Michael wandered back into the echoing clatter of the train station, carrying his coffee with both hands. It was still early, although not as early as his typical six a.m. commute, and the crowds shuffled solemnly in the muted glow of morning. The high windows, which, during his daily commute, opened onto the matte finish of the predawn sky, allowed precise columns light to illuminate the dim terminal. In the hushed voices of the travelers, barely audible above the regular announcements of the public address, Michael heard the limitless hum of trepidation. During those few moments of reflection he stole each day on his way to work, Michael had always found the station more a place of beginnings and endings than of comings and goings. The tragedy of limitless beginnings struck him each time he stepped off a train.
As he picked his way through the crowd, few gave him a second glance. He walked past the men and women standing along the commuter rails and, guarding his coffee, found an empty bench near the long-distance trains. His jeans were torn, and a Hawaiian shirt with streaks of shocking purple. He felt sloppy and faintly embarrassed to be attired so haphazardly; on any other Thursday of the year, he would not have left the house without his suit, properly ironed and wrinkle-free. Now, Michael looked like so many other men waiting area: stiff in their casual clothes, nervous about the prospect of vacation, and worried about the consequences of taking a long weekend. He settled into the hard wooden curve of the bench and blew across the dark surface of his coffee.
Opposite his own seat, Michael saw a young couple huddled together on the bench, their fingers interlocked, looking like nothing so much as penitents in a house of God. Michael watched as they took turns squeezing one another’s hands. The boy, who looked no older than twenty, leaned back a little and smiled slowly. His girlfriend tilted her face toward his and smiled at him with her eyes. Though he could not hear their voices, Michael’s memory supplied the soundtrack. The couple was stealing time together at point in their lives when time could still be stolen. Every word spoken became another location on the map of the relationship, each silence tracing out highways of implied devotion. Michael looked away before he could follow the meandering paths into his own past.
He swirled the bitter coffee in his mouth, lingering over the faint notes of cinnamon. Michael glanced down at the expensive Swiss watch on his wrist. A flash of pink and blue crashed into the arm that was holding the coffee. The coffee sprayed up in the air, most of it landing in Michael’s lap, scalding his legs. Michael yelped and looked down at the small boy, sprawled on the floor. The boy pawed at his left knee as tears welled up in his eyes. Each breath the boy took was louder until he began to hyperventilate and wail. Around him, Michael could see nearby strangers staring.
Grimacing, Michael put aside the coffee and patted down his lap. “Hey, son. Are you all right?” He crouched in front of the boy and smiled patiently. After a few moments the boy stopped screaming, and Michael asked him in a blustery voice, “You know what my dad always used to tell me when I got hurt?” The boy shook his head, his eyes still filled with tears. “He told me I just had to shake it off.” As he said it, Michael shook his face from side to side and waved his hands in the air; the boy began to laugh at Michael.
“Okay, now it’s your turn.” Michael lifted the boy up by his waist and set him down. The boy smiled and began to convulse histrionically, laughing all the while. Just then, Michael saw a young woman, who he assumed to be the boy’s mother, rush through a crowd to hug the child tightly to her chest.
“Jimmy, where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you. You could have gotten.” She stood up, holding Jimmy’s hand tightly, and looked at Michael. “Jimmy, were you bothering this nice man?”
Michael shook his head. “No ma’am. I just bumped into him, and I wanted to make sure he was okay. He took a bit of a spill, but he seems all right. Isn’t that right, Jimmy?” At the mention of an injury, worry flashed into the woman’s eyes, and she turned to inspect her charge. The boy smiled and said, “I’m fine, Mom. I shook it off.” The mother looked a question at Michael.
“It’s just something I used to say to my boy when he got hurt.”
“Oh. Well, I think I hear our train being announced, so we’d better get going. Thanks for looking out for Jimmy.”
Michael nodded and watched solemnly as the pair weaved their way into the crowd. He wondered where they were heading and where the woman’s husband was. He picked up the remnants of his coffee and sipped at it, trying to suppress the memories that were stirring in his mind. The vibration of his cell phone, shivering in his pocket, shook him loose of his reverie. He checked the caller ID and winced as he answered the phone, “Hello, Mr. Forester. How are you doing this fine morning?”
The voice of his lawyer sounded rumpled and unsettled. “Mr. Jenkins. Quite well, quite well. I have some unfortunate news. The brief from your wife’s lawyer came today, and it’s quite a list of demands.”
He looked around the station, his eyes addressing each of the cardinal points. He narrowed his vision until the room was rendered in blurred splotches of light. Each individual in the crowd began to smear together, their boundaries blurred and forgotten. Michael’s eyes could no more than glance over them. He heard his lawyer clear his throat impatiently.
“Just settle it.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Jenkins, but—“
“Look. I just want you to settle it. Give her what she wants. Let her have custody of Brian. She was always better at that sort of thing, anyway.” Michael stood up and put his hand in his pocket, his coffee forgotten. “I just want this to be as easy as possible. I want this to be as easy as possible for everyone involved.” As his lawyer made one final plea, Michael watched a stream of passengers step out of a train and wondered if, as they walked into the station, they thought they were arriving or departing.