The Last Seat on The Bus
Days of Hate and Psychosis
When I was eleven years old my mother had a psychotic break. She grabbed me from the front yard of our home where I was playing with my older brother and shoved me into the car and drove away. I cried for my brother as he disappeared behind us. I saw him hang his head. I never saw that home again.
We stayed in a hotel for several nights. Then we moved into an apartment. She told me not to use the phone. She told me I needed a new name and that I would be going to a new school in the fall. I was not to tell anyone about anything. I knew not to ask her questions as that typically brought a violent outburst from her.
Nearby was a family my mother had babysat for with a girl just a year younger than I, Leah. She was tiny and frail with long dark wavy hair and big brown eyes. We played together in her playroom and she was to walk with me to the bus stop when school started. Leah had a lot of toys and every Doctor Seuss book imaginable. I stared at those books wanting to read them all. I wondered vaguely why I didn’t have shelves full of books like that. Leah was particular about which ones I was allowed to read.
On my first day of sixth grade, Leah walked with me to the bus stop. Middle school was fifth through eighth grades. She didn’t walk all the way to the stop where the other kids waited but…
