sketchbook stories: the bus stop

bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows

Long ago, I waited at the end of the driveway for the schoolbus. Rain, snow, sleet, hail—like the mailman, the bus came every day, delivering fifty kids in grades K-8 to the little island schoolhouse.

I waited. My mother sketched. Autumn, back-to-school outfits from the Sears catalog. Winter, ice skates for recess on a pond that seemed vast as the sea. In my lunchbox, a cream-cheese-and-olive sandwich.

Later, I returned, mom to my mom as her words and memories slipped away. Over breakfast we’d watch the yellow box with wheels drive past.

And still, I hear the children’s voices.