The Pickup List and the Blizzard

The day the bus came back

The storm came in the second week of January.

The weather service had put out the blizzard warning the night before, starting noon Thursday.

By ten in the morning the wind had come around to the northwest, and you could see the snow lifting off the fields like smoke before a single new flake had fallen.

The co-op closed at eleven. I drove home behind the fuel truck with my headlights on at noon.

Norm was already out with the tractor, moving round bales to the windbreak and checking the heater on the stock tank, because a cow with no water in a blizzard is a dead cow by morning.

The school called early dismissal at twelve thirty. I know that because the automated call came to my phone too. They had never taken my number off the general list, only off Hunter’s and Ava’s card.

I stood at my kitchen window and watched it come. By one o’clock I could not see the machine shed, which is maybe sixty yards from the house.

By two, I could not see the yard light pole, and the yard light pole is closer than that.

At two thirty, the phone rang. It was the school, and it was not the recording.

“Sherry, it’s Marlene Kemp.”

I had never in my life heard her use her first name on the telephone. I sat down at the kitchen table.

“The north route bus turned back,” she said. “Gene got as far as the county line and couldn’t see the end of his own hood, so he did the right thing and brought them back to town.

“I’ve got five children sitting in my office. Two of them are yours.”

“Is Hunter all right? Is Ava?”

“They’re fine. They’ve had graham crackers. They’re coloring.” She took a breath. “Sherry, I know what the card says. I’ve been calling Brittany since one o’clock.

“She’s at work in the nursing home, and they don’t let the aides carry their phones on the floor, and the girl who answered the desk says nobody can get out because the night shift can’t get in.

“The highway patrol closed the road between here and there at noon. I’ve left two messages for Dustin.”

“What about the other three?”

“The two Berg kids and little Tyler Hanson. Mark Berg is out on a line call somewhere with the electric co-op. His wife is stuck at the bank in the same town Brittany is. Tyler’s mother is a nurse at the same place Brittany works.

“I’ve got all three of those parents on the phone, one way or another, and every one of them has told me they’re fine with it if you’ll take them. I wrote down the time and what each one said.”

I did not answer right away. She let me be quiet.

“The superintendent is sending the town staff home while they can still walk it,” she said. “I can stay here all night with them and I will if I have to.

“There’s a cot in the nurse’s room. But they all live out your way, Sherry. You’re six miles from every one of their houses. And I’d rather they were in a kitchen than a hallway.”

“I’m not on the card,” I said.

“I know you’re not,” she said. “Get your coat.”