By Nadezh Frank

Mid-afternoon sun covers half the passengers with a thick duvet of light, banishing shadows to the other side of the suburban express. A soft-tempered swing sways her, sways him, like a mother rocking her babies to sleep. Shhhh, wheels fondle the rails. He’s old—a nod, a jolt; she’s his age—a nod, a jolt—crossing the chasm by a needle-thick bridge; dreams flow below. He walks on, she follows him, their shoulders lower, their breathing slows as they’re falling, falling, falling, fallen; asleep.

Wrapped in sunshine, they fall asleep on the train, on the side of light, on a double seat, chins on chests, his hair grey and thin like hers, her hair cut as short as his. The synchronicity of the whole thing would surprise no one who knows them. For forty-one years, they did everything together: went to bed at a quarter to eleven, woke up at half-past six. Together, they brushed their teeth. Together, they ate. He a pain au chocolat. She jam, butter, and bread. They watched the morning news together, or the weather forecast, or a sunrise, sometimes; sometimes it rained.

When they were young and recently married, he dropped her off at the nursery and picked her up after her working day was over. Sometimes it was she who drove him to the office. Oh, how she loved driving. The feeling of control that came over her, the certainty of the road ahead, the clarity of the destination; unlike the goddamn trains, cars changed directions.

Sometimes they went to visit his mother in Quimper or her brother in Salerno. On weekends, if the weather allowed, they went to the park just outside the city center. Once, he noticed a ladybug on a blade of grass, and lay down, and watched. They were alone in a quiet corner, so she lay with him, tracing the lines running from the outer corners of his eyes. A deep inhale. He smelled like the sun. No one was around, so, when they kissed, he whispered, “Let’s try again.”

“When?”

“Now. Ladybugs bring luck.”

Eight months minus a day after they’d lain in the park, they rushed. 

After another month, they ran. Together, they ran—left their one-bedroom in downtown, moved to the countryside, away from the sounds and the sight they ached to forget. Those whitewashed walls. The walls of white. The cold. The stone. The electric light. They ran to the house of their own to forget. 

Forget? 

Could they ever forget how they’d rushed? 

That night—eight months minus a day since the park—he drove like mad, and she sat, panting her lungs out, in the back seat of their car.

And he was there.

He was there when she pushed, when she cried, when she sent him to hell—she was going to die, she thought. He was there, squeezing her hand, when she begged, first the midwife, then God, for an end. He was there, he was everywhere, when the pale angel arrived. Nameless—they wouldn’t dare to name her—she came, nameless she went, leaving the white hospital walls and the cold and the stone and the bed, rejecting the screaming world; oh, how they wept.

And she was there.

She was there when he pushed her away, when he cried—there was nowhere to rush anymore, there was nowhere to hide. She was there, wrapping his head in her arms, when he cursed the white walls and the coldness surrounding the cot he’d bought only a week before. She was there with him on the floor. Together, they lay there curled up like a pair of larvae waiting for the winter to pass; endless. Gravity didn’t hold. It clutched at their heavy bodies, pulling them down to the center of all in the middle of nothing, empty, never, empty, never, empty. They swore to each other, never again.

She quit her job at the nursery. She quit tiny noses, long lashes, pink lips. There were too many. They were too much.

And he was there again when she, dry and downtrodden, stared in the mirror, her breathless voice stealing the meaningless “Why this? Why us? Jacques, will you forgive me?”

“It’s not your fault, Sophia. Come to bed now. You must sleep, all right?”

That’s when they moved to the countryside.

Never mind.

All that happened long before this day on the train. Forty-one autumns have come and gone. Time passed by, slowly making things finer and, finally, fine. Oh yes, they’re fine, asleep on the train that carries her, that carries him as it has done so many times for everyone and everything, carrying persons and things through the brittleness of life, from station to station. They travel together, as they’ve always done. Togetherness has been their shield, their pride, their flag, their roof, their Northern Star, their coffee with milk, their lavender bath, their second nature, their safety net, their bed, their kiss, that of a lover and a mother’s kiss too, a lifelong journey, theirs, herhis.

Everyone knows them like this. So no one expects it to end. But it ends. Just like that, he betrays her. For the first time in their side-by-side lives, he betrays her.

Like a child playing with a bug, Gravity unclasps its fist. The train slows down. The driver’s voice announces their station. The sound of it awakens her from sleep. 

“Jacques?”

The man slouching at her side doesn’t react. 

“Wake up, Jacques. We’ve arrived.”

He doesn’t move. 

She doesn’t know. 

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

*   *   *

Nadezh Frank is a Switzerland-based writer of Russian and French heritage. She is represented by Kat Foxx at The Rights Factory and is the author of the debut novel The Benefactor of Snails. Her work explores love, loss, self-identity, and the quiet resilience of the human spirit. (www.nadezhfrank.com)