Stop 23

Somebody had plastered the poster to the bare glass of Septa stop 23. Michael saw it from across the street, bold ripped letters confidently spelling out MY LUCK’S GONNA CHANGE. He smirked as his cell phone rang. How naively optimistic, to plaster up a poster that said your luck could change in a dusty benchless bus station by an old Starbucks where people who were down on their luck sold coffee and stared at the cracks in the concrete.

“Michael Raspin,” he barked into the phone. Then his voice softened, muted. “Emma. Where ze hell are you?”

Nothing came through the receiver but spooked, heavy breathing.  “Goddamnit, Emma, answer me.” He knew she was like a shelter dog; make a sudden move and you’d lose her. Talk too harshly and she’d turn on you. Katharine had warned him this would happen, said the joint custody would shatter Emma, said it’d be better if she had her all the time. Michael called up the image of a baby Emma, squirming in hospital whites, warm and solid in his arms, and Katharine’s creased face, her skin folded but never looking younger, the joy wedged in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to shock that girl into putting her sorry self on a bus and coming home.

He heard the phone click off. She was gone. Just like that, she was gone and lost and dissipated. He assumed she was somewhere in the city, somewhere in the vast expanse of meteor buildings and patted cement. They’d barely gotten off the plane when he’d gone into a shop to buy a sandwich – a goddamn pointless sandwich – and turned around and found his eyes staring at empty space behind him.

He had a conference today, an important one that he’d ironed his navy blazer and slacks for. He couldn’t wait around forever. Maybe she’d get scared or lost, and he’d come home and there she would be, sitting on the steps, far away in thought, like she used to do when she was little. He hadn’t gotten a call from a raging Katharine yet, so Emma hadn’t contacted the house in France. Hopefully she’d enjoy her newfound liberty enough to refrain from calling in her mother.

He sighed. He knew Emma didn’t trust him. He’d cheated on Katharine and lost a lot of money, been a miserable, pathetic parasite and leeched off of Emma for the happiness he couldn’t find. He used to make her stay home and play video games with him instead of going out with her friends. She was 15; she couldn’t handle that repression. He shook his head. How could he not have remembered his own sorry adolescence, his own hated restrictions, given her some ounce of freedom in the sparse two months he saw her every year?

He crossed to the bus stop. MY LUCK’S GONNA CHANGE.

His phone rang. He knew. His breath caught.

“Hello.” His voice was but a murmur.

“Papa. C’est moi.”

He turned and saw her, down the street, the phone to her ear, the straw hair shining, her face anxious, her hand a small lump in her pocket.

He strode to her, long, broad steps, hugged her close. He felt relief and joy wedged in the pit of his stomach. They stood there, and the poster shouted MY LUCK’S GONNA CHANGE.