She sits, looking down the street. The glass panes surrounding her act as stencils, dashed streaks casting the hazy shadows that fall around her, that glide over the back and shoulders of her raincoat.

 

Her heels, scuffed near the toe, are held together by propriety (a modest black dress enfolding her legs), rheumy hands slowly rubbing together as she waits. The disappearing vapor of breath hovers, unsure.

 

Occasionally a car drives by, the headlights’ glare tangled in suspended sheets of rain as small paths of disseminating light travel obliquely to her metal bench and, as quickly, disappear. Water passing through the treads of tires, distant sounds fall behind, in a trail. Her eyes follow the moving vehicles, peering into them. The car passing by has a light on, inside. The woman sees the driver glance over at the little girl sitting next to him, gently smile at his daughter. Mirror down, and the girl is inspecting her face, adjusting her hair. On the passenger window, buried beneath the racing diagonals of water, an enlarged outline of her head marked on the glass’ surface and haloed by the cabin’s soft yellow light. The car drifts by. Ribbons of transparency crossing the rear window drape themselves over the defrost wires, signs of the cool pane warming, and the woman thinks she sees the girl’s eyes looking back at her in the side-mirror.

 

Down the street, light turns green. A bus slowly pushes itself forward through the intersection, its right blinker eventually pulling it over to the curb. Doors open, and two men get off the back. Clutching her purse, the woman carefully steps onto the bus and, holding the rail, sets the bag down to reach into her pocket for change. Excuse me, sir. I was wondering if you might tell me if I’m in the right place.

 

The bus driver adjusts his watchband. A disaffected manner radiates dim and half-closed from his tired eyes. Sure, ma'am. What would you like to know.

 

I am trying to get to my son’s funeral. On… Where is the address? Here: King Street and Virginia Avenue. Will you take me there? She pulls out a handful of coins, nervously rifling through them. She forgets how much the fare is.

 

He looks up from his watch. The man’s face lifts momentarily, as if suddenly unburdened. He removes his hat, runs a hand through thinning hair. Turning himself in his seat, he pleads with his eyes for the woman to forgive him as he faces her. The wipers continue to sweep the windshield, back and forth, a brief silence between the driver and the woman held taut by the arms’ graceful arcs, cleansingly casting the collecting lines and dots of water aside into rivulets running down the edges.

 

This route won’t take you there, ma'am.

 

Oh. I see. She studies him, understanding the way his hand rests on his nape, the opened eyes. The lips, lifted on one side in the corner.

 

If you wait a little longer another number will come by, ma'am, bus sixteen. Wait a while longer. That’ll be the one.

 

Thank you. She turns to step off the bus, loosely gripping the rail as she lowers one leg after the other to the wet curb, weeds glistening in the cracks.

 

The driver pauses for a second more, wanting to do something for her. The pressure in his chest surges for a moment, and as the doors close and air rushes out from some hidden part of the vehicle, he sets his hat down beside him. A few passengers gaze out the windows at the woman, but also at the leaf-bare trees, the tall bleak clouds in the sky, the shuttered houses standing on every corner behind wooden fences stained dark by the slackening rain.

 

The woman follows the bus with her eyes, holds onto the bright yellow number on the back before it disappears around the corner. She sits down again on the metal bench, gingerly. The metal is frighteningly cold. Hunched over. She shivers, her purse resting in her lap, tenderly cradled in her hands. The rain has stopped.

 

After a few minutes, a young man walks along the sidewalk, away from Ninth, on the other side of the street. Young, though maybe in junior high. His headphones muffle the sides of his face, soft-edged chin pointed toward the ground. Small steps, heels dragging. She thinks, briefly looking at him, such beautiful eyes, so blue. The woman swiftly turns back toward the intersection in anticipation and stands up. Directly across from her, he lowers his head. He doesn’t have an umbrella or raincoat with him, sweatshirt and jeans hanging damply from thin limbs. Doesn’t smile.

 

The thumb and forefinger of her left hand hold a button between them, feeling its shape, weight. The tension of the thread against her grip, how it hurts to push the button through the buttonhole, the momentary fear of not being able to. Ivory white. Dim light from the clouds, near the edge a dull-soft sheen glows. She brushes her hand across each one, down the front of her dark black dress, counting.

 

A bus stops at the light down the street. She squints her eyes, leaning forward and raising a hand to her glasses, wondering if this is the one.