Waiting
An Expected Ending
Truly my soul silently waits for God; From Him comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be greatly moved. (Psalm 62:1-2)
Late
The train is late. I check my watch against the electronic tote board at the station: 26 minutes.
I might make it to Wilmington, DE, in time to catch the last local train home. And I might not. The Fredericksburg, VA, Amtrak station is being “remodeled” so there are no employees, no ticket windows, and no restrooms. It is a place between major destinations, just two parallel tracks going North and South and a plain wooden platform on both sides.
“What time is your train?” my brother had asked me when he dropped me off an hour ago.
“3:06,” I’d said. “Help me find the right track, but you don’t have to stay.”
Harvey hesitated. He had a long drive ahead of him to Cary, North Carolina, and the traffic from Ashby Ponds to the station had been brutal. “I should wait,” he’d said. The habits of an older brother die hard.
“No,” I said. “I’m fine. I’m not alone.” A few other travelers–maybe ten–had gathered with backpacks and duffle bags slung over their shoulders. “Go.” I hugged him tightly. “If I get kidnapped, Dad can blame you.” It was an empty threat, but Harvey played along.
“Sure,” said Harvey. “Always my fault. ‘Watch out for Linda!’ Story of my life.” We continued to stand there by the tracks, reluctant to part. We’d spent a lot of time together the last two summers, packing up more than ninety years of possessions and memories at Dad’s beach house. The beach house is gone now and almost four hundred miles separate us. We don’t know when we’ll see each other again.
Or maybe we do but don’t want to say.
Message
Back on the train platform, my phone pings, a message from my brother.
Traffic is terrible. Are you on the train?
Not yet, I text back. Delayed until 3:42.
Be safe.
You, too.
“Any train updates?” asks a man traveling with his family. For a tiny moment, I think he means about my father, then I realize he’s referring to the train. I’ve been using my Amtrak app to update my fellow travelers.
“I’ll check,” I say and wait for the app to open. Wifi is slow here. “3:56 arrival, it says.” Another 14 minutes.
He’s a big man with a big voice and he makes a general announcement. There are maybe twenty of us by now and the train is 40 minutes late. We’re all on the northbound side, headed home to Washington, or Wilmington, or Philadelphia, or New York. We can’t go back to wherever we’ve been.
There’s some general grumbling, but all in all, it’s a good-natured crowd. We sit on the wooden benches or lean against the brick walls. Occasionally someone will lean over the track, watching. But the only things to see on the track are heat vapors rising up like ghosts in the hot Virginia sun.
I reach into my duffle bag for the bottle of water I bought at a 7-11 in Falmouth. I take only a sparse sip. The water is tepid and there are no restrooms at this station.
My phone pings with another text from Harvey, an image this time: Dad and Peg, our stepmother, sitting on the couch of their apartment in the senior living complex. Dad is slack-jawed, his eyes faded, his smile vacant. He’d known we were there with our Father’s Day cards and cheerful balloons. Peg says she’ll remind him when we’re gone.
It’s a lot to process, Harvey and I told each other at the hotel last night. Before leaving the beach house in Rehoboth, Dad was looking forward to the move to Virginia, to the stamp club and the car club and new restaurants to complain about.
Dad doesn’t complain now. He sits on the couch and watches the planes land at Dulles Airport.
Or maybe he doesn’t watch them. There’s no way to tell.
The Ending
Anticipatory grief, it’s called, I tell Harvey on our drive to the train station. We know how this will end. We have time to come to terms with it, to say our goodbyes. I’m all too familiar with the concept. I said a slow goodbye to my husband as two decades of illness stole him away.
I don’t think it made the ending easier.
I check the Amtrak app again. 4:15 arrival time. I inform the crowd; we are still waiting to go home. I will definitely miss the last local train.
“Oh, well,” says the man traveling with his family. “Nothing we can do about it. We just need to wait.”
I nod and take another sip of my tepid water. I text my brother.
Train won’t arrive until 4:15 now.
It’ll come when it comes, he texts back. Love you.
Love you, too, I text.
I lean back against the hard wooden bench. I don’t mind that the train is late. I’m not ready to get on it just yet.
