Life is getting very complicated here at Chaos Manor…let’s just say Erica has not been well and leave it at that. Finding time to write has been quite difficult; hopefully with the coming of spring things will get better.

[10cc \\ I’m Not In Love]

Chapter Three 

She shook away remnants of the dream, felt the side of the stranger’s face on top of her thighs and he came back to her in a disconcerting rush of truth. 

Stillwell…Sam Stillwell…I met him at dinner last night…we had drinks in the lounge car then came back to the room to talk…

But here he is – in the here and now. Dying. Running from death. In search of a way to get away from the…from the what? The inevitable? But why doesn’t he seem frightened…?

She ran her fingers through the bare remains of his hair and he stirred – then he too seemed to recall where he was and as suddenly sat bolt upright.

“Damn,” he sighed as he stifled a yawn, “I’m so sorry…didn’t mean to fall off like that…”

“Don’t be sorry. I was enjoying the moment.”

“The moment? Rubbing patchy chemo-hair?”

“Feeling you let go. It felt like maybe it’s been a while?”

He shrugged and looked out the window. “This storm isn’t letting up any, is it?”

“They can get bad this time of year,” she said, smiling.

“My mouth tastes awful,” he said as he stood, looking around the compartment self-consciously. “What time is it, anyway?”

“A little after five,” she answered, now a little hurt by his sudden evasiveness. 

“How long was I out?”

“I think about six hours. How’s the pain?”

He looked at her now – the first time since he’d awakened – and shook his head. “Just fine – as long as I ignore the fire in my back.”

And with that new snippet of information she now knew that his dissection had involved a kidney, or perhaps the aorta, so his had been a post-chemo RPLND – and she tried to push that knowledge to the back of her mind as she watched another grimace take shape on his face. “Sit down,” she said gently. “I’ll get another patch ready.” And to her surprise he did, and without any protestations at all. He didn’t ask for privacy – he simply demurred then sat and offered his right side, but to her his capitulation almost felt like a show of defeat. 

She removed the old patch and cleaned the area before she applied the new one, and he nodded his thanks as she pulled his shirt down. “How’s your appetite?” she asked.

“You mentioned French toast?”

“It’s good, at least if you go in for that sort of thing.”

He grumbled something unintelligible then excused himself and went into the bathroom, and she suddenly realized how intrusive her presence must have felt to him, and she felt a little ashamed of herself.

“Maybe I’ll see you there,” she called out as she made to leave, and she heard a muffled “Okay” come from the small bathroom. She let herself out then walked down to her compartment and slipped inside, then stood there in mute disbelief at what had just happened. A part of her felt like a giddy teenager, maybe one who’d just met her favorite rock star, while another, deeper part of her mind reeled at the professional risks she’d just taken. He wasn’t her patient, and even doing something as simple as changing out his fentanyl patches carried ethical and professional obligations and responsibilities that most people couldn’t relate to or simply did not understand. Shaken by this lapse, she decided to shower, to wash away the remains of the night before she went back to the dining car.

The sun was just barely making a showing as she walked into the dining car a little after six, and not unexpectedly she wasn’t the first person there. Train buffs usually took the Empire Builder because of the spectacular crossing through Glacier National Park, though in winter the westbound train usually traversed the park under cover of darkness. Still, that didn’t keep the diehard ‘rail-fans’ from filling up the train almost all year round, and everyone ‘in the know’ was dialed in to the French toast whipped up in the dining car, so an early crowd was virtually guaranteed.

And just like the night before the steward escorted her to a table, and a few minutes later an elderly couple from back east joined her – Pat and Patricia Patterson, from Roanoke, Virginia. Pat was of course wearing a well-worn Burlington Route baseball cap and Rebecca knew the type: Pat would have a huge model railroad layout in his basement and bookshelves loaded with books on all kinds of old passenger trains – and while he’d love nothing more than to talk about this or that route for hours on end, Rebecca just wasn’t in the mood this morning.

She remembered notes she needed to finish working through. She had pre-op consults to prepare for, too – not to mention office hours come Monday afternoon…

…but suddenly she realized the train wasn’t moving along at its usual 79 miles per hour…

…and then she saw that wet, sticky snow was building up on the dining car’s windows. Indeed, it was impossible to see anything beyond the glass, yet with the abysmal sunlight filtering through dense clouds there was little to see beyond the hazy white veil that was now, apparently, covering everything.

Yet the train was still moving. She could feel the swaying motion, hear the distant clickety-clack of steel wheels over joints in the iron rail, and Pat seemed to have been reading her mind…

“We’re poking along about 45 miles per,” he said, consulting an app on his smart-phone. “My guess is they gotta plow up front. Minneapolis already had two feet of snow from this storm when we went through there last night, and I think it’s snowing harder now.”

“Do you know where we are now?” she asked.

Pat shrugged. “Fargo is the next stop, but we’re already two hours behind…”

“Have you heard a weather forecast?” Rebecca added.

“At least another two days of this stuff. An Alberta Clipper is pushing an arctic air mass down and it’s colliding with that atmospheric river that just slammed San Francisco and Oakland. The Weather Channel says this will be a historic snow event from the Rockies through the upper mid-west.”

Their waiter came by and poured coffee and took their orders – French toast times three – then Rebecca turned to the window again, instinctively reaching out to brush the snow away before remembering it was on the outside. “So, you’re a Burlington fan?” she asked.

“Yessiree! My old man worked in the Chicago office all his life.”

Rebecca smiled. “My father worked for the Northern Pacific, out of Tacoma.”

“That’s a beautiful building, one of the last great ones. But ya know what? I’ve never figured out why we’ve always been in such a hurry to tear down those places…”

Rebecca nodded. “Chicago sure had a bunch of them. I would have loved to have seen Chicago back around 1900.”

“Isn’t that the truth! Dearborn Station…the original!” Pat said, but just then Rebecca noticed that Patricia simply nodded from time to time but otherwise stared ahead vacantly, enough so that she was beginning to suspect the woman had Alzheimer’s, or perhaps dementia. And Pat noticed too…that Rebecca had caught on, and he sighed as he acknowledged the obvious. “Yes,” he said quietly – almost in defeat, “she got Alzheimer’s. But you see, she wanted to take one last trip together.”

Rebecca nodded. “It’s difficult to be the primary caregiver,” she sighed. 

He shrugged. “It’s difficult to watch someone you’ve known for almost fifty years as they disappear right in front of you. You can read about it all you want about it, but the reality of it…well, it is the saddest thing I’ve ever experienced.”

There was a blast of icy cold air and then the surly old conductor walked into the dining car and sort of like an old crustacean he skittered from table to table, explaining that the train was now three hours behind schedule and that the route through Glacier National Park “might not be clear this evening,” and that he’d “keep everyone informed” as he learned more.

“What happens if they close the route through the mountains?” Pat asked the red faced old man.

“Depends where we are, I reckon. Between Minot and Whitefish…well, not too many options out there. Maybe stop in Havre or Shelby; we could bus you down to Great Falls and try to get you out on airplanes, but it depends on how much snow there is and how long it’ll take the crews to plow it out.”

Rebecca felt a chill of apprehension run up her spine as she recognized the evasive tenor of the conductor’s remarks. “And what happens if we get stuck out here, like maybe in the middle of nowhere?”

“We wait for the plows to reach us, Ma’am.”

“Is there enough food on board if that happens,” Pat asked.

The old conductor smiled a little as he nodded with knowing self-assurance. “We laid on extra in St Paul, and there should be plenty of French toast, too. Should be no worries at all, sir.” The old man skittered away after that, talking to the rest of the passengers in the dining car, reassuring all the ‘Nervous Nellies’ huddled around their tables with expectant, upturned eyes.

“If they laid on more food,” Pat said, his eyes now full of concern for his wife, “I bet they think it’s more than just a merely possible.”

“Maybe so,” Rebecca said – as she suddenly started thinking of Sam Stillwell, “but it seems a reasonable precaution to take almost any time of year.”

Their meals came and they ate in silence, Pat doing his best to feed his wife – and doing rather well, too. Rebecca looked out the window from time to time and shook her head in disbelief – as she’d never seen heavier, wetter snow in her life – and at one point she even thought the snow looked like that hideous Christmas tree flocking they sprayed on trees, if only because this snow seemed to be sticking to everything. Still, about ten minutes later the glow of more businesses appeared through the snowy mist, and when they passed a clanging railroad crossing signal they could tell the train was stopping at the next station. Rebecca looked out the window and could just make out a bundled-up man pushing a snowblower along the platform below the dining car, clearing the way for passengers waiting in the station.

Then quite suddenly she felt concern for Stillwell.

So when the steward came by she signed her chit and left another generous tip, then took advantage of the stopped train’s lack of motion to walk back to her sleeping car – but she just couldn’t help herself as she walked by Sam’s compartment. She knocked on the door and thought she heard a commotion inside; she knocked again and heard him call out ‘Help!’ 

When she tried to open the door she felt his body blocking her way and now knew he was down on the floor.

“Sam? Can you roll over? You’re blocking the door…”

She heard him moan and then felt the door give way a little; she squeezed into the little compartment and then helped him stand up next the sofa – and she smelled it then. He’d soiled himself, and now he really needed a shower – but then it hit her…what he really needed was to be back in the hospital. Locked up in this compartment without a nurse to assist him was a recipe for…

But no. He had her, didn’t he. He needed to get to Palo Alto, and though he’d chosen not to fly she was more than capable of getting him to Seattle. One look out the window at the blowing snow and she knew there’d be no air travel out of Fargo for a while, perhaps days.

With that decided she helped him into the small bathroom compartment and started to undress him, but his hand blocked the way. “You don’t need to do this,” Sam sighed, clearly dejected as the sharp, pungent odor assaulted his senses.

“And you need to let me get to work right now. We’re stopped and this will be a lot easier if we get it knocked out fast.”

He started to unbutton his shirt while she got his pants and boxers down and into a garbage bag, then she got the shower running and once it was warm she washed off his soiled thighs. “Can you hold the shower head for a while?” she asked.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Okay. I’m going to get rid of these clothes. I think they’re done for.”

He nodded and she went off in search of the sleeping car attendant, who was out on the platform helping a passenger disembark. 

“I’ve got some soiled clothes,” Rebecca said to the girl. “Got some place I can dump them?”

“Sure. Right over there, by the other trash. What happened?”

“Oh, the guy up in A is not well. I was just lending a hand.”

“You a nurse?”

Rebecca shook her head. “No. Physician. We could use some extra towels in A.”

“You’re in E, right?”

Rebecca nodded then turned and went back up to Sam’s compartment. He was just holding onto the shower head and his head was leaning against the wall, the water running down to the drain in the floor, but he looked up and tried to smile when he saw her standing there.

“Nice to see you again,” he said through a wry grin. “What kept you?”

“How’s the water? Still warm?”

“Blissfully so, yes. Care to join me?”

She smiled and shook her head, then shut the bathroom door. The train jerked and slowly began pulling away from the station, and a second later the attendant knocked on the door and handed her a pile of towels. “Need anything else just let me know,” she said.

“Could you bring some French toast and scrambled eggs. I want to see if he can hold down some food.”

The girl nodded and disappeared, leaving Rebecca to towel him off, but he stood with his back to her, apparently ashamed of the huge, midline scar running from his sternum to his groin. After she finished his backside she turned him around and patted his wound dry, then tackled his unruly hair. “You need help getting dressed?” she asked.

“We’ll see, Mom,” came his sardonic reply.

His breakfast came and with the help of the attendant she set up the small table under the window and poured a bottle of water into a cup, then helped him walk out to the sofa.

“Food? Really?” he asked as he stared at the suspicious plate of toast and eggs on the table.

“I’d be happy if you could just get a little down. You had some pretty fierce diarrhea, so we’re going to get some water down, too.”

“Oh? We are?”

She smiled. “I’ve had mine already.”

“Ya know, that’s not exactly what I meant…”

“I know what you meant, Sam.” He looked at her and nodded before she helped him sit, then she sat across from him and sliced up some of the French toast. “Ready?”

“How ‘bout some water first?”

She helped him drink and – predictably – he pulled back from the table and leaned against the sofa. “Do you get sick every time you eat?” she asked.

He nodded. “Pretty much. I did okay on those protein shakes for a while, then even those turned on me.”

“Do you have any omeprazole? Maybe with some Zofran onboard you could hold food down for a while.”

He shrugged. “Tried that already. The basic problem, Doc, is accelerating mortality.”

She nodded. “I know. Now, let’s see if we can get one bite of French toast down.”

“Lots of syrup, please. My mouth feels like the Sahara.”

He ate a half slice of the toast before he gave up and leaned back again, but this time he leaned over and curled up in a fetal ball with his hands around his knees – and then he closed his eyes.

She pulled a fresh blanket down from the storage bin and gently covered him, then she sat down beside him. The deep empathy she felt in that moment wasn’t all that unusual, but for some reason the feeling she experienced now seemed much more personal.

But when she sat beside him again that seemed to be the signal he’d been waiting for: he leaned over until the side of his face rested on her lap again – and then he promptly fell fast asleep.

And once again she ran the sides of her thumbs in little circles on his temple until she felt the inherent tension of his dis-ease fall away, and she found herself wanting more than anything else in the world to make his suffering go away. 

And for some reason she heard the mournful, soul caressing notes of West Side Wind in her mind, and when she felt sleep coming for her she knew the dream wasn’t far away. She could feel it out there, lurking patiently in the shadowlands – like a wild beast stalking her in the blinding snow.

© 2024 adrian leverkühn | abw | fiction, every last word of it…

[Sting \\ A Thousand Years]