Page 67 of Leaving the Station

“Eighteen.”

“I’m thirty-six.”

“That’s twice my age.” It’s the same thing I said to Aya on the first day, but in reverse.

“Thank you for making me feel elderly,” Edward says, “but that’s not the point. The point is, back in my twenties, I started my life essentially from scratch every single year, claiming it was because some planet or another was in retrograde. And you’re not even twenty. You’re a baby.”

“I feel ancient,” I tell him.

“That may be so, but you have time to figure out who you are. Honestly, it’ll be okay if you never figure it out.” I must give him a horrified look because he adds, “Not everything you do has to have lasting, life-altering consequences. Sometimes you can do things just for the sake of it. I went to law school when I was twenty-four—it wasn’t for me. I just wanted to be able to say, ‘I object.’”

I laugh at that, and he adds, “This doesn’t have to be your whole life, forever. You can always change tracks.” At this, he stands up. “Speaking of which, I have to set up the snack car.”

“Already?” I check my phone. “It’s barely five.”

The café opens at six, when quiet hours are over and everyone’s joints are creaky from a night of train-sleep.

“I don’t just stand there and look pretty,” he says. “I have coffee to brew, food to unpack, inventory to check and restock. Peopleneedtheir snacks.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, because he’s right; he’s the one who keeps the train running and the passengers from losing their minds.

He’s so easily satisfied with hislife; providing travelers snacks and coffee is enough for him.

And yet nothing is ever enough for me.

Twelve

Wednesday, 7 a.m., near Devil’s Lake, ND

The sun is just starting to rise, but the train is already awake, alive.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” I say to Oakley as she zombie-walks into the observation car, her hair in a messy bun. She sits next to me, then flops forward and rests her head in my lap.

I feel like I coaxed a finicky cat onto me: one wrong move and she’ll go skittering under the nearest piece of furniture.

“I’m so tired,” she groans.

“Coffee?” I suggest.

She sits up. “Not happening.”

“Just a little sip?”

“No,” she says. “I’d feel too guilty.”

“Ooh,” I say, feigning shock. “I thought that was just a thing for Jews and Catholics. Nice to know that Mormons experience religious guilt too.”

“Not a Mormon,” she tells me, then she realizes what she said and backtracks. “Or, not currently, anyway. Not on the train. Not yet.”

I let her words hang in the air.

“And you don’t own guilt,” she says, filling the gap in conversation. “My whole life is guilt. It’s literally built into the Church. Every Sunday, they pass around the sacrament, which you can only take if you’re ‘worthy.’” She rolls her eyes. “So if I knew I was ‘unworthy’ that week, I had to abstain. And if I hadn’t confessed my sins beforehand to my bishop—who was usually a friend’s dad asking me if I’d masturbated, mind you—then I’d have to choose between either lying to God and taking the sacrament (because I was never perfect) or passing it along to the next person in my row when it came to me.”

“Then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t try a little coffee,” I tell her. “You’ve tried a little lesbianism.”

She coughs, choking on saliva, and I stand and pat her back until I’m sure her airways are clear.

“Nothing to see here, people,” I say, making a big show of turning to everyone in the observation car, even though no one’s paying attention to us.