The Last Train Home

When Anna came the clock in the platform had struck eleven. It was now the evening before midnight and the station was almost deserted--only a janitor sweeping the floor covered with tiles, and a man sleeping on a bench. The cold made her breath cloudy as she stood looking down the tracks and their lines of silver becoming lost in the fog.

She held her old brown suitcase to her. It was not heavy, but it bore all that she had left of it, some clothes, a photograph, and a letter, which she had not opened in a decade.

Anna had sworn to herself that she would never go to this town again. But, she had been taught, vows were like smoke--they came, altered, were native.

On a wooden bench close to the verge of the platform she was sitting and gazed at herself in a puddle. The station hadn’t changed. The same flickering bulbs. The identical posters twisting in the corners. The air even smelled the same, of rain and rust.

She heard feet and her heart thudded. Slow. Hesitant. She looked up and saw him.

Ethan.

He appeared older--and with lines on his face, and silver at his temples,--but the same kindliness in his eyes. For a moment, neither spoke. The whistle of the train rang far away, long and deep as it were telling the silence between them.

I did not imagine you would come, said he.

I came near not, Anna answered in little more than a whisper.

Ethan smiled faintly. When you do, you always say so.

She could not but smile in response. I did not know, it was queer to stand up here after all these years. At one time they were to move out of this town jointly. To chase dreams, to start anew. Yet life had drawn them in opposite ways, hers to a city of noisy, lonely life, his to remain at home and look after a dying mother and a family store which never quite came out of its troubles.

I read about your father, said Ethan. “I’m sorry.”

Anna nodded. “It’s been… hard. He never stopped saying that I would come back one day.

“And he was right,” Ethan said.

The whistle was blown a second time, very loud. The final train to home was coming.

Steam was floating about the stage, winding around them like a ghost. The conductor was waving through the haze, which Anna could see. Some scattered passengers started to enter.

I did not go back permanently, Anna replied, holding her suit case closer. I have only gone to take away what remains.

Ethan scrutinized her a little. “And what’s left?”

She hesitated. Her eyes fell on him. “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”

He stepped closer. I recall what you said to me last night you left.

She nodded. “That I’d be gone for a year.”

And you were late ten, he said in a low tone, bordering on trembling. I used to stand in this platform every year on that day awaiting you. Annually, I swore to myself in case you ever came I would forgive all.

Yes, now, said she, and her voice broke.

A little the better and a little the worse smiled he. “Now, I don’t have to.”

His train was hissing, the doors opening up. Anna turned toward it. Light filled in, warm and inside, through the windows. Just a moment she could almost see herself sitting there, young and bright and full of plans.

She took a deep breath. “I should go.”

Sure, Ethan said and moved away. “You should.”

But neither moved.

The whistle came round, the last call, more prolonged. One more time she turned her back at him. “Goodbye, Ethan.”

He gazed at her with eyes gleaming in the dark. “Take care, Anna.”

She got into it, the doors came down softly with a thud. The train started its motion, gradually at first, but after that more harshly, wheels clattering over the tracks. She placed her hand upon the chilly glass, and saw him grow smaller and smaller into the fog, and further.

Anna opened her suitcase as the train rounded off the bend. Her hand touched the letter which she never opened in years. The one he had written when he was first left. She held it and unfolded it with shaking fingers.

You will find I will be on hand when you come back, at the same place and at the same time. There was no end, but it was a long time to think about what we had.

Her chest tightened. The letter dropped in her laps and she shut her eyes.

Beyond, the world had gone to streaks of black and silver. Then she knew something, home was not a place. It was an individual, a time, a decision.

And perhaps, perhaps, she had missed her last train home, not the one she ranged, but that one she had abandoned.