The Bus Route That Cost Less Than Their Mileage
Eli came down at 6:40 sharp, in the good gray shirt with the collar. He rolled to the end of the drive and found the old driver waiting there and said, “Good morning, my friend,” in Hal’s own voice, a pretty fair imitation, and Hal laughed so hard he had to set his coffee down.
They sat there together until 7:15. Hal on the tailgate and Eli in the chair, and the sun coming up over Mark’s neighbor’s cornfield, and the two of them going over the Friday night football lineup. Eli had Hal explaining every play. I stood at the kitchen window and watched them with my hand over my mouth.
I never told Hal that I watched. I think he knew.
By the second week the word had gone around the county the way word does. Nobody put it on Facebook. It went by church and the co-op and the beauty shop on Main. The quilting circle called every woman they knew. Mr. Dutton, who could not speak publicly because he worked for the district, quietly mentioned to every parent that the second Monday would be a good night to be in the gym. A man from the VFW called Mark and said, “I hear there’s a meeting. How many chairs you need?”
The second Monday of September, the board moved the meeting from the library annex to the high school gym, because the library annex held 40 people and the sign-in sheet said otherwise.
I have never seen anything like it in Cedar Fork. By 6:45 the bleachers were full, and by 6:55 they were opening the upper rows. The farmers came in seed caps and clean jeans. Six men from the VFW sat in a block in their garrison caps. The quilting circle came, all nine, in a row, with their purses in their laps. Hal Fairchild sat in the back with six other bus drivers from around the county. Marcy from the front office came.
Jenna Isaacson sat in the front row with Holly beside her. Lorraine sat next to them with Cody, who wore his headphones and held a train book open to a steam engine. The principal had dimmed the gym lights on his side and put a quiet table nearby with crayons, in case Cody needed to leave.
Mark sat beside me with his cap on his knee. Eli sat on my other side in the good gray shirt, the sheet open on the laptop on his tray, and his hands were not shaking at all.
The board filed in at 7:00 and took the long table. Kay Sutter sat at the far end of it with the minutes book open, and she did not look at anyone. Gene Faulkner sat in the middle with a gavel. He looked at the crowd, and I watched him take in every face and watched his jaw tighten. Dr. Pierce sat at his right hand, very upright, in a gray suit.
“We’ll now move to public comment,” Gene said at 7:41. “Each speaker has three minutes. Please state your name and address.”
I stood up.
The podium stood on the gym floor, twenty feet from the long table. I walked up slow and even, the way I walk into a room at the care center when a family has just lost someone.
“Tammy Nygaard,” I said into the microphone. “County Road 212.”
“Go ahead, Mrs. Nygaard.”
“Thank you. I’m not going to take the full three minutes.”