The Station Girl

Chapter 8

In a sense, David's sudden arrival at our station was the beginning of the end.

The day he arrived, it was a particularly stormy day. Had it only been raining, Sir and I surely would have done my lessons in that shed I still lived in; yet the thunder and lightning were so bad that I would have learned nothing. So, Sir spent the morning inside his building, and I spent it on the bench that I had chosen to sit on the first day I came to the station myself.

"Little One, why are you out here in this rain? You know that the roof leaks," Sir asked.

"I know, Sir, but I haven't seen today's train yet," I replied, unfazed by his unexpected appearance. I look up at him and shot him my signature beam, the same one I'd shown him ever since I was young. The two of us sat in companionable silence as we ate our lunch.

We'd just about finished eating when David showed up. The sound of the pounding rain had masked his footsteps, so it wasn't until Sir got up to take the dishes into his building that we knew he was there.

If I thought I'd been surprised, it was nothing compared to the expression on Sir's face. Surprise, concern, joy... It settled on confusion. I studied the two with a careful eye, edging away from the strange man that had suddenly appeared before us.

Even after spending ten years with him, I still wouldn't break that first rule I learned from the bad room for Sir. Perhaps if I'd stepped in rather than away, things would have turned out differently.

"David?" The man nodded his head.

David's name was unfamiliar to me at first. I recalled hearing it once before, but I couldn't remember from where. It took me a few moments to remember the name on my wooden train set, and even then, I dismissed the idea. After all, the boy who once owned it couldn't be this man who was completely and utterly soaked from the rain, could it?

It was when Sir reached out with a tentative hand after placing the dishes down to brush back the dripping hair from David's face that I let the idea gain traction. Never before had I seen Sir reach out to someone like that, not even to me. It left little doubt that this man could be anyone but Sir's son.

Other than the wooden trains I had that used to be his, I knew nothing about David. Once, I'd asked Sir about him, but he didn't answer. Instead, he'd stared out into the distance, deep in thought. Never again had I asked about it, his reaction deeply impressed upon such a young me.

Where I had moved over to on the bench had placed me right in the line of one of the leaks from the roof. Neither of them noticed me, but I noticed them in my attempt to ignore the water dripping into my hair.

I saw Sir reach out and pull David into a big hug. I saw the look of shock on David's face from over Sir's shoulder. I saw David's' arms move up Sir's back to return the hug. And I'm sure both David and I saw the quivering of Sir's shoulders as he trembled beneath his son's hands.

In that moment, I knew that something had torn father and son apart. I didn't know what, and I wouldn't find out for several years, but whatever it'd been, it had caused a great disturbance in Sir's life before I met him.

What it was that finally alerted them to my presence, I'm unsure of. At the particular moment they remembered I existed, I'd done two things. I stood up, and then I sneezed. The two broke apart from their hug at my disturbance, and Sir hurriedly introduced us to each other, ignoring the look of surprise on David's face. I mentioned how I had a train set that used to belong to David when he was a kid, and a smirk replaced the shock on his face.

"Yes, I liked trains a lot when I was a boy. Now? Now, I think they're of no use to anyone except to cause us trouble." I wanted him to elaborate on what he meant, but Sir was quick to end the conversation. For the first time ever, Sir tried to usher me off.

I needed to go work on my lessons, and that I wasn't fond of his building were the two excuses he made. Both of which were true, but David found them incredibly funny.

"Lessons? Why, no girl should be taking lessons at your age! You don't need to be learning anything! Rather, a pretty young thing like you should be finding yourself a husband!" David even had the audacity to waggle an eyebrow at me! In front of his father no less!

David opened his mouth to say some other nonsense when his father stepped in. It was just in time for me to stop the tears that lurked in my eyes. I was breathing hard, trying my best to get my emotions under control as Sir gave his son a gentle scolding.

I was the daughter he'd never had, and he didn't want me to leave him. In fact, he'd been thinking about asking me to take the station over after him since he knew David would have no interest in it. He asked David to apologize, and to my astonishment, he did. But there was a look in his eyes, a look that told me that we weren't through with this conversation yet.

I politely accepted the apology, and excused myself to my shed. I was concerned I was catching cold from all the rain, and Sir agreed with me. So, he and his son went to the building and I returned to my shed.

The rest of the day, I stepped not one foot outside my cozy shed. By then, I was old enough that Sir trusted me with my own oil lamp since the shed had no access to electricity, unlike Sir's building. Over the years, the town's people and I had warmed up to each other. Often times, I would go into town to help with an errand or few in return for some money or food. If I was lucky, there would be a spare book that they no longer needed and would offer to me as payment. It was this meager collection of books that I turned to to pass the time.

When the light began to fade, I paused in my reading. Outside my window, it was darker than usual from the clouds. I turned the oil lamp on, and looked at the door. Was eating dinner worth facing David again that very same day? It wasn't, and besides, they had taught us all well enough that we didn't need to eat every time to live. But a thought nagged at me; a thought that told me I'd heard something while I'd been reading.

I got up and opened the door, and I didn't notice anything at first. On the ground though, illuminated by the orange light of the lamp, was a covered dish and cup, water puddled in and around their crevices.

I brought them inside, smiling all the while. Sir knew me much better than he'd ever let on before.