The Bus That Was Never Full
“And?”
She put her finger on the yellow line.
“April eleventh. A transfer out. Two thousand one hundred eighty dollars, into the general checking account.”
Nobody breathed.
“Rhonda said it was a loan,” Sandy said. “Just until the Fun Run pledges came in. The school musical had a deposit due on the stage curtains, and the checking account was short, and she said it would be back in the fund by June.” She swallowed. “The pledges came in in May. I asked about the money in June. She said the principal had needed a sound system for the gym, and she’d get to it. I asked again in August. She said she was handling it.”
“Handling it,” Becky repeated.
“There was $130 left in that account in September. Two families came up short on the trip, the Reyeses and the Boldts, and Rhonda paid them out of it, which is what it’s for. As of the first of October that account has nothing in it.” Sandy took her glasses off. “And Rhonda knows that I know. I think she has known since September that this trip would be the first one where somebody asked.”
“So she just made him disappear,” Kristi said. “Instead of saying so.”
She said it very low.
“Heather, I am sorry. I should have said something in June.”
Becky Lund was the one who spoke next. Becky is not a quiet woman.
“I baked twelve pies for that fund,” she said. “Twelve.”
“Please don’t go to her mad,” I said.
They all looked at me.
“I’m not asking you to forgive anything. But I’d like Rhonda to hear it from people who’ve known her twenty years, before anybody else does.”
“Heather,” Kristi said, “she told your child he couldn’t go.”
“I know she did.” I picked up the pot. “And I would like her to be the one to tell him he can.”
Sandy folded the statement along its old crease.
“Tomorrow night,” she said. “Her house. The five of us.”
I worked my Thursday shift, and I smiled at the ones who asked about Wyatt, and I said he was fine. At 2:15 I drove home and sat in the kitchen with the clock ticking.
Wyatt came in at 3:20 and put his backpack on the hook. He said, “Dalton’s mom said he’s not going either.”
I stopped, halfway to the stove.
“What?”
“Dalton told Mrs. Fisk he didn’t want to go if I couldn’t. And she said he had to talk to his mom.” He frowned at his sandwich. “I told him he should go. It’s a really good trip. They have a map room.”
I crossed the kitchen and kissed the top of his head. He made a face and allowed it.
“Dalton’s a good friend,” I said.
“Dalton’s okay,” Wyatt said, which, in the language of ten-year-old boys, is a speech.
At 6:45 that night Neil drove me and Sandy and Kristi and Becky and Marcy across town in his Ford pickup, three of us up front and the rest on the bench seat behind, to a split-level on Linden Street with a wreath on the door that said Gather. The porch light was on. Rhonda’s minivan was in the drive.