🔹 PART 5 – Call Me Driver
On Christmas Eve morning, Emily found her father sitting at the kitchen table, staring at his bus schedule like it held a secret he couldn’t quite name.
He hadn’t touched his coffee. His toast was cold.
“You okay?” she asked gently.
He looked up, blinking out of whatever memory had held him. “Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “Just thinking.”
She poured herself a cup and sat across from him. The kitchen smelled like cinnamon and old radiator heat. A mix she hadn’t realized she’d missed.
“About what?”
He tapped the edge of the schedule. “This route. My last one’s coming up in a few days.”
“You decided?” she asked.
He nodded. “End of the year. December 31. Fitting, don’t you think?”
Emily smiled faintly. “New year, new chapter?”
He didn’t answer right away. “I thought I’d feel relief. But it’s mostly… hollow.”
She reached across the table and put her hand over his. His fingers were calloused, warm, still stronger than they looked.
“You gave that route more than miles,” she said. “You gave people something they didn’t even know they were missing.”
He looked at her.
“And what about you?” he asked.
She hesitated. “I’m thinking of transferring,” she said finally. “There’s a campus in Albany. Closer. They’ve got a good social work program.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Social work?”
“I want to be someone who stays,” she said. “Not someone always trying to leave.”
He blinked. “That because of me?”
She shook her head. “That’s because of the notebook. The kid with the drawing. The woman with the flowers. The guy you let ride free.”
He looked down at their hands.
“I just drove.”
“No,” she whispered. “You delivered.”
That night, the snow returned in earnest—big, slow flakes like falling feathers. Emily stood by the window, watching them drift against the glass. Sammy snored near the heater, curled up like a comma at the end of a long sentence.
Then something caught her eye.
A small figure walking up the path. Hooded, limping.
She opened the door just as the figure raised a mittened hand to knock.
A young woman, maybe late twenties, with pale cheeks and red-rimmed eyes.
“Hi,” she said breathlessly. “Sorry, I know this is weird—I was told to come here. By your dad. James Farrow?”
Emily stepped aside. “Come in. He’s just—” she hesitated, “—he’s inside.”
The girl stepped in, stomping snow off her boots.
“I’m Anna,” she said. “I ride Route 7 sometimes. Your dad—he’s… he helped me when no one else did.”
Emily led her to the living room.
James looked up from his chair, surprised. “Anna?”
The young woman’s voice trembled. “I got the job.”
He smiled. “Told you you would.”
She sat, hands clenched. “I wouldn’t have gone to the interview without you. You… you gave me your umbrella, remember? And said ‘You don’t need to look perfect to be worth something.’”
He chuckled. “Well, I was mostly worried about you catching pneumonia.”
They sat quietly for a moment.
Then Anna reached into her coat and pulled out a folded envelope. “This isn’t much. But it’s from me. And some others.”
He opened it.
Inside was a card. Handmade. Covered in scribbled signatures and messages.
“Thanks for every stop.”
“You made us feel seen.”
“You made this city smaller. Safer.”
At the bottom: “To James Farrow — Route 7’s heart.”
He blinked rapidly. “I don’t deserve this.”
“You do,” Anna said. “You always did.”
Over the next few days, more visitors came.
A man who used to play guitar at the shelter—he brought a framed photo of the two of them from a holiday lunch.
A teenage girl who once got stranded after a school event—she dropped off cookies and wouldn’t come inside, just left a note:
“You waited for me. I never forgot that.”
Even Carla stopped by, dropping off a thermos of her homemade cider. “You better not disappear after retirement,” she said. “I expect you at bingo.”
Emily watched it all unfold like a quiet miracle.
Her father had been gathering these people like snowflakes—each one different, unnoticed by the rest of the world, but together forming something beautiful.
On December 31, James pressed his uniform one last time.
It was a little tighter now, the seams worn. The patch on the right arm was fraying. But he wore it like armor.
Emily waited at the depot, bundled in her coat, holding Sammy’s leash.
The driver supervisor gave a short speech. Nothing grand. Just a nod, a handshake, a “Thank you for your service.”
Then he stepped onto Bus #1935.
One last time.
Emily took the first seat behind him. Sammy curled at her feet.
The doors closed.
And the route began.
They passed the same corners, the same stoplights, the same cracked sidewalks he’d known for decades. But people waved this time. Held up signs. Kids in windows. Shopkeepers on stoops.
At each stop, someone got on—not to ride, but to thank him.
A widow gave him a hug.
A priest offered a blessing.
A man in a wheelchair handed him a single daisy. “You drove me to my first job. That changed my life.”
Emily sat silently, heart full.
She understood now. This wasn’t just a route. It was a thread through a hundred other lives.
And her father had been stitching it quietly all along.
As dusk fell, the bus pulled into its final stop—Burnet Avenue.
He parked. Cut the engine.
Silence.
Then he turned to her, eyes glistening.
“You know,” he said, “this seat never made me special.”
She shook her head. “No. You made the seat special.”
He took off his badge and placed it on the dashboard.
Then he looked at her.
“Your stop, kid.”
She smiled.
“No,” she said. “I think I’ll ride a little longer.”