Rocky Road by Rose Kent Read Free Book Online Page B

from the closet to spread on the living-room floor, and shut the door behind me, fully knowing I wouldn’t need my backpack tomorrow.
    I wouldn’t be going to school.

Chapter 6
    Think twice before launching a retail endeavor with family. Business partners need to share a vision and a work ethic, not necessarily the same DNA.—
The Inside Scoop
    M a spent the next four days in bed, sobbing, and ruing the day we got stuck with her for a mama. She wouldn’t eat and only drank coffee with the socks on, but caffeine didn’t even get her engine going. I walked a sleepyhead Jordan to the bus stop on Friday. But I couldn’t go to school—I wouldn’t be back to watch him by the time the bus dropped him off, and besides, I had to look out for Ma.
    Seeing Ma crashed and useless again made me frustrated.
She
was the one who moved us cross-country when she was flying high.
She
was the one who said Schenectady would be a fresh start. And
she
was the one who was gunning to open this ice cream shop in the middle of a freezing winter. I wanted to burst into her bedroom, yank the covers down, and shout, “Pull yourself together, Ma!” But I didn’t. That would be as helpful as spanking a sick puppy.
    Shooting Stars was predictable in its usual ugly way. Back in San Antonio it struck Ma about twice a year (or more, before the divorce, when she and Pop fought a lot). She wouldn’t talk to anyone about it. I guess she was embarrassed.
    With Ma unable to function, Jordan and I spent the weekend cooped up in the apartment watching cartoons, eating microwaveable meals, and playing old maid and war with an old deck of cards. I finished some crocheted doilies too, including a pair to cover the ripped futon, and I did some touch-up painting in the kitchen and rearranging of pillows and knickknacks to give the living room a fresher look.
    I’d check on Ma in the bedroom every hour or so, and Jordan would deliver her meals on a tray, not that she ate much. I could tell by his pouty face that it bothered him to see Ma lying in bed with a zombie look. I couldn’t understand it and I was twelve; Jordan was barely eight.
    Ma got out of bed for the first time Tuesday morning. She slipper-shuffled over to the kitchen counter in her bathrobe with her hair looking like a bird’s nest. I fixed her a poached egg and a buttered tortilla. Then she started weeping again, saying how truly sorry she was to be such a good-for-nothingparent. But then Jordan jumped on her lap and wiped her eyes with a napkin, and she stopped crying. And when I got back from walking him to the bus stop, she was in the shower.
    “You dressed for school?” she asked as she strolled out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her hair.
    “That depends. Are you through hibernating?”
    She paused, then nodded. “Reckon so. You know me, tougher than a cast-iron washtub.”
    Nothing about Ma seemed tough. She looked pale and skinnier than her usual one hundred pounds. Her collarbone stuck out like a hanger.
    I tried to talk to her about what happened. “You can’t keep doing this, Ma. You gotta get help,” I said. But she answered in the same way she always did.
    “I know you mean well, sugar, but I’ve told you before. I don’t have a screw loose in my thinking gear, if that’s what you’re hinting at. I just inherited my paw’s energy bursts and patches of blue, God rest his soul. Once I ride this out, I’ll be back to my usual strong-as-a-bull self.”
    Then Ma grabbed the TV remote and clicked on the morning news and tuned me out.
    So back I went to Ottawa Creek Middle School. It was my second day there, but my first one running the Cafeteria Gauntlet. Anyone who’s been the new kid knows that the bus ride, the locker scene, and classes are just the warm-up. The true test begins at lunch, with that sea of unfamiliar faces drinking from flavored-water bottles. I wasn’t looking forward to that, even though I’d packed my favorite smoked turkeyand cheese