I drove her to the depot in eleven minutes, running two amber lights I will never regret. Behind the main garage there is a small garden Mick’s friends built after the funeral, with a bench and a bronze plaque. Noah sat on the bench in his wet blazer, holding a mandarin he had not peeled. He looked up and saw his mother, and his whole face collapsed. She ran to him and held him for a long time.

Noah told us everything in a trembling whisper. He had known his father died at the last stop, so he rode the route every day to sit where his father last sat. The initials on the window were the only place he could still touch. Today, on the anniversary, he found he could not bear the bus, so he walked to the garden instead. He had wanted to tell me but did not know how to begin.

Claire said she had never known about the rides. After the funeral she had worked double shifts and stopped asking Noah how he felt. I sat down beside them and told Noah that his father used to talk about him constantly. Mick would say, “My boy is going to be a better man than me.” I told him his father had hummed the same song on every route, and Noah laughed through his tears and hummed it back.

The depot offered Noah a place beside me on Saturdays, riding in the front seat with a proper badge that says Junior Observer. Claire cut her shifts, and the two of them eat dinner together every night. On the anniversary each year, I park the 58 at the last stop and the three of us sit on the back seat. Noah peels a mandarin, and we do not say much. We do not need to.