When I was in fourth grade, my elementary school moved far away to Jatinegara.
For a nine-year-old, far meant one thing: I had to wake up while the sky was still dark, before the voices of people in the rental room had turned into the sound of everyone fighting over the bathroom.
Dad didn’t have a motorcycle. So we took the economy KRL from the nearest station, the five o’clock train whose cars were already packed before I even had the chance to get properly sleepy.
Inside the train, people stood shoulder to shoulder. Work bags pressed against their backs. Hands gripped the metal bars. The smells of sweat, hair oil, and clothes that hadn’t had time to dry mingled in the still air.
I was too small to see out the window.
Every time the train braked, everyone’s bodies lurched forward. The door behind me rattled. Its gap felt terribly close. If I had been standing on my own, maybe my body could have slipped between all those people who were equally desperate to save the day.
But Dad always carried me.
One hand held me steady. The other gripped a pole. His chest became a wall behind my back. Whenever the car lurched, Dad’s body took the force first.
All I knew was that I was safe.
I didn’t yet know that sometimes being safe meant someone deliberately standing in the most uncomfortable place so we could breathe a little easier.
“Dad, it’s stuffy,” I said one morning.
Dad lowered his head. His face was close to my ear. His voice was nearly swallowed by the sound of the train wheels clattering against the tracks.
“Hang on. You can laugh freely at school later.”
I didn’t know why I had to wait until school to laugh. But I trusted Dad. If he said there would be room to breathe later, then there really would be somewhere to breathe.
When we arrived in Jatinegara, he set me down near the exit. My uniform was wrinkled. My hair stuck to my forehead. Dad straightened my collar with fingers that still bore black streaks from the motorcycle repair shop.
“Study hard.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t get into fights.”
“Okay.”
“If you’re hungry, buy some bread.”
I nodded, then ran toward school.
Dad didn’t go straight home. He waited until I had truly disappeared among the uniformed children. Only then did he return to the station, board the same train, and go to work.
That afternoon, he came to pick me up.
I saw him from the school gate. The back of his shirt was already soaked. Dust clung to his trousers. There was a tiredness on his face that, back then, I thought was only a shadow cast by the sun.
“Tired, Dad?”
“No.”
His answer was always the same. Short, quick, as if admitting he was tired would make the entire trip home heavier.
We took the KRL again.
The afternoon train was more crowded than the morning train. People returning home carried shopping bags, rumpled faces, and the last of their energy, which they wanted to spend lying down as soon as possible. This time I stood in front of Dad. He held my shoulders from behind, making sure I wouldn’t fall when the train swayed.
In one day, we took the train four times.
Twice so I could get to school. Twice so I wouldn’t have to go home alone.
For Dad, maybe it was just a commute.
For me, it was the simplest way he had to say that I wouldn’t face the world alone.
Years later, when I looked at the train schedule and calculated the distance we used to travel, I finally understood: Dad wasn’t just taking me to school.
He spent half his strength getting me there, then spent the other half getting me home.
And throughout that journey, every time I felt short of breath, he always placed his body between me and the door.