Matt’s customary departure time of six-thirty meant that his drive to the state government campus in downtown Phoenix usually involved dealing with rush-hour traffic. This morning and this early, there was barely any traffic at all. Anxious and excited, Matt kept reminding himself to slow down. Today of all days, it wouldn’t do for him to get a speeding ticket.

During the last week, ever since Susan had suggested they should meet at last, Matt had done his best to maintain an even keel. Last night, though, he had almost given the game away when Jenny caught him whistling as he loaded the dishwasher. “What the hell are you so happy about?” she had demanded.

Eighteen years ago, when they first married, Jenny had been a reasonably good-looking woman. That was no longer true. Her constant negativity had turned the corners of her mouth into a perpetual sneer. Frown lines marred her forehead, but her lack of beauty was much more than skin-deep.

Matt, who prided himself on keeping a positive mental attitude no matter what, had done what he could to change her. Predictably, that hadn’t worked. Now, it turned out, he was changing himself and doing something for Matt for a change. He was going to get lucky. He had stopped at Walgreens on Sunday afternoon-not his neighborhood store, of course-and bought a package of Trojans. Just in case, he’d also brought along the sample of little blue pills that he’d ordered over the Internet.

Better to be prepared, he told himself. This might be his one chance, and he didn’t want to mess it up.

As the after-school bus rattled toward the end of its route on the Verde Valley School Road, only three children remained-the Forester twins, Lindsey and Lacy, and little Tommy Breznik. Tommy, far in the back, was engrossed in a handheld video game and oblivious to everything around him. As she did every day, Lacy sat silent and apart, with her face pressed to the window while her sister, Lindsey, chattered away with Mr. Rojo, the bus driver.

“Miss Farber said we’ll be taking a field trip down to Phoenix just before Christmas,” Lindsey was saying. “Do you think you’ll be our driver?”

Conrad Rojo liked kids, but he especially liked Lindsey, a bright child who talked a blue streak. Her sister, on the other hand, never said a word. It was strange to think that the two second-graders who looked so much alike could be so different.

“That depends,” Conrad Rojo told her. “Somebody else sets up the scheduling.”

“I hope it’ll be you,” Lindsey said. “Of all the bus drivers, I think you’re the best.”

Even though there was no traffic visible in either direction, Conrad turned on the flashers as he approached the turnoff to the Foresters’ place. He was surprised not to see Mrs. Forester’s white Hyundai Tucson parked at the end of the half-mile-long drive. For three years-as long as Lindsey and Lacy had attended Big Park Community School in the Village of Oak Creek-Morgan Forester had been waiting for her daughters at the end of the lane when the bus dropped them off. Conrad, who took the safety of his charges very seriously, was reluctant to leave the girls alone.

“Your mom’s not here yet,” he said.

“Maybe she’s running late,” Lindsey said brightly. “Maybe she got busy and forgot what time it was.”

“Tell you what,” Conrad said. “Why don’t you stay on the bus until I drop Tommy off at Rainbow Lane. If your mother’s running late, that’ll give her a few minutes to catch up.”

He glanced in the girls’ direction. Lindsey clapped her hands in delight. “You mean we can ride all the way to the turnaround? And then we can be on the bus all by ourselves?”

“Yes,” Conrad said. “Once Tommy gets off, it’ll be just the two of you and nobody else.”

Lindsey turned to her sister. “Won’t that be fun?”

Lacy shook her head and said nothing.

Once again Conrad was struck by how different the two girls were. Last year, on another field trip, he had overheard two of the first-grade teachers talking about them. “Well, Lacy’s certainly not retarded,” Mrs. Dryer, Lacy’s first-grade teacher, had said. “She can do all the work. She just won’t participate in class.”

Conrad had wondered at that. He didn’t think teachers should be talking about kids being retarded. Weren’t they supposed to use nicer words than that? Besides, the situation with Lindsey and Lacy reminded him of his two sons, Johnny and Miguel. Johnny was two years older, and he had been the one who had done all the talking. There wasn’t any need for Miguel to find his own voice, as long as his older brother was close at hand. Miguel hadn’t actually started speaking on his own until halfway through first grade, when he skipped the baby-talk stage completely and cut loose with fully formed sentences. And he hasn’t shut up since, Conrad thought with a chuckle. It seemed possible that some of Miguel’s teachers used to say the same thing about him. Now, though, his younger son was an honors communications major at the University of Arizona, so go figure.

Once Conrad had dropped Tommy off, made the turn, and come back to the Foresters’ long driveway, there was still no sign of the Hyundai. Conrad pulled over, stopped the bus, and reached for his cell phone. He wasn’t surprised to find that he didn’t have a signal way out here in the boonies. Putting away the useless phone, he sat and wondered what to do. It was against the rules to take the bus onto a private road, especially since there was a good chance he might run into a spot where it would be impossible to turn around. If there was any kind of problem, he’d be late getting back to school to pick up his next load of kids.

“It’s okay,” Lindsey said. “You can let us out here. We can walk home. We know the way. It’s not that far.”

“No,” Lacy said.

Conrad was surprised to hear Lacy state her opinion. In the three years the girls had been riding his bus, this was the first time she had uttered a single word in his hearing.

“Come on, Lace,” Lindsey wheedled. “Walking won’t kill us. If you want, I’ll even help carry your stuff.” Lacy Forester came to school every day with a backpack that seemed half as big as she was.

“Maybe I should take you back to school so the principal can call your mom,” Conrad offered.

“No,” Lindsey said. “I don’t want to go back there. I’m hungry. I want to go home and have a snack. Come on, Lace. We can do it.”

For a moment Lacy Forester resumed her stony silence. She seemed close to tears, but finally, faced with her sister’s force-of-nature determination, she sighed, stood, and shouldered her backpack.

“You’re sure you’ll be all right?” Conrad asked as he opened the door.

“We’ll be fine,” Lindsey declared. “You’ll see.”

The two girls clambered out of the bus. Conrad watched them trudge side by side down the dusty red dirt track with the clear November sun at their backs until they disappeared from sight over a slight rise. Then he put the bus in gear and headed back to school. If he didn’t get going right then, he would be late for the last bell.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he told the other drivers over coffee later that week. “I never should have let them go home alone.”