The school bus is late!

It was about 4:40 by the time I began to notice anything was wrong. At first, I thought the clock must be wrong. I checked another clock, 4:40, as well. "Strange, I don't remember her ever being home past 4:30," I thought. "I'll give it another 5 minutes.

A half hour later, I was on the phone with the school. Gayle the secretary, said the principal had left, but as far as she knew, the school bus had left the school on time.
"But then, it's a rainy day, and starting to freeze over," she continued. "Maybe the driver is just taking it real slow." I hung up. Thanks for the encouraging advice! Not!

As I drove the usual route of the bus, I spoke with my husband on my cell phone. He was still at the office, but told me to try calling the bus company and the local police. He was on his way home, meet him there. I was, for the first time, feeling the early symptoms of a panic attack. I pulled over, as the nausea became out of control, and my breath caught in my throat. I was praying the whole duration of the attack.

When I regained my composure, enough, at least, that I felt I could drive, I made the calls my husband had told me to make, and started the car up again. My mind was racing. I remembered how hard we had tried for her. When she was finally coming, my father was in his last days of life. He had wanted so badly to hold on long enough to see her, but it wasn't to be. On his death bed, he whispered to me, "I will see her, honey, I swear, I will." Amazing to me, as we were not even sure our precious baby was to be a girl. He died that night, but I felt a presence one night, shortly after bringing her home from the hospital. A breeze, down the hall, into the baby's room, then past my door. A whisper, or was it the wind,which my sleep deprived mind heard as "Good enough." One of my father;s favourite expressions. I had heard it a thousand times, growing up, when he was pleased with something I had accomplished.

My thoughts were cut off by another intense wave of nausea, and I pulled over and vomited again. Despite my husband's instuctions to meet him at home, I was going to look for her myself! She was out here somewhere, and it was starting to get dark. I would not be going home without her, I decided. If they come for me, and I don't have her, they will be taking me away in an ambulance, with a sheet pulled over my head!

I was still dizzy, but on some level I felt I could drive, so I pulled back onto the empty country road. The road followed the river bank, twisting and turning it's way back into town. I was only now starting to realize the full potential for tragedy this road held.I was also starting to feel sick, yet again. The phone rang, and the shrill sound startled me so much, that I almost lost control of the car.

"What?" I answered, my body heaving, and shaking uncontrollably.

"Jen, why the hell aren't you home yet?The police say the rain is starting to freeze." I told him I was looking.
"The cops have it under control. Get home!" He hung up. His voice was shaking. I continued driving, looking for anything unusual, or anything out of place along the river bank. I periodically pulled over to barf, and looked down the slope of the embankment, looking, looking. I was hardly thinking straight by this time. It was dark now, and my eyes were losing focus, but I kept driving. Suddenly, it was just there. The group of children by the side of the road were soaked to the skin, but most certainly alive. SHE was right at the front of the group. I pulled over, and bolted out of the car...

The story makes no sense, not to me, not to the police. When the driver suffered the heart attack, which had killed him, the out of control bus had barreled down the embankment, into the freezing cold river. The skeletal figure of an old man in black was about the only thing the childrens' stories had in common, from this point on, but the general sense that they had been pulled from the river by him somehow seemed a common thread. Some of them, including mine, also expanded on the story, as they described being helped out of the water, floating up towards the sky by the figure, who used his black umbrella to catch the wind and to shelter them. They had then been gently set down on the side of the road. The body of the driver had been pulled from the river a few hours later, by police,who said that however the hell the kids got up the slope of the embankment, they hadn't climbed, because not one footprint was found on the slope. In the end, they just gave up, and called it a night. Maybe the kids would begin to regain their memories in the morning, they said. Shock, and all that.

That night, after I had tucked HER into bed, I laid awake in my own bed for a long time, waiting. Eventually, I started drifting off to sleep. In that peaceful, floating space that lies between asleep and awake, he came. I knew he would. Past HER room, down the hall to the door of my room. All in black, I couldn't make out his face. I didn't have to.
"Good enough, dad," I whispered, as he was sneaking past the door, and the skeleton turned, and smiled at me with so much love.