It doesn’t sound like a lot, 15 minutes, but the year they extended our bus route beyond the tanks, we had to get up earlier, or go to school with wet hair. (This was often my choice, and for most of the Norton girls at the end of Van Dyke Road.) I didn’t think of it then, but I’m sure it felt as invasive for the Frier’s as it was for us. Maybe they had been first on their route before. I’m sorry to say I didn’t ask, but merely wished that they would hurry up their own gravel driveway so we could get to school. 

It’s funny how we claim things. Our bus. Our route. We were all just trying to get to our destination. To be with our friends. To swing our feet under desks while the teacher read aloud. To laugh at lunch without snorting milk out our noses. To learn, sure. To drop permission slips and backpacks with wild abandon and run into our mothers’ arms. 

There will always be roads and worlds between us, but the road that runs beneath us, this remains the same. 

I wait at the top of the hill. Mailboxes at my back. Gravel beneath my feet. Ready to share the ride.