Chương 12
Rachel glanced at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, what?”
“You say that more now.”
“What?”
“That you’re not sure.”
Rachel considered it.
“Maybe I was surrounded by people who were too sure.”
David looked down.
“Probably.”
The answer contained no defense.
She appreciated that.
Margaret adjusted her scarf.
“Are we saying something?”
Vanessa said, “We don’t have to.”
“I didn’t say we had to. I asked whether we were.”
Rachel looked at Samuel’s name.
She had spent months wondering what she would have said to him if she had been given those twenty-eight hours.
Every imagined speech sounded false.
She would have been recovering from surgery.
Exhausted.
Scared.
She might have complained about the hospital coffee.
She might have been too frightened to hold him.
She might have said the wrong thing.
She might simply have touched his hand.
Real motherhood, she had learned, contained very few perfect sentences.
Rachel put two fingers against the cold stone.
“Hi, Samuel.”
Vanessa began crying.
Margaret looked away.
David covered his mouth.
Rachel remained kneeling.
“I’m your mom.”
The words hurt.
She continued.
“And Vanessa was there when I couldn’t be.”
Vanessa made a broken sound.
Rachel looked at her.
It was not forgiveness.
Not entirely.
But it was truth.
“And your dad loved you,” Rachel said.
David closed his eyes.
Rachel touched the bracelet once.
“That’s enough for today.”
They left together but drove away separately.
A year later, Rachel took Noah on the same overnight train through Colorado.
People told her that was strange.
Vanessa called it either courageous or psychologically questionable.
Rachel said those were not mutually exclusive.
She booked an ordinary sleeper rather than the private dining lounge.
She did not want to recreate anything.
That was not the point.
Noah was nearly three and obsessed with trains.
For six months he had asked to ride the “night choo-choo.”
So they did.
David dropped him off at Union Station carrying a backpack shaped like a dinosaur.
“He has crackers.”
“I packed crackers.”
“He wanted more crackers.”
“He always wants more crackers.”
David handed over the bag.
They stood awkwardly beside the platform.
Their divorce had been final for more than a year.
David was dating someone.
Rachel had met her once.
Her name was Claire.
She seemed kind.
Rachel hated her for approximately four minutes, then hated herself for being predictable.
“You’ll send pictures?” David asked.
“Yes.”
“Thanks.”
Noah hugged his father.
Then ran toward Rachel.
“Train!”
“Yes, I see it.”
“Big train.”
“Very big train.”
“Bigger Daddy.”
Rachel looked at David.
“Apparently you’ve lost.”
“I knew this day would come.”
He smiled.
There were still moments when Rachel saw the man she married.
She no longer confused seeing him with needing him back.
“Have fun,” he said.
“We will.”
The train left Denver after sunset.
Noah pressed his face to the window.
Rachel sat beside him.
Snow began somewhere west of the city.
Not a storm.
Just light flakes streaking through darkness.
They ate macaroni and cheese in the dining car.
Noah dropped his fork twice.
A waiter brought him a plastic cup with a lid.
At the table behind them, an elderly couple argued quietly about whether they had packed a phone charger.
Nothing happened.
No glasses fell.
No secrets emerged.
No one accused anyone of anything.
Rachel found herself waiting anyway.
Her body remembered before her mind did.
The sway.
The amber light.
Crystal trembling faintly on white cloth.
For a moment she was back there with an eight-month-old against her chest and a silver bracelet on his wrist.
Noah touched her hand.
“Mommy?”
Rachel looked at him.
“What?”
“You sad?”
Children were rude that way.
They ignored every adult agreement about privacy.
“A little.”
“Why?”
Rachel considered lying.
Not a large lie.
A mother’s lie.
I’m tired.
Nothing.
Grown-up stuff.
Instead she said, “I was thinking about your brother.”
Noah knew Samuel existed.
He did not understand much.
There was a photograph.
A name.
A grave they visited.
“Baby Sam?”
“Yes.”
“He on train?”
Rachel’s throat tightened.
“No.”
Noah thought about this.
“Where he?”
Rachel looked through the window.
She had rejected every answer that sounded too certain.
She did not know where dead children went.
She had learned what certainty could do when people loved it more than truth.
“He died before you got to know him.”
Noah frowned.
“I know him picture.”
“Yes.”
“And rock.”
Rachel smiled.
“The headstone.”
“Rock.”
“Fine. Rock.”
Noah ate a piece of macaroni with his fingers despite having recovered his fork.
“Baby Sam like trains?”
Rachel looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
Noah nodded.
This answer satisfied him completely.
Rachel felt tears sting her eyes.
Not knowing, for Noah, was not a catastrophe.
It was simply a space where an answer did not exist yet.
Maybe never would.
He took another bite.
“I think yes.”
“You think Samuel would like trains?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Noah shrugged.
“Trains good.”
Rachel laughed.
“Excellent argument.”
The train rocked.
A glass shifted near her hand.
Rachel caught it automatically.
Her fingers closed around the rim.
For half a second her pulse jumped.
Then she put the glass farther from the edge.
Noah did not notice.
He was watching snow.
After dinner they returned to their compartment.
Rachel changed him into dinosaur pajamas.
He fought brushing his teeth with the moral conviction of a political prisoner.
Eventually she won through bribery.
“One story.”
“Two.”
“One.”
“Three.”
“You negotiate like your grandmother.”
“Four.”
Rachel laughed.
“One.”
They compromised at two.
Noah fell asleep halfway through the second.
Rachel turned off the lamp.
She sat beside the window while the train crossed the mountains.
Her phone vibrated.
A message from Vanessa.
Did the tiny dictator like dinner?
Rachel typed:
Mac and cheese. He rated it acceptable.
Vanessa replied:
High praise.
Then another message.
You okay?
Rachel looked at Noah.
She considered the question.
Yes would be too simple.
No would also be wrong.
She typed:
I’m here.
Vanessa responded:
That counts.
May you like
Rachel smiled.
A few minutes later David sent a message.
