The wellington boot was buckled into the front seat when I got on, seatbelt tight across its ankle, green rubber gone grey. Nobody claimed it. The driver, a woman called Pam who'd done the route eleven years, or maybe it was twelve, didn't look at it once.
That was three weeks ago, my first time back on the 47 since Mum's stroke. I take it every second Thursday now, out to the home in Coldharbour. Forty minutes each way if the roadworks near Bilsthorpe are down to one lane, which they usually are. There's a chip van that parks near the depot on Thursdays and I keep meaning to try it and never do.
The bus stops nine times on the timetable. Church Lane, the Fox and Hounds, the turning for Ashfield, and so on, all the way to the home's gate.
But between Ashfield and the last stretch of hedgerow before the home, there's a tenth stop. No sign, no shelter, just a gap in the verge where the grass has worn down to mud by feet that aren't mine. Pam pulls in there every time, engine idling, doors open, for maybe fifteen seconds. Nobody ever gets on.
I asked her about it once, that first Thursday, boot still buckled in behind her.
"Company policy," she said. "Comfort stop." Then, quieter, not really to me: "Someone always used to get on there. Before my time."
I didn't think about it again until last Thursday.
Mum had a bad turn the week before, they'd said, come when you can, so I went on the Tuesday instead. Different driver, a young lad with a lanyard that said TRAINEE. The boot wasn't on the seat. I felt almost disappointed, the way you do when a landmark's gone from a road you've driven a hundred times.
He stopped at the gap in the verge anyway. Fifteen seconds, doors open, nobody there. He didn't seem to notice he'd done it. When I asked him afterwards he blinked at me like I'd made it up, and went back to scrolling his phone at the next red light.
Mum died on the Thursday. Not the bad turn, something else, quick, in the night. I got the call at 6am and there was no bus for another two hours, so I sat with the phone in my lap until the first one came.
It was Pam again. The boot was back on the front seat, buckled in, and this time there was a second one beside it, unbuckled, tipped on its side like it had been kicked off in a hurry.
We stopped at the gap in the verge. Fifteen seconds. I watched the mud through the window, flattened grass, a puddle from the overnight rain gone still as glass. Nothing moved. Pam's hands stayed on the wheel. She didn't check the mirror. She didn't look at me.
The doors closed. We pulled away.
At the home, the nurse who met me at the door was young, and touched my arm without being asked, the way they're trained to now I suppose. She said Mum had gone peacefully, hadn't struggled, hadn't called out. She said they'd found her shoes by the bed, side by side, as if she'd only just taken them off to sleep.
One was there when I went to collect her things that afternoon.
The other wasn't, and nobody could account for it.