At half past ten the bus carried six workers, a cook, and a man with a yellow notebook. Sabina, the driver, knew where everyone got off. Only the passenger with the notebook changed stops, sometimes remaining until the turnaround. He had a gray beard and a neatly buttoned coat. He always bought a ticket to the final stop, as though unwilling to owe even an accidental minute of travel.
One rainy evening he left the notebook on his seat. Sabina opened the first page looking for a phone number and saw German words, their pronunciation written in Bosnian letters. Beneath them was a note: "Don't give up just because people can hear your accent." She found the number on the cover. The man returned to the garage, breathless and grateful, and introduced himself as Adnan.
He was preparing to visit his daughter in Austria. His wife, who had died four years earlier, used to speak for him when they traveled. Now he was embarrassed to admit he was afraid of airports. He rode the bus to practice listening to lessons because every sound in his apartment reminded him he was alone. Sabina told him most passengers were practicing something; they simply did not use notebooks.
Over the following weeks he stayed up front once everyone else had left. She quizzed him on words while they waited for departure time at the turnaround. Her German was worse than his, but she knew how to ask questions he could not answer by rote. That was how she learned he loved cooking, hated hotel pillows, and that fifty-seven was not old enough to stop feeling shy.
When he invited her for coffee, Sabina refused. She explained that ten years earlier she had been the woman a friend called only when grief overwhelmed him. She did not want to occupy the spare seat again. Adnan fell silent, then said he could not prove he missed her specifically while seeing her every evening. His trip was scheduled for the following Monday.
From Austria he sent her a photograph of a pastry he had bought by mistake. His second message was about his grandson, the third about the weather. He wrote the fourth without a picture: he missed the way she briefly raised an eyebrow before a difficult question. Sabina replied only after her shift. She sent her days off, explaining that she usually drank coffee in the morning, when she was no longer driving anyone.
After his return he waited at the third stop after the bridge. Sabina arrived on foot, out of uniform, and nearly walked past him. He had the yellow notebook on the cafe table. He showed her a new page, two restaurant addresses and several empty lines. He had not planned the whole day in advance. Sabina ordered strong coffee, took his pencil, and wrote down the address of the place that made the best fried dough.