00:00On Monday, the bus stop was four blocks from her house.
00:04By Friday, it was standing on her front lawn.
00:09Mara Cole worked the night shift at St.
00:11On Tuesday, the stop was three blocks away.
00:14Mara stood under the shelter on wet pavement and told herself the city must have moved it.
00:19Cities do not move bus stops in the night.
00:22But there it was, one block closer, its timetable smeared by rain.
00:27On Wednesday, it was two blocks from her door.
00:30The shelter, the bench, the sign, all exactly hers.
00:34But the timetable had a new line at the bottom, printed so small she had to squint.
00:39It said, final stop, all passengers alight.
00:43She called the transit office that afternoon.
00:47The clerk laughed.
00:48Ma'am, he said, we have no number 11.
00:50We never have.
00:52Mara hung up and sat very still.
00:54Because through her kitchen window, she could hear a bus breaking at a stop that was not there yet.
01:01Mara walked home that night instead.
01:03Eleven blocks through the rain.
01:06It took her an hour.
01:08Soaked and laughing at herself, she looked through her bedroom window and saw the number 11 turn onto her street
01:15and stop at a shelter two blocks away.
01:18On Thursday, the stop was one block from her house.
01:21As Mara approached, the bus door hissed open, though the bus was already full.
01:27Rows of passengers, all of them facing forward, all of them very still.
01:33Mara kept walking past it.
01:35She walked the 11 blocks again in the rain.
01:38Behind her, she heard the bus pull away from the curb.
01:41It followed her, she was sure of it, one slow block at a time.
01:46Its headlights lay gentle on her back, and its door hissed open at every corner, like a question she refused
01:54to answer.
01:55One of the passengers turned her head as the bus passed the last corner.
01:59A woman in a nurse's white coat, her own face pale under the dome light, mouthing words Mara could not
02:09hear.
02:10She did not slow down to read them.
02:13She did not want to know what they said.
02:15On Friday, the shelter stood on her front lawn, its glass fogged from the inside.
02:22The number 11 waited at the curb with its door open.
02:26Mara locked her door and stood in the dark hall, listening to the engine idle.
02:31It idled for one hour, then it left.
02:34She thought she was free.
02:36Then at 4.04 in the morning, something slid under her door.
02:41A paper bus ticket, damp and warm.
