Picking Up The Pieces

Chapter 8

A chilly wind licked at my face and bare hands and whipped a lock of hair across my cheek. Shivering, I tucked my jacket collar close around my neck and jammed my hands into my pockets as the sun slid below a stand of cypress trees edging the tracks, turning the sky lavender and gold. When Marcel insisted on dropping me at the train station in Narbonne, across town from his depot, I accepted gratefully. After setting my suitcase on the pavement, he surprised me with a hug and kissed both my cheeks.

“Au revoir, Madame,” he said, smiling down at me. “God bless.”

I caught the first train out of Narbonne bound for the Spanish frontier. Forty-five minutes later I was in Perpignan. Now I waited for the night train to Madrid which was supposed to arrive at 7:21 the following morning. A warm bowl of soup and thick chunks of bread purchased at a dingy little café across the street had warmed me a little but I was looking forward to boarding the train.

Light flashed across my face then I plunged back into darkness. Humming, tapping, a flash of light then black again. I flung an arm over my eyes and slid away into sleep again, into some velvet place as soft as a coat pocket. A picnic table stood on my back lawn and Julia was there in the twilight, wearing a yellow dress and asking why there was no mayonnaise. I tried to tell her that I would get some from the kitchen but suddenly bright streaks of light stabbed through the thick gloom and penetrated my eyelids. I hovered on the edge of the dream, then reluctantly swam into blurry wakefulness. Squinting, I rolled over and groaned. Pain stabbed my hip and my right arm prickled from the shoulder down and when I stretched it out to ease the kink I touched something soft and warm. Turning my head, I shielded my eyes from the brightness.

A child lay sleeping on a bench seat opposite me. My fingertips had brushed her cheek. She stirred, soft pink lips opening in a little sigh, and rolled onto her back, her dark hair falling away from a beatific face. Suddenly, it came back to me. I was on a train, sharing a compartment with two Spanish women and their children.

I glanced around the compartment. The women and a small boy also slept, their bodies draped over the seats like last night’s laundry. Sitting up, I checked my watch. It was early, just past five o’clock. Through the grimy windows, mountains thrust upward against a deep blue sky and between gashes in the rock I could see winding rivulets of murky water far below. The train wheels clattered over a trellis then plunged into the roaring inky blackness of a tunnel before bursting again into the morning light.

I shook out my sweater, rolled it into a soft pillow again and closed my eyes. My arm was no longer asleep, but my hip still ached and I pressed the heel of my hand into the sore spot and drifted back to sleep, this time dreaming about eating spaghetti at a little restaurant with Roger.

After Roger died, I dreamed of him often, sometimes several times a night. In spite of the sleeping pills that my doctor had prescribed, I woke frequently, my pillow wet with tears and my blankets in knots. Anguish and bitter grief consumed me but some dreams came as gifts. One dream in particular I remember vividly. I was sitting on a picnic blanket in a mountain meadow. The sun warmed my face and bees buzzed in the wildflowers all around me. The hike back down the mountain was a long one and I would have to leave as soon as the afternoon light had begun to fade into the purples of evening. As I placed the dishes and left-over food into the backpack cooler, I became aware of someone near me and turned to see Roger standing there. Leaping to my feet, I ran to him and flung my arms around his neck, kissing his cheeks and his mouth and crying, “Oh, Roger, you’ve come back, you’ve come back! I have missed you so. Where have you been?”