The Last Run of Route 7

I made the calls from my kitchen in the evenings, two or three a night, with a pad of paper and a pencil, after supper dishes. I had a little speech written out, but I only used it twice.

The first call was to the Dekker place, stop 1, a quarter mile from the bus barn. Jenny Dekker answered with a baby crying somewhere behind her.

“This is Jill Becker,” I said. “Hal Ahlstrom is my dad. He drives your kids on Route 7.”

“Oh, Hal,” she said, and her voice went soft. “My Lily calls him Mister Hal. She thinks he’s a hundred years old.”

“He’s 79,” I said.

There was a pause. “He’s 79? Driving that route in the winter?”

“It’s his last year,” I said. “May 22nd is his last day. I wondered if you might want to be out at the end of your lane that morning. Just to say goodbye.”

“Jill,” she said. “We’ll be out there. I’ll make cinnamon rolls. I’ll make two pans.”

That was how it went. Thirty-one calls over two weeks, and not one family said no. Most of them said yes before I got to the end of the sentence.

At stop 9, Dennis Kooiker, who milks a hundred and twenty cows, told me he had ridden Dad’s bus himself in 1991. “He used to let me sit up front when I was carsick,” he said. “I’ll be out there if I have to let the cows wait.”

At stop 14, Mrs. Hoogland, who is 84 herself and raises her two great-grandsons, asked if I would drive her a pan of bars the night before because her oven was out. I told her I’d be glad to.

I cried more during those two weeks than I had since Mom died. Not sad crying. Something else. The kind where you realize that the person you love was seen all along, every morning, by people you never even thought about.

One more call

The night before the last day, I sat at the kitchen table with my list. Thirty-one stops, every one with a check mark next to it. Kent came in from the shop and stood behind me and put his hand on my shoulder.

“There’s one more,” he said.

I knew who he meant. I had been not thinking about it for two weeks.

“I promised Dad I wouldn’t fight him,” I said.

“So don’t fight him,” Kent said. “Tell him where to stand.”

I called Neal at a quarter to nine. He picked up on the fourth ring, and I could tell from his voice that he knew it was going to be something.

“Dad’s last day on the bus is tomorrow,” I said. “His last run. Every family on Route 7 is going to be out at the end of their lane to thank him.”

He didn’t say anything.

“The Van Wyks are stop 31,” I said. “Last stop before the blacktop. He usually gets there right around eight. I’d like you to be there, Neal. That’s all. That’s the only thing I’m asking you.”

“Jill,” he started.

“I’m not asking about the money,” I said. “I’m not going to say a word about the money. I promised Dad. I’m just telling you where your father is going to be at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

The line was quiet for so long I thought maybe he had set the phone down. Then I heard him breathe out, a long breath, like a man setting down something heavy.

He hung up without answering.

At ten forty that night, my phone buzzed on the counter. It was Robin.