The Midnight Train Home

Margaret had not taken a train in thirty years, but the ticket in her hand was warm from her grip.

The last train to the coast left at 11:40. The note her daughter left on the kitchen table was only three words long.

Don't follow me.

She followed anyway.

The station at the end of the line

The platform was empty except for a boy of about ten, swinging his legs on a bench. He looked at her coat, her bag, her worried face, and said, "You must be the grandmother."

Margaret's heart stopped.

"I'm sorry?"

"Mum said you would come. She said you always come when it's too late."

She sat down beside him, because her knees would not hold her anymore.

Her daughter appeared at the end of the platform, thinner than Margaret remembered, her arms crossed against the cold.

"I told you not to follow."

"You told me nothing for eleven years."

"Because of what you did."

Margaret opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. There were things a mother could deny to the world. She could not deny them to the girl who had been in the next room.

Some doors stay shut because we hold them closed ourselves.

"I'm here now," she said. "Tell me everything. I'll listen."

The boy took her hand. The train behind them pulled quietly away.