB – 7/15/15

  eISBN: 978-1-46778-827-4 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-46779-037-6 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-46779-036-9 (mobi)

  CHAPTER ONE

  Pete walked in front of me, his sneakers crunching the dry branches and dead leaves. The sounds of football practice echoed behind us.

  “I can’t get away from that field fast enough,” Pete said into the air in front of him. I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me.

  “I hate those guys,” he continued. I just nodded again. Pete knew I hated them. I wasn’t so sure I believed him anymore.

  Pete’s feet crunched forward.

  “You’re basically like an honorary football player. Come on,” I said.

  Pete’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “You’re, like, friends with those guys now.”

  He smiled a little bit like he was trying to see if I was joking. I didn’t smile back.

  Pete’s cheeks started to turn red. He narrowed his eyes. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking, Why’s Lucy so mad? She knows I went to one party with those guys and I’m not friends with them. What is her problem?

  “What’s your problem?” Pete said out loud. I shrugged and pushed past him, taking his place in the front.

  Pete had been my best friend pretty much since we started kindergarten. It started because we lived on the same road and his mom used to drive me to school. I think she felt bad for us, me and my mom, because it was just the two of us, so she would have me over for snacks. As many times as Mom said “Let me return the favor,” Mrs. McCarthy just nodded and said of course, but she never let Mom return the favor. And then even when we didn’t have to, Pete and I just kept hanging out. And I never had to be anyone other than who I was or pretend Mom had more money than she did or pretend I wanted to paint my nails or read whatever stupid magazine.

  Until last year, Pete and I were just fine. We had each other, and things were pretty easy. But suddenly, after summer, I guess other people started to notice something about Pete. His skills on the soccer field, the fact that he could make you laugh even when you felt like crap, or the way he sometimes made you forget that there were other people in the room. It’s like he wasn’t invisible with me anymore.

  The path before us opened up to a peeling wooden arch—the old bridge. The bridge, which had been made for old lumber trains, was now just rotten railroad tracks, rusted and overgrown with yellow weeds. It stretched over the low-running river. It was the bridge between school and home. On the other side were a thin wall of trees and the sloped roof of our barn. Farther up the road, just out of sight, was Pete’s house.

  I put one foot onto the splintered wood of the bridge and took three wide steps. I thought about sitting down. Instead, I stopped. I heard Pete stop behind me.

  “My mom has cancer.” It was the first time I’d said it out loud. I waited for something to happen, my eyes to fill with tears or the bridge to crack open or Pete to start yelling in disbelief. But nothing happened.

  It was quiet. I stared down at my sneakers. Below the gray wood planks, the brown water was still. I bent down to pick up the loose sticks around my feet and straightened up, dropping them one at a time into the water.

  “Lou—” Pete said. I could feel him standing right next to me, but I just kept looking down, dropping sticks. I was afraid I would cry. Or that he wouldn’t care.

  “Hey,” he said, standing next to me. He put his hand on my arm.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I mean, it’s not okay. But it will be okay.”

  “Is she, like—?”

  “She’s getting chemo.” It was funny to say the word. To shorten it—like it was something familiar.

  “Does it make her sick?”

  “That’s a weird thing to ask. She’s already, like, seriously sick.”

  “God, Lou, I don’t know what to say—”

  Pete’s voice was shaky, like he might cry.

  That’s funny, I thought. Pete’s crying, and I can’t cry. I finally looked up. Pete’s eyes were glossy, and his hands were at his sides. I reached out to push his shoulder.

  “I’m the one who’s supposed to be crying, idiot!”

  He smiled a little bit, then said, “You don’t have to make jokes.”

  My stomach stopped and flipped, like it had been doing most of the time for the past six weeks. I felt sick in the back of my throat and, for a second, like my balance would give way.

  “I’m so sorry, Lou.”

  I was going to say forget about it, it’s fine. I was trying to think of a joke. But I realized I couldn’t do either. I just stood there and felt the sickness in the back of my throat.

  “It feels better to just tell someone,” I finally whispered. Pete squeezed my hand.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was nearly dark by the time I got home. Pete held my hand while we walked from the bridge to my yard, which was weird because we never held hands. But it also felt kind of good, because he didn’t make me say anything more.

  “See you tomorrow,” he said when I turned into my yard. I just nodded.

  As Pete walked away, I waited at my door for a minute. I never knew what it would be like. Aunt Rosie’s car was in the driveway, though. Knowing she’d be there, that she could fill up the space, I pushed the door open.

  My mom used to work in a dentist’s office. She answered the phones and made appointments and everything. She left for work at the same time I went to school, but she usually came home an hour or two after me. She’d always have something for me to put in the oven or something waiting on the stove so when she came home we could eat together. Now the kitchen was usually dark. Sometimes Aunt Rosie or Jeff would bring Chinese food or something, but usually I just made pasta or mashed potatoes. Mom couldn’t eat anything. Mom couldn’t stay awake. Mom couldn’t even—

  “That you, Luce?” Aunt Rosie’s voice was buried somewhere down the hall. Mom’s room.

  “No,” I said. “It’s me, a stranger. I’m here to rob the place.”

  Instead of follow
ing Rosie’s voice, I went straight into the kitchen. As I dropped my bag on the table, I nearly missed a Saran-wrap-topped glass tray of lasagna. The wrap was cloudy—still warm.

  “Aunt Rosie, you’re my hero,” I called to the back of the house.

  “You’re mine, kid,” Aunt Rosie called back.

  As I unzipped my sweatshirt and hung it over the back of a chair, I felt a sting of guilt—then a swell of anger, then the sick in the back of my throat. It was like this pretty much all of the time now. I knew my mom was in the back of the house, sick from her chemo treatment. Aunt Rosie had carried her in from the car. I knew that Mom was lying in bed, pale, the blankets pulled up to her chin, and that I should go back to her room and sit with her.

  I pulled back the Saran wrap and cut a huge piece of lasagna, dropping it onto a plate. As I pulled my chair back, a now-familiar smell whispered down the hallway from Mom’s room. It was a little spicy, sort of rotten, and a bit like cut grass. I sat down and took a bite of lasagna. The smell had seeped into the walls and floors, but sometimes it was stronger than others. Like right after Mom got home from chemo.

  It’s funny. I could never have said what the smell was before Mom got sick. I couldn’t have identified it. I didn’t know. Her boyfriend Jeff helped her get the prescription when nothing else was working, when she was so sick in those first few days. And then suddenly, she had a green pill container by her bedside, like a sore thumb among all the other mustard-colored pill bottles. The green one held a bundle of slim, white cigarettes. And Mom kept an old clay ashtray and a lighter next to her bed. And she was barely throwing up anymore.

  I should have been glad there was something that helped her. But I was something other than glad. I can’t explain it. It was like she was just giving in. And what gave her the right to have special laws, anyway?

  “You gonna come down and see your mom?” Aunt Rosie came into the kitchen and leaned back on the counter.

  “I’m eating,” I said.

  Aunt Rosie crossed her arms. She smiled at me, but it wasn’t a happy kind of smile. “You think you could take a few bites and then maybe give your mom a hug?”

  “She’s probably asleep by now.”

  “She might be, but a hug would still be nice.”

  “I will. After I eat.”

  Aunt Rosie nodded, but she didn’t move. I didn’t mind her standing there, though. I didn’t want to go to my mom’s room. But Aunt Rosie was her best friend; it was her job to look out for my mom.

  Neither my mom nor Aunt Rosie had any family, really. My mom’s parents had died a long time ago, and she had been on her own since she was just a little older than me. My dad was “worthless” if you asked Aunt Rosie and “too young to be a dad” if you asked my mom. I’d never met him. Mom and Rosie had known each other since Rosie actually babysat my mom when Rosie was in high school. Now they were basically like sisters, and Rosie was the only real family we had. Except for Jeff. But that’s another story.

  Rosie was the opposite of my mom in a lot of ways. Rosie was tiny and bold, while my mom was tall and quiet. Rosie was practical and organized, while Mom was forgetful. Rosie owned a hair salon and never stopped working because, as she always said, she loved what she did more than anything (except us). Mom, on the other hand, worked to pay bills but seemed happiest when she was home in the garden. She hadn’t been in the garden for a long time, though. It was brown with weeds.

  I couldn’t think about that.

  I slid my chair back and stood up. Rosie continued watching me.

  “Happy now?” I said. Rosie didn’t move. I kicked off my sneakers at the kitchen door and walked down the hall to Mom’s room. The familiar smell had faded. The bedside lamp gave off a dim light. Mom’s head was turned to one side. I could only see her left cheek, her one closed eye, and the rounded egg shape of her now mostly bald head. The blankets were tucked at her chin. One hand stuck out underneath them, thin fingers wrapped around the edge of the sheets, Mom’s skin almost see-through.

  My stomach did that thing again. I moved into the room. But I couldn’t go closer. I watched her and then I looked over to the faded yellow flowers on the drawn curtains and I turned and walked toward my room.

  “Did you give her a kiss?” Aunt Rosie called from the kitchen.

  “Yep.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  As I walked down the hall toward first period English, I saw Pete standing near the door of my classroom, his hands shoved in his pockets. I’d left early that morning. I don’t know why, but I was afraid to see him. Now here he was. But in the crowd, in the hallway, he wouldn’t say anything about my mom.

  “You left without me,” he said. “You never leave without me.”

  “I was totally craving a hot chocolate.” I held out the cup in my left hand to prove it. “So I walked down to the bakery before school. I had to get one.”

  He looked like he was about to say something, but then he stopped. “You okay?” he said.

  “Do not start treating me like a weirdo now.”

  “I won’t—I just . . .”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to go to class,” I said. I smiled so he’d know I was okay, then walked into English, where Mr. Harrison promptly made me throw my hot chocolate in the garbage.

  I knew the tenth grade took a trip to New York every year. And I knew that things that always happened weren’t going to stop happening just because my life was crazy. But when Mr. Harrison started talking about the trip and walking around with permission slips, I almost couldn’t believe it. There were a lot of school things I didn’t care about, but I had wanted to go to New York pretty much since I was born.

  Growing up in southern Maine, it was like people thought Boston was the only actual city anywhere in the world. Pete had been promising me since seventh grade that we’d go on this trip. But as Mr. Harrison’s voice droned on, about a zoo and a matinee and something-something Natural History and hotels and hot dogs, all I could see was the price. It glared up at me from the top of the permission slip, like it was written in neon. More than one month’s rent. And Mom hadn’t worked in three months.

  Good-bye, New York. Right along with everything else.

  I avoided Pete by skipping lunch to make up a biology lab. I was lucky, because we only had French together. And French met the next day. I left last period early to slip into the locker room and change. The cross-country team had its long run today, and I knew if I got out to the field early, I could miss Pete altogether. I was glad he knew what was going on in my life. Sort of. I just couldn’t talk about it.

  I changed into my T-shirt and shorts and pulled my hair into a bun. Then I sat down on the bench to tie my sneakers, yanking until I heard a sharp rip. The mesh top of the sneaker had torn loose. The white of my sock peeked through the new hole.

  “Seriously?” I whispered. The locker room was empty. I felt hot tears behind my eyes. I stood up fast, blinking them back.

  It’s okay, I thought. It’s fine. It’s just a little rip.

  I jumped and ran in place—the hole opened a little bit and then stopped. It’d be fine. I could tape it. I started to feel sick, but I swallowed the feeling back and jogged out of the locker room and down to the field.

  I had always loved running. When I was a kid, Mom would let me out of the car when we turned from the main road and let me run alongside the car, almost half a mile. She’d drive at a crawl while I ran. Sometimes when I remembered moments like that, they mixed up in moments like last night—me frozen in the doorway, watching her sleep. It felt like my mom was two different people.

  I liked cross-country because I could run and be part of something and compete but I didn’t have to talk to anyone. I didn’t have to concentrate on anything but the path in front of me. That day the trail was muddy and scattered with puddles from a morning rain. Wet leaves stuck like tape to my feet, and dirty water seeped and squished through my white sock. There was nothing I loved about that run. There was nothing peaceful about
it. All I could think was that my sneaker was ruined and New York City cost one month’s rent and Mom was in bed with the sheet drawn up to her chin and there was nothing I could do about any of it.

  Pete was waiting for me outside the locker room, and I was too tired to ignore him. I just looked at him and kept walking, and he walked next to me. Neither of us said anything until we’d crossed the field and started through the woods home.

  “You know, my mom smokes pot now,” I said finally. I wanted to shock him.

  “Like, for fun?” he asked.

  “No, stupid. For cancer.”

  “Duh,” Pete said. “I was kidding.” He didn’t sound shocked. “How does she get it?”

  “It’s, like, legal for her. She gets a prescription and everything.”

  “Huh,” Pete said. We were crossing the bridge now, side by side, careful feet on the railroad tracks. “Does it make her feel better?”

  “I don’t know. It makes her less sick.”

  “That’s good.”

  I didn’t want to admit it, but it was kind of comforting to talk to him. So while we walked, I told him about my shoe and New York and Mom not working and how much all of it sucked. He didn’t say much, but it still felt good.

  At my door, before Pete turned to walk the rest of the way to his house, he called out. “Hey, I have an idea!”

  “What?”

  “You could sell your mom’s pot, and we could fund our own trip to New York City!”

  Pete was laughing. But I wasn’t.

  “Hey,” he said. “A joke!”

  “I know,” I said as I pushed open the front door. But I couldn’t stop thinking about his joke.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The house was dark. A dim light came from Mom’s room at the end of the hall. I dropped my stuff in the kitchen and walked slowly down the hall. She looked like last night—her head turned, the sheets at her chin, the room barely visible in the bedside lamplight.

  I stood there for a long time. Sometimes when I watched my mom sleep, I tried to figure out what I was feeling. Because I wasn’t even sure.