The Bus Route That Cost Less Than Their Mileage
“Nice work, Mom,” he said, very low.
“It was your work.”
“It was both,” Eli said.
The parking lot was dark and cool, and the gym emptied slow, the way a church does after a funeral. I was folding Eli’s lap blanket into the loaner van the VFW commander had brought over without being asked when somebody cleared his throat behind me. It was Gene Faulkner, with his cap in his hands.
“Mrs. Nygaard,” he said.
“Mr. Faulkner.”
“I’m not going to ask you to forgive it. I don’t think that’s mine to ask. I am sorry, to you and to the boy.”
“Thank you.”
“I just want to know what I can do before the 28th.”
I thought about that. A man like Gene Faulkner has done everything alone his whole life, and I could see what it cost him to ask a woman in a parking lot what to do.
“Hal Fairchild took a substitute run for the elementary,” I said. “He sat in my driveway every morning for two weeks at 6:40, on his own time, so my son wouldn’t wait alone. If the vote goes the way Mrs. Hubbard wants it, put Hal back on Route 14, with his years counted. And Mona, the aide.”
“I can’t promise you the other six.”
“I know.”
“I can promise you I’ll make the motion if she doesn’t.” He put his cap on and took it off again. “What else?”
“I’d like a rule.” I took out the page Mark had helped me write that morning. “Any change to a route for a child with a plan on file goes to the family in writing, thirty days ahead, as its own agenda item, voted in public. Not a line on a consent agenda at 9:40 at night.”
He read it with the glasses back on. His lips moved a little.
“I’ll write it up myself,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“Anything else?”
“Come ride the bus the first morning it runs,” I said. “6:40. Bring a coffee.”
He stared at me for a moment. “You want me on it?”
“I want you to see how long fifty-two minutes is,” I said. “That’s all.”
On the 28th the board met in the library annex again, and there were about a dozen of us, mostly the same faces. Hal sat in the back with his thermos. Kay took the minutes. Sylvia moved, Oscar seconded, and Gene did not speak to it. The money came out of the contingency line. It passed 5 to 2, and the two who voted no said what they had said in June about the levy. I did not hold it against them. Four hundred twelve thousand dollars is a real number.
Route 14 would run again on Wednesday, with Hal and with Mona.
The bus came up County Road 212 at 6:41 on Wednesday morning, and I was standing at the end of the drive with my coffee, not trying to look like I was waiting for anything.
It was the same yellow bus, with the same dent in the left fender where somebody’s cow had met it in 2019. The red lights came on. The stop sign swung out. The door folded open with its familiar sigh.
Hal Fairchild was at the wheel, and he had his dented thermos on the dash, and he was not even trying to hide his face.
“Good morning, my friend,” he said.