The Morning Bus

There is exactly one window in the morning where the bus works. Before that window you're waiting, after it you're driving. It's maybe four minutes wide.

Jaxsen has figured out the minimum number of steps required to make the bus. He runs them efficiently, in order, and he has no interest in adding anything. He will not eat breakfast unless you hand it to him. He will not remember his backpack unless you say it out loud. He will be at the end of the driveway at the exact right moment, backpack on, granola bar in hand, looking completely calm.

Adalind approaches mornings like a research project. She will be eating cereal and want to know something specific about spiders. She will find a sock but not the other one. She will remember, at the moment the bus is pulling up, that she forgot to tell her teacher something. She will want to write it on her hand.

Both of them get on the bus. Every day, somehow, they get on the bus.

I watched them from the end of the driveway on Thursday. Jaxsen first, head down, backpack high, already somewhere else mentally. Adalind halfway up the stairs, turning to wave in that way that's half-wave, half-"wait, did I forget something." Then she was on. The doors closed. I was standing on the sidewalk in my jacket with no particular reason to still be outside, and it was quiet.

That part takes about thirty seconds. I don't know why it still lands the same way every time.