Frank

Beneath honey skies and between hanging ferns, Frank moved his bus through the streets of New Orleans. It was summer, the sun beating its fist down upon his windshield and turning the pavement into a haze, but he loved this time of year. His brow was damp and the air chokingly thick, and as he looked ahead all he saw was a vision of swimming yellows and oranges, people milling to and fro, smiling at one another as they always did.

Frank heaved the wheel, and the bus slowed as it pulled into the sidewalk, then sank, groaning, before the doors opened with a tired hiss. “Heya, Frank,” smiled a man with a grey beard, as he embarked, brown briefcase in hand and a spark in his eye, “beautiful day, huh?”

“It is indeed, Charles,” Frank said. Clarice was next, with her toothy grin and large mosquito-eye sunglasses.

“Bon matin, Frank!”

“Bonjour, Clarice! Ça va?”

“Bien, merci!” She giggled, and departed down the aisle. That was the usual extent of their conversations, but they both enjoyed them. With no one else waiting to board, Frank pulled on the wheel again, and his bus creaked back into motion, joining the traffic like a drop in a stream.           

At the end of his shift, as he made the final checks of his bus, Frank looked down and saw a small black book the size of a passport lying on the floor beneath a seat. He frowned, crouched and retrieved it. He turned it over, brushing off dust and dirt, searching for any indication of a name, but it was blank. Without thinking, he opened it, and stopped. He turned the page. Then another.

The pages were filled with what appeared to be hand-stuck photographs of a small girl. They were dated, mostly black-and-white. She couldn’t have been older than five. She had a curious expression - a distinctive frown, eyeing the camera with what looked like suspicion, whether she was held in a pair of arms or sat on a picnic blanket surrounded by plates. Her gaze was so serious it was almost comical, and Frank found himself turning page and after page, not really knowing why, before shutting the book with a snap and realising it was because she was looked so much like his Madison that his breathing had gone shallow.

He stalled for a second, then quickly hurried home, the book clasped to his chest.

Later that evening, as he sat with Dana trying to swoop food into Madison’s mouth, he showed her what he found. She turned the pages as if they were a butterfly’s wing. “Lord, Frank,” she breathed, “she looks just like Madison.” And she did, except that the girl in the pictures held a solemn gaze whilst Frank’s fireball of a daughter was now trying to wrestle pasta onto her head. “Why didn’t you hand it into the bus station?”

“Dunno,” Frank admitted. “Its too special. Guess I didn’t want it to get lost in there. You know how it is.”

Dana lifted Madison, now a spaghetti Jackson Pollock piece, out of her high chair. “You gotta find out who’s book this is. It seems very precious.” Frank agreed. And with that, with one strong and slender arm she scooped up Madison and placed her in the sink, where she wriggled and squealed with glee.

Frank made it his mission to find the owner of the book. He took it to work with him the next day, clasped firmly beneath his broad arm as if a top secret document. He kept it beside him as he drove, his eyes nervously glancing back to it to make sure it hadn’t disappeared somehow. He asked all of the regulars if they were missing it, holding it up so each of them could see, and all of them said with regret and genuine sincerity in their faces that it wasn’t theirs. Charles shrugged and turned up his hands. Clarice shook her head, her eyebrows puckered. “Non, je suis désolée.”

Frank carried on. As he steered his bus into the city, through its twists and turns that he traversed daily, he knew he had to find the owner somewhere. There was nothing this city could hide from him; he floated through it every day. And something like this - this book, clearly handmade and filled with pictures so personal it made Frank feel guilty for even looking at them - there was no way he could let it go. He had a duty now, whether he liked it or not.

But, as the sky soaked into purple and the neon bar signs illuminated, he felt a frustrating sense of defeat. He had asked everyone, every person who boarded his bus that day, and none of them were missing the book, let alone able to recognize it.

He tried again the next day. “Hun, you showed me that yesterday,” Miss Davis sassed as she boarded with her two Bichon Frise, “and it still ain’t mine.”

The next day it was the same. Like a pastor with a bible, Frank brandished the book a million times, and a million times it was put back down, unclaimed. Charles laughed as he boarded, carrying a bag of groceries. “Still no luck, huh? Man, are you sure this person even gets your bus?”

Dana convinced him to leave it at home, where at least it was safe. He reluctantly agreed, but felt useless without it. He couldn’t jog anyone’s memory holding up his empty hand. A week went by. His questioning was beginning to receive strange looks. But after another fruitless day of asking, and just when Frank was ready to give up, Dana called. Before he could say a word, and with a babbling Madison in the background, she said “you will not be-lieve what I just found.”

//

That evening, Frank found himself walking through a neighborhood he had never set foot in, following directions from a scrap of paper, and the book in his hand. The answer to his problem had been stupidly obvious. Dana had found an address neatly written on its back cover. As he wandered beneath an amber sky, Frank cursed himself. All this time he’d had the answer to his quest literally at his fingertips. Only he could’ve missed it.

He scanned the door numbers as he passed wrought-iron gates and curtained windows. The houses were tall and glossy, looming down the sidewalk with a quiet grace that made even Frank feel small. Neatly pruned foliage adorned the street. The hum of the main streets were far away. He definitely didn’t belong here; this was rich folk territory. His heart beat faster when he spotted the door he was looking for. Pausing momentarily, he took a deep breath, then trudged up the front steps and rang the doorbell, which chimed melancholically from deep within. A crow shouted from a nearby tree.

The door opened, and a woman appeared. She was tiny, bent gently like a crescent moon, with creased skin like tan leather. She looked up at him through small glasses. There was a moment of silence. “Can I help you?” she prompted, not unkindly. Frank scrambled, forgetting for a second he was even there.

“Yes ma’am, sorry,” he blustered, “uh… I found this, and was wondering if it’s yours.” He held up the book, almost eclipsing it in his large hands, then awkwardly rearranging them so she could see. She stared at him. He found himself taking off his hat. “I'm Franklin Roberts, I drive the bus around town. I found this a few days ago. It seemed important. I, er… used the address in the back.”

She was still saying nothing, and Frank was getting increasingly uncomfortable as she squinted at him as if peering through a slightly foggy window. He extended a thick arm, offering the book to her, unsure if she would even take it. But, tentatively, she did.

“Is it yours?” he asked.

The woman opened it silently, turning the first page, then another. She closed it again, held it with two hands, and looked up at him. “Yes,” she said.

Relief and pride flooded through Frank, and he smiled. He had done it. “Good,” he said, “Glad I could get it back to you, ma’am.” She had a curious expression on her face, looking at him as if she couldn’t quite believe he was real. The book was cradled to her chest. He continued, “I hope you don't mind, but I had a look inside. Is she your daughter?”

The woman’s eyes softened. “She was,” she said. Frank suddenly became very aware of a peacefulness about her, but also a loneliness. No one was with her. Her house, although beautiful, possessed a certain stillness that only came with one living alone. He couldn’t imagine scattered children’s toys or pasta on heads here. He suddenly very much missed Madison. He looked down and rubbed his neck.

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Do you have children?”

“I do. A girl, Madison. She’s four. It’s kinda crazy actually, er, she looks a lot like your gal. Coulda been twins.”

A small smile from her. “Hm. Ain’t that curious? This is a special place, this city. People are superstitious. Maybe this ain’t any coincidence.” Her smile widened, her eyes creasing, and she was actually very beautiful. “Thank you, Franklin. I realized I’d lost it, but your bus was long gone and there wasn’t any catchin it. I phoned the bus station to see if it was handed in, but it wasn’t. I can see why, now.”

A flash of guilt stole through him, which must have appeared on his face, because she laughed. “Don’t worry, son. I understand. I woulda done the same thing.” She paused. “You don’t know what this book means to me. It’s all I have left of her. I was visiting her grave that day. It was her birthday.” She was far away for a second, then looked at him almost curiously, slightly through one eye. “If you don’t mind Franklin, could you wait there a minute? It was Roberts, right?”

“Er, yes,” Frank said. She slowly edged past the door and out of sight, and he was left alone, in a daze. This woman had known true pain. He imagined life without Madison, and his stomach contorted like a pit of snakes. He wondered who she was. She had to be successful in whatever she did, or used to do. Maybe a high-flying lawyer, or a writer. Maybe even an actress, but that seemed a bit far-fetched. He found himself standing to attention when she reappeared. She extended a small hand holding a folded slip of paper to him. He looked at it blankly.

“For your troubles, Franklin,” she said. He began to protest, but she waved his exclamations away. “Don’t worry, this isn’t for you, son,” - she actually laughed, a soft wheeze of an old car revving - “this is for your little one. Madison. Take it.”

He didn’t move. Then, dumbly, he took the paper in silence. She smiled. “Don’t open it here. I don’t want you giving it back.”

“Ma’am - ”

“Put it toward her college fund,” she interrupted. “Alicia never got the chance to go. Please, Franklin. Have it.”

He nodded, stunned. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Please give my love to Madison. Goodnight, Franklin.” The heavy door was gently closed, and Frank was alone again. He was about to look at his gift, but remembered her parting words and instead started walking.

Beneath a lavender sky and between late-night revellers, Frank moved through the streets of New Orleans. The evening was warm, its air encasing him in a soft embrace as he walked, the paper cradled in his hands like a small bird. A bus blared its horn when he stopped in the street as he opened the cheque, unable to resist any longer, to find it made out for 20,000 dollars.