The Bus Stop

The story of a single father dealing with the struggles of raising a child on his own.

I closed the door behind me almost catching my son Gavin’s fingers in it.

“Wait,” he said. “I forgot my picture frame!”

            Hurrying him I rushed to get the key in the lock and pushed him as he ran inside to pick up the picture frame he left on the stairs. “Come on. Hurry.” I told him as he ran through the hallway, making his way out the door. It was early morning; I was dressed in athletic shorts and a green undershirt that was too thin for the cold, fall weather. Pacing quickly along the cracked sidewalk of the neighborhood we live in, I was afraid we would miss his school bus, but seeing the other kids waiting on the corner of our street reassured me we were on time.

            He dropped his Transformers backpack on the sidewalk and handed me the picture frame. “Hold this,” he said as he lifted his arm and waved the frame in my direction.

 It was a picture of him and me at the county fair last year, a few weeks after his mother, Emma, passed away. Bent down with one knee in the dirt, I had one hand around his shoulder and a funnel cake in the other. Gavin was smiling so wide that it cracked the dried sugar left on the edges of his lips. I remember it started to get easier for me to smile after seeing Gavin happy again, riding the carnival rides and laughing as he played the games. He had gotten bigger now and the pressures of being a single father had gotten even more stressful. It is amazing how much younger I look in that picture. One year later and the wrinkles in my face had grown into canyons.

 

“I’m nervous,” Gavin said.

“You’ll do fine. There is nothing to be worried about.”

“Yeah, but what if I mess up? Or drop my notecard again like last night?”

“It is okay if you mess up a little bit; I bet a lot of the kids will. And if you drop your card then just bend down and pick it up. You’ll be fine, I promise.”

“I don’t like talking to a bunch of people. You’re lucky. You don’t ever have to talk to anyone when I am at school.”

            It made me laugh to think about how nervous he was. He was presenting a school project on his family for his elementary school class. That is all he had been talking about for the past two weeks.

 

“Who should I talk about? Grandma? Aunt Lynn?”

“Talk about who ever you want to,” I replied as I cooked Lasagna. I became the household chef after Emma died, and though I still burnt almost everything, I was getting better.

“What do you want me to say about you?”

“Surprise me!” I said, not really wanting to know his opinion of me. I couldn’t be a great opinion. I am a failing work at home author writing my third book, which I am sure to be the next New York Times Bestseller�"of course I said that about my last two novels and God knows I could have seen more people at those book signings. Our house is always dirty. I haven’t dated anyone since Emma died. When my mom died, my dad was back in the dating market within five months so there has to be something wrong with me. And when Gavin said I was lucky because I don’t have to talk to anyone, he really should have said ‘you are lucky because you have no friends.’

            I wondered what he could be writing. He seemed to be writing a lot as he sat at the kitchen table scribbling on notecards. His tongue poked out of the side of his mouth showing he was concentrating hard or at least pretending to be.

 

            I saw the bus pull around the corner and start slowing down. When the red lights starting flashing, I helped Gavin put on his backpack.

“I forgot my lunch,” he said looking up at me. Another thing I can add to my fail list. I grabbed a five-dollar bill out of my wallet and told him to buy something from the cafeteria. He thanked me and got on the bus to sit next to his classmate.

“See you when you get home,” I said. He smiled back at me. I would have told him I loved him but last time I did that he yelled at me, saying I embarrassed him. I watched the bus pull away and then turned back towards the house when something caught my eye. Gavin’s notecard was lying on the sidewalk. It must have fallen out when he was digging through his backpack, I thought. I picked it up and headed towards the car, dreading the traffic near the school that now awaited me. As I walked, I looked down and read the card.

           

“First, I want to talk about my dad. He is a writer and he works at home all day writing books. I like being with him because he is funny and tells the best jokes. He takes me to the park every Saturday and we play football and baseball and sometimes he ever takes me to the major league games. He always hits home runs, too. He is really smart and knows all the answers to my homework. And he makes the best macaroni and cheese I have ever tasted. I want to be just like him when I grow up.”

 

            I stopped and reread it a couple of times as I leaned against our white picket fence. My eyes teared up and I realized that Gavin doesn’t care if we are rich or if my book is a best seller. He doesn’t care that the flowers in the front yard are dying or that the back door creaks when you open and close it. He doesn’t care if my jeans have holes in them or if the car’s headlight is out. All he cares about is spending time together and the simple things like playing in the park or talking while he does his homework. In that moment, I realized that I was not failing at life; I was doing pretty well. 

Author's Note

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Reviews

[JGIII]

Resonates because I was a single father for a long time. Makes you want to know more about the characters, pulls you in. Good descriptive language, I feel I know what the characters look like. Some minor spelling errors. In fall the bus windows would be closed so he should have said goodbye before Gavin got on the bus. Nothing major. Good read.