By Jamie Ogden

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I gave in to the alarm clock’s insistence at 4:50 a.m., my head begging for coffee, or booze, or both—already late and filled with shame.

The sun still had some time to rest behind the mountains, but I was due at the bus barn in forty minutes. I peeled the plastic lid off the coffee can. The grounds inside smelled too sweet, and I retched a little in my throat, but I managed to get the pot going.

This May had been too cold, the mornings still covered in frost and fog, stiff and wet—arthritic—like my joints. I ached into a clean pair of jeans, combed my hair into a ponytail, and lit a cigarette to smoke before brushing my teeth. I don’t like to smell like an ashtray when the kids get on my bus.

The small pot of coffee damn near filled my overworked plastic mug, leaving just enough room for a schluck of whiskey, which I did hesitate about, but ended up pouring in—to help with the headache.

Sunday nights at the town tavern had gotten long, like the winter. I used to work my afternoon shift behind the bar and go home to talk on the phone with my son, Nathan. When that reason to leave disappeared, I started to stay. Just for a few rounds of Keno and drinks at first, but now my stay is extended—well past the time the old clock behind the bar ticks over to Monday.

When I pulled into the gravel lot of the bus barn, my boss, Ronnie, greeted me, overly chipper under his wool cap: “Top of the day, Janice!”

“Hey, Ronnie.”

“Another Monday.” 

Was he actually excited it was Monday, stating the obvious, or could he see my head throbbing?  I couldn’t tell, so I just said, “Yep.”

“Foggy.”

Again, “Yep.”

Ronnie had already started my bus so it was warm and ready to go. He’d also set the radio to the Christian music station. I was too tired to change it—so I listened to the soft rock ballads for Jesus as I pulled into the foggy morning.

~

My headache finally muffled, I headed toward my last stop—down near the river, where the fog still clung to the water. The cutest kid got picked up there, a shy first-grader with jug ears, new front teeth, and a big heart—Tucker. He reminded me of Nathan at that age: all uneven. He was barely as tall as the mailbox he stood beside, with his backpack hanging down to his knees.

Nathan had been like that. His body eventually caught up to his big heart. And he wanted to serve. Enlisted right out of high school. The Army was good for him, and he was a good soldier. He did good.

When war picked up in Afghanistan, he took a second tour. He didn’t come home from that one.

The officers came to give me notice, about this time last year. I’d just finished my morning route and was changing into my muck boots on the back step, about to check on the lambs. At the sight of those two uniforms, my bones disintegrated—my soft body sank into the spring-wet mud of the yard, and I don’t think I got up until school started again in the fall. If you can call it getting up, what I’m doing now.

“He is always by my side…” I heard the radio whine.

Jesus. I was crying —and I hit the brake too hard.

~

Where was Tucker? I swear he was there by the mailbox. Where’d he go? Oh, God.

I swung open the door and out of the bus. I saw the backpack on the road. There was a long moment of nothing as the fog lifted off the ground.

Tucker turned his head, his doe eyes brimming with tears. “She’s dead, Miss Janice,” he sputtered.

The boy was crouched beside a ball of soft gray fur with a bushy striped tail—a raccoon.

“Oh God, Tucker…I’m sorry, I didn’t see her,” I choked, devastated that I hurt this boy—but relieved it was in this way, not another.

“It wasn’t the bus. She was like this already. I didn’t want you to run over her.”

I exhaled in a rush. “It’s okay, baby,” I said, wrapping my arms around the tender boy’s slight shoulders. “I’ll move her. It’s okay.”

I guided Tucker to the bus and turned back to the raccoon, who lay on her back, four human-like hands reaching up, exposing eight pink swollen teats on her downy belly. A mama.

Aware the kids were watching, I gently picked her up, moved her to the side of the road, and nestled her into the soft brown grass, away from the mailbox. I bowed my head as if offering a prayer, and I suppose I did. Something like, “Please let us be okay.”

~

The heater hummed as I drove the kids under the rising fog to school. When they were all off the bus, I could feel the grief swelling in my throat. I was desperate to lie down, but my body insisted on moving forward.

Instead of going back to the bus barn, I retraced my route back down the gravel road, back to the mama raccoon. I stopped short of where I left her and walked up the ditch. There was movement—maybe a predator had already come to feast.

But, no, as I got closer, I saw it wasn’t a coyote or bird. It was her babies, scrambling for her cold nipples.

I slunk back to the bus to fetch the trash box, dumped it, and tiptoed back to the ditch. They were alive. I couldn’t leave them.

Milk-drunk and sleepy, the kits didn’t scatter. They let me lift them into the box as I whispered, “It’s okay. It’s okay. We’re gonna be okay, sweet ones.”