Page 13 of Leaving the Station
Which is also my last, because, as it turns out, I am extremely weak.
Oakley laughs, quietly at first before it turns into hysterics.
“Okay, okay,” I say, but I can’t help but smile too. At least if I’m making a fool of myself, it’s for Oakley’s entertainment.
Once she calms down, she says, “So obviously not push-ups. I was thinking a mini scavenger hunt.” She’s sitting with one of
her legs up on the seat in a half-butterfly, holding on to her ankle, lovely and sun-drenched in the afternoon light.
“What kind of scavenger hunt?” I ask, knocking myself out of that thought.
She pulls out her backpack, rips a piece of paper out of a notebook, and quickly scribbles a note.
“There,” she says after a few seconds of writing.
OAKLEY AND ZOE’S TRAIN SCAVENGER HUNT:
FIND SOMEONE WHO’S FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY
FIND SOMEONE WHO’S NEVER RIDDEN THE TRAIN
FIND THE OLDEST PERSON ON THE TRAIN (OAKLEY)
FIND THE YOUNGEST PERSON ON THE TRAIN (ZOE)
“That’s not much of a scavenger hunt,” I tell her, looking at the list.
“Sounds like loser mentality to me.”
“Fine,” I tell her, not backing down from the challenge. “I’m in.”
“All right, should we say... thirty minutes?” Oakley pulls up the clock app on her phone and hands me a piece of paper
and a pen.
“You’re on.”
She counts down from ten, and as she says one, we push past each other and sprint out of her sleeper compartment. The first
place I go is the nearest coach car, hoping that the woman with the fresh baby came on this train too.
Luckily, she’s there, breastfeeding while watching a movie on her laptop.
“Excuse me?” I whisper, not wanting to bother her, but she doesn’t hear me, so I say it louder.
At that, the baby turns with their big eyes to look at me, but the mom doesn’t react.
“She sleeps with her eyes open,” the person across the aisle says. “Thought she was dead at first, but she’s fine.”
The man looks like a stretched-out piece of taffy. Even his mouth is long, and he’s using it to smile at me.
“I know this is going to sound weird,” I start, then check the note Oakley wrote for me. “But are you from another country
and/or is this your first time taking this train?”
“You’re in luck.” He’s grinning now. “I’m from Canada.”
I smile back at him and write his name—Mike—on the piece of paper. We talk for a minute, and I tell him that I’ve only ever
been to British Columbia, but that I’d like to visit more of Canada.
“Try the Canadian National Railway,” he says. “I took a cross-country train trip with them a few years ago, so I figured I’d
try the US next.”
I tell him that if I ever have a reason to take a four-day train trip again, he’ll be the first person I call.
Then I turn to the woman with the fresh baby, and she snores loudly.
The sound wakes her up, and though her eyes were already open, the life jumps back into them.
“Hi,” I say carefully. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.” It’s not the entire truth, but it’s not a lie either.
She purses her lips, and her baby stretches their balled fists in the air. “I’m fine, thanks.”
Then the baby starts screaming.
Everyone around us looks over, clearly done with this infant and their many loud noises.
“Shh, shh,” the mom coos, bouncing the baby over her shoulder while staring daggers at me.
But then the baby looks me dead in the eyes and immediately stops crying. They have the most perfect face I’ve ever seen,
even though it’s splotchy with tears.
The mom’s eyes are nearly as wide as her child’s as she turns to me. “Can you take him?” she whispers.
“I don’t know if that’s a great—”
But my protestations don’t stop her from shoving the small thing into my arms. I cradle him like he’s made of glass. I’ve
never held a baby before, but this one’s warm and wriggly, and I immediately know I’d do anything to protect him.
“Thank you,” the mom whispers. “That’s Alberto. Or Bert. I’m still trying to figure out which to call him. And I’m Elaine.”
Alberto/Bert squeezes his eyes shut as if he’s planning on crying, but I bounce him a little and he stops.
“You have the magic touch,” Elaine tells me.
“I don’t think so,” I say quietly as I stare at him. He’s so small and... human.
And then Elaine starts crying too.
“I’m so sorry,” she mutters through tears.
I don’t know how to comfort her, so I bounce her son and make gentle shushing noises in the hopes that what works for him will help her as well.
“I can’t do this on my own,” she whispers, and it’s unclear if she’s telling me or just admitting it aloud.
Now I really don’t know how to comfort her. I don’t have anywhere close to the same level of responsibility that she has, and even so,
I’ve dropped the ball.
But when I dropped the ball, it was only me who suffered. My grades slipped; my life felt like it wasn’t mine anymore. Still, I wasn’t
hurting anyone but myself.
Elaine can’t drop the ball, even if she wants to. She’s got this small helpless person who relies on her for everything.
But maybe I can relieve some of that pressure.
“Do you want me to take him for a little while?” I ask, and she nods gratefully through hiccups.
When Oakley arrives back in the observation car, the sight that greets her is me sitting with an infant strapped to my chest
in a BabyBjorn.
“I hesitate to ask,” she begins.
“Shhhh,” I tell her, then mouth, Baby sleeping.
It’s mostly a joke, because Alberto/Bert can apparently sleep through anything. The train bumps and clangs over the tracks,
and he keeps snoozing.
“How did you acquire a baby?” Oakley asks as she slides into the seat next to mine.
“You said, ‘Find the youngest person on the train.’”
“I didn’t mean kidnap him.”
When I explain the truth of the matter, Oakley is only slightly less concerned.
“So, where’s the oldest passenger on the train?” I ask to fill the silence.
“I tried to strap her to my chest, but she didn’t quite fit.”
“Ha, ha.” I roll my eyes.
“Her name is Nellie and she’s one hundred and two.”
“How do you know she’s the oldest person on the train?” I ask while hiding my surprise that someone that old is taking a journey
this long.
“The same way you know your baby is the youngest one.”
“Fair enough,” I admit, and as if in response, Alberto/Bert wraps his miniscule hand around my pinkie finger.
Oakley leans back in her seat. “Nellie was telling me about how train travel used to be luxurious.”
I point around the stained, beat-up observation car. “More luxurious than this ?”
“Velvet-seat luxurious,” Oakley says. “Caviar-in-the-dining-car luxurious. And get this: she was wearing her travel hat . She had a box for it and everything and wouldn’t stop adjusting it on her head. She is deeply mother.”
“Sounds like it,” I say. “Why haven’t I seen her?”
“She slipped one of the attendants a hundo to bring everything to her sleeper car.”
“I love her,” I say as Alberto/Bert fusses. I bounce and he calms down.
“And he seems to love you,” Oakley says. “Would you ever have kids? You’re good with him.” She asks it so casually that I’m taken aback. It’s not a casual question.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “What about you?”
“Someday, probably,” she says. “Maybe one.”
“Don’t have one,” I tell her emphatically. “Being an only child is terrible. I grew up with my parents laser-focused on every
little thing I did.”
“I’m sure being an only child is better than being the last of six.”
“What?” I ask. “Six?”
“You can’t be that surprised,” she says. “I thought that was the first thing everyone knew about Mormons, that they have a
lot of kids.”
“Yeah, but five siblings?”
“‘ And God blessed them, ’” Oakley begins. “‘ And God said unto them, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. ”’”
“Okay, but that’s, like, Old Testament shit,” I say. “That’s not unique to Mormonism.”
“You’re not wrong,” she says. “But I was also taught that there was a set number of spirit children in a premortal existence
who were waiting in line for bodies, and it would benefit them to be born ‘in the covenant.’” She says all of this with a
blank expression. “That’s why my parents had so many children—if the spirits are born into a Mormon family, they’ll have a
leg up for the Second Coming.”
After a moment of surprise, I clear my throat. “So, one kid?” I say as lightly as I can, trying to bring the conversation back to the more surface-level place it had been before.
I like having fun with Oakley, but the more I learn—about her upbringing, her religion, her beliefs—the more I want to know.
And the more I begin to care.