Where We Waited

The morning had been rushed. Jason dropped Rebecca at the station with little more than a distracted goodbye. 

“Have a good day,” she said, gathering her handbag and book from the footwell.

“You too.”

She opened the door.

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Jason was already looking at the clock on the dashboard. 8:07. He had a meeting at nine. Three emails he should have answered the night before. The plumber still hadn't called him back, and somewhere between getting dressed and burning his toast, he'd remembered the presentation he was supposed to finish before lunch.

Rebecca closed the car door. Jason pulled away. He didn't watch her walk into the station. He didn't see her turn around.

Rebecca took her usual train into the city. She found a window seat, opened the book she'd been reading for the past week and settled into the familiar rhythm of the journey. Across the aisle, a toddler sat on her mother's lap, staring shamelessly at her. Rebecca smiled. The little girl smiled back.

Rebecca returned to her book. When she looked up a few minutes later, the child was still watching her.

“Are you reading my book too?” Rebecca whispered.

The toddler giggled.

Her mother smiled apologetically. “She's fascinated with people.”

“She's beautiful.”

When the train reached Rebecca's stop, she slipped her bookmark between the pages and stood.

“Goodbye, sweet girl.”

The toddler reached across the aisle and wrapped four tiny fingers around Rebecca's index finger. Her mother laughed.

“Sorry.”

“No. Don't be.”

Rebecca let her hold on for another few seconds. Then she stepped onto the platform.

Walking toward the exit, she found herself thinking about children. Her children. Jason's children. They'd talked about it. Eventually. There was always an eventually when you were young enough to believe life would wait for you. Maybe they'd have a girl. She hoped she'd have Jason's dark hair.

Outside, a light rain had begun to fall. The irritating kind—not quite heavy enough to justify an umbrella but enough to make you walk faster. Rebecca held her handbag above her head and hurried across the road.

Someone shouted.

Tyres screamed against wet asphalt.

And at 10:42 that morning, Jason's phone rang.

There are phone calls that interrupt your life.

And then there are phone calls that divide it into two.

Before.

And after.

There had been an accident. Rebecca had been taken to hospital. They had tried. They were sorry. Jason remembered asking the doctor whether he was sure. It was a ridiculous question, but he asked it three times.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Are you absolutely sure?”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Taylor.”

“But are you sure?”

As though the man might eventually sigh and admit there had been a terrible administrative error. There hadn't been. Rebecca was dead.

For months afterward, Jason tortured himself with their final morning. He remembered everything he'd been thinking about as she climbed out of the car.

Emails.

The plumber.

His meeting.

The presentation.

He remembered saying I love you while looking at the clock. He remembered pulling away. What he couldn't remember was what Rebecca had been wearing. That destroyed him. He could remember the presentation. He could remember that he'd burned the left side of his toast. But he couldn't remember the colour of his wife's coat on the last morning of her life.

The weeks became months. Jason drank too much. Slept too long. Missed work. Ignored messages. Rebecca's toothbrush remained beside his. Her slippers stayed beneath the bed. The book she'd been reading was returned to him in a plastic bag with her other belongings. He placed it on her bedside table and never opened it.

Moving anything felt too much like admitting she wasn't coming back for it.

Eventually, his sister made an appointment with a grief counselor.

“You don't have to get better,” she told him. “Just go.”

So he went. The counsellor was a round woman with bright red glasses that made her look almost clownlike.

Jason disliked her immediately. She asked questions. He gave one-word answers. Then she asked what he missed most about Rebecca.

“Everything.”

“Give me one thing.”

Jason stared at his hands.

“Her talking.”

The counsellor waited.

“She never shut up.”

To his surprise, he almost smiled.

“She talked about everything. People at work. Books. Something she'd seen on the train. What we should have for dinner. She could turn going out to buy milk into a fifteen-minute story.”

“What happens when you remember those things?”

“It hurts.”

“And?”

Jason looked at her.

“And what?”

“Nothing else?”

He thought about it.

“Sometimes it feels like she's still there.”

The counsellor nodded.

“Then perhaps you don't need to look for places where Rebecca isn't anymore. Find the places where she still is.”

Jason thought about Italy.

Spain.

Greece.

Thailand.

He and Rebecca had stood together beneath foreign sunsets, eaten terrible food from roadside stalls, swum naked once in a hotel pool at two in the morning and laughed so loudly they'd been threatened with eviction.

But none of those places called to him. Instead, he drove to the station. The ugly little station he'd barely noticed during all the years he'd dropped Rebecca there.

He parked in almost the same place. For several minutes, he remained behind the wheel. Then he forced himself out. Commuters hurried past him. A woman dragged a suitcase toward the entrance. Somewhere inside, a machine beeped impatiently.

Jason walked to the wooden bench at the top of the stairs leading to the platform. He sat and cried. Not quietly. Not politely. He bent forward, covered his face and let himself break.

“I should've watched you go.”

People passed. Nobody stopped.

“I should've waited until you went inside.”

He wiped his face.

“I'm sorry, Bec.”

When Jason finally looked up, he noticed a boy sitting at the opposite end of the bench. He looked around fifteen. School uniform. Backpack between his shoes. Earphones hanging around his neck. Jason immediately felt embarrassed.

“Sorry.”

The boy shrugged.

“For what?”

Jason wiped his eyes.

“This.”

The boy looked toward the tracks.

“Doesn't bother me.”

Neither spoke again.

Jason returned the following afternoon. The boy was there. Same bench. Same backpack between his shoes.

Jason sat at the opposite end. They ignored each other.

The next afternoon, the boy was there again.

On the fourth day, Jason brought coffee. He noticed the boy had a packet of crisps.

“Healthy dinner?” Jason asked.

The boy looked at the packet.

“Vegetable.”

“Potato isn't a vegetable when it's covered in cheese powder.”

“Says who?”

“My wife.”

The word caught in Jason's throat.

The boy noticed. He looked away. After a moment, he held out the packet. Jason took one.

“Thanks.”

“Cliff.”

“What?”

“My name.”

Jason nodded.

“Jason.”

That was all. It was enough.

Over the next week, they developed an unspoken routine. Jason arrived sometime after four. Cliff was usually already there. Sometimes they spoke. Sometimes they didn't.

Jason learned that Cliff was sixteen, hated maths and wanted to be a veterinarian. Cliff learned that Rebecca hated coriander, cried during animal movies and once made Jason drive forty kilometres back to a hotel because she'd left a paperback under the pillow.

“What book?”

“I don't know.”

“You drove forty kilometres and you don't know?”

“I was married. You learn not to ask certain questions.”

Cliff laughed. Jason did too. The laugh surprised him. For a few seconds, he felt normal. Then came the guilt. Cliff seemed to recognize it.

“You're allowed to laugh, you know.”

Jason looked at him.

“Who told you that?”

“Nobody.”

Cliff stared at the tracks.

“That's why I'm telling you.”

It was almost two weeks before Jason finally asked.

“Why are you here every day?”

Cliff didn't answer. Jason waited. Eventually, Cliff reached into his backpack and took out his phone. He found a photograph. A little Jack Russell Terrier stared into the camera. Mostly white. Brown ears. Grey around his muzzle. His tongue hung ridiculously from one side of his mouth.

Jason smiled.

“Who's this?”

“Elvis.”

“Good name.”

“He came with it.”

Cliff enlarged the photograph. Elvis was wearing a red bandana.

“We got him when I was five. Mum said I was scared of him at first.”

“That monster?”

“He was bigger then.”

Jason laughed.

Cliff swiped to another photograph. A much younger Cliff lay asleep on a sofa with Elvis curled against his chest. Another. Elvis wearing a birthday hat. Another. Cliff, perhaps ten, sitting on the kitchen floor with Elvis's paw in his hand. Another. A teenage Cliff and a very old dog lying together in bed.

“He died three months ago,” Cliff said.

Jason's smile disappeared.

“I'm sorry.”

Cliff shrugged. People shrugged when they were trying not to cry.

“He was nearly thirteen. Mum says that's good for a Jack Russell.”

“It is.”

“She says we were lucky.”

“You were.”

Cliff's jaw tightened.

“I don't feel lucky.”

Jason didn't answer.

After a while, he asked, “Why the station?”

Cliff looked down the stairs.

“My school used to be on the other side of town. Mum worked late, so I'd take the train home. Dad walked Elvis around this time.”

He pointed toward the entrance.

“They'd wait there.”

Jason followed his finger.

“Every day?”

“Every day.”

Cliff smiled.

“He knew which train was mine. I swear he did. As soon as I came up those stairs, he'd lose his mind.”

Cliff's voice cracked. Jason said nothing.

“He'd pull Dad across the whole station. Barking. Jumping. Everyone would stare.”

Cliff laughed once. Then covered his face.

“I used to get embarrassed.”

Jason felt something inside him break.

“I'd tell Dad to make him stop.”

The tears came now. Cliff wiped them angrily away.

“The last few months, he couldn't run anymore. His legs were bad. So he'd just stand there and wag his tail.”

Jason stared at the station entrance.

“And now you come here.”

Cliff nodded.

“It's stupid.”

“No.”

“Everyone thinks it is.”

“Then everyone is wrong.”

Cliff looked at him.

“Mum says we can get another dog.”

Jason was quiet for a moment.

“People say stupid things when they don't know what else to say.”

Cliff laughed through his tears.

“That's pretty much what I told her.”

They sat quietly. A train arrived. People came up the stairs. Cliff watched them.

“I know he's dead,” he said.

“I know.”

“I know he's not going to be standing there.”

“I know.”

“But sometimes, when I come up those stairs…”

He stopped. Jason understood.

“You can almost see him.”

Cliff nodded. Jason looked toward the place where Rebecca had disappeared on the final morning of her life.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “I know.”

At the end of the week, a sign appeared near the ticket office.

STATION CLOSURE — 31 AUGUST

Jason read it twice. A woman behind the counter explained that a new line had made the old station redundant. The building would be demolished in September. He found Cliff sitting on their bench.

“You saw?”

Cliff nodded. Neither knew what else to say.

For the remainder of August, they came almost every afternoon. Sometimes Jason spoke about Rebecca. Sometimes Cliff spoke about Elvis. Mostly, they spoke about everything else.

School.

Work.

Football.

Books.

Girls.

Whether pineapple belonged on pizza.

Grief slowly stopped being the only thing they had in common.

On the final afternoon, the station was almost empty. Signs had been removed from the walls. Ticket machines had been switched off. The little café had already closed. Jason and Cliff sat on their bench. The last train was due at 6:12.

At 6:11, Cliff stood.

“You okay?” Jason asked.

“Yeah.”

He wasn't. The train arrived. Five passengers climbed the stairs. An elderly man. Two women talking loudly. A teenager with headphones. A little girl holding her father's hand.

Then nobody.

The train doors closed below. Jason heard it pull away. Cliff stared toward the entrance.

“That's where he used to stand.”

Jason nodded. Cliff's face crumpled.

“I miss him.”

“I know.”

“I really fucking miss him.”

“I know.”

Jason put an arm around him. Cliff cried against the shoulder of a man who, a month earlier, had been a stranger. Eventually, a security guard approached.

“I'm sorry. We need to lock up.”

Cliff wiped his face. Jason stood. He looked at the bench. Then toward the car park. For a moment, he saw Rebecca as clearly as if she were standing there. Handbag over her shoulder. Book beneath her arm.

Have a good day.

You too.

Love you.

Love you too.

For months, Jason had hated those words because they hadn't seemed enough. Now he understood. They were enough. They had to be. Because they were true.

Cliff was waiting near the doors.

“You coming?”

“In a minute.”

The security guard waited.

Jason walked to the entrance. Then stopped. He turned around. He looked at the bench. At the stairs.

At the place where Rebecca had walked away from him on an ordinary morning when neither of them knew that ordinary was something they should have treasured.

“Goodbye, Bec,” he whispered.

His eyes filled.

“I love you. Always.”

He stayed there for a while. Nobody rushed him. When he was ready, he turned away. Outside, Cliff was waiting.

It had started raining. Not heavily. Just enough to make you wonder whether opening an umbrella was worth the effort.

Jason laughed.

“What?” Cliff asked.

“Nothing.”

They started toward the car park. After several steps, Jason realised Cliff had stopped. The boy was looking back at the station. Jason almost called to him. Then he didn't. He stood quietly in the rain and waited.

Cliff looked for a long time at the place where an old Jack Russell had once waited every afternoon for the boy he loved.

Jason let him look.

He didn't rush him.

Not this time.

Eventually, Cliff turned around.

And together, they walked away.