The Bus Station
Chapter 01 - The Bus Station
At 4:37 in the morning, my three children left me at the Greyhound station with one torn suitcase, a plastic grocery bag of clothes, and a bus ticket to a city where no one alive was waiting.
The sky was still dark.
The benches were cold enough to come through my coat.
My oldest son, Martin, set the grocery bag beside my shoes without meeting my eyes. He had been the child who once cried if I walked too far ahead of him in the supermarket. Now he stood in front of me like a man delivering a package to the wrong address.
“Mom,” he said, “we can’t take care of you anymore.”
Elaine stood behind him, arms crossed over her good wool coat, the one she bought with the bonus she said was too small to help with my roof. Peter stayed by the running car with the hazard lights blinking orange against the wet pavement.
I looked at their three faces.
The faces I had fed, wiped, rocked, paid for, prayed over, forgiven.
Then I looked at the suitcase with the broken zipper.
“Where am I supposed to go?” I asked.
May you like
Nobody answered.
That was the first honest thing they did all morning.
