Okay, so I renamed the Book of Dreams chapters and finished the story, deciding West Side Wind best fit the arc of the storyline.
Anyway…need something to listen to? Try Be Free, by Loggins and Messina. Or Saint Judy’s Comet, by Paul Simon. Or The First Circle, by The Pat Metheny Group. Or all of the above.
Anyway…here is the latest version, a little retooling of the ending, and a few points along the way added for clarity. Best put on a kettle of tea. Enjoy.
West Side Wind
Chapter One
After she finished summarizing her notes she put away her writing materials – a burgundy Mont Blanc fountain pen and a legal pad inside a navy blue leather Hermes folio – then she turned off the little gray Olympus Pearlcorder she had used to record this last session of the conference. She slipped everything into a navy blue colored Napa leather briefcase, making sure that everything was placed just so, that each item was arranged in the exact order she liked. She methodically closed and locked the briefcase’s intricate gold hasp, in her mind already shutting down events of the past week, in effect getting ready to move on to next week. One of the physicians sitting next to her shook his head as he watched this rigid routine of hers unfold one last time, but id she’d noticed, well, at this point in her life she really didn’t care what other people thought. Maybe she had once, just maybe, but not now. The only thing she’d found when she cared about other people’s opinions and observations was disappointment and ultimately, disillusionment, so really, what was the point…?
And now that she had put away her lecture materials she left the conference room and made her way to the vast bank of elevators just outside the many conference rooms; she stood in uncomfortable silence as a small covey of physicians rode up to their rooms in silence, and once at her floor she walked briskly down the cheerfully lit corridor 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 briefcase, then she grabbed her rolling suitcase and made her way back to the elevators. She waited patiently and rode down in silence, then made her way to the taxi stand after she pushed her way through the overcrowded, if somewhat ornate lobby.
She was a physician, an ophthalmologist by training, though most of her peers considered her a trauma surgeon first and foremost. She had long ago decided to specialize in ophthalmologic surgery, then retinal surgery, but she soon spent most of her time working on eyes damaged in motor vehicle accidents – or the occasional weekend collision between running children and sliding glass doors. 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 medical training. After four years of medical school in Chicago and a two year internship in Boston, she had spent a further eight years in various training residencies and fellowships – and even now she spent at least two to three weeks each year attending conferences such as this one in Chicago, learning about the latest research in laser surgery or challenging new surgical techniques using cutting edge technology unimaginable just a decade ago.
Once settled in the greasy back seat of an ancient Chevrolet taxi, she sat and watched people hurrying along crowded sidewalks as the taxi drove through along the hyper-congested streets between The Drake and Union Station, and she almost smiled as she recognized familiar old haunts she’d frequented when she was a med student here. The driver, a cheerful old black man with an easy going smile, chatted amiably about the unseasonably warm weather, but she flinched once when the taxi rounded a corner and a sudden burst of intense white light flooded the taxi; she was shocked and surprised by the flash of long forgotten memories that followed the jolt. She felt herself drifting off, tired perhaps from the long week studying the course material, until the taxi pulled up to the taxi stand beside the empty Amtrak kiosk on Canal Street. She paid the cabbie and he helped get her suitcase from the trunk, and just then she noticed a light snow had started falling, which seemed odd for this time of year. She thanked the cabbie and he smiled, wished her a good journey, and then she made her way to the massive old station. As she walked inside she brushed light snow off her collar and handed her suitcase to one of Amtrak’s red capped attendants, and she was a little surprised to find that the old black man who took her bag looked familiar to her, almost like the cabbie she’d just tipped. The old man walked with her to the check-in counter and she was in due course directed to the Metropolitan Lounge but, after checking the time on her phone, decided to make her way back upstairs to look over the vast food court located there. She’d been buying fresh roasted nuts from the same vendor for years – every time she made the trip to Chicago, anyway – and today was no exception. Soon, with her purchases made she took a quick look around the shops then took the escalator back down to the main concourse, noting only that the station seemed almost empty as she walked to the lounge.
Yet even the Metropolitan Lounge was unusually empty today – it was now mid-afternoon in Chicago – but she easily found a seat in the almost empty lounge area and looked at all the various departure times on monitors scattered about the room. The California Zephyr, the Southwest Chief, and the Empire Builder, all great names from a forgotten past, all departed within a brief window of time in late afternoon, and even a few overnight trains headed east were already showing up on the departure board – though they typically wouldn’t leave until later in the evening. She always booked a so-called Deluxe Bedroom for this conference, primarily because this larger compartment included bathroom space in the compartment – and also had private showering facilities, not the communal shower cubbies down on the lower level. And while meals were also included with sleeper service, she preferred the introspective nature of the solitude rail travel afforded and usually had these delivered to her room, a trick her mother had taught her.
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 7, and an unusual collection of tourists and seasoned travelers shuffled over to the locked doors – but there were, she noted, a few oddballs lining up there, too. Twenty-somethings with skis probably headed to Whitefish, Montana, an old married couple and a wheelchair-bound woman that looked a little like her mother, and even a couple of singletons like herself: most likely business travelers who simply loathed flying, or who grew faint at the very idea of having to board an aircraft – any aircraft. Once everyone had queued up they all stood around shuffling about anxiously, and yet for some reason she thought everyone looked lost, unusually so, almost like they had no idea what they were doing here, let alone where they were going. But soon enough another red cap appeared and escorted the group out onto the icy cold platform, and she heard one of her fellow passengers remark how much colder it now seemed.
“Hard to believe it’s autumn,” she heard someone say.
Another smiling black man waited outside one of the sleeping cars, and he checked names off a list as passengers boarded one-by-one. Once her name was checked off the old man’s list she stepped aboard and made for the steep, winding staircase that led to the upper floor, and once up there she made her way to the same bedroom – Bedroom E – she always tried to book when she made this trip. Located in the center of the car, Bedroom E was the most isolated from the vibration and noise that plagued rooms over the trucks and those next to the vestibules, another lesson her mother had passed along years ago.
She unpacked her overnight bag and found the dry-roasted macadamia nuts she had just purchased and had a few, and she watched as a nearby Metra commuter train pulled out of the station and headed north – just as the sleeping car attendant came by and introduced herself.
“Let’s see…you’d be Dr. North, and I see you’ll be with us all the way to Seattle?”
“I am indeed,” Tracy North, M.D., F.A.C.S. said pleasantly. “Is the dining car back in full operation this trip?”
“It is, yes – finally! You’ll be one of the first to try it out, too!”
“Could you put me down for the seven-thirty seating?”
The girl shrugged. “I can’t, sorry, but the dining car attendant will be by in a few minutes; just tell him what you want. If there’s anything you need, just hit the call light,” the girl said, and with that the attendant disappeared, leaving Rebecca alone in an uneasy, flummoxed silence. Sleeping car porters had always taken care of little things like dining car reservations in the past, but things were always changing, and after Covid she knew that all too well. Everything was still changing these days. Sometimes too fast, but what could you do…?
She slipped her laptop out of the sleeve in 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 all the week’s high points while they were still fresh in her mind – but almost immediately the train’s conductor knocked on the door and stepped inside her compartment.
“Ticket, please,” the smiling old black man said. She stared at the same familiar face as she fumbled around in her carryon for her phone, then she handed it to the old man and he scanned the screen before he handed it back to her, then he smiled again before he too departed – and wordlessly at that. Not even a ‘thanks,’ yet she hadn’t been able to take her eyes off the old man’s during this brief exchange – they seemed preternaturally large and were the kindest, most understanding eyes she’d ever seen – and for a moment she had felt breathless, like maybe she was had been looking at someone, or something, not quite human. Someone almost divine.
Which was, she realized, a ridiculous thought.
Yet after the door closed she caught herself smiling at the utter incongruity of the thought. God might be many things, she said to herself…but He probably wasn’t a train conductor.
And then she noticed a tuft a thick black hair resting on her thigh and scowled, wondered where it had come from even as a flicker of stars danced in her mind’s eye. She picked up the hair and turned it over in her hand, looking at the interwoven strands of black, white and copper colored hair in her hand, and another flash of memory danced through her mind. Her heart opened to the flashes she relived, flickering scenes of a little girl playing with a huge dog on impossibly green grass, rolling around as his tongue slathered her chin. She could see him again, all of them, in an echo of a past almost forgotten.
Smiling as these random images drifted by, she started in on her notes and hardly looked up when the train gently pulled out of the station, heading north for Milwaukee. She looked outside and saw snow blowing almost horizontally in the blue light as the train rolled along next the river, and after a moment she returned to her notes, looking up again only when the dining car steward knocked and stepped into her compartment.
“Well good evening, Doc. I understand you’ll be joining us in the dining car tonight?” the same smiling old black man asked. 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 – but why did this same man keep showing up?
“Yes,” she said, smiling right back at him. “What times are available?”
“Your attendant told me you wanted seven-thirty. Does that still work for you?”
Tracy smiled and nodded. “I hate to ask, but do you happen to have the trout?” she asked hopefully.
“How’d you know about that?” the old man said, smiling in feigned surprise.
“My mother. We took this train a few times.”
He nodded as his smile brightened. “I see, yes, I see. You know, I think we might have a fresh steelhead hidden away. Should I put your name on a filet?”
“Ooh, could you please? That would be just wonderful!”
The old man smiled broadly and nodded happily as he scribbled notes on a pad. “Well then, we’ll see you at seven-thirty.” 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 the train began picking up speed and a series of north side suburban stations reeled by as a feeble sun gave way to inevitable evening. Lights came on in the sleeping car and the conductor made a few announcements as Rebecca resumed working through her conference notes. She looked up from time to time, saw lights wink on in distant houses and realized they were out of the city now, streaking north across rolling farmland towards Wisconsin – and suddenly she wondered what life was like out here on this hard, cold prairie in a driving snow – like how the warmth of a wood stove and a hot dinner waiting on the table would be just rewards for another day tending small herds in their milking barns…
Yet she’d rarely treated such patients, she thought. Though she’d studied medicine in Chicago, she’d also completed her training in Boston before returning home to Tacoma, 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 growing divide between people that lived in large cities and their rural “cousins,” a divide that, like most such things, she recognized but barely understood. It was an unfortunate reality that somehow seemed a distant concern now. But being back on this train always made her feel somehow more free…as it always had. It almost felt like nothing outside the train mattered, that she had somehow escaped her mortal concerns, but of course that was simple foolishness – or wishful thinking.
Or was it?
She leaned back in her seat and soon enough her eyes closed as her mind began to drift on unseen currents in the snow, and it seemed as if only a few seconds had passed when the sleeping car attendant poked her head in the door to inform her that her seven-thirty dinner seating had just been called. Tracy sat bolt upright as the momentary disorientation that had gripped her began to fall away, but she nodded and smiled, then 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 gently swaying car, and when she saw this table was empty she sighed with inward relief. One of the things she disliked about travel by rail was having to share a table with – more often than not – complete strangers, and she found many of these chance encounters awkward – at best. Pleasantries were typically exchanged with a passive smile, 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 and Medicare, or a recitation of bad encounters with obviously incompetent physicians, so when asked she usually just shrugged and said she was ‘a housewife,’ and let the matter go at that.
The steward helped get her 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 romaine looked very good today. 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 onboard.”
“A chilled Riesling, by any chance?”
The old steward nodded and beamed proudly. “Should I bring out a bottle? What you don’t finish this evening we’ll keep on hand for later,” 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 this man, then brought him along to Rebecca’s table – yet all the while she peered out the window, at the raging blizzard on the other side of the icy cold glass. As they approached she turned and gazed at her new companion and tried not to gasp.
He was instantly recognizable yet he appeared to be about her age – in his mid-50s or thereabouts – which was plainly impossible, and he was wearing pressed jeans and a white button down dress shirt, just as she remembered. Still, what really caught her eye were his purple rag wool socks and teal green Birkenstocks sandals – and his head – topped with a bright blue Patagonia brand wool beanie. Eclectic, to say the least. He was just as tall as she remembered, too; he was still at least six-foot four, but he couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and fifty pounds. He was pale now, 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 seemed to be something vaguely familiar about the way he looked at her.
“Howdy,” the man sighed more than spoke to her, but he made good eye contact and held her there – before turning to the old steward.
“Could I get you something to drink?” the steward asked.
“Ice water will do me just fine,” the man replied, his accent hard to place, “with lots of ice.”
Their waiter appeared as soon as the steward walked off, and he gave the man a menu and a form to fill out, then he too disappeared.
“Anything good on this menu?” he asked her.
And she shrugged. “I think the flatiron steak is pretty reliable. The salmon is hit or miss.”
“What are you having?”
“I asked earlier if they had any trout available. Sometimes they do, but it’s usually not on the menu.”
“Kind of a secret item, then?” he sighed as he grimaced and carefully changed position a little. “Not in the mood for fish, anyway. What are we supposed to do with this form?”
“Name and room number up top, then you just check off your selections from the list.”
“Could you handle that for me?” he asked as he scribbled his name on the top line.
She smiled and took the form and looked it over, her mind reeling when she saw his name was Sam Stillwell. “So, first you get a salad,” she said as calmly as she could, “with a choice of garden or Caesar, then with the steak – let’s see, that comes with a baked potato and vegetable, usually broccoli – and you also get dessert, too – cheesecake or the apple crisp, which is what I’d recommend.”
The man nodded. “You take the train a lot, huh?”
She nodded.
“Then…I guess a Caesar salad and the crisp, along with the steak.”
“You also can 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, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Sam Stillwell was in a lot of 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 she’d just said that and was more than a little disoriented by her own reaching out to him, but she’d just heard a voice inside telling her that now was not the time to be shy. This was, after all, THE Sam Stillwell, yet she was lost, confused a little about why she knew him.
But once again he shook his head, then as suddenly took in sharp 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 for a moment but then shook his head. “Sorry, but no,” he whispered. “No pity parties for me tonight.”
“Alright,” she said as she handed Stillwell’s selections to their waiter, then she looked at him and held out her right hand. “Tracy North. And you are?”
He looked the woman in the eye again and smiled, then at her extended hand, and a moment later he reached out and took her hand in his. “Sam.”
“Sam? Are you running from the police or something?” she asked, smiling just a little.
He shook his head and shrugged. “Where are you headed, Miss North?”
“Seattle – well, Tacoma, actually. You?”
“Santa Barbara, eventually, but I wanted to walk around Seattle again so I’ll probably hang out there for a few days.”
“Oh? Did you live there once?”
“I remember spending some time in Tacoma. Always thought it was a good place to live, to raise a family.”
“It is, despite what you hear these days.”
He shrugged. “I haven’t been paying much attention to all that lately.”
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. “No, thanks.”
“So,” she continued, “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 always change. When was the last time you were there?”
“I’m not sure, really. Ten, fifteen years ago – maybe. When my dad passed, I think.”
“Your mother?”
He looked away, scowling as he looked at the driving snow. “She died a few years before he did.”
“Any friends there?”
“We’ll see.”
“Sam,” she asked when she recognized the despair in his eyes, “don’t you have any friends – anywhere?”
He looked back at her and shrugged. “Oh, I guess I used to have all the friends in the world, but ya know, like the poet said – things fall apart.”
“What are you on, if you don’t mind my asking.”
He looked surprised at the question and looked down, perhaps a little embarrassed. “Fentanyl, a patch. Why, does it show?”
She ignored the question. “What’s it for?” she asked directly.
“Retroperitoneal dissection.”
She closed her eyes in a deep grimace for a moment, then looked at him again. “Seminoma?”
“Mixed seminoma and teratoma.”
“Chemo?” she asked, but she already knew the answer.
He nodded. “You a doc?”
She nodded and smiled. “Yes…sorry,” she sighed. “I hope I haven’t ruined your evening.” Again she stared into his eyes, and once again she felt something more than a little familiar about him. ‘Sam Stillwell…where else do I know him from…?’
Their salads came – just as a wave of recognition washed over her. ‘Of course…Mason and Stillwell – and their album, West Side Wind, released sometime back in the 70s or 80s. Her mother had worn out that album, and she’d listened to it ever since, too. A few of the songs on that record were still among her favorites…
“So, Dr. North, what kind of doc are you?”
“Eyes.”
“So, you’re an M.D., or an O.D.?”
“M.D. I specialized in trauma surgery.”
“I guess you’ve seen it all, then,” he said, and she noticed his easy going smile fade away, yet once again she remembered seeing that same smile on the album cover, but…somewhere else, too…
And now she felt a little flush of her own, and maybe she felt an unusual flutter in her chest – yet she really didn’t know what to think of these feelings. As her mind struggled to remember a distant past 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, his voice a little too soft.
Once again she met his gaze and held it, so she decided to change 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 railroad?”
“Something like that. I’m going to stop off in Palo Alto; I think I have an appointment to see someone there.” He looked at her glass and sighed. “You think maybe I could have a sip 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 almost instantly he looked defeated as it slipped from his fingers.
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. You know what? That tastes just like heaven.”
“How long has it been since you’ve had 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 precision-guided sarcasm.
She laughed a little but saw the pain in his eyes and backed off, then she fed him more salad before she finished her own.
“Why are you doing this?” he finally asked, his eyes locked on hers once again.
“I can’t think of a reason why I shouldn’t. Can you?”
“Well, the fact that you don’t really 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, I guess. 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 on your evening,” she countered, smiling gently when he looked up again.
“Intrude?”
“It’s been my experience,” she said, “that celebrities often prefer anonymity – especially at times like this.”
“You’ve dealt with…celebrities, I take it?”
“A few. Last summer 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.
But she reached over and slid his plate close, then she sliced the steak and fed him a piece before she took a piece of trout for herself. The she speared a piece of trout and fed that 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 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 still get decent salmon in Seattle?”
“Yup. At the market over at Fisherman’s Terminal. They unload every morning around five, 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 would have been a good mom.”
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 to you. There’s a difference, you know?”
Again, he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this to you,” he said, suddenly readying to get up and leave.
“I wish you’d stay,” she said, startled by this sudden retreat.
He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms protectively, then 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 their reflections suspended 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.” he said.
“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 Tracy North. What’s her story?”
“Simple, really. My grandfather worked for the Northern Pacific Railway until he retired, and he had a house in Tacoma. My Mom raised me there, in that house; she was a teacher, high school English, at the school there.”
“Where’d you go to med school?”
“University of Chicago, but I did all my post-grad work in Boston.”
“Married?”
“No, never. I didn’t want anything to get in the way of all that, 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 a good mother or wife, so I turned away from all that.”
“Regrets?”
She nodded. “Never getting close to anyone, never really experiencing…that kind of life…”
He looked at her and nodded. “And if you could go back and 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, I don’t know, an empty place inside where all that other stuff was supposed to be. I guess I never really knew what that was supposed to…” she was saying, her voice trailing off, her eyes fixed on infinity.
“What is it? You looked a little – upset?”
“Gawd…it’s been so long since I talked like this with anyone. Really, I’m so sorry, I had no right to…”
“You don’t need to apologize…certainly not to me…”
“I can’t…I shouldn’t unload on you like this…”
“Gadzookies, are you going to cry?” he asked, grabbing an unused napkin off the table and leaning across to wipe her cheeks, but his trembling hands got in the way of the gesture.
“Gadzookies?” she repeated, and she looked at him, stunned, because only her father had used that word. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me?” she murmured as he reeled.
“Well, it sure isn’t the wine. You’ve hardly touched yours,” he said, smiling innocently now. “But who knows, maybe you’ve been holding onto your feelings a little too tight – like maybe for a little too long? You got to get these things out from time to time, you know? Take ‘em out, let ‘em get some air, ya know?”
“But you’re a complete stranger…”
“Yeah? Think so? Well then, who could possibly be better to get things out in the open with? Who knows…in a couple of days we’ll go our separate ways and no one will be the wiser, and the only real regret you’ll have will be not eating that trout!”
She laughed at the smile in his eyes, then leaned forward and attended to their food. “How about we just share. You know, like surf and turf!”
“I won’t tell anyone if you won’t,” he said conspiratorially, smiling broadly.
“So, tell me about you?” she asked as she fed him another bite. “What’s your story? In a nutshell, like?”
“Me? Let’s see, I grew up in Santa Barbara and music was always my thing. I grew up listening to The Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel, so I learned mainly by playing folk and light pop. By the time I was getting good on the guitar all the new groups coming along were slipping from punk into metal…”
“But not you?”
He took a deep breath as he began feeling his way through the memories that came to him. “I shipped off to college about that time, to Reed in Portland. I liked some of the new stuff, but I couldn’t see myself going down that road. Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays came on the scene during that time, then the whole Windham Hill thing came along and suddenly acoustic became sort of ‘In’ again, for a while, anyway, but even that stuff was different. I guess when I think back on my love of music…I never escaped the gravity of people like Paul Simon and Stephen Stills. They turned blues and folk into something new and different, something on the edge of becoming world music, but at the same time I felt they were reaching deeper and deeper into a common musical past, and they both kept coming up with…with strange new languages. Maybe it was all those guys up on Laurel Canyon, really, that changed the conversation.” He paused as he thought about meeting some of those people, how down to earth they became when they started writing new music. “But you know, I kept coming back to Stephen Stills; I think I always kept coming back to Stills, and probably him more than anyone else. But I guess Seals and Croft, Loggins and Messina, all those guys were impossible to ignore.”
“Laurel Canyon?”
“It’s a street in Bel Air, in the hills above Beverly Hills. Close enough to the scene on Sunset and the studios in Culver City and Burbank. Lots of little bungalows back in the 60s, rents weren’t too bad and it was close enough to UCLA so every drug known to man was easy to come by. I heard they made acid in the organic chemistry labs late at night…”
“I think that’s an urban myth.”
“Yeah. Maybe. Anyway, in ‘68 The Graduate and The Sound of Silence and Mrs. Robinson hit the scene, and right about the time The Beatles splintered and everything about that year was pure uncertainty, yet for a while the music 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, well, his little corner of the music universe had shifted from Penny Lane to Hollywood and Vine, so like everyone else he picked up his brand of pop and moved to California.”
“Why California?”
He thought for a moment, then smiled. “Brian Wilson. The Brits had Lennon and Paul McCartney; we had Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. The music scene in LA would have never come together the way it did without the Beach Boys, without Brian. Then things shifted north for a while, to San Francisco. Hendrix and The Doors played there, and Jefferson Starship, because at the time the real Hippie thing was going down in Berkeley and San Francisco. Seattle was more my generation and that didn’t really start to happen until the 80s, but even so, I’ve always wondered what would’ve happened if the Beatles stayed together.”
“So, when did you get serious about music?”
“In the womb. Mom always said I came out of 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 haven’t really introduced myself but I’m picking up the vibe that you know my work.”
She looked at him and shrugged. “West Side Wind got me and my mom through some bad times.” He nodded but then he looked away and she thought he looked confused.
“Mason was the real deal,” he sighed. “He wrote a lot of the music on that one; I did the lyrics and the orchestration.”
“You’re a poet. My mom always said you were in a class of your own.”
“Thanks. I guess.”
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 Mason died. A motorcycle crash, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “That’s what I heard.”
“You weren’t with him then, I take it?”
“No, but we were always close. The three of us…”
“It never goes away, does it?”
He looked at her and held her in his eyes for a long time, then he smiled. “You are easy to talk to.”
“Two ships that pass in the night,” she sighed. She noted the train was stopped now, inside the new station in Milwaukee, the concrete below them bathed in bilious yellow sodium vapor light – yet very little snow was visible in this part of the station. She asked their waiter if he could bring 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 grandfather worked for the railroad?” he asked. “Is that why you’re taking the train?”
She smiled, an easy going smile born of knowing her roots. “Yeah, but I hate airplanes, too.”
“Understandable,” he said knowingly. “The airlines have grown into monsters, haven’t they?”
“We all have, Sam. The airlines treat us the same way we treat each other, because we are the airlines. We used to expect more from people because we expected more of ourselves, I guess.”
“Ah, so you are a cynic, after all!” he said lightly.
“I may be – about some things, but I usually consider myself more of a realist.”
“When you find out the difference between those two, please let me know, okay?”
“Why did you give up on music?”
“I don’t think I ever did, really. We had a few setbacks early on, but, well, I recall a time when I’d play for coffee or a bowl of soup. Still, life seemed simpler that way…”
“So, if you could do a new album?”
“You know, oddly enough I’d rather produce. New faces, get into new recording techniques. Or go into session work, that was always a possibility, I guess. But you can’t fight the big labels; they want what sells – nothing new about that. Besides, I made enough to live comfortably.”
“So, that’s it?”
“Hell, I don’t know. I never stopped writing but my voice didn’t hold up after I got sick…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 asked you to put out a new album?”
“Counting you?” he said, smiling.
“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 pullout sofa in my office at the hospital, and my own shower, 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 hell are you doing to yourself? You’re fixing eyes so your patients can get back out and see the world, and in the meantime guess who’s never going to get out and see that 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. And I probably wouldn’t even know what to do if I did?”
“But that’s the beauty of it all, Tracy. The uncertainty of it all, of going someplace new. Not knowing what’s around the next corner, the next bend in the road, or even where you’re headed. The complete mystery of going to the airport and getting on the first plane to anywhere, then getting off and looking for the unfamiliar. When one direction looks more interesting than another, or even more mysterious, so maybe you head off in that direction…”
“Where would you go?”
“I think maybe 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, especially around the Cascades, tried to hear what they had to say. I haven’t done that in a long time, but yeah, I’d like to try to put all that into music again.”
“Maybe you ought to go,” she said, smiling gently.
“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?” she asked, and he shook his head. He never looked up – he simply shook his head like this was a shameful admission, and for a moment she thought he looked like a little boy. A lost 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, I guess,” she said, looking at the now empty dining car. Only the old 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. I’m not sure where I am right now.”
He nodded. “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.
And she smiled too. “I always looked 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 really,” 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 in his lower back – and right then 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 down in the belly of the car. The same smiling man 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 cardboard box she marched back up the stairs and found him staring out the windows at the blizzard still raging in the night.
“The snow looks so strange flying by,” he sighed. He seemed lost in thought as he watched the ghostly streaks flying by, then he held his spread 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. “Yup. The whole thing, but those words – and leave a spray of diamonds in its wake…’ always blew me away. Man, talk about poetry, the perfect lullaby…”
“I loved that album, too,” she sighed.
“What was your favorite? Kodachrome?”
She smiled as she shook her head. “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 in the basement?”
“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 and disappointment he felt.
“Let me give you a hand,” she whispered.
And again he let her baby him – if only because she seemed to be enjoying herself – then he leaned back and rolled the liqueur around under his tongue and closed his eyes as a memory came back to him. “I can’t remember the first time I had this.”
“Did you go to college?” she asked.
“I don’t remember. Actually, I’m not sure, but I remember Portland.”
“What? You mean…”
“Parts of my life are sometimes just a big fog.”
“Think it was dinner? You feeling alright?”
“As good as I’ve felt recently,” he sighed.
“You mentioned going to Palo Alto? Stanford, maybe?”
He nodded. “Someone told me about new research going on there.”
“If I may, did they stage you at Sloan-Kettering?”
“Four,” he said as he looked away, his voice skating along the razor’s edge of thin denial.
She nodded and looked out the window. noted they were already past the Wisconsin Dells. “A lot of people who stage at four just give up. What about you?”
“I was never in a hurry to move on.”
“Were you serious about the Dolomites?”
“I’m not making any plans just yet, but yeah.”
“Is your patch holding up?”
“The fentanyl? No, not really, but I’m not sure I want this to end.”
“To end? What?”
“Sitting and talking. It’s the first time in a while that I’ve felt this alive.”
“I’m not sleepy yet,” she said, smiling. “We can go sit in your room for a while if you’d like, but 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 again, just a little. He was perspiring more now, and he had winced when he got worked up talking about Laurel Canyon, so she knew it was getting close to 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, which is usually in Chicago or Orlando.”
“So, the only time you take off is still work related?”
“I hate to say it, but yes, I’m pretty dedicated to my work.”
“It’s admirable, Tracy. At least in a way it is.”
“I know, I know. But it’s also kind of sad, right?” she said, her voice trailing off to a whisper.
“No time like the present. Why don’t you just go? Pack up your bags and just head 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.’ Am I the only one seeing a trend here…?”
“Do you, indeed?” she said, brightening under the spell of his humor.
“Yup. I do. I think you need to go over there and eat fondue until you turn green. Maybe even walk some alpine meadows. With a dog…one of those huge, furry Swiss dogs.”
“A Saint Bernard?”
“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 – then remembering the tuft of black hair…
“Hey, it works for me…”
They finished up their drinks then she helped him stand, and he held onto her as she led them back through the dining car and then into their sleeping car. He had Bedroom B so the compartment was almost right over the trucks, or wheels, but she realized the noise wasn’t all that bad. The attendant had, however, already 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, Tracy squeezed by him went in the compartment and raised the bed, restoring the long sofa to its daytime position. “Let’s sit 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 the slate colored bag to him and he opened the pouch, removed a fresh patch. “You want to do the honors?” he asked.
She shrugged as he handed the sealed white envelope to her. “You’ve been perspiring for hours. Would you like to shower before you get into your nightclothes?”
He shook his head. “I’m feeling a little 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 an alcohol swab and applied the patch.
He thanked her, then she sat beside him and waited for the inevitable crash.
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. Neither did she stop massaging his head. No, she continued to smooth his fear away, until she too felt sleep coming for her, then she quietly leaned against the window until her eyes close, and she could feel the dream start.
And on the other side of the glass, as their train rumbled through the night, an impossible storm gathered strength and then settled with all its fury along the way ahead.
But the dream did not care.
Chapter Two
She woke with a start, the grating brassy bell deep inside her bedside alarm clock jolting her out of the dream. Still not fully awake as she swung her aching legs out of bed, she then walked quietly to the bathroom – even as the last fragments of the dream lingered under the soles of her feet. After she reached inside the shower and turned on the hot water, she then tried to scrub fleeting images of the snow and the train from her mind. Pulling off her long t-shirt and tossing it in the hamper, she stepped into the shower and turned around, backed up to the head until hot water was beating down on the back of her neck, and for a moment she felt the tension in her shoulders ebbing away – even as the dream’s still insistent images remained suspended in the mists all around her. She soon gave up on that, ran shampoo through her hair – twice – then soaped down and rinsed off the important places before she let the hot water beat down on her neck again, and she finally stepped out of the shower and dried her long, cinnamon colored hair before she slipped into the ancient blue terrycloth bathrobe that hung on the back of the bathroom door – even now still unable to shake free of the dream’s snow covered imagery.
Oh, that train. The passenger train and all that endless, drifting snow. But always the train, the same train she had taken with her father when she was a child – indeed, almost exactly like those trains. And then there was Sam – because he was always in the dream, always walking into the same dining car – as the middle-aged woman sat watching him come her way, always the same evasive, lonely woman seated at the far end of the same dining car. And Sam still in pain, yet he too was always alone. Still tall and the same cowboy kind of lanky he’d always been, yet in the dream, as he walked towards the woman in the dining car he looked sick, almost emaciated, just as he had towards the end, when he’d passed in this very house. And yet the last unspoken truth between them remained clear, unambiguously clear, in her dream – that his cancer was eating him alive. More curious still, everything about the Sam in the dream reminded her of the man who had raised her, her father, and even the measured way her father spoke, the way he sang gentle lullabies to her when she was scared, especially when deep, rolling thunder came up the sound and rumbled into her bedroom.
Her mother had been failing then, when she was still quite young, losing her way as early onset Alzheimer’s crept in and stole her memory, and yet her father had taken care of them both. So strong. Tall and lanky, a straight talking no-nonsense man just like some kind of hero straight out of Central Casting, more than likely for a John Wayne western. And somehow she had found a man just like her father. Just as strong, and just as compassionate. Just as good a father. But that dream had turned almost too good to be true.
Maybe that was why she kept dreaming about him? About Sam and the stranger.
Because when she thought about it, there was something different about the way he looked at the woman in the dream, and she almost felt she knew who the woman was, particularly when she looked at Sam. There was nothing romantic about the encounter, yet everything felt so real between those two in that moment, especially when they talked about his music as snow raced by just outside the train, and when he fell asleep with the side of his face resting on her lap – because at that point in the dream she always felt consumptive little electric explosions in her mind, like she could feel the weight of his head on her own lap – even when his head rested on the other woman’s thigh. The moment felt, she realized, like an echo, maybe even an echo of an echo, and yet for some reason she never wanted the moment to end. She never wanted to wake up, just so that moment would last and last, like the echos of her feelings for Sam would last forever. When the realization finally came inside the dream that Sam was indeed dying, that he would soon be gone – again, she realized her life with him had turned into a nightmare from which she could never escape – even if she’d wanted to – even in her dreams. And yet even now, with the sudden fear of his looming death still fresh in mind, the same fear she’d experienced ten years ago still haunted her every waking moment – even as she dressed for the day.
She went to her daughter’s room and gently woke her, then went to the kitchen to put on coffee. With that chore out of the way she turned on the television and flipped over to the Weather Channel and groaned at the prospect of yet another day of wind and rain. As she watched, she put bacon on to cook in one skillet and scrambled eggs in another, then she toasted bread and got everything sorted out on two plates. With everything soon out on the little table that looked out over Tacoma and the Sound, she called out her daughter’s name.
“Tracy! Breakfast’s ready!”
It had been her father’s house, once upon a time. He’d left it to her among the other things that followed with his passing, and she knew she would leave it to her daughter someday. Tracy had, after all, taken root in this place, just as she had once, and she still felt comfortable in her skin here. Perhaps her daughter would too – one day, or so she hoped.
Tracy came out of her room already dressed for school; she sat down and looked at the weather on the television then put bacon on her toast and spooned some scrambled eggs on the bacon, making a sandwich that disappeared in a few quick bites.
“Finish your homework?” Rebecca North asked.
And Tracy nodded, coughed once then took a quick sip of orange juice, clearing her throat. “Yup. Can I ride home from school with Ken?”
“Not a chance.” Rebecca knew Ken better than Tracy, knew how reckless he was in a car. But of course this latest edict was met with crossed arms and a bleak, stoney stare. “I’ll meet up with you at the library, say about four-thirty,” Rebecca added. “And it’ll be raining, so bring your raincoat.”
“You don’t like him, do you?”
“Ken? Well, I don’t care for the way he drives. In fact, I’m pretty sure Evel Knievel is a better driver. ”
Tracy shook her head. “You’re such a…mom.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, even if it wasn’t meant as such.”
“Why do you always have to talk like an English teacher?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Tracy. Maybe because I am an English teacher?”
“Oh, yeah. Gee, Mom, why didn’t you take up physics, like your mother?”
“Would you rather I spoke to you like a physics teacher?”
“I’d rather you spoke to me like you belonged to Hell’s Angels…”
“Sorry. You’re out of luck with that one, kiddo.”
“The story of my life.”
“Let’s get the dishes in the washer. I have…”
“…Yeah-yeah, I know, I know…you have a faculty meeting this morning.”
They walked the two long blocks to Stadium High in silence, then Tracy gave her mom a quick hug before darting off to meet up with her friends before the first period bell, leaving her mom to the day.
They had stayed after school the day before, the two of them, decorating Rebecca’s classroom walls for a complex new assignment – one she was particularly excited about. Working with the school’s Social Studies department, she was going to introduce a new, multidisciplinary assignment to both her senior AP English and her sophomore Creative Writing students, an assignment that was planned to dovetail with both the senior level AP Postwar US History class and the entry level US History class, which were both currently focused on American history in the late 20th-century.
Breaking their combined classes into small groups, she and Mr Murphy, the social studies teacher she was partnering with, were going to look at music as a barometer of cultural change from the 1950s up to the millennium. To do so, each group of three or four students would be assigned a decade and then each group would then try to determine the dominant cultural trends in their assigned decade; with that done each group would pick an musician or group and just one song that – in the group’s opinion – best represented the trend they’d chosen.
But before these groups were cut loose to do their research, Mr Murphy had convinced Rebecca to provide an example to their combined classes.
“Do the 80s, and use Sam as an example,” Ben Murphy pleaded. “There’s no better representative of the period,” he continued. And of course there had been no need to add that Rebecca and Sam Stillwell had been together for most of the 80s, and that Stillwell was Tracy’s father. “What could be better, ya know?”
So she had brought her copy of West Side Wind to school that morning, and she would play the eponymous title track for her students before she explained the origins of both the album and the song and how she thought Sam’s music best encapsulated the decade. And somehow she had to get through it without breaking down and falling back into the black hole that always seemed to be waiting for her, ready to swallow her whole again, whenever she spoke of their time together.
When the cancer first came for him he had been determined to fight. Surgery. Chemotherapy. Then the weeks and weeks of nausea, followed by radiation – yet he had fought his way into a brief remission, and West Side Wind had been born from that struggle. Dave Mason, his best and oldest friend, had come up from Santa Barbara to lend a hand during chemo, and the rest of the story had become something of a legend in the close knit community of musicians in and around Seattle.
How quickly their music came together, how easily the words came. How vast the interwoven tapestry of their lives. Vast, like the stars.
And later that morning – as she stood before her AP class – she described watching Dave and Sam working together. She took her time explaining how West Side Wind was a series of loose metaphors, but that the song itself was a more intimate exploration of growing up in the 60s and 70s, of how people came together and fell away from each other after JFK and Vietnam and Kent State, and how Watergate set loose a bitter cynicism across the land. Then, in the most offhand way imaginable, the people Sam knew began to ebb and flow away as his cancer moved like the tides through their lives. But at the same time, how very much like a cancer those caustic events in the 60s had proven to be.
She wasn’t aware she was crying when she told the last part of their story to the class, yet in truth very few people knew much about the personal music she had made with Sam Stillwell. But then, of course, one of her students raised her hand.
“Yes, Marsha? You have a question?”
“Uh, Miss North? Why are you crying?”
And Rebecca had looked at Ben Murphy and shrugged, because she really didn’t know what to say. So Ben laid it all out there for her, the story of Rebecca and Sam: “Marsha, Sam Stillwell and Miss North were married, they lived together just a few blocks from here.”
The news came as a shock to the entire class. Then another hand shot up. “Uh, excuse me, but are you saying that Sam Stillwell was Tracy’s father?” LeeAnn Grimes, one of Tracy’s best friends, asked.
And then Rebecca had simply nodded, giving up her secrets – before she smiled politely and excused herself from the room – leaving Ben Murphy to lead the class after she walked quietly from the classroom.
Chapter Three
She shook away remnants of the dream, felt the side of the stranger’s face on top of her thighs as the night before came back to her in a disconcerting rush.
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 – but then he too seemed to recall where he was, and who was with him, before he suddenly sat bolt upright. “Damn,” he sighed as he stifled a yawn, “I’m so sorry,” he said sleepily, “I didn’t mean to fall off like that…”
“Don’t be sorry. I was enjoying the moment.”
“The moment? Rubbing patchy stubble?”
“Feeling you let go. It felt like maybe it’s been a while?”
He shrugged and looked out the window, almost embarrassed. “This storm isn’t letting up any, is it?”
“Early season storms can get bad, even this time of year.”
“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 five, maybe 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 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. “Why don’t you sit down,” she said gently, “and 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 to her, yet 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 her selfishness.
“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 and 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 also taken. He wasn’t her patient, yet 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, let alone 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 sitting at a table. 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. An early crowd wasn’t just possible; it was guaranteed.
And just like the night before the steward escorted her to a table, and a few minutes later a couple joined her. The man, maybe her age, was wearing a well-worn San Francisco 49ers baseball cap, and Rebecca smiled as they took their seats across from her.
Then she remembered the conference notes she needed to finish working through, probably because she had pre-op notes to go over for the procedures she had scheduled for Monday morning, and she couldn’t afford to fall behind…
…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 beyond daylight, yet with the abysmal sunlight filtering through the storm’s dense clouds there was little to see beyond the hazy white veil that was now, apparently, covering everything. She felt, all in all, as if she was trapped inside a cocoon.
Yet the train was still moving. She could feel the swaying motion, hear the distant clickety-clack of steel wheels over joints in the rail, and then she realized that the man across from her seemed to have been reading her mind…
“We’re poking along about 45 miles per,” the man said, consulting an app on his smart-phone. “My guess is they had to put a plow up front. Minneapolis already had two feet of snow from this storm when we went through last night, and I think it’s snowing harder now.”
“Do you know where we are now?” she asked.
The man shrugged. “Fargo is the next stop, but we’re already almost two hours behind…”
“Have you heard a weather forecast?” Tracy asked.
He shrugged. “At least another two days of this stuff. The report said an Alberta Clipper was pushing an arctic air mass down into the lower-48, and it’s colliding with that atmospheric river that just slammed San Francisco and Oakland. I heard on the Weather Channel yesterday something about how this might 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 Tracy turned to the window again, instinctively reaching out to brush the snow away before remembering it was on the other side of the glass. “So, you’re a 49ers fan?” she asked.
“Gadzookies, yes! All my life.”
Tracy smiled as that work washed over her again, but once again she felt a little shocked. “My family’s from Tacoma,” she said, trying to recover. “My grandfather worked for the Northern Pacific.”
“Tacoma, eh? You know, that’s a beautiful station, one of the last great railway buildings. But something bugs me, ya know? I’ve never figured out why we’re always tearing down places like that…”
Tracy nodded. “Chicago sure had a bunch of them. I would have loved to walk around Chicago back around 1900.”
“Isn’t that the truth! I’ve seen pictures of that Dearborn Station…I mean the original,” the man said, but just then Tracy noticed that the man’s wife 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 the man noticed her gaze, too…that Tracy had caught on. He sighed as he acknowledged the obvious: “Yes,” he said quietly – almost in defeat, “she’s got Alzheimer’s. But you see, we wanted to take this last trip together. There’s someone we wanted to meet.”
Rebecca nodded. “It’s difficult to be the primary caregiver,” she sighed as she looked at him.
He shrugged. “It’s difficult to watch someone you’ve known for so many years, a whole lifetime, really, disappear right in front of your eyes. You can read about it all you want, but the reality of it all…well, it was the saddest thing I ever experienced. The worst of it was that the memory loss just got worse and worse.”
There was a blast of icy cold air and then the smiling old conductor walked into the dining car and, sort of like an old crustacean, 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, but that he’d keep everyone informed as he learned more.
“What happens if they close our route through the mountains?” the man asked the conductor when he had skittered up to their table.
“Depends on 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 us 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?” she asked.
“We wait for the plows to reach us, Ma’am.”
“I suppose there’s enough food on board if that happens,” the man asked.
The old conductor smiled a little as he nodded with all-knowing self-assurance. “We laid on extra in St Paul, and I made sure there’d be plenty of French toast, too. Should be no worries at all, sir.” The old conductor 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 faces.
“If they laid on more food,” the man said, his eyes now full of concern for his wife, “I bet they think it’s more than just a possibility.”
“Maybe so,” Tracy said – but she had suddenly started thinking of Sam Stillwell and his immediate medical needs, “yet it seems a reasonable precaution to take almost any time of year.”
Their meals came and they ate in silence, the man doing his best to feed his wife – and doing rather well, too, she thought. Tracy looked out the window from time to time and shook her head in disbelief – she’d never seen heavier, wetter snow in her life – and at one point she even thought the snow looked like that hideous, gooey Christmas tree flocking they used to spray on trees, because this snow seemed to be sticking to everything. Still, about ten minutes later the glow of houses and businesses appeared through the snowy mist, and when they passed a clanging railroad crossing signal she could tell the train was pulling into the next station. Tracy looked out the window and could just make out a bundled-up man pushing a snowblower along the platform below the dining car, probably clearing the way for passengers waiting in the station.
Then quite suddenly she felt concern for Sam again.
“Say,” the man said, “I didn’t catch your name. We’re Sam and Patty, from Santa Barbara.”
“I’m…my name is Tracy,” she said, once again a little disconcerted.
He nodded – with a twinkle in his eyes. “Nice to meet you. Maybe we’ll see you again,” he said.
“I hope so.”
“I know so,” Patty said, her eyes now focused on Tracy.
Tracy didn’t know what to say, but when the steward came by she signed her chit and left another generous tip, then took advantage of the train’s lack of motion to walk back to her sleeping car – but she just couldn’t help herself as she walked past Sam’s compartment. She stopped and knocked on the door, thought she heard a muffled commotion inside; she knocked again and heard him call out ‘Help!’
When she tried to open the door she felt something heavy blocking her way and now she knew he had fallen – and was now 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 the smell hit her then. He’d soiled himself, and now he really needed a shower – but then the reality of his situation hit her…what he really needed was to be in a 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 at least 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 while the train is stopped.”
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. Once it was warm she washed off his soiled thighs with the wand, helping him soap himself off with hot water. “Can you hold the shower head for a minute?” 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 turned out to be down on the snow covered platform helping passengers 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 B is not feeling well. I was just lending a hand.”
“You a nurse?”
Tracy shook her head. “No. Physician. We could use some extra towels when you get a chance.”
“You’re in E, right?”
Tracy 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, reddish brown water still 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?”
She grinned. At least his sense of humor was intact. “How’s the water? Still warm?”
“Blissfully so, yes. Care to join me?”
She smiled and shook her head, then shut the compartment 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 as the smell hit her.
“Could you bring some French toast and scrambled eggs in about an hour? I want to see if he can hold some solid food down.”
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 plastic cup, then helped him walk over to the sofa.
“Food? Really?” he asked as he stared at the suspicious plate of griddled toast and bacon 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 need 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 a basic lack of immortality.”
She nodded. “I see. Funny. I never knew that. Now, if you’re through trying to be funny, let’s try and get at least one bite of French toast down.”
“Lots of syrup, please. My mouth tastes like a camel’s ass.”
“I’m not even going to ask how you know that…” she whispered.
He ate a half slice of the toast before he gave up and leaned back again, but this time he leaned over on the sofa and curled up in a fetal ball with his hands around his knees – and as quickly 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 for her, 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 made his way over until the side of his face rested on her lap again – and only then did he really fall 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 hopeful, 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 before sleep finally came – but why did it feel like a wild beast stalking her the in blinding snow.
Chapter 4
“Why, Mom? Why’d you do it?” Tracy asked her mother as they walked home that afternoon, right after school let out for the day.
“Mr. Murphy thought it would be a good idea, and maybe I did too – at the time, anyway.”
“So after all these years of keeping that a secret, now everyone knows he was my dad? And you didn’t let me know first?”
“I didn’t plan on it, Tracy, but one of the girls asked. Sorry, but Mr. Murphy blurted it all out before I could respond.”
Tracy wasn’t mollified. Far from it.
And so Rebecca sighed as they walked into the house, then she walked straight into the living room and up to the huge window that looked out over the water. The storm she’d seen out over the sound was rolling in and she held onto herself, as if this was the only way to ward-off the coming chill. “Maybe we should get a few logs in before everything gets wet. Besides, this feels like a good night for a fire.”
“Changing the subject again, Mom?”
“I don’t know what to say, Tracy,” Rebecca sighed, “other than I’m sorry.” She remembered an afternoon just like this one years ago, with Sam standing next to her as they watched another thick fog rolling in. She closed her eyes, could almost feel him standing by her side, feel his heart beating next to hers. On that afternoon they’d known each other only a few months, but already she was sure he was the one. With school out for summer, he’d come up to meet her dad before he went back home to Santa Barbara.
“It’s getting cold out,” he’d said. “Don’t you need a sweater or something?”
“Let’s put on a fire. My dad’ll be home soon and it’ll be nice to have a fire going.”
They’d gathered armfuls of split logs and Sam stood back and watched as she got the fire going, then they sat and waited for her father to come home from work.
And they’d waited. And waited.
Until the assistant station manager called and told Rebecca that her father had been taken to Tacoma General Hospital. It wasn’t all that far away but Sam drove her, and when they arrived at the emergency room they learned her father had been rushed straight to surgery.
But no one there could tell her what had happened.
So she and Sam sat and waited.
“What are you thinking about, Mom?” Tracy asked.
“Another evening just like this one. A long time ago.”
“You look lost. Is everything okay?”
“I feel lost, Tracy. Lost – like I’m inside an echo, maybe. I feel like I’m caught inside a hall of mirrors.”
“Mom?”
“Hm-m? What?”
“You want me to cook dinner tonight?” their daughter asked.
She smiled at the echo, remembered Sam saying almost exactly the same thing when they’d finally returned from the hospital. The fire in the fireplace had grown cold, so cold that not even embers remained, and she’d felt so hollowed out by the pain of her father’s passing that even the clinging fog outside had felt ambivalent. Without saying a word he’d rebuilt the fire then disappeared inside the kitchen and made dinner. He held her through the night and didn’t let go during the many gales that followed.
A few weeks later, in the aftermath of it all, Sam’s best friend, Dave Mason, had driven up from California to lend a hand. There’d been the lawyers and the hospital bills and all the other piles of paperwork to sort through, and yet all those things had seemed to dull the reality of her father’s passing – for a while. But Dave had always been good at those things and within days the three of them had grown inseparable. They drove up to Paradise and walked the trails on Mount Rainier’s sun facing western flanks, camped under the stars as a west wind carried them deeper into the night, and it turned out that Sam knew all the important stars by name. He even had a little telescope that he kept with him, and when they went to the mountains he had shown her things she’d never imagined.
Then one weekend they’d ventured north to Port Townsend and went sailing on a friend’s boat, and the rest of that summer was spent learning everything they could about life on the water. One weekend the three of them sailed to Sequim Bay and stayed at the John Wayne marina, they ate fresh crab and drank cold white wine on boulders perched high over the water, and they’d started dreaming about sailing to faraway places, to seeing the world…
And, on occasion, the boys – as she’d taken to calling them by then – did what they’d always done: they pulled out their guitars and their notebooks and they began writing songs. Rebecca sat and listened as their efforts took on a life all their own, and she knew those star-kissed nights and sunny days on the sound had become a part of the tapestry ‘her boys’ were creating. For a while, the pain of her father’s passing seemed far away, but only for a while.
She was majoring in English at Reed, so she understood the dynamics of poetry – and it was over that magic summer that she realized Sam was something of a genius. A Shakespeare kind of genius. He pulled words from the sky the way magicians conjured rabbits from hats, words that spoke to the soul of the human condition, phrasing that seemed rooted within a deeper understanding of life. And yet she was smart enough to keep her distance during these marathon sessions, contenting herself to sit bare-foot on the sofa and listen as her boys’ imaginations took on the shapes and forms of their summer together – and what it all meant to be alive, and to live life with no regrets.
They made a demo reel and drove up to Seattle in search of someone who might listen to their work and lend a helping hand. They talked to kids working the coffee houses, managed to get a radio disc jockey to listen, but it wasn’t enough. All the knowing voices told them was that their music wasn’t ready yet. Dave was shattered and a few days later limped back to Santa Barbara; Sam and Rebecca drove back to Portland to start their last year of college…
…yet something had changed…something important, maybe even something beyond themselves…
…though Rebecca felt the true contours of that change soon enough. Morning sickness and two missed periods, followed by a trip to student health services – and then motherhood beckoned. Sam smiled the smile of the terror-stricken teenager, told friends he could see his whole life unspooling in the dark like a cheap Saturday matinee and everyone told him that student health services could help with an abortion – but the word hit him like a hammer blow, left him breathless and inexplicably sad. Rebecca had never once mentioned the word so he knew she wanted the child too, so there was never any mention about that other thing after he swallowed his fear. They were going to have a baby; it was as simple as that. And he was happy.
They graduated from college and he moved into her father’s house on North 11th Street in Tacoma, Washington. Dave came up again to lend a hand, so Sam and Dave painted the baby’s bedroom and then they pulled Rebecca’s old baby furniture up from the basement and she scrubbed all the old bits and pieces until they were squeaky-clean – and Dave watched as Sam slipped into the role of expectant father while not giving this change in life so much as one thought.
‘So, that’s what love does to you, huh?’ Dave Mason asked as he watched his friend.
And a few weeks later Tracy came into their lives.
Rebecca turned away from the window and the fog and looked at her daughter. Sam gone for almost ten years, and Dave almost that long, so Tracy was all that remained of that impossible summer, and of the seven impossibly wonderful years that followed. “I guess I thought our past might get in the way of your future, but Tracy, don’t take that secrecy to mean that I didn’t cherish every minute with your father. I think I wanted…I didn’t want all of the confusion I felt to…”
“Mom, please don’t cry…”
Rebecca looked at her daughter, at Sam’s daughter, and she still recognized his eyes in Tracy’s. “It’s not easy, Tracy. Even now.”
“I remember him, you know? Every now and then I catch a streak of memory and I can see him again – just for a moment. Almost like I captured him inside one of those things, those old timey stereopticons, and suddenly he’s with me again. It’s weird, Mom, because sometimes I can feel him, I can even hear him. Like he’s really there with me, even though I know that can’t really be true…”
“Are you sure about that?”
“What?”
“Are you sure he’s not still with you, maybe on a level you or I could never understand?”
“Mom…what? What are you saying?”
“I’m not saying anything, Tracy. I’m simply asking you a question. Can you really be so sure? Can any of us ever really be sure where that kind of memory comes from?”
“I’m not sure what you mean, Mom.”
“Neither am I, but what…what if Time isn’t an absolute? What if somehow the past and the present, and maybe even the future…what if they could overlap somehow? Something in our mind, maybe…”
Chapter 5
The storm seemed, if anything, to be growing even stronger. The world beyond the confines of the train had disappeared behind flying veils of driving white snow that streaked by on the other side of the glass, yet Tracy sensed that the train was moving along even more slowly than before.
Sam was still asleep, his head still on her lap, and she couldn’t help but rub his temples. His body seemed to relax when she did, like his body seemed to completely fall away under her enveloping touch, and she found she enjoyed giving him such a gentle respite from his pain. The Zofran was controlling his nausea – and the patch was helping him rest without pain – and she felt as content as she had in a long, long time.
The sleeper car moved over a switch and lurched to the right and he stirred, then opened his eyes a little. She looked down at him and smiled when she caught his eye, and then a little boy’s smile crossed his face. Innocent, not a care in the world, maybe even a peace with his future.
Then she saw a tremor of pain crease his brow and his eyes popped opened. “Have I been down long?” he asked.
“Maybe an hour. Are you feeling any better?”
He sat up gingerly and immediately closed his eyes as waves of vertiginous pain returned, then he took a deep breath and held it for a moment. “Light headed,” he sighed as he tried to come to terms with this latest development. “What the devil is going on with me?”
“The Zofran, probably. It’s not a common side effect, but it happens. Take it a few more times and your blood pressure ought to stabilize.”
“I’m having the weirdest dreams. Really lucid, like wide screen technicolor epics…”
“That’s the Fentanyl,” she said decisively.
“Damn. I think I like that stuff. Great ideas for new music in there,” he said, suddenly grinning at the thought. “But I guess a lot of music has been written ‘under the influence.’”
“You think that still goes on? I thought that was kind of a sixties thing…”
He chuckled at that. “I think you almost have to be under the influence of something to write good music, but I don’t necessarily mean booze or drugs…”
“Oh, what do you mean…?”
“Well, think about it. Writing anything is, on one level, a reflection of the moment, and all our moments are under the influence of something. Not just drugs, but things like love and anger, or hope and despair…”
“Is that what you feel now? Despair? Or hope?”
He closed his eyes, drifted into her question and tried to feel his way to an answer. “I have felt despair, sure. A lot. But I don’t right now. I haven’t since last night. Maybe I feel hopeful, ya know?”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“I think running into you changed something. Something about the direction of…or maybe something happened…”
“Maybe…like what?” she asked.
“I’m not sure…I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something feels different about… Look, I know this will sound whacky, but something about Time feels weird.”
“Time?” she said, almost vacantly as she remembered that afternoon with her mother. “Why do you say that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Could you, I don’t know, maybe put this feeling into a song? What would you say?”
“I don’t know,” Sam replied, his voice now little more than a coarse whisper. “I’m not sure I have the words.”
“Do you think that maybe you need to try, Sam. To me…it feels like you’re holding onto really strong emotions right now, not letting them go, and maybe that’s behind some of this pain.”
He nodded once, but then shrugged, and this was followed by an even more ambivalent toss of his shoulders – and she wondered where that had come from. “Maybe some feelings are better left unsaid,” he sighed.
“Not if holding them in makes you sick.”
“Do you really think that’s possible?”
She gently shook her head. “Are you kidding? Sam, stress will wear anything down, even steel, and it affects people in all kinds of unexpected ways. Skin problems when you’re a teenager, heart attacks and strokes when you get to be our age.”
“One of my oncologists told me that stress can impact survival rates.”
Tracy nodded.
“So,” Sam continued, “what stresses you out?”
The question hit her – because suddenly she couldn’t remember ever experiencing debilitating stress, and she knew that just wasn’t possible.
“Well?” he added, now prodding her, wanting to reassert some kind of control over his dwindling reserves of emotion.
“You know…I can’t remember feeling…anything…like that…maybe anything at all…”
“What? You can’t remember feeling stressed out…?”
“No, Sam, that’s not what I’m saying. I can’t remember anything. Anything at all.”
He looked at her again, scowling as he watched clouds of icy fear darken her eyes. “You alright? You look kind of pale…”
“Images. Sam, it feels like I’m seeing images flash by. Images – but more like memories – only I don’t think they’re my memories…”
“What?”
“Like old eight millimeter film clips, the colors are all faded and I can see splotchy flashes of light…”
“So, you said you never married, right? Still, other docs get married, so why not you?”
She shrugged, looked away as more images came to her. Images of her mother watching her while she was packing and getting ready to go away to college.
Sam leaned close. “You haven’t mentioned your mother? Why not? What happened?”
She looked down, her face flush with denial and regret. “We got into a fight, when I was in high school, and nothing was right after that. I left home for college and never really came back to her. I stayed with friends over breaks and always enrolled in summer sessions, and I think it was all just a way to keep from going home again, to seeing her, to reconciling with her. Once medical school started that was the end of us, really, and we hardly ever talked at all after that.”
“What did she do to you?”
“That’s the sad part, Sam. Looking back on it, I think she was just trying to protect me, until she thought I could handle…” she started to say, but her voice trailed off as an image of her mother in the hospital came to her.
“Handle…what, exactly?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, Dad.”
He nodded. “Then what happened?”
“I remember when I was in Boston when I heard she passed. They said her heart gave out, but I don’t know, really. Isn’t that awful, Dad? I didn’t even care enough to check in with her…”
“So, she died of a broken heart?”
Tracy nodded. “And you know what the worst thing about it was, Dad? I never cried. Not even once, and she didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve anything I did after that day.”
“Did she ever tell you how she felt?”
“No, not really. Nothing beyond telling me she was proud of me after I got out of med school.”
“And then…no boyfriends? Not one?”
“Not one.”
“Why?”
“Death, I guess. I felt abandoned after you left us. I think that’s why I decided to go into medicine.”
“Maybe it was a good place to hide from those feelings. Ever look at it that way?”
She smiled a little, a smile of understanding. “Oh, every day, I guess.”
Chapter Six
She went to the stereo and gently laid her ancient copy of West Side Wind onto the turntable, then hit the ‘play’ lever to start the mechanical ballet hidden within; she watched the platter spin-up to speed, then the tonearm as it lifted from it’s cradle and then swung out over the platter, settling over the opening track on side one before floating down to the shiny black surface of the pressed vinyl recording…
“Do you remember when he wrote this one? You were still so little…” Rebecca asked Tracy. She held out her arm as their daughter came to her side, and they closed their eyes as his music came back to them once again.
And as Tracy held onto her mother, she too closed her eyes and waited…
And then, as her father’s voice filled the room, there he was. Soft, flickering images from the cameras in their minds, a husband and a father sitting on the stone hearth by the fireplace, gently cradling the old Martin guitar that was never far from his side, his strong fingers finding their way from one perfect chord to the next. Rebecca felt his love coursing through his fingers before his words took shape and began streaming through the air to her soul, and once again Tracy felt the eternal connection he had created for her. For them all, really.
Had he known what his music would mean to them, even then? Had he meant for those words to hold them together?
Until they could be together again?
She felt her mother beginning to sway as his words caressed the air around them, and Tracy couldn’t help but move as their sudden reunion took shape, and she felt like waves of wheat bending to a wind passing over the fertile prairies of his song.
Rebecca’s memory was completely alive now, and in her mind’s eye Sam was still sitting across from her – looking into her eyes as he played. He had by then been fighting his cancer for almost two years, and she remembered how he struggled at times, even in her recollections of those moments. He had lost all his hair, even his eyebrows, and though he had always been tall and quite thin, as he sat there in the stereopticon’s flickering light he’d radiated emaciated sickness – while his voice remained sonorously clear.
His voice…as imprinted within the vinyl grooves of remembrance…would always be with them, would always bind them together.
Her mother was trembling now, and Tracy knew her own tears would come soon enough. They always did, and she resented her mother for the weakness she now felt. She wanted smiles to come when she listened to her father, not sadness, not the memory of him slipping away into the warm embrace of Morpheus.
When the last song on the first side played, a quiet piece of twinkling lights and tinseled trees that spoke to their last Christmas together, she pulled away from her mother and walked to the fireplace and sat where he had. She felt the solid stone underneath give way to the moment, her fingers searching for communion in the cold stone, her face upturned expectantly, her eyes closed as she searched for him, and she watched again as her mother carried in his last Christmas present.
His smile at this last surprise.
That’s what she remembered most of all – that smile when he beribboned puppy, a fuzzy-black Bernese Mountain Dog puppy, came into their lives. Sam had said he always wanted one and there he was in her flickering memory, all smiles with his arms cradling the pup, and he promptly named the critter Vince, short for Vincent Van Gogh, his favorite artist. He even wrote a song about the pup, called Starry Nights. Soft tufts of black hair inside a black night full of dancing stars reflecting on the still lake inside the pup’s eyes, Vince and Sam chasing reflections on their way to the stars.
‘Isn’t that what we all did?’ the song seemed to say. We’re all just chasing reflections on our way to the stars?
And then Tracy remembered another starry night, the night she held onto Vince as she watched her father slip away from the light, burying her face in the pup’s neck as waves of grief crashed over her, feeling the pup’s soft tongue dancing among the stars again, and she’d wondered then, as she wondered now, if she’d ever be able to feel love again.
Chapter Seven
He was singing West Side Wind again, his voice unchanged, still mellow and clear. Singing about chasing dreams and in the autumn of your life finding peace in the dancing stars of memory, and Tracy watched him playing his old Martin – and the thought hit her then. There was no past, nor was there anything even remotely like the future, there was only now, the eternal moment. This moment.
Time meant nothing.
Love meant everything.
As she listened to her father’s music in the swaying train she saw an errant tuft of black fur again and she wondered where it had come from. Had she ever, she wondered, found peace in the memories of her father’s starry night? Of her mother’s gentle acquiescences? But, she realized, those questions made no longer made any sense…
She heard a scratching sound on the other side of the door, then a gentle knock.
And the conductor opened the door and stuck his smiling face into the compartment. “We’re almost home, Miss Tracy. Almost home, and look what I found?”
Little Vince came scampering into the compartment and he jumped up into her lap and just like he had a million times before he nibbled at her chin and with his deep brown eyes he seemed to tell her everything was going to be good again.
“We’re almost home, Tracy,” his eyes seemed to say.
She looked at her mom and dad, now sitting side by side in the compartment as he played the closing refrains of West Side Wind with Vince still on her lap, and the old conductor smiled at her before he closed the door. Then her mother leaned over and took her hand, and she smiled a little.
“Are you ready?” her mother asked.
Tracy nodded a little girls nod, unsure of herself, unsure of how she had come to this place, but Vince had his arms around her neck and he was looking into her eyes and she could see a million dancing stars pouring out of his soul, filling her with…what? Love? Was this love?
Then she was surrounded by snow, an infinite, warm snow.
She felt her mother’s hand again as chains of memory dissolved within the encircling snow, then she heard her father’s song and she knew she had to follow the music, follow the music of his dancing spheres. She would follow her parents again. Then she saw Vince was no longer a puppy, that his nose was white with age, but that his eyes were filled with infinite love as he ran off to dance among the stars. He turned once and looked back at her, and she saw her family’s story unfolding through his eyes.
And though she didn’t really understand the how or the why, she followed Vince and her mother as her father’s music surrounded them, just as the stars blossomed and surrounded them. Her parents had gone to Paradise once upon a time, stood on the western flanks of their mountain while the wind danced around them, and standing there in fields of drifting stars she finally understood this music. She watched Vince as he ran and ran and finally decided it was time to follow him home.
© 2024 adrian leverkühn | abw | as always, this is a work of fiction, plain and simple…
Incidentally, the image above was made using prompts in an AI image generation program. I fed it elements of the story and it spit out what you see up there. All I did was add titles, etc. Maybe now would be a good time to listen to ELPs Karn Evil Nine…
Adrian Leverkühn Writes 