love, read, write

I was fourteen years old when I forgetfully took the bus home from school. I had made a promise to my mother that morning – that she'd pick me up right after my last class for a doctor's appointment, something that would later turn more frequent and more expensive. But I'd forgotten, and class had ended. The bell rang; I packed my bag hastily and ran to the bus, already teeming with kids; I clambered over knees and cross-aisle punches, clutching my backpack close to my chest as I made my way to the seat, excited to see my friends. The heat of late spring and teenage sweat hung over the air and I cut through it towards Adithya, Tara and Annie, who were already there, midway through a fervent discussion about a recent game release. They nodded to me. Annie moved over to make room. A light breeze entered through one of the few opened windows. Adithya blurted an outrageous 'would you rather' question that would occupy the rest of the bus ride home. I was happy. I loved Tuesdays, the one day a week I could take the early bus home– no after school clubs, just two o'clock's delightful circus, the moving theater of chaos and pure, unadulterated joy.

But this is fake. I do not recall any of this. My memory of this event, actually, is strangely omniscient. In fact, very little of the bus ride – the bit that I was actually there for – remains with me; instead, I recall a mythical episode, a story not mine. I have no certainty of what she looked like, what she said, what expression she wore on her face. But when someone says, "hey, remember that day your mom ran into the school?" – my mind plays a video, however impossible, that is crystal clear. I do. Yes, in fact I do remember when she ran into the school. The curtains of my mind unfold: she is La Pieta without child. She is bursting through the door, sobbing, while I was mid-argument on the school bus. Yes, I do remember. I see it: her face is red, her hair disheveled, and she grabs the first student she sees. In her dizzying paranoia, the world is falling, her child is dying, suffering in her absence. She cries out, barely distinguishable, "where is my daughter," grabbing shoulder after shoulder, a desperate wrest for information, shrinking with each croaking cry, until eventually a friend– someone I'm not even that close to, who later tells me what happened with a strange expression on her face – admits yes, watchfully, she took the bus though, didn't she?– but the answer is not convincing coming from another child, my mother has already known the answer the moment she entered the building– her daughter is dead. Me, on the bus, laughing at a provocative question, two stops away from our townhome complex, where our parking spot is empty– it is only a matter of time until she finds me at the back of a bathroom, disintegrating, she must see her daughter before the warmth runs out, must hold her body, draped over her mourning arms. She runs, and she runs. She trips, and her joints have become fragile, and she crumbles onto a school aide, who wrestles with her own prejudiced frustration to help a strange lady in need, extracts the necessary information – name, year – makes a few radio messages and a few static-decorated exchanges later, my mother is consoled, reconstructed with the information that I have been dropped off, was accounted for, and in fact I am unlocking our townhome door as this information is being transferred– the door clicks open, I take a step, I call cheerily into an empty home, "I'm home!" and a cold silence befalls me. The lights are all out. Through an open window I hear the elementary school kids squealing in the playground behind our unit. 

"Mom?" I call. My mother, miles away in the school parking lot, sobs alone in the driver's seat – of today, and more. 

The door remains ajar as I stand confused at the absence that rejects my excitement, until an eclipsing reality stiffens into my shoulders – and in my shock of realization I drop my bag at this precipice, frozen in the doorway only just beginning.