The Grandmother Who Drove Bus 12

7:12

It was a Monday in the middle of October and there was frost on the ditch grass.

I had eleven stops and twenty-two children on board by the time I turned north onto the blacktop, and Bill was in the first seat on the right with a thermos, not saying a word, which was how I knew I was doing all right.

Lisa and Jeff’s place sits a quarter mile past the creek bridge, at the end of a long gravel drive.

I turned the amber lights on at the bridge.

She was standing at the end of the drive in her blue bathrobe and Jeff’s rubber chore boots, with a coffee cup in both hands. Tyler was beside her in his red coat with his backpack hanging off one shoulder. She was looking at her phone.

I set the brake. I pulled the lever, and the red lights came on and the stop arm swung out and the door folded open.

Lisa looked up.

First she did not know me. A bus driver is a shape in a seat. Then she did know me, and the color went out of her.

Tyler had one foot on the bottom step.

“Grandma?”

“Good morning, Tyler.”

“Grandma!” He turned around to his mother with his whole face lit up. “Mom, Grandma is the bus driver!”

Twenty-two children leaned into the aisle to see.

Lisa put her hand on his shoulder.

“Tyler, come back to the house.”

“But it’s Grandma.”

“Now. I’ll run you in myself.”

He looked up at me. Eight years old, and he knew something was wrong and did not know what, and his chin started to go.

There was a great deal I could have said from that seat. I had an audience, and my daughter was standing in a bathrobe in front of half the children in the north end of the county.

But there was a little boy on my bottom step about to cry, and that settled it.

“You mind your mother, Tyler,” I said. “That’s the rule on this bus and every bus. I’ll be right here tomorrow morning at 7:12, and the morning after that.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

He stepped down. Lisa pulled him in against her robe.

“Mom,” she said, low. “I am not doing this.”

“Good morning, Lisa,” I said. “You have a nice day.”

I closed the door. I checked my mirrors, left and right and the overhead, and I pulled away.

My hands did not start to shake until I saw the crossbuck coming up at the tracks.

“You all right?” Bill said quietly, behind me.

“I’ve got a crossing to make, Bill.”

“Yes ma’am, you do.”

I stopped. I opened the door and the window and I listened, and there was nothing coming but the wind.