Watch by Keith Buckley

Author:Keith Buckley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rare Bird Books
Published: 2018-08-10T21:20:42+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

Having traveled as far as the lake meant all John can do now is turn around and go back. There is nothing beyond that rail, but he knows that if he keeps the water behind him and doesn’t make any sudden turns, he can follow Transit Road from its peak all the way into the city (beyond it, even into the suburbs, if he wanted to), where he will eventually come upon the road that will take him home. He takes a last look at the bench covered in a film of snow, its backrest warped from years of applied pressure, and understands that it is exactly how it should have looked from the beginning. Empty. It had to be to finally come into view.

The sun was bright, and the air was warm for October. The bus stop was exactly eight minutes away from the grocery store on foot and he knew he had at least thirteen to catch the 23 to Filmore, but John couldn’t afford to be late. Zola would be up from her nap soon if she wasn’t already, and being six months pregnant meant simple tasks were getting harder without his help. She would be expecting lunch.

John found himself in a swarm of old women shuffling away from St. Mary’s Church after service let out as he passed it on the way to his stop. Eventually he was able to defect as it moved beyond the enclosed bus shelter, and when it departed without him, he discovered a woman left behind, sitting alone on the bench. He didn’t know for sure if she was part of the same undulating, geriatric herd or if she had just materialized without his noticing, but he recognized her from his neighborhood. Her name was Opal. She lived seven houses down from him. They had never spoken but because they were the only two people at the stop they smiled politely as John took a seat along the same blue bench.

Opal and her husband Silas were churchgoers who retired from teaching to start a nonprofit community-service organization that kept the city’s homeless warmly clothed in the winter. But now, a widow in her late fifties, the once prominent member of the community was rarely seen. That afternoon, her long silver hair was pulled back off her forehead with a headband and went down to nape of her neck. She wore a high-cut yellow dress with a white floral pattern and a gold necklace with a low-hanging cross. The wrinkles in the fair skin of her face were shallow and few but well earned. Silas had died from a cerebral aneurysm in church a few months after beginning their charity work. Though she and John never shared more than a distant wave, which was becoming less and less frequent as time passed, he knew her story. Buffalo was small, and news spread quickly, particularly if that news was unfortunate.

According to some men at the bar who knew some women who had

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