by An Na
“And you just happened to catch me at the diner just as this train was about to pass?”
“Well, I am a researcher, you know. I looked up the schedule, but catching you at the diner, that was luck. Or fate.”
“You sound like Dr. Mendelson.”
“Maybe there is a reason she’s a genius.”
“Funny.” I start to walk away.
“Wait, Grace. Can I have your phone for a second?”
“No.”
“Please, just for a second. I forgot mine at the lab.”
He is getting me to do all kinds of things tonight. I pull out my phone from my back pocket and hand it over. He quickly types something and then hands it back.
“That’s it? That’s all you had to do?”
“Yup. Now you have my number.”
I look down at my phone and see that I am calling someone. Will. “And you have my number,” I say.
“That’s how it works,” he says lightly, and turns to leave.
I turn around one last time and gaze down the narrow alley between the buildings that just a minute ago proved that I was not crazy.
All this time could I really have been hearing a real train when I thought I was imagining things? Can I rule this out as a possibility? I slip my hand into the sleeve of my other arm, dig my nails in hard. The pain feels real.
Autumn
She balled her hands into fists and dug her nails deep into the palms of her hands. She repeated to herself that she could not cry. Mama did not like when she cried.
The knife blade, long and straight, caught a glint of sunlight and refracted the light. What did Mama want to do with the knife? How was it going to stop the train? She did not understand. She did not want to understand.
“Mama, I want to call Daddy,” she whispered.
“Shhhh,” Mama said, her face calm and relaxed now that she clutched a knife. A yawn spread her mouth wide and open. The darkness and pearl points of teeth. “I am so tired.” Mama said. “Let me rest.”
“Let’s go lie down, Mama. Let’s take a nap.” The blank expression on Mama’s face unnerved her.
“We will rest and never have to worry about the train again,” Mama said.
The words Mama spoke stilled her heart.
Mama moved the knife to one hand and with the other hand, reached out to her. “Come here.” Mama pulled her close and then placed the blade against the pillowed fat of her cheekbone. The ridge and edge forming an indented line. A line long as a road on a winter barren night.
Spring
The darkness surrounds me as I drive home. My lone pair of headlights are the only ones on the dirt road so far from everything. The feeling of safety has left with Will after he dropped me off at the parking lot and returned to the lab. Seeing the train has made my mind fragile, swirling with the reality of what this new truth means. The train is real. The train is real. Could I have been hearing a real distant train from the house? I’ve searched online for rail routes, but maybe there was an old track that was only used once in a while near the house as well? If so, then what did it mean? I wasn’t imagining things at home? The train could be real?
All that I thought I knew tilts off-kilter. As I drive, slowly navigating around the ruts and potholes left over in the road from the thaw of spring, I track the possibilities. What is inevitable? Predictable? And all the permutations in between. Do I dare hope? I place my hand over the bottle in my pocket. What was so certain is now fading into haze like the condensing fog before me. My headlights illuminate ghostly wisps of vapor on large swaths of brown fields, the snow finally almost gone. The last tentacles of winter releasing their grip.
Ahead of me, I see my house emerging from the patches of snow and field. Soon the forget-me-nots will come into bloom. As much as I complained to Dad about being in the middle of nowhere, I was looking forward to seeing the periwinkle clusters all around the house like the way it looked when we first visited a year ago. There was a melancholy sweetness to seeing their abundance, which Dad had taken for a sign. The flowers foretelling all that was to come, while I saw them as a reminder of all that had passed. Mom could still be out there. I might have a chance at not being an orphan. If I let myself search the way Dad did, could the risk pay off? My heart beats wildly. The gamble of learning the truth thrums through my veins. If hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, as Emily Dickenson believed, then maybe that explains this flutter in my body.
The house is dark as I draw closer. Not a single light. Not even a light on the porch above the front door. I always forget to turn it on before I leave in the mornings. For someone who is always considering genetic changes for the future, I definitely don’t know how to plan for the future in a single day. The bleakness of the house confronts me in a way I never realized before. There is no warm, welcoming feel. It stands there so lonely and still, a shadowy reminder of all that I have lost. Alone, wandering through the empty rooms, most of which have no furniture because it was always just Dad and me. A cloak of sadness like a black shawl curves over my shoulders, and I hunch forward in dread of the empty, lonely night. I have to remember the porch light tomorrow. Tomorrow, I marvel to myself. There is a tomorrow?
As I pull into the driveway, a dark form moves on the porch. My heart lurches in surprise and fear. I cover my face with my hands and count to five and then slowly lower them. A figure stands in the headlights of my car, staring at me through the windshield.
“Hannah?”
I quickly cut the engine, kill the lights, and open the door.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
It is hard to see her in the darkness. Remembering my box of food, I lean back into the car and pull it out along with the coffee.
“Did you eat? I have some dinner. We can share.” I chuckle. “Forget it, I don’t want my hand anywhere near your mouth when you’re eating. I’ll just have my coffee and some soup.”
Hannah nods, but still won’t speak.
I lead her into the house. A sudden freezing blast of wind blows the door in just as I open it. I realize once we step into the hallway that Hannah has never been over to my house before. Not even after my father died. I shut the door and turn on the lights. Hannah’s haggard face swims in front of mine. I am overwhelmed by a feeling of displacement for a second, and then the house revolves back into position. Focusing on keeping my balance, I head toward the kitchen to warm up the food.
“Come on,” I call. “It’s meat loaf.”
Hannah follows me, but then stops at the doorway of the kitchen. I wave at the table, but she remains standing. As I place the box of food into the microwave above the stove, the bottle in my front pocket jams into my thigh as I lean against the counter. I take it out, setting it down next to the cold coffee.
“Grace, I’m scared.”
I turn around. I know this fear as though it were on my own face.
“What are we supposed to do?” She places her hands on her stomach. “Who am I to think I can be a mother?”
“What happened, Hannah?”
“I can’t give her the life she should have.”
“You have to think about what’s best for your life, too, Hannah.”
“My life, Grace?”
“Yes. Yours. We all have choices. Things might seem crazy and impossible.” I can feel Will’s hands on my shoulder as we watched the train pass. “But it doesn’t have to be that way,” I say. “Maybe more things are possible than we realize.”
Hannah gazes down at her hands cradling the slight bulge pushing forward. The microwave beeps, startling me. “Come on. You look like you could use some meat loaf. It’s from the diner.” I reach into the microwave and take out the cardboard container, set it down on the counter.
“What is that?” Hannah points at the brown bottle next to the cup of coffee.
I glance over at the potassium cyanide. “That’s a choice that I thought I had to make.” Reaching up into the cabinet, I take out a plate and begin to t
ransfer the meat loaf from the container.
“It’s not a choice.” Dad walks into the kitchen past Hannah and moves over to the sink. He crosses his arms.
“She can make her own decisions,” Hannah says.
I look up from the plate and glance over at Dad. In the reflection of the window above the sink, I find myself standing alone in the kitchen. A faint whistle echoes in the distance. Hannah heard Dad. One knee buckles, and I shift my eyes between them. Hannah heard Dad. My breath catches in my throat. This is not possible. Hannah and Dad watch each other. A high-pitched noise, the grinding of metal on metal, worms into my ears. No, no, no. The train is real. I saw it today. It’s real. It is real.
“Grace.” Dad steps over to me. “Grace, I know you can do this. Push back against the sounds. They are not real.”
Hannah takes one step into the kitchen. “Are you real?”
Dad points at Hannah. “STOP!”
“I won’t let you do this to her,” Hannah says.
“I’m trying to save her, just like I tried to save you.” Dad pleads, “Please, please give her a chance.”
“You didn’t save me!” Hannah shouts.
“I TRIED!” Dad yells back.
There is a faint trembling rising up from my feet. A clear, sharp whistle pierces lightly, then disappears. I reach over and grip the brown bottle. “LEAVE ME ALONE!” I scream.
“Grace, this isn’t you,” Dad begs.
“Dad, what’s going on?”
Hannah takes another step into the kitchen. “She knows what’s coming for her. She can make her own choice to stop it.”
I stare at her face. The gentle bow of her upper lip. The pink labyrinth swirls of her ears. The blade line of her jaw. This face I know in my heart before I can remember her name. I know how she likes to blow her bangs off her forehead when she is tired. How her eyes squint crescent moons when she laughs. Her voice reading to me at night. I have missed her so much. My mother. She came back for me when I needed her the most. Standing beside me, my mother and father, as it was always supposed to be, and yet I do not gaze up into the reflection of us in the window above the sink. For I know from the outside what a stranger would see passing by this house alone in its field of forget-me-nots.
“No, no, no.” Dad shakes his head, his voice trembling. “Hannah, you must leave her alone. She has a chance to get better.”
“Don’t you get it?” Hannah says, taking another step forward. “You want her to rot in some hospital waiting for a miracle. Do you really want her to live scared and drugged out of her mind? That’s the kind of life you want for our daughter?”
Dad holds out his hands. “Grace, listen to me. Please. Concentrate on my words. Block out everything else. Listen to me, Grace. Things can change. There are new developments all the time. You have to have faith.”
A sudden vibration almost sways me off balance. A growing thunder thrums in my ears. The clatter of tracks rattles hard against my heart. There is no more time. The train was not real. I cannot trust myself. I have to do this quickly before I fall. My hands are shaking so hard I can barely get the lid off the coffee cup. Half of it spills on the counter. I twist open the cap of the bottle and start to pour the white crystalline grains into the coffee.
“NO, GRACE!” Dad shouts in my ears, and I drop the bottle on the floor. The white crystals spill everywhere. Dad’s voice clings to me. “I know I wasn’t there for you in all the ways you needed. I was doing my best for us as a family. But it was always all for you. I love you, Grace. Please don’t do this.”
“You left me,” I cry. “You were never around for me. You were always trying to find her . . . find a cure for her!” I point at Hannah.
“No, bugaboo. There was such little time left after we moved here. I had to do everything in my power to help you before the illness got worse. Bug, I was doing it all for you. You. You are my life.”
I see his face so clearly. Drop by drop, all the sadness of what has never been said, the words trail down the worn grooves of his face. Those horizon-blue eyes begging me to stay with him. He fought until his last breath. For me? For me.
“Daddy . . . Help me.”
His eyes squint in pain and he bows his head, unable to bear my words. I know if he could, he would make the sun orbit the earth, make the waves crash against the horizon, unravel a miracle from a strand of DNA. The train thunders closer. I push my fingers through my hair and pull hard against the roots. I need to feel something to keep my mind present. My nails claw into my forearm and vermillion specks rise to the surface of my skin. This is real. This is now. Isn’t it?
Dad watches me tear at myself to stay present and his eyes fill with tears. “Grace, there will be new advances. There will be more they can do. You have to keep fighting. Keep faith.”
Hannah takes another step and faces me. We are the same height. We have the same hair. We have the same angel’s-kiss birthmark on the side of our neck.
A trilling sound floats into the air.
“Answer it, Grace,” Dad says. “It’s Will. Let him help you.”
“Just like Dave?” Hannah says. “He said he loved her.”
“You said you loved us!” Dad argues. “And you left.”
Hannah’s face crumples as though he has punched her. “I did what I thought was best for you and Grace. It was the hardest decision I ever made. But it was my choice.” Hannah looks at the coffee cup. “This is a choice.”
“That is not an option.” Dad walks up behind me.
I stand between my parents. Caught in their love for each other and for me. The beat of the train tracks drums into my veins. The heavy clanking grows louder and louder. I lift the coffee cup from the counter. Inside this murky darkness is my truth. Hannah steps even closer until our noses are almost touching. The shadows creep into the corners of my eyes.
“Drink it now. The train is coming. Your life will not be yours. You will always be at the mercy of the disease and the drugs.”
The faint trilling fills the air again.
“Will knows what to do. Trust him,” Dad says.
The train whistle slices through my mind and I grimace as I absorb the pain. I must do this now if I want to keep the train from taking me, and I can no longer control my thoughts or my actions.
“No, Grace,” Dad cries. “Please, bug. Put down the cup. Call Will. Do this for me.”
The clanking sound of wheels against tracks grows louder, unrelenting as sliver by sliver I begin to dissolve. It takes every ounce of concentration to move my unsteady hand, inch by inch, raising the cup to my lips. A bead of sweat slides down the side of my face. I see the cliff’s edge drawing nearer. I must jump or I will fall.
“Daddy, I can’t live this way. I don’t want to live this way. Forgive me.”
I tip back the cup, but my quivering hand sloshes the liquid down the front of my shirt. It burns sharp, the etching rawness silencing the train for a moment, and I tear away the fabric from the skin of my stomach. And there. There. The evidence. There is a taut swelling. A soft curve pushing forward. I gasp and raise my eyes to Hannah’s. All the seasons of her life in those eyes.
“Mama.”
Her form fades slowly like mist in sunlight.
I set the cup back down on the counter and rip off my shirt. Pulling the phone from my back pocket, I call Will, but before I can speak, the shrieking howl of the whistle strikes me, lances through me.
The train explodes my mind. The skittering insects crawl inside and out, over my body, and I scream, tearing, ripping, scratching at them. Worthless. Disgusting. The Moirai. Come to me. Clotho. Lachesis. Atropos. Playing god now, are you? No. Yes. Stop.
I fail.
I fall.
Fall.
Forward.
Over the bridge.
Spring slips into summer.
Summer smolders down for autumn.
Autumn kneels to winter.
Winter yields. Spring.
Spring Slips into Summer
I watch the seasons pass from the window of a large cavernous room filled with other bodies. Hear the click of the clock’s hand turning and turning. Time moves forward, but all I know is that the present becomes past. The future has become my reality. And the past, the past, a history that will repeat itself, clone itself, coded into the genomes of our lives, living and waiting to be birthed into the future.
I take my pills when I am told to. I sleep when I am told to. I eat when I am told to. And when no one is telling me what to do, I claw the walls for answers. Where is my name? I search every day to find my name. I know it is hidden behind the walls. I try to carefully tear apart the seams when no one is watching.
There are no more straps on my bed. The nurses smile and say I am making progress. The doctors nod. Nine pills become eight. Eight become seven. Seven become six. But still, I cannot find my name.
If I press my ears to the walls, I hear the faintest call from the other side. I know my name lives beyond what I can see.
Until one day, as I am walking by the television room, I hear a voice.
“Ma-ma.”
I run to the sound. A child moves in the square of the picture.
The soft, wet, gurgling coos come back. “Ma-ma.”
My name. My name. Out from the walls. Into my ears. Inside my body. I claim it. I clutch it like a lifeline. Hand over hand I struggle to stop the moving train. It slows. The whistle quiets. I listen again. “Mama.”
The white light above my head beats into my skull as I sit in a line with all the others. The nurse goes down the row. She hands out the pills and small cups of water. Some will swallow them quickly and leave. Others sit staring down into the delicate white cups like muffin tin papers meant for sweet things, not these bitter soothsayers.
I stare at the colored pebbles in my muffin cup and count them in my head. One two three four five six. Six. How many were there last time? Why can’t I remember? The pills rob my mind. I think about throwing them like someone down the line has done, but then the bigger nurses jump up. My body remembers what happens next.