Tracey Kry
He sits at the kitchen table, a Tuesday morning, in his pajamas eating cereal, and the school bus drives by. He doesn't look up. He has never been in his second grade classroom. It's November and the leaves are gone from the trees. Snow will be falling soon, maybe tomorrow.
She pats him on the head. His hair is soft and full like hers, but lighter, like his father's. "You missed the bus again today, love." He brings his cereal bowl to the sink and moves to the couch for cartoons. They are flashy and loud, and he falls back asleep. She wipes up spilled milk from the tablecloth and covers him with a blanket. She tries to read to him when he wakes, but he's not interested.
At first he faked it. Stomachaches, headaches, sore throat. When she caught on, he would cry and yell and wear her down. Now, he simply refuses, and there's nothing she can do. They've never seen anything like it before, the principal said.
His father came, sometime in early October. The boy had missed building a monarch caterpillar home. By now, they were butterflies and already miles away. He missed fall leaf art projects, fractions, tornados. The class was going on a field trip to the bread factory the day his father came. He thought the field trip might entice him to get on the bus. When talk of the slicing machine and ovens huge enough to bake a witch in didn't work, he did what he'd been telling the boy's mother to do since his first missed day. "Just put him on the bus."
But after being physically placed on the school bus, he simply walked back off and stood on the lawn. Grass clippings stained his new, never worn school shoes, which he kept his eyes fixed on. After this dance was repeated five times, the bus driver, telling them she had a schedule to keep after all, pulled the door shut and left. The father left too, leaving the boy alone at the edge of the lawn, and his mother watching from behind the screened front door. She had just switched the floral summer wreath for the autumnal wreath, hoping the boy would be happy to see it when he got home from school.
After dinner, he goes outside for some fresh air. He doesn't stay out long, the air is getting bitter, the days shorter. He sits on his swing in a puffy jacket, clutching the ropes with gloved hands, watching bare trees. He doesn't want a push, but rocks himself back and forth.
"What happened to you?" she asks him later in the tub. She washes his hair and uses the extra lather to clean his back. She lets him soak as long as he wishes, turning the faucet back on for fresh warm water.
He appears in her bedroom doorway wrapped in a towel. "I've never been without you," he says. Which isn't at all true. She puts him to bed and drains the tub.
His father comes back when she is swapping her autumnal wreath with a red and green one. It's the boy's favorite. "Do you even remember your ABCs?" he asks. The boy begins to hum the tune. "The words, the letters," the father says. To which the boy hums louder. This time, the father leaves before the bus comes.
They go for a drive that afternoon as a snowstorm begins. She has some errands she wants to do, but they will probably just drive. They pass a pickup truck and share a laugh at the oddities of things sticking out of the bed—an empty animal cage, a splintered handle to something unseen, an upside down chair with wheels spinning.
A field, which during the warmer months is filled with cows, stands empty and white. "Where are the cows?" he asks. She looks in the rearview to see he's already forgotten what he's asked.
"You need to learn new things," she says.
"I learn something new every day," he says.
"Like what?"
He points to the sky. "That's an arctic air mass."
"You need to play with your friends."
"I just want you."
She wants to tell him she's not always going to be around. "I'm no fun," she says instead. She hits an icy patch and decides it's time to go home.
He's eating animal crackers by the window as the bus drops the children off after their day at school. It's April now, the ground soft with spring thaw. The children splash across the lawn spraying mud on their clothes and backpacks. A little girl runs to cross the street after the bus shuts off its blinking lights and starts moving again. She's not paying attention and is struck. They can hear the thud through the closed window.
She and the boy stare dumbly from inside the house. The bus driver runs to the girl. She yells into her radio. People from nearby homes come to the scene. Most are on cell phones making the same call that everyone else has already made. One woman remains beside the girl, crouching on the pavement, stroking her hair. The bus driver yells back at the bus, telling the children to sit down and be quiet. Cars do three point turns to find another way home. It starts to sprinkle.
The ambulance arrives. There is blood on the girl's forehead, and the paramedics seem to be focusing on one arm. But the girl is going to be ok, she is sure of it.
"She doesn't look good," the boy says.
"She got hit by a bus, love," she says.
Parents arrive from the neighborhood to take their children from the bus and bring them home for dinner. Probably pizza and ice cream to make everything feel a little better. She decides to give the boy the same, and save the dinner she already made for another night.