Wednesday morning and not a very busy day in the bus park in downtown Kingston. Eight o'clock but the sun already high in the sky and I was beginning to sweat. I got a seat at the front of the minibus and looked around me. I was in for a long wait: the bus would not move until it was completely full. There was no stopping on the toll road and it would take that road straight to my own hometown in the centre of the island. I was used to waiting in buses and I knew that it would not be long before a story broke. I did not have long to wait.

A young woman came to sit beside me. She was shaking as though with ague, and tears were running down her face. I put my hand on her arm. She ignored me, but the tale began. All the other passengers listened.

'Is him plan', she said, 'to take mi pickney away from me. Carry him go a funeral to the country and say him not taking him back. Mi little eleven-year-old boy - just as him supposed to study for him GSAT exam! Lord help me. Me a go find him. Him carry him gone a Santa Cruz and me nuh know where but me a' go get the police and find mi pickney. Two job me do. Two job to send mi pickney to school. Me work from seven to five and from five-thirty to eight every weekday, and me make sure say me work half-day on Saturdays, just so that him can eat and me can pay for him extra lessons. Him father, who nuh mind him, gone with me pickney, gone give him wife who caan have any.'

'Lawd, lady, me see you pain. Den you know where him carry him to?' said an elderly lady at the back

'No, sah, except a' Santa Cruz and me nuh know Santa Cruz.'

'But Santa Cruz is a big big place! How you a go find him?'

Tears again.

'Lady,' said a middle-aged man who sat in a corner of the bus, 'mi feel it fi you. A so mi did feel when mi first son never even tell me say him a graduate an' me did want so bad fi carry mi mother and mi sister and brother go see him step down with him high school certificate.'

'Lawd, that hard,' said a woman sitting in the back. 'You shoulda know that. Then is what exam him pass?'

'An you know say me nuh know if him did take any! Him never grow with me and me never really see much of him, but me did really want to see him go up and take the high school certificate.'

There was a lull as the people contemplated that last remark. The bus had taken on two more passengers; the conductor was busy packing the packages under the seats and the bus driver came to see how the loading of the bus was going. The woman beside me was still in tears. She did not look around; she stared ahead of her, at the people in the park and at the parked buses, but she was obviously very distressed. She had lost her son, and how was she going to find him in a busy town like Santa Cruz? Yet, determination was etched on her young face. She was going to the police and to the family court if necessary. She had to find and bring back her son.

The bus full now, the drive began. Through the streets of busy downtown, then on to the highway. There was no more talk, just silence, if there can ever be silence in a minibus packed to capacity. I sat next to the driver. He moved the gear lever up and down as he roared along the highway towards our destination.

The woman sat resolute: she would find her son. But I couldn't help wondering how and when she would return with him to the city. Then the driver put on the music, dancehall music, and the air was drenched with noise as we thundered along.

- Jean Goulbourne