Let’s start a tale most fitting for this bitterest season, a simple song for the unrequited among us.

[Al Stewart \\ End of the Day]

Her Book of Dreams

Chapter One

She finished taking notes then put away her writing materials; she turned off her Olympus Pearlcorder and slipped it into her briefcase, making sure that everything was just so, that everything was in the exact place she liked them. One of the physicians sitting next to her shook his head as he watched her rigid routine unfold and take shape, but she simply didn’t care what other people thought. Maybe she had once, but not now. Once her materials were secure she left the conference room and made her way to the elevators, then rode up in silence and walked to her room. She picked up the itemized bill that had been slipped under the door and looked over each entry before nodding and placing the envelope in her carry-on, then she grabbed her rolling suitcase and made her way back to the elevators, and from there on to the taxi stand beyond the ornate lobby entrance. She didn’t have to wait long and was soon on her way.

She was a physician, an ophthalmologist by training, though she considered herself a surgeon first and foremost. She had long ago decided to specialize in ophthalmologic trauma medicine, and so she spent most of her time working on eyes damaged in motor vehicle accidents – or perhaps even the occasional sliding glass door. Her’s was a most difficult specialty and few physicians chose to embark on the long journey required to gain even basic proficiency, but she had been driven to succeed in this field during her earliest training. After four years of medical school and a two year internship, she had spent a further eight years in various residencies and fellowships – and even now she spent at least a two weeks each year attending conferences such as this one in Chicago, learning about the latest research or absorbing new surgical techniques.  

She watched people hurrying along on crowded sidewalks as the taxi drove through the always congested downtown area between The Drake and Union Station, and only after she had exited the rancid old Ford did she notice that a light snow was just beginning to fall. She paid the cabbie and made her way inside the massive old station, and once inside she handed off her suitcase to one of Amtrak’s red capped attendants. She was in due course directed to the Metropolitan Lounge but, after checking the time on her phone, made her way to the upstairs food court. She’d been buying fresh roasted nuts from a vendor up there for years – every time she made this trip to Chicago, anyway – and today would be no exception. She purchased walnuts and macedamia and pistachios and put them neatly into her carryon.

The Metropolitan Lounge was just about full this time of day – it was mid-afternoon local time –  but she found a seat and looked at all the various departure times on monitors scattered around the room. Storied trains with legendary names like the California Zephyr, the Southwest Chief, and the Empire Builder all departed within a brief window of time in the late afternoon, and even a few overnight trains headed east were already showing up on the departure board – though they wouldn’t leave until later in the evening. She always booked a so-called Deluxe Bedroom, because the included bathroom space had private showering facilities, not one of the communal shower cubbies down on the lower level. And while meals were also included with sleeper service, she usually had these delivered to her room.

A half hour before their scheduled departure an announcer came on and advised that sleeping car passengers for the Empire Builder should line up by Door 6, and the usual collection of disoriented tourists shuffled over to the locked doors – but there were, she noted, a few oddballs waiting there, too. Twenty-somethings with skis headed to Montana, a wheelchair-bound woman in her twenties, and a couple of singletons like herself: business travelers who simply loathed flying, or who grew faint at the mere idea of having to board an aircraft – any aircraft – and all had queued up and were waiting anxiously. Another red cap appeared and escorted the group out onto the platform, and almost everyone remarked how much colder it suddenly seemed.

When she made it out to her assigned car she stepped aboard and made for the steep stairway that led to the upper floor, and once up there she made her way to the same bedroom – E – she almost always enjoyed this time of year. Located near the center of the car, Bedroom E was most isolated from the vibration and noise that plagued rooms over the trucks and nearer to the vestibule, a lesson her father had imparted decades ago.

She unpacked her overnight bag and found her dry-roasted macadamia nuts and had a few, and she watched as a nearby Metra commuter train pulled out of the station and headed north just as her room attendant came by and introduced herself.

“Let’s see…you’re Dr. North and I see you’ll be with us all the way to Seattle?”

“I am indeed,” Rebecca North, M.D., F.A.C.S. said. “Is the dining car back in full operation this trip?”

“It is, yes! You’ll be one of the first to try it out, too!”

“Could you put me down for the seven-thirty seating?”

“The dining car attendant will be by in a few minutes; just tell him what you want.” And with that the attendant disappeared, leaving Rebecca kind of flummoxed. Sleeping car porters had always taken care of little things like this in the past, but things change, and she knew that all too well. So had her father.

She slipped her laptop out of her carry-on and then pulled out her hand-written notes from the conference, her immediate desire being to transcribe these notes and go over the week’s high points. Almost immediately the train’s conductor knocked on the door and stepped inside her compartment.

“Ticket, please,” the gruff old man mumbled, the effort required to smile apparently too much for the old man.

She handed her travel documents to the conductor and he punched her ticket here and there before he handed it back, then he too departed wordlessly – and without smiling even once.

She started in on her notes and hardly looked up when the train pulled out of the station, heading for Milwaukee. She looked out at snow now blowing almost horizontally over the river then turned back to her notes, looking up again only when the dining car steward knocked and stepped into her compartment.

“Will you be joining us in the dining car tonight?” the polite old man asked. He was black though his hair was as white as the snow falling on the other side of the glass, and his smile was big and bright enough to warm even the grouchiest curmudgeon’s stony heart.

“Yes. What times are available?”

“Your attendant told me you wanted seven thirty. Does that still work for you?”

Rebecca smiled and nodded. “Do you happen to have the trout?” she asked hopefully.

“You know, I think we have a few steelhead. Should I put your name on one?”

“Oh, could you please? That would be wonderful!”

The old man smiled and nodded as he scribbled notes on a pad. “We’ll see you at seven-thirty, then.” She knew these old timers survived on tips, so she made a mental note to make sure she left him a nice one.

The car swayed and rumbled through a series of switches as the train made it’s way through the vast yards north of downtown, but soon enough they began picking up speed and a series of north side suburban stations reeled by as a feeble sun gave way to the evening. Lights came on in the sleeping car and the conductor made a few announcements as Rebecca resumed working through her lecture notes. She looked up from time to time, saw lights wink on in distant houses and she realized they were out of the city now, streaking through rolling farmland on the way to Wisconsin – and she found it easy enough to wonder what life was like out here on the prairie in the dead of winter – like how the warmth of a wood stove and a hot dinner waiting on the table would be the biggest reward for another day tending small herds in their milking barns. 

She’d hardly ever treated rural patients like these, she thought. She’d studied medicine in Chicago and completed her training in Boston before returning home to Seattle, so had spent her entire career helping urban “city dwellers,” not farmers and ranchers. People were people, however, and eyes were eyes, but she’d recently grown more and more aware of a divide between people that lived in large cities and their rural “cousins,” a divide she recognized but hardly understood.

Rebecca leaned back in her seat and soon enough her eyes closed as her mind began to drift on other currents, and it seemed as if only a few seconds had passed when the sleeping car attendant poked her head in the door to inform the doctor that her seven-thirty dinner seating had just been called. Rebecca sat bolt upright as the momentary disorientation that had gripped her began easing off, but she nodded and smiled and stood to make her way forward to the dining car.

The kindly old steward met her as she entered and graciously escorted her to an empty table at the far end of the swaying car, and she noted this table was empty and sighed in hopeful relief. One of the few things she disliked about travel by rail was having to share a table with – more often than not – complete strangers, and she found these chance encounters awkward – at their best. Pleasantries were typically exchanged, followed by the usual banter: ‘Is this your first trip on Amtrak?’ or the dreaded ‘So, what do you do?’ That question invariably led to unwanted rants about the ills of Social Security or a recitation of bad encounters with “obviously incompetent” physicians, so when asked she usually shrugged and said she was ‘Just a housewife,’ and let it go at that.

The steward helped her get seated and poured a fresh glass of ice water, then asked what she wanted to drink with her trout.

“What are you serving with the fish?” she asked.

“A salad to start, and I’d recommend the Caesar. The trout is served with rice pilaf and broccoli. We’re having wine tastings tomorrow afternoon, so we have a nice selection from Oregon and Washington state onboard.”

“A chilled Riesling, by any chance?”

He nodded and beamed proudly. “Should I bring out a bottle? What you don’t finish this evening will be ready for you tomorrow,” he added.

She thought a moment and then nodded – just as a lone diner appeared at the far end of the car. The steward raced off to greet the man, then brought him along to Rebecca’s table – and all the while she peered out the window at the raging blizzard on the other side of the glass. As they approached she turned and gazed at her new companion and inwardly groaned.

He appeared to be about her age – in his mid-50s or thereabouts – and the man was wearing pressed jeans and a white button down dress shirt, but what really caught her eye was his purple rag wool socks and teal green Birkenstocks. Eclectic, to say the least. He had to be about six-foot four, but he couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and fifty pounds. He was pale, his face hadn’t seen a razor in a few days, and he was moving stiffly, as if his joints ached. The man smiled at her as he sat and his eyes pulled her in, if only because there was something vaguely familiar about them. About all his features, really.

“Howdy,” the man sighed more than spoke, but he made good eye contact and held her there – before turning to the steward.

“Could I get you something to drink?” the steward asked.

“Ice water will do me fine,” the man replied, his accent hard to place.

A waiter appeared as soon as the steward walked off, and he gave the man a menu and a form to fill out before he too disappeared.

“Anything good on this menu?” he asked her.

And she shrugged. “I understand the flatiron steak is pretty reliable. I’m not sure about the salmon.”

“What are you having?”

“I asked earlier if they had trout available. Sometimes they do, but it’s usually not on the menu.”

“Kind of a secret, then?” he sighed before he changed position a little. “Not in the mood for fish, anyway. What am I supposed to do with this form?”

“Name and room number up top, then you just check off your selections.”

He scribbled his name and room number but then gave up. “Could you handle the rest for me?”

She smiled and took the form and looked it over, noting his name was Sam Stillwell. “So, you get a salad, choice of garden or Caesar, then with your steak – let’s see, that comes with a baked potato and broccoli – and you also get dessert – cheesecake or the apple crisp, which I recommend.”

The man nodded. “I guess a Caesar salad and the crisp.”

“You may have coffee or tea, and they have wine available.”

He shook his head absentmindedly. “Just water for me tonight.”

She had already measured his pulse by watching his carotids, and counted his respiration rate as she checked out the color of his lips and nail beds, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell that the man was in pain. A fine bead of perspiration lined his forehead and upper lip, and his right hand was shaking a little.

“I’m having wine, a Riesling, if you’d like to try a glass?” She couldn’t believe what she’d just done and was more than a little disoriented by this reaching out, but she heard a voice inside telling her this was not the time for inhibited reticence.

But he once again shook his head, then suddenly taking deep breath he steadied himself by holding onto the edge of the tabletop – before he closed his eyes and slowly let go of the inhaled air. “Sorry,” he said.

“If you don’t mind my asking, what’s troubling you?”

He looked at her and shook his head. “Sorry, but no. No pity parties for me.”

“Alright,” she said as she handed the man’s selections to their waiter, then she looked at the man and held out her right hand. “Rebecca North. And you are?”

He looked the woman in the eye again, then at her extended hand, and a moment later he reached out and took her hand in his. “Sam.”

“Sam? You running from the police or something?”

He shook his head and shrugged. “Where you headed, Rebecca?”

“Seattle. You?”

“Palo Alto. Santa Barbara, eventually, but I wanted to walk around Seattle again so I’ll probably hang there for a few days.”

“Oh? Did you live there once?”

“No, just visited a few times. Always thought it would be a good place to live.”

“It is, despite what you hear these days.”

He shrugged. “I don’t pay much attention to the talking heads. All they seem to be peddling is fear.”

The steward brought her bottle of wine and poured her a bit to taste, and after she smiled her approval he filled the glass with a modest amount.

“Are you sure you don’t want a glass?” she asked the man again.

And again he shook his head.

“So,” she began, “what’s in Santa Barbara?”

“Home. I grew up there – and I just wanted to see all the places that used to be important to me.”

“Things change. When was the last time you were there?”

“Fifteen years ago. When my dad passed.”

“Your mother?”

He looked away. “She died a few years before he did.”

“Any friends there?”

“We’ll see.”

“Sam? Do you have any friends – anywhere?”

He looked at her and shrugged. “Used to have all the friends in the world, but like you said – things change.”

“What are you on, if you don’t mind my asking.”

“Fentanyl, a patch. Why, does it show?”

“What’s it for?”

“Retroperitoneal dissection.”

She closed her eyes in a deep grimace for a moment, then looked at him again. “Seminoma?”

“Mixed. Seminoma and teratoma.”

“Chemo?”

He nodded. “You a doc?”

She nodded and smiled. “Sorry,” she sighed. “I hope I haven’t ruined your evening.” Again she stared into the stranger’s face, and again she felt something familiar about him. ‘Sam Stillwell…where do I know that name from…?’

Their salads came – just as a wave of recognition washed over her. ‘Of course…Mason and Stillwell – and their second album. West Side Wind, released in the 90s. She’d worn out that album, listened to it all through med school, and a few of the songs on that record were still among her favorites…

“So, Dr. North, what kind of doc are you?”

“Eyes.”

“An M.D.?”

“Yes. I pretty much just do trauma surgery.”

“I guess you’ve seen it all, then,” he said, and she noticed his easy going smile fade away, but for a moment she had seen the same smile that was on that album cover.

And now she felt a little flush of her own, and maybe she was a little weak in the knees too – and she really didn’t know how to respond to her feelings. As her mind struggled she found her fork and took a bite of salad, then she met his question head on. “Most of the time I deal with the results of MVAs, car accidents and the like. What about you?”

“Me?”

“What are you doing these days?”

He hesitated and she looked at his hands. Long fingers, just like her own. Clean, well kept fingernails, so at least that part of his personality was still intact. “You mean before I became a full time cancer patient?” he finally said.

Once again she met his gaze and held it, and she decided to change her course. “Where’d you go for treatment?”

“Sloan Kettering.”

“Can’t do better than that. Did they give you a prognosis?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact they did. And that’s why I’m on this train.”

“Oh?”

“I guess you could call this my farewell tour because, you see, they gave up and now I’m off to see the wizard.”

“The wonderful and all-knowing Wizard of Oz? So, you’re following the yellow brick road?”

“Something like that. I’m going to stop off in Palo Alto and see someone there. You think maybe I could have a few sips of that wine?”

She caught the steward’s eye and waved him over, asked for another glass and the old man smiled as he walked off to fetch another wine glass.

“You ought to try your salad while it’s still cold,” she said, taking another bite of her own.

He tentatively reached for his fork but she immediately saw the problem: his hands were shaking so badly he could barely grasp the thing, and he instantly looked defeated as it slipped from his hand.

So she took his fork and speared some lettuce, then looked into his eyes again. “Meet me halfway?” she asked.

And he leaned over the table and let her feed him.

“Good?” she asked.

He smiled and nodded. “You have no idea.”

When she had a second wine glass she filled it halfway, then leaned over and helped him drink; he closed his eyes and sighed. “Riesling, did you say?”

“That’s right.”

“God, it’s been a while. That tastes just like heaven.”

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten real food?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’ve been drinking those protein shakes…”

“Ensure?”

“That’s the one. Dark chocolate. Um-um, so yummy,” he said, his sonorous voice dripping with honied, well intentioned sarcasm. 

She laughed a little but saw the pain in his eyes and backed off, then she fed him the salad before she finished her own.

“Why are you doing this?” he finally asked, his eyes locked on hers once again.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well, the fact that you don’t know me comes to mind. That, and I’m probably ruining your evening.”

“You don’t strike me as a cynic, Sam. What’s wrong with lending someone a hand?”

“Nothing. So, tell me something…I assume you know who I am?”

She nodded slowly, gently, almost imperceptibly. 

He sighed and looked down, then slowly shook his head. “I guess I already knew that,” he sighed.

“And I assumed you didn’t want that to intrude,” she countered, smiling gently when he looked up again.

“Intrude?”

“It’s been my experience,” she said, “that celebrities often prefer anonymity – at times like this.”

“You’ve dealt with many…celebrities?” 

“A few. Last summer comes to mind. A child ran through a sliding glass door on a large yacht. She was helicoptered in with her parents, and keeping the media walled-off was a priority.”

He shrugged.

Their salad plates were taken away and their entrees were served, and he of course looked at her plate, then his. “Looks good. Why don’t you go ahead,” he stated.

And she reached over and slid his plate close, then she sliced the steak and fed him a piece before she sliced a piece of trout. She speared this and fed the fish to him. He rolled his eyes a little and shook his head, but he never broke eye contact with her. “Which do you prefer?” she asked.

“Is that a steelhead?”

She nodded, then she took another slice of trout and fed it to him.

“I think I like this more than salmon, and that’s saying something.”

“Less fishy,” she advised, “but the texture is similar.”

“You must get great salmon in Seattle?”

“The market at the Fisherman’s Terminal. They unload every morning at five-thirty.”

“I always thought Pike Place was the place to go.”

“Too touristy, too many people.”

“You have kids?”

“No. Never went down that road.”

“That’s surprising. You give great fork.”

She smiled with her eyes, then helped him take some wine. “Which do you like more?”

“They’re both decent, but I think the trout agrees with me.”

She cut more fish and started to lift it across to him but he shook his head. “I’m not going to take your dinner…”

“You’re not taking it, Sam…I’m giving it. There’s a difference, you know?”

Again, he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this to you,” he said, suddenly getting ready to leave.

“I wish you’d stay,” she said, startled by this retreat.

He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms protectively, then he looked out the window at the lights of a big city just visible through the raging blizzard. “I wonder where we are now?” he muttered to his reflection there in the glass.

“Milwaukee,” she replied after she checked the time on her phone. “There’s usually a station stop here, ten minutes or so for the smokers.”

“You’d better eat your dinner before it gets cold.”

“I will if you will.”

He nodded, then leaned forward to take the next bite. After he finished chewing and while she was cutting more steak he looked at her anew. “So, tell me about Rebecca North. What’s her story?”

“Simple, really. My dad worked for the Northern Pacific Railway until he retired, and my parents had a house in Tacoma. Mom was a teacher, high school chemistry and physics. I have two sisters and they live in Seattle too.”

“Where’d you go to med school?”

“University of Chicago, and I did all my post-grad work in Boston.”

“Married?”

“No, never. I didn’t want anything to get in the way of school, so I think I conscientiously just decided to put all that off until I was through with school and, well…after I moved back to Seattle my life became more and more hectic. There was a time, I think, when I realized I’d never be able to devote the time necessary to be either a good mother or wife, so I turned away from all that.”

“Regrets?”

She nodded. “Never getting close to anyone, never experiencing…that kind of life…”

He looked at her and nodded. “And if you could do it all over again?”

She too looked out the window, then back at him a moment later. “I think I’m doing what I was meant to do, and while I’m happy with what I’ve done with my life there’s still an empty place inside me. I guess I’ll never know what was supposed to…” – and then suddenly she stammered to a jolting stop.

“What is it? You looked a little shocked?”

“Gawd…I’ve never talked like this to anyone. Really, I’m so sorry…”

“You don’t need to apologize…not to me…”

“I can’t…I shouldn’t unload on you…”

“Gad, are you crying?” he asked, grabbing an unused napkin off the table and leaning across to wipe her cheeks, even though his trembling hands got in the way of the gesture. 

She took the napkin and dabbed her eyes, then looked at him. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me?” she sighed.

“Well, it sure isn’t the wine. You’ve hardly touched yours,” he said, smiling innocently now. “And who knows, maybe you’ve been holding onto your feelings a little too tight, and maybe for too long. You got to get these things out from time to time, you know? Take ’em for a walk…”

“But you’re a complete stranger…”

“And who better to listen? In a few days we’ll go our separate ways and no one will be the wiser, and the only regret you’ll have will be not eating that trout!”

She laughed at that, then leaned forward and sliced more food for them both. “How about we just share. You know, like surf and turf!”

“I won’t tell anyone if you won’t,” he said conspiratorially, now smiling broadly.

“So, tell me about you?” she said as she resumed feeding him. “What’s your story? In a nutshell?”

“Mine? Let’s see, I grew up in Santa Barbara and music was always my thing. I grew up listening to Tears for Fears and The Police; by the time I was getting good on the guitar the big groups were all slipping into metal.”

“But not you?”

He took a deep breath as he reflected on the cascading memories that came for him. “You know, I liked Nirvana – a lot, really. I really, really liked the Stone Temple Pilots too, but I couldn’t see myself going down that road. For a long time I felt drawn to Sting and Pat Metheny, but when I think back…none of us could escape Paul Simon’s gravity. He turned folk into something new, but at the same time he was reaching deeper and deeper into the past, and he kept coming up with…with strange new languages. All those guys up on Laurel Canyon, really.” He paused as he thought about meeting those people. “Stephen Stills. I think I kept coming back to Stills probably more than anyone else, but Seals and Croft, Loggins and Messina, all those guys were impossible to ignore.”

“Laurel Canyon?”

“It’s a street in Bel Air, above Beverly Hills. Close enough to the scene on Sunset and the studios in Culver City and Burbank. Lots of bungalows back in the 60s, rents weren’t bad and it was close enough to UCLA so every drug known to man was available. I heard they made acid in the organic chemistry labs late at night…”

“I think that’s an urban myth.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Anyway, then came The Graduate and The Sound of Silence and Mrs. Robinson and then The Beatles splintered and for a while the universe shifted to Laurel Canyon. Stills met Crosby and Graham Nash and then Love The One Your With morphed into Judy Blue Eyes. Elton John was English but by the time he was ready to record that little corner of the universe had shifted from Penny Lane to Hollywood and Vine, and like everyone else he came to California.”

“Why California?”

“Brian Wilson is as good a reason as any. The Brits had Lennon and Paul McCartney; we had Brian Wilson. The music scene in LA would have never come together the way it did without the Beach Boys. Then things shifted north for a while, to San Francisco. Seattle didn’t really happen until the late-80s.”

“When did you get serious about music?”

“In the womb. Mom always said I came out the chute with a twelve string in one hand and a pick in the other.”

She smiled. “How does cheesecake sound?”

He nodded. “You know, I’m picking up the vibe that you know my work.”

She looked at him and shrugged. “West Side Wind got me through med school.” He nodded, but then he looked away and she thought he looked disappointed. 

“Mason was the real deal. He wrote all the music on that one; I did the lyrics.”

“You’re a poet.”

“Thanks.”

She assumed he must’ve been used to the constant adoration of a million lovelorn teenagers at some point in his life, but now he seemed almost embarrassed by the compliment. “I can’t even begin to imagine what you went through when he died. A motorcycle crash, wasn’t it?”

He nodded. “His girlfriend was with him too.”

“You knew her too, I take it?”

“We were close.”

“It never goes away, does it?”

He looked at her and held her in his eyes for a long time, then he smiled. “You sure are easy to talk to.”

“Two ships that pass in the night,” she sighed. She noted the train was stopped now, and that they were inside the new station in Milwaukee, the concrete around them bathed in bilious yellow sodium vapor light – and very little snow was visible in this part of the station. She ordered cheesecake and coffee, and she wondered – hint-hint – if the steward might find the makings for Irish coffee somewhere in the kitchen, then she turned back to Sam.

“So, your dad worked for the railroad?” he asked. “Is that why you’re on the train?”

“I hate airplanes. It’s a genetic thing.”

“Understandable,” he said knowingly. “The airlines have grown into monsters.”

“We all have, Sam. We let them treat us the same way we treat each other. We used to expect more from them because we expected more of ourselves, I guess.”

“So, you are a cynic!” he said lightly.

“I may well be – about some things, but I usually consider myself a realist.”

“When you find out the difference between those two, let me know, will you?”

“Why did you give up on music?”

“I don’t think I did, really. After I moved to Maine I usually played for coffee or a bowl of soup. No advertising, no tours…”

“And no new albums?”

“You know, oddly enough I started producing and that was enough for me. New faces, then I got into all the new recording technologies. I got into session work for a while, until rap and hip-hop came along, anyway. You can’t fight the big labels; they want what sells – nothing new about that. Even so, I still make enough to live comfortably.”

“Will there ever be a new album?”

“From me? Hell, I don’t know. I never stopped writing but my voice ain’t what it used to be…and don’t you dare tell me voices mellow with age.”

“Like fine wine?” she teased.

“Gawd, how many times have I heard that one.”

“How many people have asked you to put out a new album?”

“Okay…okay. Point taken.”

“Maybe at some point you’d consider it a gift to all the people who loved your music.”

He nodded. “Nice thought. So, what do you do when you’re not working?”

“No such thing, Sam.”

“You’re always working?”

“I have a pull out sofa in my office at the hospital, and my own shower there, too.”

“Dear God. I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but that sounds just awful.”

“I know. The thing is, I’m in my fifties and my hands won’t last. A few more years and I’ll be done, only able to take on the easiest cases, and I’m not sure I’d like that.”

“What’ll you do then?”

“Teach.”

“That’s it? Burn out your body then put yourself out to pasture?”

“Interesting way of looking at it.”

“Well, pardon my French, but what the fuck! You’re fixing eyes so your patients can get back out and see the world, and guess who’s never going to see the world?”

His words slammed home and she seemed taken aback for a moment, then she collected her thoughts. “I’m not even sure what I’d go looking for. I wouldn’t know what to do?”

“And that’s the beauty of it all, Rebecca. The uncertainty. Not knowing what’s around the next bend in the road. The complete mystery of going to the airport and getting on the first plane to anywhere, then getting off the plane and looking around for the unfamiliar. When one direction looks more interesting, or more mysterious than the other directions, you head off in that direction…”

“Where would you go?”

“The Dolomites. Never went, always wanted to. I’d get my camera and just go, walk those mountains until my legs gave out.”

“Would you write music?”

“I always tried to listen to the mountains, tried to hear what they had to say. I haven’t done that in a long time, but yeah, I might try to put that into music again.”

“Maybe you ought to do it, then.”

“I’m not sure I’m up to it now.”

“Would it hurt to try?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said softly, looking down at his shaking hands.

“There’s no one in your life?”

He shook his head. He never looked up and simply shook his head like this was a shameful admission, and for a moment she thought he looked like a little boy.

“No one?” she asked again.

He looked up at her for a moment, then turned and looked out the window. “When did we leave the station?”

“A few minutes ago,” she said, looking at the now empty dining car. Only the steward and their waiter remained, and they were cleaning up the car, getting it ready for breakfast in the morning. “Sam, I think we closed the place down. We’re the only ones left…”

He looked at his watch and shook his head. “Nine-thirty. We’ve been here almost two hours.”

“Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess.”

“Do you think that’s all this is?” he asked, his eyes unfocused. “Two ships passing in the night, I mean?”

“What? You mean why it’s been so easy to talk?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know, Sam.”

“What’s the deal with breakfast?”

“The dining car opens at six. The French toast is really good.”

“Sounds like the voice of experience talking again,” he grinned.

She smiled too. “I look forward to it, actually.”

“You going to be here at six?”

She shrugged – with a bit of larceny in her eye. “You sleepy?”

“No, not at all,” he answered.

“In the lounge car, well, downstairs there’s a little café; they usually have a few liqueurs on hand. Want to try our luck?”

“I’m game if you are.”

He tried to stand but she saw he had to use both hands to steady himself on the table, and it was obvious there’d been extensive nerve damage – and she knew his cancer was in his spine so the worst was yet to come. She went around and took his arm in hers and led him to the next car forward, to the lounge car, and after she got him seated she went down the steep stairs to the little café. They had Irish whiskey, Tia Maria and Gran Marnier in tiny bottles behind the counter, so she picked up three of each as well as two little plastic cups filled with ice. With these in a little box she marched back up the stairs and found him staring out the windows at the blizzard raging away in the night.

“The snow looks so strange flying by,” he said, lost in thought as he watched the ghostly streaks flying by, then he held fingers up to the window and placed his open palm on the glass. “So cold,” he whispered. “Do you remember Saint Judy’s Comet?”

“Paul Simon?”

He nodded. “‘…and leave a spray of diamonds in its wake.’ Man, talk about poetry…”

“I loved that album, too,” she sighed.

“What was your favorite? Surely not Kodachrome?”

She smiled. “Something So Right.”

“Oh, so you are a romantic after all.”

“You didn’t know that already?”

“I was leanin’ that way but I wasn’t quite sure yet. So, what did you find down there?”

“Tia Maria and Gran Marnier. And it looks like Jameson’s Irish Whiskey if you want something a little less sweet.”

“Tia Maria for me,” he said. He made a fist and pumped his fingers a few times, then reached out for the little plastic cup – but his hand was simply trembling too much and he shook his head as he fought back the anger of impotence.

“Let me give you a hand,” she whispered.

And again he let her baby him – if only because she seemed to enjoy herself – then he leaned back and rolled the liqueur around under his tongue and closed his eyes as a memory came back to him. “First time I had this stuff was down in Mexico. Puebla. I have a place down there, for a while, really. Big courtyard, palm trees, noisy birds. Have a housekeeper and a cook. The cook makes fresh tortillas every morning after breakfast; I remember the soft slap-slap-slap as she shapes them with her hands. The smell as she fries them for just a second. And she made guacamole just about every day. Went to an open air market every morning. Both of them live in the house, and the cook’s little girl lives with her. Already teaching her to cook. On weekends they would make tortillas together.”

“Sounds a little like paradise,” she sighed. “How long have you had the place?”

“I picked it up twenty years ago.”

“What? You mean…”

“Yup, I usually go down in October, stay through Christmas. Didn’t make it this year. Really wanted to. I need to make arrangements for them.”

“Arrangements?”

“I’ve been putting money away for them, so they’ll be able to stay in the house after I’m…you know…”

“Do they know?”

“No, not really.”

“Do you have a lawyer down there?”

He nodded. “I guess I should call him, you know?”

“I think you should go down and talk with them. Obviously they’re important to you.”

“Chattel,” he sighed. “They literally conveyed with the property when I bought the place. Almost like any other part of the house. They were being paid about fifty bucks a month.”

“What about the cook’s daughter?”

“She was supposed to be trained to step into the job when her time came. I sent her to school. She’s in college now, in Mexico City. I spent more Christmases with them than I did with my parents growing up.”

“Really?”

“Spoiled her rotten, I reckon, but I loved every minute of it.”

“Why didn’t you move there permanently?”

“Too hot. Now the cartels have made life down there a little too dicey – for everyone.”

“Drugs…don’t get me started,” she snarled, her anger right out there on her sleeve.

He shrugged. “Drugs aren’t the problem; they’re a symptom. People take drugs to escape reality, or to somehow make their reality more palatable, more bearable. You’d think after thirty thousand years we’d have figured out how to do that.” 

“So, is it ironic we’re sitting her sipping a drug?”

“Ironic? No, I don’t think so. This tastes good; it’s socially agreeable. A needle in the arm is neither.” 

“Many of the people I see on the operating table are there – indirectly, most of the time – because of alcohol…”

“Moderation,” he sighed. “Somehow we forgot how to live – well…I’m thinking of balance and harmony – not just with the material world but with each other. Everything seems out of balance right now, at least it feels that way most of the time. Everything started coming too easily, and maybe we forgot that sometimes it takes hard work to maintain that balance, that there are relationships we just can’t take for granted.” 

“But we do, don’t we?” she added. “So, you were living in Maine?”

He nodded. “Camden. Kind of a quiet place these days, or at least it’s getting back to quiet.”

“Oh?”

“Same thing, Rebecca. A credit card company – MBNA, I think – moved a lot of their operations to Camden and Belfast, built these huge facilities and pretty soon everyone in the area was working there. Then the bottom fell out and all those people lost their jobs, but worse than that, there were all these massive buildings suddenly sitting empty – almost overnight. Everything was out of balance, boom-bust only now the town was in trouble – only there wasn’t anyone around to pick up the pieces. It was hard to watch, and it’s taken ten years but things are finally getting back to something like normal.”

“Sounds hard to watch, but Boeing was like that in Seattle, then MicroSoft and all the rest. Savage inequality, I think they call it.”

“Which is just people being people, and I’d have never made a dime without music companies and radio stations and MTV.”

“I don’t know if I should ask, but what’s in Palo Alto?”

“Some research going on with immunotherapy.”

“Did they stage you?”

“Four.”

She nodded and looked out the window. noted they were already past the Dells. “Brave,” she said. “Most people would just give up.”

“I’m in no hurry to die.”

“Were you serious about the Dolomites?”

“I’m not making any plans just yet, but yeah.”

“Is your patch holding up?”

“The fentanyl? Not really, but I’m not sure I want this to end.”

“This? To end?”

“Sitting and talking, with you. It’s the first time in months that I’ve felt almost human.”

“I’m not sleepy yet. We can go sit in your room for a while if you’d like. Once you put on a fresh patch you’ll want to go to sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep.”

“And I can’t sit here doing nothing, not if you’re in pain.”

“The Hippocrates thing, right?”

“Something like that,” she said, smiling a little. He was perspiring more now, and he had winced when he got worked up talking about Camden, so she knew it was getting close to that time.

“Let’s at least finish our drinks first?” he sighed, signaling defeat. 

“Alright.”

“So, where would you go? If you were in my place?”

She shrugged. “I read Heidi once, when I was little. I always wanted to go to Switzerland.”

“And you’ve never been?”

She shook her head. “Only time off I get…well, I go to the annual convention in Chicago.”

“So, the only time you take off is still work related?”

“I hate to say it, but I’m pretty dedicated to my work.”

“It’s admirable, Rebecca. At least in a way it is.”

“I know, I know. But it’s also kind of sad,” she said, her voice now almost a whisper.

“No time like the present. Why don’t you just go? Pack up your bags and just head on out to the airport…?”

“I’m afraid I’m not exactly the spontaneous type.”

“You know what?”

“Hm-m?”

“The last two things you said just now are ‘kind of sad’ and ‘I’m afraid.’ I see a trend here…”

“Do you indeed?” she said, suddenly brightening.

“Yup. I do. I think you need to go over there and eat fondue ’til you’re so fat you can’t move. Maybe even walk some alpine meadows. With a dog…one of those big, huge, furry Swiss dogs.”

“A Saint Bernard?”

“No-no-no. The black one.”

“Ah, the Bernese Mountain Dog. Why that one.”

“Because after I die I want to come back as one of those.”

“Oh really? Why?”

“I want to lie on my back and have a doting girl give me belly rubs all day.”

She smiled at the image in her mind’s eye. “You are such a guy,” she sighed.

“Hey, it works for me…”

They finished up their Tia Marias then she helped him stand, and he held onto her as she led them through the dining car and then back to their sleeping car. He had Room B so the compartment was almost right over the trucks, or wheels, but she noted the noise wasn’t all that bad. The attendant had, however, made up the bed so there wasn’t a lot of room to move around.

“Well damn,” Sam said when he saw the constricted space…

…but before he could object she went in and raised the bed, restoring the long sofa to its daytime position. “Let’s get you down,” she said, helping him out of his coat and getting him seated. “Where do you keep your patches?”

“Camera bag. There,” he pointed. “In the back pouch.”

She handed him the slate colored bag and he opened the pouch, removed a fresh patch. “You want to do the honors?”

She shrugged as he handed the sealed white envelope to her. “You’ve been perspiring for hours,” she said. “Would you like to shower before you get into your nightclothes?”

He shook his head. “I’m feeling too nauseated right now.”

She took his wrist and counted-off his pulse as she looked him over. “Do you have any Zofran?”

He nodded and pulled a little amber prescription bottle from the bag, took out a tiny pill and slipped it under his tongue. Rebecca then prepared the site with a swab and applied the patch.

He thanked her, then she sat beside him and waited.

And it didn’t take long; a few minutes later he leaned against her, but then she moved over and laid his head in her lap. She hesitated, but then started gently rubbing his head – and with gently swirling thumbs she massaged his temples until he started snoring gently.

But she did not get up and leave. She did not stop massaging his head. And when she was sure he was sleeping soundly she reached down and rubbed his chest for a while, and she smiled as the idea of a big black Bernese Mountain Dog pranced into her mind.

She continued rubbing away until she too felt sleep coming, then she quietly leaned against the window until she felt her eyes close, and the dream came. 

And on the other side of the glass, as their train rumbled through the night, an impossible storm gathered strength, then settled its fury on the way ahead.

(c) 2024 adrian leverkühn | abw | just fiction, plain and simple, every word. 

[Seals & Croft \\ We may Never Pass This Way Again]