The Tracks by Sally Royer-Derr (little readers TXT) 📕

“Was he sick long?”

I nodded. “Yes. He had cancer. I hated watching him get sicker daily. He’d lie in the hospital bed in the living room. Every day he seemed to shrink until he resembled a bag of bones stretched out on the white cotton sheets. He’d lost so much weight. He didn’t even look like himself anymore.” I paused. “But he still joked like he used to. He always tried to make us laugh.”

“You were lucky,” Tommy commented. His gaze met mine. “To have a dad like that. I always wanted to know my father. I doubt he was much. After all, he left us without a second thought.”

“Do you know anything about him?”

“His name was Joe Tucker. He was a truck driver from Tennessee. My mom met him when she was waitressing at the truck stop down by the interstate. I guess he stuck around for a few months after Mom told him she was pregnant with me. He even moved in with her. One day he was supposed to pick her up from work and never showed up. She went home, and all his stuff was gone. No note. No nothing. She never saw him again.”

His voice cracked, and he stopped talking. Tommy tapped his right thumb slowly on the white plastic table. I put my hand on his arm, and his tapping silenced.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

His dark-blue eyes met mine. Not the eyes of a fifteen-year-old boy, but those of an old soul. I’d never seen eyes like that in any of the boys I’d known before in my life. Most boys were silly and immature. Sometimes I felt like their mother rather than a classmate, witnessing their antics.

But Tommy’s eyes held a depth beyond his fifteen years. Even at thirteen, I recognized it. A depth that saw and understood me in a way I’d never imagined. And I understood him in a sense that went beyond words. I felt his presence in my heart. In my very soul.

He nodded. I knew his life held pain, as did mine. His was more hurtful. Whereas my anguish lay in my longing to have my father back and my old life back, his grief was different. Pain which slithered through his heart constantly, but instead of letting anger control him and eat him alive, he did something else. He put those feelings into his artwork. He created beauty from the pain.

I realized in that moment I’d never have another friend like Tommy. You know when someone special touches your heart. That day I knew he was different.

***

We lay on the bank beside the stream. Droplets of water from the earlier rain still clung to the willowy ferns surrounding us. The ground was cloaked in dampness, but I didn’t mind. Its coolness felt good against my skin. Humidity was at an all-time high. Typical for July.

I turned to glance at Tommy. His eyes shut, and he soaked up the warm rays of sun that followed the rain. I had looked earlier for a rainbow, but none was visible.

It was quiet in the woods. No noise yet sounds all around me. No cars driving or people talking. No TVs blaring or radios blasting. But sounds, like the crackle of leaves as squirrels scampered through, or the rhythmic melody of water running over rocks in the stream, and the lonesome song of a lost robin searching for its nest filled the air.

“Do you believe in God?” I asked suddenly.

Tommy’s eyes stayed closed. “Yes, I do.”

I waited for him to elaborate. But he didn’t. A common occurrence for him.

“So do I,” I whispered. I don’t know why I whispered. It was almost as if God was eavesdropping on our conversation. Stupid, since God was already supposed to know everything, right?

“Look around us,” Tommy said through half-open eyes. “How could someone not believe in God, in a higher power?” He gestured his arm in the air. “Life surrounds us. Everything growing green and wild is a testament of God’s existence.”

I wasn’t surprised that he believed in God. I knew he would. I felt that connection to him. But what did surprise me was the passion and certainty in his voice. I was jealous of the certainty he had about almost everything. I held certainty for nothing.

“How are you so sure?” I asked. “Do you go to church?”

He laughed. “Come on, Emily. Do you think going to church gives you some front row seat with God? We all have a backstage pass with Him if we want to. God’s with us everywhere we go. He doesn’t just make an appearance on Sunday morning.”

“I know that.” It’d been a long time since I’d gone to church. We used to go every Sunday. Well, almost every Sunday. To the red-brick Methodist church in our development. I remember one of my Sunday School teachers had given us round peanut butter crackers, the kind in a six pack, after class for a treat. And sometimes grape juice. The teachers used to act out Bible stories with puppets. That’s what I remembered about church.

“Do you?” Tommy rolled over on his side, his face inches from mine.

His hot breath settled on my skin. I nodded.

“Then why did you ask me about church?” he asked. “Sounds like that’s the only place you think God is at.”

I sighed. He was forever analyzing me. Every word I said. Sometimes it drove me nuts. I could never just say something to him. He always wanted to know why I’d said it.

“Most people who believe in God go to church,” I explained. “That’s why I said that. I don’t think it’s the only place to find God. He is everywhere.”

“I hate that stereotype. Lots of people who don’t go to church believe in God. Nothing against church at all. I