In the distance I hear the bus, rattling and wheezing over the pockmarked pavement of the street. Rex jumps to his feet and starts wagging his tail, winding the nylon leash around my legs.
“Rex, stop it,” I say with the tired resignation of a woman who has said this same thing to this dog before. Without waiting for Rex to stop, I gingerly extract myself from the makeshift cocoon and bend down to pet him. “Sit.” I try to sound like Ms. Woodhouse, authoritative and certain. I come off more as Pee-Wee Herman, and Rex ignores me.
The bus pulls up to the curb. I hear the shudder of the brakes and the whoosh-clank of the doors opening. Immediately, five-and six-year-olds stream down the steps and onto the sidewalk in a laughing, jostling, centipede of blue jeans and T-shirts.
As usual, Brad isn’t with them. He is always the last off the bus, my little talker.
Smiling, I head for the open door. “Hey, Claudine,” I say, peeking my head inside, “where’s—”
Claudine looks concerned. Her gloved fingers coil nervously around the big black steering wheel. “Brad wasn’t on the bus today. Was he supposed to be?”
“What? What?” The leash falls from my fingers and lands with a soft thump across my feet.
“Don’t panic, April,” Claudine says, although I can see that she is having to work to keep her voice even. I know that she is thinking of Calvin and Suki, her own kids. “He’s probably in the school office right now, trying to call you. That’s what happens most of the time.”
Most of the time.
I push those words away and focus on the others, trying to call you. They are a lifeline. While I’ve been standing here, waiting, doing nothing, my boy has been trying to call to say he missed the bus.
I mean to mumble a thanks, maybe manufacture a smile, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, I turn and run. In some distant part of my brain I can hear Rex loping beside me, his leash snapping and clanging on the cement; at any other time I would worry that the puppy might trip over the strap and hurt his throat. Right now I can’t even think straight. All I know is that my precious six-year-old is out there somewhere, my baby who doesn’t understand yet about crossing the street and isn’t afraid of strangers.
I hit the house at full stride, crashing through the screen door. There is no message light blinking on the answering machine.
“Stay!” I bark at Rex, knowing this word has no meaning for him. I take a precious second to unsnap his leash and snag my purse, and I am gone again.
It takes several tries to get the car key in the ignition. “I’m coming, Bradley,” I whisper over and over again as the engine sparks to life and I jam the gearshift into reverse.
It is thirteen blocks from our house to the elementary school. I make it in four minutes—four minutes that feel like a lifetime. Fish-tailing into the parking lot, I wrench the old car into park and get out. In two strides, I am running.
He is all right. He’s in the principal’s office—just like the time Bonnie missed the bus in first grade.
I refuse to remember that they called that time, long before I left for the bus stop.
Then I see it.
“Oh, my God…”
Suddenly I am not running anymore. I can’t. I feel as if I am walking under water. The air resists me, draws the oxygen away until I can’t draw a breath.
Slowly, so slowly, I move toward the small blue container that lies fallen on the grassy hillside in front of Mr. Robbin’s third-grade classroom.
A Power Rangers lunchbox.
The fear I have been fighting explodes inside me. I sink to my knees in the grass; my fingers are trembling so badly that it is difficult to pick up the box. I fumble with the plastic latch for a second—lots of kids have Power Rangers lunchboxes, this isn’t Brad’s—then the latch works and the front gapes open. Out tumbles half a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich on wheat bread and an empty vanilla pudding container. Through the plastic baggie I can see that the sandwich is soaked with honey—just the way he likes it. A metal spoon clangs against the side. He has remembered this time to bring it home.
“Mrs. Bannerman? April, is that you?”
It is the principal, Mr. Johnston, and the casual tone of his voice severs the thin strand of my hope. He obviously did not expect me; he has no idea why I am here, kneeling in the grass, pawing through the remains of my child’s lunch. For a second—a heartbeat that brushes into eternity—I cannot look at him. When at last I do find the courage to turn, to lift my chin, my eyes are burning and coated with tears. “Bradley…” I whisper his name, hearing the hopelessness echoing in my voice. “Is he here?”