She was really too busy to travel on a weekday, which was exactly what she told her husband, but he bought the ticket anyway because it was cheaper. “And you’ll have more time with your mom,” he said. Unacceptable. Marieke called the train people to exchange the Friday ticket for Saturday, but by the time she got through — after they were done keeping her on hold for more than seven minutes — that train was sold out.
“There must be something you can do,” she told the girl on the phone. “You can ask another passenger to switch with me.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Marieke brought her phone in front of her to check that the seconds of the call were still ticking away, then put the phone’s greasy surface back to her ear.
“No ma’am,” the woman said. “We won’t do that.”
Marieke hung up.
Downstairs, a knife tapped rhythmically onto a cutting board in the kitchen. Marieke opened her laptop. No new emails had hit her inbox since the last time she checked, fifteen minutes ago, so she followed up on a few she had already answered. She paced around the bed, shiny wooden floorboards creaking underneath her, and tried calling Grant from the office. Straight to voicemail. She unzipped her weekend bag and ran her hands through its contents: underwear, bras, black socks with no holes, silk blouse, camisole, cashmere sweater, slacks, reading glasses, one Get Well card that was still blank inside, and two laptop chargers in case something happened. Marieke picked up her laptop, agenda, phone and pen and took them to the kitchen. She sat at the island across from the stove and piled the items between her hands.
“I might have to work tonight, to make up for Friday,” Marieke said to the back of her husband’s head. “We are slammed.”
He turned around and nodded with his mouth full. He was tasting the stir fry sauce to see if it needed more spice, slurping it off one of those flat wooden cooking utensils that Marieke kept in the drawer rather than in the pot on the counter, because it sometimes proved to be useful, but hadn’t earned its status among the spoons. He reached for red pepper flakes.
“Are you going straight to the hospital or checking into the hotel first?” he asked.
“Hotel,” she said. Her hands splayed out atop her elbows. “I’m gonna have meetings.”
His arm circled the pan, flipping the raw sides of the pork and vegetables onto the heat. “Is Lindsay going too?”
Marieke’s phone lit up. She picked it up and saw a new email. Marieke, it’s 8:00pm, it said. Go have an evening and I’ll update you tomorrow.
Marieke’s husband turned around to look at her. She stuck her pen into her mouth and signalled with a finger: one second. She flipped open her agenda and typed out a reply with her thumbs. Okay, she wrote. She put down her phone and pulled the pen out from between her teeth. Get update from Grant, she wrote on her to-do list for Friday.
*
Marieke’s bag was zipped up and waiting by the bedroom door when her alarm went off at 6:00am. Draped on top of it was the clean outfit she’d wear on the train.
The cab arrived one minute early. “How are you?” the driver asked as he pulled onto the road.
Marieke answered and returned the question automatically.
“I am excellent,” he said, crossing one hand over the other on the steering wheel.
Marieke looked at her watch, 6:59am. “Excellent?”
He said it even louder: “Excellent!” He banged both hands on the steering wheel. “It is impossible for me to have a bad day.”
They stopped at a stoplight beside another car and Marieke looked out the window. The sullen eyes and cheekbones of a pre-teen glared at her from the back seat.
They arrived at the train station 45 minutes early, so she was the first to board. She walked along the entire length of the train, past the conductor who was still loitering outside, talking on his phone. She settled into a backward-facing aisle seat with her bag next to her. The only thing on her calendar was the meeting with Grant at 2:30pm. Everything was all planned out in her head: the train arrived at 1:10pm. She would take a cab straight to the hotel, which would take 19 minutes. She would check in, hang up her clothes, connect to the WiFi and be right on time. She took a deep breath and remembered to relax her shoulders. She wasn’t going to be late.
Her notes for the meeting were already prepared, so she rewrote them and added a few more questions for Grant. Other passengers walked down the aisle beside her, hauling suitcases and coats into the overhead bins. The train started swaying in movement but Marieke didn’t look up from her computer. She spent the next hours working on the meeting agenda: she added items, deleted items, and added them back. She emailed Grant twice to confirm his attendance, but he didn’t respond.
Staff came by with the coffee cart and Marieke ordered black coffee and a hummus plate, which seemed to be the only item on the menu that didn’t involve mayonnaise. She lowered the tray of the empty seat beside her so she could eat while looking at her laptop. At 12:30pm, she decided there was no use fretting about the meeting any longer and read the news. A bomb had exploded outside of Kabul. Those poor people. The Bank of Canada was considering raising interest rates. They better not. The man across from her pressed his temple against the window.
“Why are we stopped?” he asked her.
She looked at him and saw that the landscape outside was static. A single mass of clouds covered the entire sky. “Are we not supposed to be?”
He patted his knees with open hands. “Not here. It’s been like 20 minutes.”
“20 minutes!” Marieke was shocked that she hadn’t noticed.
The man got up from his seat and walked to the door between train cars.
A deep voice crackled through the speaker overhead. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement.” Marieke shifted forward in her seat and remembered, again, to relax her shoulders. “You may have noticed we’ve been delayed. We’ll provide you with an update as soon as we can.”
Marieke sighed forcefully. She typed out another email to Grant. Grant, I have some very unfortunate news. My train has been stopped for 20 mins and it’s unclear when we’ll get going. I may need to push back our meeting. Will update you ASAP. Apologies.
She left her email open to wait for his response.
“Is that yours?” A woman stood next to Marieke, looking down at the empty coffee cup and plastic wrapping from her food, which had fallen into the aisle. Marieke inspected the woman’s T-shirt, sewn onto which was a rainbow made out of sequins, ending in two smiley faces instead of clouds. The woman leaned her elbow onto the seat beside Marieke. “Didn’t I see you eating that a minute ago? I did. I saw you eating that a minute ago.”
Marieke squeezed her legs out of the seat and reached for her garbage.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer’s voice returned. “We are going to be stopped here for a while longer. Please accept our sincere apologies for this inconvenience.”
“Jesus,” Marieke said, meaning to mutter but actually exclaiming quite loud. She typed out another email to Grant, who still hadn’t answered any of her messages. Still stuck. I am so, so sorry. I am happy to stay as late as you need me to tonight so we can get this meeting done. -M
Marieke looked down at her hands. She adjusted her wedding band and engagement ring, pushing her diamond back to the centre of her finger. She adjusted the ring on her other hand. She pushed back the cuticles on both thumbs, then both index fingers, and then each of her other fingers. Outside the train, just behind Marieke’s line of sight, was an aging brick apartment building painted white. On its backside was a mural of an old woman’s face, which the artist had made by chipping off the paint so it appeared that it had worn away like that, the original red brick naturally re-emerging to reveal wispy hair, sagging ears, two slanted eyes and deep marionette lines made permanent by a lifetime of smiling.
“Ladies and gentlemen.”
Marieke sighed before the voice even said anything.
“I’m afraid that the cause of our delay has not been resolved. We are expected to be here for another three hours. I know this is disappointing news, but we cannot allow you to depart the train. Since the delay is now over three hours, you will qualify for an additional trip, free of cost. Your service manager will bring around complimentary drinks momentarily.”
Three hours! That was impossible. Marieke looked around for someone to share the moment of outrage with, but the man across from her hadn’t returned to his seat. Three hours! Impossible. She closed her laptop and stood up, yanking her top down over her hips. It was already past 1:00pm. Other faces in other seats looked around. She caught the eye of a teenager and they both shook their heads.
“Three hours!” Marieke said to her.
The girl shrugged.
At the front of the car, the man who had been sitting across from Marieke was huddled with two train employees in black ties. Marieke marched towards them.
“This is unacceptable,” she called out and they all turned their heads.
Back in her seat, the girl who had shrugged dug into her knapsack and found a paperback. On both sides of the train, passengers looked out the windows, trying to find a reason for the delay. They searched for clues but only found grey sky, the backs of buildings, two chainlink fences and one long gravel ditch. In the cab, the engineer kept his hand squeezed tightly around the brake. He clenched his jaw. He kept his gaze on the tracks. He kept his gaze on the tracks so that it wouldn’t wander — so that it wouldn’t find the old man’s walker, where it landed in the juniper bush after the train slammed into him. His gaze didn’t travel until the coroner arrived.
“This is unacceptable,” Marieke repeated when she reached the huddle.
“Ma’am.”
Marieke raised her voice even though she was right beside them. “This is absolutely unacceptable.”
The train employees looked at each other. One of them took a very deep breath and addressed Marieke. “There’s nothing we can do.” She lowered her voice. “We’re waiting for someone from the coroner’s office. We’ve had a fatal accident.”
Marieke was incredulous. They were probably only saying that to excuse the delay. She would bet it wasn’t even true. “It is impossible,” she wagged her finger at the door, “that you cannot let us off this train.”
The employee exhaled, again, before she spoke. “You will not be allowed to get off the train.”
Marieke sealed her lips but let out a sound, like a scream muffled to its maximum extent, and stomped back to her seat. She opened her laptop and found a new email, but it wasn’t from Grant. It was from Lindsay. Mom’s really not doing well, it said. When will you be here?
Marieke smacked her laptop shut and wrapped her hands around its corners. She kicked the seat in front of her with the bottom of her foot. She kicked it again and she kicked it again until the passengers around her were all staring.
“Lady,” the woman with the sequin rainbow shirt called across the aisle. “I think you’d better stop now.”