The train moves slow.
The children, all six, dangle happy out windows. I fumble for our tickets.
Look for answers I can’t find.
The train lurches and I reach for a seat and a boy grins at me trying to hold on. When did all their limbs become long?
When did I turn and miss that all the days are the destination?
Two brothers stack, hands on shoulder, leaning to see down the track. I grip a seat and watch them, watch it all passing by in shades of green and indigo and always shadows.
Our firstborn, he sits near the back of the car, hand propping chin, pensive, pondering. Man-like. This is what the youngest of six asked for her sixth birthday: to ride a train.
I can feel it even now, how it shuddered when we pulled away from the stop.
I ask if I can sit beside her and she breaks into nodding smile, pulls up onto the Farmer’s lap, and my hand brushes his knee and hers and all I want to do is cup the face of him who began this ride with me, hold his face gentle between my hands and beg: How do you turn trains right around? How did we get here already? Why does it all speed by in a blur? Or is it me who is doing this to life? I need to know this.
How do we get back? [Read more...]









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