She shrugged. She didn’t have the energy or the desire to argue. He could sit wherever he wanted. She walked to the front and took a seat by the window, right behind the driver. She placed her bag on her lap—the large tote bag that Mark had insisted she take this morning instead of her usual backpack.
“Take this one,” he’d said, pulling it from the closet. “It’s got more pockets, it’s more convenient.”
“My backpack is fine,” she’d tried to argue.
“Just take it. We can pick some apples, we’ll need something to carry them in.”
She hadn’t argued, even though the bag was heavy and bulky. Now, sitting on the bus, Susan realized she hadn’t even looked inside. Mark had packed it himself while she was getting dressed. What was in there? She reached for the zipper, but just then the bus lurched forward, and she was thrown back against her seat.
The bus gradually filled with passengers. Susan stared out the window at the wet asphalt, the puddles reflecting the streetlights, the people hurrying about their day. She turned to look back at her husband. He was in the very last row, near the emergency exit, looking at his phone. His face was pale and tense, and he kept glancing at his watch. Once, their eyes met, and Mark immediately looked away, burying his face in his screen.
Something was wrong. Susan could feel it in her bones, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. All these little things—the morning phone call, his sudden decision to come along, the insistence on the bag, his choice of seat—were adding up to a terrifying picture she was afraid to look at too closely.
She turned back to the window, trying to push the thoughts away. Familiar streets, gray apartment buildings, and billboards slid by. The rain picked up, drumming a monotonous, lulling rhythm on the roof. Susan leaned her head against the cold glass and closed her eyes. Twenty years together. Twenty years of shared breakfasts, holidays, problems, and joys. She thought she knew him inside and out. She knew he liked his coffee black and hated oatmeal. She knew he was afraid of heights and couldn’t stand loud music. She knew he sometimes talked in his sleep, mumbling things he never remembered in the morning. But now, seeing that pale, tense face in the rearview mirror, Susan realized she was looking at a stranger. A man she had, perhaps, never really known at all.
The bus left the city limits and pulled onto the highway. The rain had eased up, but the sky was still low and heavy, a dreary gray blanket. The fields outside were already harvested, with stalks of corn and sunflowers sticking up here and there. The few trees along the road were nearly bare, dropping their last leaves in the wind.
Susan sat with her hands clasped in her lap, trying to breathe evenly. The anxiety hadn’t gone away; it only intensified as the bus picked up speed. She knew that the steep, winding descent was coming up. The drivers always slowed down for that section. Always.
She didn’t immediately notice someone had stopped beside her seat. She looked up and met the eyes of an older woman in a dark, patterned scarf. Susan had seen her briefly at the terminal, standing near a newsstand, seemingly waiting for someone. She hadn’t paid her any mind then, too preoccupied with her own thoughts. Now, the woman was looking at her with a piercing, attentive gaze, as if she saw something no one else could.
“Is this seat taken, dear?” she asked, gesturing to the empty spot next to Susan.
Susan shook her head, though she usually preferred not to have strangers sit next to her. But there was something about this woman that made it impossible to refuse. A quiet confidence, a strength that emanated from her despite her age and simple clothes.
The woman sat down, smoothing her long skirt. She smelled faintly of something herbal, like chamomile or mint. She folded her hands in her lap and was silent for a while, looking straight ahead. Susan was silent too, not knowing what to say. She didn’t feel like talking anyway. She just wanted to stare out the window and convince herself that everything was fine, that she was overreacting, that nothing terrible was happening.
The bus made another stop. Two men in work jackets got on and sat somewhere in the middle. The driver announced the next stop; they were still three stops away from the big hill.
Susan glanced back at her husband again. He was still in the back, but he’d put his phone away. Now he was staring out the window, though his gaze seemed fixed on something internal. His lips were moving silently, as if he were counting or repeating something to himself. The fingers of his right hand tapped a nervous rhythm on his knee.
“Is that your husband?” the woman beside her asked suddenly.
Susan started.
“What?”
“That man in the back. Is he your husband?”
“Yes…” Susan didn’t understand why a stranger would need to know. “Why do you ask?”
The woman didn’t answer. She was looking straight ahead again, but her expression had changed. The lines on her face seemed deeper, her eyes darker. Tiny beads of sweat appeared on her forehead, though it was cool inside the bus.
“This isn’t good,” she muttered under her breath. “Oh, this is not good at all…”
“I’m sorry?” Susan leaned closer, trying to hear.
The woman turned to her, and Susan saw something in her eyes that sent a shiver down her spine. It was fear. A deep, genuine fear—not for herself, but for someone else.
“Dear,” the woman’s voice was quiet but firm. “I know you won’t believe me. Nobody ever does. But I have to say something. I have to.”
“Say what?”
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