When they got to the bus station, Willow waited patiently at the ticketing window until it creaked open. A scruffy gray-haired man with tattered sleeves sat up in his chair to get a full view of the eleven-year-old girl whose coiled brown hair barely reached the height of the window.
“Where are you two headed?” he asked through a mask of coffee steam.
“Two tickets for New York City, please. The six-thirty bus,” Willow said surprisingly confidently. And, for the first time, there was nothing meek or insecure or awkward about Willow as she unrolled the stack of cash she had secured with a rubber band. She pushed the money below the glass pane and accepted her ticket from a man who had seen all sorts of people buying bus tickets to all sorts of places.
And then Willow nodded to Asher, who followed her onto the platform for the bus. Willow’s right leg was vibrating vigorously and Asher’s whole body bounced up and down. But when the bus horn sounded and the bright headlights made their way around the bend of the road, both Willow and Asher were still. Still and ready.
The doors opened with a whoosh of air and Willow and Asher walked onto the empty bus and gripped each other’s hand, tightly without even looking down at their fingers. They each took a giant step in tandem onto the steps and walked up toward the driver. And with another whoosh, the doors shut behind them and the bus creaked into motion.
Willow and Asher walked down the narrow aisle and took seats next to each another. They placed their hands flat on the light blue patterned seats and let their legs dangle over the edge as they steadied themselves for the ride.
And suddenly, Willow wasn’t in the past anymore thinking of what it used to be like when Mom was around. And she also wasn’t in the future thinking about what it would be like when Mom was around again. She had become acutely present. The future equal to the past. The past equal to the future. She was so close to Mom as she sat there feeling the excitement of nearing the end of a long and painful road. Feeling the bumps of the tires beneath her legs. Feeling the vibrations of the seats that were way too big for their little bodies too far into a plan that was way too big for their little minds.
* * *
Willow listened to her headphones and played her word searches while Asher twisted the limbs of his action figures. Together, they counted blue cars on the highway and alternated between playing rock, paper, scissors and tic-tac-toe.
And then they got quiet. Asher leaned his head on his sister’s shoulder and closed his eyes for a nap. And then Willow leaned her head on her brother’s head and closed her eyes for a nap too. But they could each tell by the way the other was breathing that neither of them were asleep. They waited nervously and excitedly to get to Manhattan.
And, then, all of a sudden, the road narrowed and buildings stacked up around them. And then, all of a sudden, their farness from home was all so real. It was real in the thick, city air. In the oppressive grayness of the streets, and the buildings, and smoke coming up from the earth. It was real in the density of buildings, and signs, and sounds, and people. It was real in the quickness with which those people stomped through the sidewalks. It was real in the tight straight lanes they moved along in and the black outfits they wore. It was real in the loudness. The flashing lights. The honking horns.
This was a whole different world. Not Dad’s. Not Mom’s. Not school. Not the beach.
Willow and Asher locked hands and they stepped off the bus into the big terminal. Then they followed a few passengers out the building and stood by themselves on the curb. Willow willed a taxi to stop in front of her and take her and Asher to Mom. But everything was zooming by. Gray and zooming by.
And then a tall, slim blonde woman in a neat white dress tapped Willow on the shoulder.
“You trying to get somewhere, sweetheart?” she asked gently. Maternally.
Willow uncurled her hand and showed the woman the locket with the address on it. And then the woman in white stuck her long and narrow arm out toward the street. A dirty yellow cab pulled up underneath it. She handed the driver a few green bills and told him the address. And Willow watched the woman in white’s red nails retreat out the window, and then wave to her and Asher as they drove away.
With every jerky right turn, every red stoplight and narrowly missed car next to them, Willow filled with excitement. She filled so thoroughly that she was ready to burst with it. And when the cab came to a stop in front of a short brown building with a rusted golden number, Willow almost couldn’t breathe.
The moment she was waiting for was right in that building. The moment her mother would scoop her into her arms was right behind that door.