NOT YET
Spring reached Graybridge reluctantly.
For two weeks trees produced buds while mornings still froze.
Arthur continued riding Thursdays.
Claire did not.
Marisol did not ask what had happened between them at the fence.
Arthur did not volunteer it.
He no longer cleaned the block every week. There was less to clean now.
Instead he sometimes walked the old sidewalk.
Once he brought a folding ruler.
Marisol found him measuring the distance between two sets of concrete steps.
"What are you doing?"
"Claire couldn't remember which house belonged to the Kaplans."
"Did the measurements help?"
"No."
"You know Google has old aerial photos."
Arthur looked offended.
"That seems like cheating."
"Against whom?"
"I haven't decided."
In May, Claire called Marisol.
"Has he said anything about me?"
"No."
"Nothing?"
"He told me you couldn't remember where Mrs. Kaplan lived."
Claire laughed.
"God."
"What?"
"He argued with me about that for ten minutes."
"Apparently he's still litigating it."
Claire went quiet.
"I met him for coffee."
Marisol smiled but kept her voice neutral.
"How was it?"
"Awful."
"Oh."
"Not catastrophic."
"That's different."
"We had forty-three years of silence and apparently nothing interesting to say about coffee."
Marisol laughed.
Claire did too.
Then the laugh vanished.
"I asked him about the money."
"What money?"
"The money he stopped sending."
Marisol listened.
"He told me exactly how much he earned back then. How much he spent on rent. How much on alcohol."
"That sounds uncomfortable."
"It was."
Claire paused.
"He brought a notebook."
Marisol groaned.
"He made a budget from 1984?"
"Apparently shame has turned him into an accountant."
"Did it help?"
"I don't know."
Claire was quiet for a moment.
"He didn't ask me to forgive him."
"No."
"He didn't ask when we'd meet again."
"No."
"That's almost irritating."
Marisol understood that too.
A familiar failure created familiar anger.
Improvement could destabilize it.
"What do you want him to do?" she asked.
Claire answered immediately.
"I don't know."
By July, Claire and Arthur had met five times.
Marisol knew only because Claire occasionally called and Arthur occasionally appeared on the bus holding things he would not explain.
A book Claire had lent him.
A container of cookies.
An old photograph in a protective sleeve.
The photograph was of Claire at ten beside Diane on Calder Street.
Arthur showed Marisol once.
Diane stood with one hand on her hip.
Claire held a bicycle.
"The bicycle?" Marisol asked.
"The bicycle."
"Your Pontiac in the background?"
Arthur looked at the photograph.
"Unfortunately."
Marisol laughed.
Arthur did too.
Then he looked at Claire's face.
"My daughter has my nose."
"You're just noticing?"
"I've been busy."
August came.
One year since Arthur had begun riding Route 18.
On the first Thursday of the month, he didn't appear.
Nor the second.
On the third, Marisol called the senior community center near Warren Avenue and asked if they knew Arthur Dwyer.
They did.
He had fallen in his apartment.
Nothing catastrophic.
A fractured wrist and bruised ribs.
"He'll be back irritating us shortly," the receptionist said.
Marisol felt foolishly relieved.
That evening Claire called.
"He's fine."
"I heard."
"You called the center?"
"Bus-driver surveillance network."
Claire snorted.
"He wants to ride next Thursday."
"With broken ribs?"
"Apparently the bus is essential to his spiritual health."
"Tell him no."
"I did."
"Did he listen?"
"Have you met him?"
The following Thursday, Claire boarded at Warren Avenue.
Alone.
"What are you doing here?" Marisol asked.
"His route."
Marisol looked at her.
Claire tapped a fare card.
"Don't make it weird."
She sat in Arthur's seat.
At Calder Loop she got off.
Marisol watched her cross the street and stand beside the fence.
She stayed there for seven minutes.
When she returned to the bus, her eyes were red but dry.
"My mother used to wait right there," she said.
Marisol followed her gaze.
"At the stop?"
"Before there was a stop. There was a bench."
Claire sat.
"She worked at Harding Elementary. Thursday was inventory night in the cafeteria. She'd come home late carrying leftovers nobody wanted."
Marisol finally understood something.
"Thursday."
Claire nodded.
"My father knew she worked late Thursdays."
Arthur had not chosen the day randomly.
Perhaps he had never told Marisol because he understood how it would sound.
Claire looked through the window.
"When he left, I used to sit on the porch on Thursdays because I thought he'd know Mom wasn't home yet."
"Why?"
"So he could come back without having to face her."
Marisol felt a quiet ache in her chest.
Claire smiled without humor.
"Kids can turn anything into a system."
She looked toward the vanished house.
"Apparently old men can too."
When Arthur returned to Route 18 three weeks later, his wrist was wrapped in a brace.
Marisol told him about Claire's ride.
Not everything.
Only that she had come.
Arthur stared toward his old seat.
"She sat there?"
"Yes."
He looked out at Calder Street.
"Thursday was Diane's late shift."
"I heard."
Arthur closed his eyes.
"I wondered if Claire remembered."
"She did."
The bus sat quietly.
"Arthur?"
"Yes?"
"Why Thursdays?"
He took a long time before answering.
"Because when I came back that one time, it was a Thursday."
Marisol waited.
"I knew Diane would still be at work."
"You were avoiding her."
"Yes."
"And Claire was waiting."
Arthur nodded.
"So every Thursday you've been riding out here because—what? You thought you could redo that day?"
"No."
His voice was quiet.
"I think I kept coming because it was the last day she was still happy to see me."
Marisol had no answer for that.
Arthur looked down at his braced wrist.
"Claire invited me to dinner Sunday."
Marisol turned.
"At her house?"
"Yes."
"Her husband there?"
"Yes."
"Children?"
"No."
"Good."
Arthur looked amused.
"I'll inform her that my bus driver approves."
"Absolutely do not."
"I suspected."
He stood.
At the door he paused.
"I'm terrified."
Marisol looked at him.
"Go anyway."
Arthur nodded.
Then he stepped off.