The Train to San Antonio

The gentle rocking was comforting. If it wasn’t for the light coming in the window, I wouldn’t have woken up this early, I thought, as I rolled over. My bed felt too narrow. Then it occurred to me, that this wasn’t my bed! As I looked around, I realized that I was in a moving room. I sat up and looked out the window and realized that I was in a moving car, a train car. I knew it was a train car from the slight side-to-side motion, that I remember from a train trip across the Midwest, many years ago. As the fields, trees and buildings zipped by, outside, I tried, in vain, to remember where I was.

I looked at the black Fitbit on my wrist. I saw the date and the time, and they meant nothing to me. July 25th, at 7:30 AM, and I am on this train, and I don't know where I am going. Suddenly, I felt very ill. My stomach ached and my head was pounding. Was I sick or was I hungry? I couldn’t tell. I saw an unopened bottle of water on the table next to me and twisted off the cap and took a drink. The water was lukewarm.

Fright made me feel very cold. I have never had this experience of not knowing where I was, or how I got there. I looked around hoping for clues. Where are my belongings? What belongings do I have? I gasped as I realized that I didn’t know whose name should be on my things.

Just then someone knocked on the door to the train car. Startled, I responded, “yes?”.

“Breakfast service has started Ma’am, and you can come down to the dining car at any time,” said the train car attendant.

“OK,” I responded meekly, not knowing what else to say.

When he left, I found the little sink in the room and a towel. I washed my hands and face. I saw a small backpack on the adjacent bed, and picked it up, as I sat back down. In it, I found a change of clothes, including another pair of jeans, underwear, socks and a t-shirt. I found no wallet, but I did find a cell phone. Good, I thought, this will help. I tried to unlock the phone and realized that I didn’t know the code. “Crap!,” I exclaimed as I threw the phone back into the backpack.

I found a pair of blue Adidas sneakers on the floor and put them on. Picking up the backpack, I stuck my head out of the door of the car and looked up and down the hall. An old woman was exiting the car next to me, and I asked her, “can you tell me which way the dining car is?”.

“Sure, she said,”, “You can follow me.”.

As I walked, unsteadily, in the narrow hallway behind her, I realized, again that my head was throbbing with pain. But, the stomach pain was hunger. Eating might help.

“Are you traveling alone,”, the woman asked over her shoulder, as she walked, down the narrow swaying hallway.

“Yes,” I said hesitantly.

“We can eat together if you’d like to join me,” she said.

“Sure,” I said, as I plodded along, behind her, running my hands against the walls, trying to keep my balance.

We got to the dining car. Small tables and large windows, made it a bright and airy space, compared to the hallway. The old woman slowly sat down at a table and I squeezed in across from her. A waiter came to our table and gave us a menu and asked us about coffee. We both accepted cups of coffee and water.

I ordered scrambled eggs and toast, as the woman, who said her name was Elsie, ordered an omelet. We both ordered orange juice.

In order to head off her questions, I asked, “Where are you from?”.

“I’m from Wisconsin,” said Elsie. "Where are you from?"

"I live in Philadelphia," I responded. "I work for a hospital, in Philly."

“Why San Antonio?” I asked.

“My husband and I met in San Antonio, over thirty-nine years ago, and we had always planned to return sometime. But, sadly, he passed away before we could make the trip. It would have been nice to see the places we had visited, then, together.”

“I am sorry,” I said. “When did he pass?”

“Four, well almost five years ago,” she said, wistfully. “I still talk to him, every day.”

After the awkward silence, Elsie asked, “Are you going to San Antonio also?”

“Yes,” I answered only because I didn’t know what else to say.

As I looked around the room I realized that there were other diners, sitting a few tables away, but the room was not even half full.

“Not a lot of people eating this early,” I commented.

“Oh, there’s not a lot of us on this train, at all,” said Elsie. "It’s a pretty light group this time."

“This time?” I asked, Elsie. “You’ve made this trip, before?”

“Yes, many times,” said Elsie, as she smoothed down the front of her flimsy blue polyester dress. “I’ll keep riding this train until I find him.”

I sat in silence. I didn’t know what to say. Find who, I thought, but I didn’t dare ask it. I picked at a spot on my gray t-shirt and realized that there was a small hole in it, near my heart.

Our food arrived, and I reached for my silverware, as the waiter carefully laid down the plates. Elsie and I quit speaking, as we ate our breakfasts.

Elsie finished and watched me, as I was adding jam from a packet, to my last piece of toast.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

I stopped scooping out the jam long enough to meet her eyes. “I don’t know,” I said and stuffed a corner of the toast into my mouth.

“I didn’t know either,” she said, for the first few trips. “I just kept waking up on this train. I started to look for Allen. I was hoping that Allen might be trying to get onto this train, also, and that I will have to keep riding until I find him.”

I stared in astonishment. She read my face, and continued, “I figured that much out after a few trips.”

“How did you figure it out?” I asked.

Elsie looked at her veiny hands, and twisted her wedding ring, “I had a lot of time in my train car, just sitting and looking out of the window, and thinking. It finally hit me, one evening, when I thought I saw Allen in the hallway on the way to dinner. It didn’t turn out to be Allen, but I could see that the man was looking for someone also. His name was Eddy, and he was looking for his Betty. I didn’t see Eddy for a while. But, when I saw him, the last time, he was having a happy lunch with Betty in the dining car. They were smiling at each other, and they left the dining car, holding hands. I never saw him, or Betty, again.”

Elsie paused, and then asked, “when were you in San Antonio, before?”

I thought for a while and remembered my Mike. I could see Mike and I walking along the Riverwalk, in my mind's eye. The little strings of lights hung along the walkway, and by the shops and restaurants. The lights lit up the walkway and twinkled in the reflection from the water. Mike and I had dinner at a Mexican restaurant, shared a couple of beers, and we were walking and talking our way back to our hotel room. I remembered the way Mike looked into my eyes and said, “Tanya, I love you,” and we kissed under one of the striped awnings, of a dark storefront.

Tanya! My name is Tanya, I realized. I felt so much better for a moment. But, then I thought, where is Mike?

I remembered where I was, and looked up at Elsie. She looked sad and tears were just then spilling from her eyes. She wiped them away with the white cloth napkin and waited for me to say something. A few awkward moments passed between us, and then she finally said, “I am sorry. I can see that you just remembered some of your story. I know you feel confused. I am going to head back to my car now. Do you want to follow me back to your car, or do you want to stay here?”

I looked around for the waiter, but he was nowhere in sight. “We didn’t pay, yet,” I said.

“That’s OK,” Elsie said, “it’s included with the train ticket.”

“Oh, good,” I said, As I stood up to follow Elsie back down the gray swaying hallway.

Elsie and I shared a few more meals. She wasn’t at every meal, but we talked about our guys, and what we liked to do in San Antonio. It occurred to me that she always wore the same flimsy dress and that I never changed out of my jeans and the t-shirt with a round hole in it. Once, I asked Elsie when the train was going to get there, but she just smiled and said, “I don’t know either.”

The motion of the train rocked me to sleep each evening, and the sunlight in the window woke me each morning. One day I found Elsie already in the dining room, before me. She was facing a man, who was also wearing a light blue gown, and they were smiling and laughing, as they ate their meal. I heard her call him Allen. I was delighted by their happiness and good fortune, to connect on the train, at last.

As I thought about Mike, I hoped that he might be on this train, at some point, also. San Antonio was special to us. We had declared our love there, and made tentative plans to get married, before his next deployment. Our time together there stands, in my memory, in stark contrast to the dark days that followed. After Mike’s deployment and subsequent death, while he was serving in uniform, I felt such sorrow and loss, that I felt lost in the world.

I now sit in my train car, daily, and address him out loud, to share with him about my life in Philadelphia. How I had gone on, without him, missing him.

I tell him how I finished college, and got a good job at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, as a sonographer. With pride, I speak out loud about the rowhouse that I purchased in a gentrifying neighborhood. I describe the sunrise motif, in the black steel gate, that I had installed, to enclose my first-floor entrance. And, that, I had been budgeting to have my windows replaced with the bulletproof glass, my neighbors had recommended. But, I never had a chance to order the new glass, and there were, now, bullet holes in the old glass.

I didn’t see Elsie, again, but I did make a new friend on the train. I found Peter standing in the hallway, one morning, confused and disorientated. I invited him to join me, in the dining car. We talked about San Antonio over breakfast and went back to our respective cars. I tried to follow Elsie’s example, with Peter, and let him come to his own understanding, in his own time.

As I was heading down the hallway in motion, one afternoon, I saw a man in fatigues ahead of me, with auburn hair and a funny walk. I knew that walk, and my heart skipped a beat. I consciously tried not to run and reach out to him, as I was afraid that I would alarm him. I was also fearful, that it might not be Mike.

As I entered the dining car, I saw him. With his cap on the seat next to him, he sat staring at the table, as I walked towards him. As he looked up, he saw my face smiling at him. At first, he seemed not to recognize me. Then I noticed that he looked startled. Then, slowly, he smiled back. Time, but not the train, seemed to stand still.

I asked him if I could sit with him, and he just kept smiling and nodded. We said nothing, but stared, in wonder, at each other. The waiter, who was usually so prompt with his service, did not appear. Then Mike made a quick motion and placed both of his hands on the tabletop, palms up, reaching for my hands.

“Where are you going?’, he asked me.

“The same place you’re going,” I said.