🔹 PART 6 – Call Me Driver
The house felt different after his last route.
Not emptier—just quieter. As if the walls were waiting to see what would come next.
James didn’t talk much the next day. He woke up at 6:00 a.m. out of habit, poured his coffee, circled the TV listings in the paper like he always had—but never turned the TV on. Just sat at the table, staring out at the backyard where their snowman still stood, one eye missing, his carrot nose drooping.
Emily didn’t push.
She baked cinnamon muffins and left his favorite jelly on the counter. She played old jazz records he used to hum along with. She even lit the candle that smelled like pine trees, though she used to call it “too strong.”
Still, he said little.
Until late that night.
They sat on the porch, wrapped in old quilts, Sammy curled at their feet.
The wind had softened. Snowflakes drifted like tiny memories.
James cleared his throat. “I didn’t think it’d hit me like this.”
Emily turned her head gently. “What part?”
He exhaled slowly. “The stillness. It’s like my life just… parked.”
She didn’t answer. Just let the silence hold him.
“I keep wondering if I should’ve done something more,” he added, voice low. “Opened a garage. Written a book. Left something behind.”
Emily reached out and placed her hand over his.
“You left a trail of people who still remember your name. That’s more than most.”
He looked at her, really looked. “You always knew what to say.”
She shook her head. “No. I’m learning that from you.”
He gave a tired chuckle. “Took you long enough.”
A few days later, Emily went up to the attic to find an old photo album.
What she found instead was a dusty cardboard box labeled “J.F. – PRIVATE.”
She hesitated. Then opened it.
Inside were old bus logs, route maps, a stack of faded Polaroids… and a bundle of letters tied with a green shoelace.
She untied them.
All addressed to a name she didn’t know.
“To Nora”
Her breath caught.
She unfolded one.
Dear Nora,
I saw a woman today who looked like you. She boarded the bus and sat in the same spot you used to. I didn’t say a word. I just watched her reflection in the mirror.Some days, I wonder how your laugh would’ve aged.
I never told Em about you. Not because I’m ashamed. Just because she’s had enough goodbyes already.
— James
Emily read every word.
Some letters were angry. Some were gentle. Some read like prayers.
One ended with:
I wasn’t brave back then. I still regret that.
She sat back on her heels. The attic creaked beneath her. Dust swirled in the light.
Her father—so sturdy, so present—had a wound she never saw.
That night, she brought the box down and placed it quietly on the kitchen table.
He saw it and froze.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to snoop.”
He didn’t speak for a long time.
Then he sat down across from her.
“Nora was before your mother,” he said at last. “We were young. Dumb. I was twenty-one. She was twenty.”
“What happened?”
“She left,” he said simply. “She had dreams. I had roots. I thought love would be enough. But it wasn’t.”
He ran his thumb over the edge of one letter.
“I kept writing her even after she stopped answering. It helped. Made the regret quieter.”
“Do you still miss her?”
He looked up. “Not like that. I miss the version of me I was with her. The hope. The wondering.”
Emily nodded slowly. “Did Mom know?”
“I think so,” he said. “She once found a letter I never sent. Said it sounded like someone looking backward instead of forward. Then she kissed me and said, ‘Just don’t miss what’s standing in front of you too long.’”
A long pause.
“She was right, you know,” he added. “Your mom. She had a way of seeing things for what they were, not what they used to be.”
Emily smiled. “Like you.”
“No,” he said. “I see what people carry. She saw what they could carry.”
Later that evening, Emily tucked the letters back into the box. But she slipped one into her own coat pocket.
Not to keep.
Just to hold.
To remember that even the strongest people have unfinished pages.
Over the following week, her father started to come back to life.
Not all at once. Just in pieces.
He repainted the porch railing.
He returned to the bus yard with a tin of cookies and gave one to every driver, including Carla, who called him “Mr. Mayor” now.
He took Sammy to the vet for his annual checkup and left with a bag of joint chews and a flyer for a local “Pets and People” volunteer group.
“Thinking of joining,” he told Emily, reading it over his morning eggs.
“To help people or the pets?”
“Both,” he said, smiling. “They ride the same route.”
One morning, he knocked on her bedroom door.
“Get dressed,” he said. “Got somewhere I want to take you.”
They drove out of town. Past the old scrapyard. Past the cornfields where the snow melted first. They pulled into a cemetery with a view of the hills.
He parked. Got out. Walked with a limp he tried to hide.
Stopped at a modest headstone.
Margaret Farrow
1958–2005
“Love is service.”
Emily swallowed. She hadn’t been here in years.
He placed a fresh daisy on the snow-covered ground. “Thought you might want to say hi.”
She knelt. Ran her fingers over the name. “Hi, Mom.”
James stood quietly behind her.
“She would’ve been proud of you,” he said.
Emily looked up. “Of me?”
He nodded. “But mostly of this—” he gestured at the small act, the visit, the warmth in her eyes. “Of us.”
The wind picked up, brushing snow from the stone.
“I’m glad I came back,” Emily said softly.
He smiled.
“First stop,” he whispered.