“Hold the bus!” She waved to get our attention. “Don’t let him leave.”
Jackson Kennit said nothing so I yelled back, “Okay!”
I watched her thrust the keys into her pocket, stroke the baby’s cheek, and give him a quick kiss before shoving two stray oranges back into her paper bag.
The bus pulled in front of me, blocking my view. The doors gasped open and Jackson Kennit climbed up, depositing his change.
“There’s a lady with a kid coming,” I heard him tell the driver. “Think she needs to get on.” Then he walked to his seat without a backward glance.
The driver stared at me expectantly, but the lady had rounded the front of the bus then, breathing hard.
“Go ahead.” I waved her toward the door. “You first.”
“Thanks so much,” she said gratefully. “What a morning.”
The woman hitched the baby higher, turning to fit herself and all her stuff through the doorway. I waited, hoping there’d still be a seat near Jackson Kennit. Behind him would be best. Once I worked up the nerve, I could just lean forward, quietly tell him what I knew, and urge him to go back home. I should have done it already, before he got any farther out into the world, but no one else on the bus was marked so I knew this ride, at least, was safe.
The woman mounted the stairs, the baby staring back at me over her shoulder. He waved, his hand covered with a brown-and-white mitten with ears. A cow. He still had a button nose and traces of roundness in his cheeks, but he was closer to two or three. Not really a baby. I could see the beginnings of his grown-up face in the shape of his brow, his pursed lips and bright, observant eyes. I could almost imagine what he’d look like at ten, or seventeen, or twenty-five.
If he made it that far.
And then they were gone, his mother still carrying him as she walked toward the rear of the bus where Jackson Kennit sat, his shoulder pressed against the window—a brown coat, outlined with a hazy light.
The driver looked at me, impatient now. “You coming or what?”
I hesitated, then shook my head. “No. Thanks.”
He scowled and rolled his eyes, pulling the lever to fold the door closed.
I watched the bus, cruising slowly, farther and farther down the street, feeling scared and empty, not fully believing that I’d just done it. I’d let him go.
I’d never see Jackson Kennit again, this man I didn’t know but had spent the night with. By tomorrow, he’d be gone. I wanted to run after him, couldn’t shake the way he’d looked down at me from his elevated seat as the bus rolled past, like the truth had somehow suddenly dawned on him as he watched me watching him drive away.
But what if it was that little boy’s life—and all the possibility in it—that I traded for?
That’s what had stopped me.
It made me sick to think of it because it might not be a little boy who I’d saved. It might be someone much worse, someone who didn’t deserve or want it at all. Like the old man on the bench or Eduard Sanchez, the man I’d warned in Kansas who killed his wife.
Or it might be no one at all.
I might have let Jackson Kennit die for nothing.
I walked home, freezing, exhausted in body and otherwise, wishing this day away and fighting off the dark and suffocating guilt that was trying to worm its way in.
I focused on the only thing I could—the tiny bit of hope that Demetria could help me make sense of what I’d just done and what I was supposed to do the next time. Because that was the one sure thing: there would be a next time. I just hoped I had some answers by then.
Chapter 9
I slept most of the rest of Sunday and a good part of Monday too, calling in sick to the funeral home and skipping school. I had a huge calc test, but there’s no way I could get my head into it.
“How’re you feeling?” Petra asked, flopping onto a chair, still in uniform after her Monday shift.
“Better,” I said, though I wasn’t really. I didn’t have a cold, like I’d told her, just a chill that felt like it might never leave. I’d already thrown out the newspaper that told me about the accident at the machine shop yesterday.
“How was the loony bin?” I asked.
“Awesome.”
“I’m going tomorrow.” I couldn’t live like this, not knowing, toying with people’s lives. I needed answers.
“You know, Cassie, I’ve been thinking.” Petra eyed me carefully. “I’m not sure your going to see her—this Demetria—is really such a good idea.”
I kept my face blank, refusing to show the panic edging in. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged uncomfortably. “I saw your name in the file, just a small note, that you’d raised your voice with her. Not a big deal on its own,” she added quickly, seeing I was about to butt in with explanations and excuses. “It’s not just that, though. When you talk about her after your visits you seem …” She bit her lip, thinking. “I don’t know. Kind of empty? I’m just not sure you’re really going to get anything out of it. Not what you’re looking for, at least. I mean, she’s not your mother; she clearly has problems that your mother didn’t …” Petra stopped and I could almost see her picking through what she remembered of my mom’s hospital records. She’d been the psychiatrist on duty when I’d gone looking for them. The one who told me my mom committed suicide, read me the notes about her “delusions.” It was pretty awful stuff and I think it weighed on Petra, made her feel, in some part, responsible. Especially since, as she told me after we moved here, her mom had spent time in a mental hospital too.
“I can understand your wanting to connect and find some kind of closure—believe me, I know how you’re feeling—but if closure exists, I don’t know, this might not be the best place to find it.”
No, I thought, it’s the only place to find it. I forced myself to stay calm, keeping my voice firm and measured, the best way to convince Petra. “I know Demetria’s not my mother, but maybe she’s enough like her to teach me something. I didn’t really raise my voice to her,” I said. “Not in a mean way. She was with me and then she wasn’t, you know? I was just trying to get her back, keep her attention.”
“Yeah.” Petra nodded sympathetically. “I totally understand how frustrating that can be. But it’s like that a lot with the patients.” Petra sighed. “Maybe I’m not expressing it very well,” she said. “I just see you holding on to this too tightly, hoping for too much …”