It wasn’t too long after she did the math that Mom got rid of the car. For what it cost in insurance and maintenance, she figured we could rent one when needed. But it turned out that renting one was never convenient. We soon learned to live without a car.

So maybe I should have noticed when she started computing what it cost to stay in the house. I probably should have argued when she made the case for a rental, a residential hotel even. But I was fourteen then and used to ignoring Mom.

Her arithmetic was sound. $2,500 a month in mortgage payment meant $30,000 per year. Almost $10,000 a year in property taxes, about $1,500 a year in utilities including garbage, and roughly $2,500 a year in garden, tree, and upkeep items. That works out to $120 a day just to stay home. Mom figured we could beat that.

And maybe we could have, if we had a big car. Luckily we didn’t have to try. Unluckily we did lose our home. Luckily we got it back again, and in between we had a place to stay. But I found out what it meant to me. A lot.

It was July 17th the night our world changed. Mom and Brian were downstairs watching TV and I was in my room directly above them when there was this big, solid boom and the house shook worse than any earthquake. I swear there was no squeal of brakes or people.

Brian told me later they heard squeals and screeches. From where he and Mom were sitting, the west wall of the living room just punched in at them and suddenly there was a bus almost in their laps and the shriek of tearing metal in their ears. He said he’ll never forget the horrified look on the driver’s face, like a mask of “The Scream” through the unbroken windshield a few feet away.

Mom didn’t say much about her visual impressions from the event. She was politically furious instead.

Our house was built a hundred years ago, at the bottom of a natural slope. When the town began to grow up around it streets were created, and it happened that the city fathers configured the roadways so our house was at the top of an upside-down T. The address was on Lincoln, but Liberty ran over the hill and aimed down at our place like an arrow.

Mom was always afraid some truck would plow into us. She lobbied the city council for a serious speed limit on the hill. They ignored her. She tried to have a warning sign with reflectors installed outside our front yard. They regretfully declined her request, citing budgetary considerations. She nagged at our father while he was still around, to do something, anything, about it (or about any other of Mom’s many passions), but he didn’t.

And I’ll have to admit: I never gave a thought to something running into the house. Until it happened.

D.P.T. arrived. That’s when I first became aware of the Department of Public Transportation. They removed the bus and boarded up the house hole, and they called the Red Cross to help us.

It turns out to be an almost common accident. In the same way that I never noticed how many people use crutches or wheelchairs until I broke my ankle, I guess you have to have a bus run into your house to find out it happens all the time. One city employee told me she’s worked four house breaches in her two years on the job.

The good news was no serious casualties. I fell and broke my ankle but Mom and Brian were untouched. The driver was shook up but not injured. There were six passengers on the bus and one of them broke an arm. They could all walk away from the wreck.

But we couldn’t. It was in our house and we didn’t have anywhere else to go. There was a ragged hole in our living room wall and the TV was gone, along with every item that had been in the big shelf unit. A load-bearing beam had broken, and that caused the upheaval in my room that made me fall and snap a bone.