The timer’s counting down. Now at one hour and four minutes. In case I fall asleep, the beep will startle me and my headache. The beep will urge me to tell my eight-year-old that it's time to put the tablet away. The train’s expected to arrive at 5:18 p.m. Today’s Tuesday.
We've been together since Saturday. I drove us to the airport, then we sat at the gate, boarded the plane, took off and spent two-and-a-half hours above the clouds. Then we landed in Denver. We spent a day at the zoo, lots of time in the hotel pool, had two difficult nights of sleep, ate dinner at the hotel restaurant, played Frisbee outside on the grass, and checked out on Monday morning, heading to Union Station. We got there with plenty of time, but ended up sitting in the spacious lobby for a couple of hours reading, before boarding an Amtrak. And we were off, a 32-hour train journey, through the mountains and the desert, across the wide-open western third of the United States.
As soon as we got settled into our "roomette," we headed to the observation car and found an open bench from which to check out western Colorado. She wants her tablet. I give in and hand it to her. As I observe the farms giving way to foothills, I overhear a couple next to us, who may have developmental differences, based on how loud he is speaking and how short she is. He starts poking her. She yells, "Ow!" He says, "What? I'm excited!" She replies, "Stop poking me!" He continues, "We're going to see the mountains! I'm excited." She responds more loudly, "Stop poking!" He says, "It will arouse you!" She replies, "Eww. Gross." He gets up and says, "Save my seat!"
The conductor announces, “There are 42 tunnels cutting through the mountains between Denver and Glenwood Springs.” Rebelle enjoys the first few, before returning to her tablet. It’s mind-boggling to consider the amount of engineering it took to build these tracks that slice up these mountain ranges and carve out and support all of these tunnels.
As the day passes, we get used to our compact compartment, about seven feet by seven feet. Basketball players would struggle to fit. My extended legs have just enough space to allow me to rest my feet, shoes off, beside her on her chair. Her knees are up, feet perched on our suitcase. We eat lunch. We play a couple of games of Uno and a game of Othello. I take pictures and a few videos as we rise into the mountains. It’s dinner time. The sunset in Utah is memorable. Thankful for the longer days, it's after 8:30 when the pale yellow light begins fading into fiery orange, silhouetting the striated plateaus and dark-red rock formations of Arches National Park as we approach Green River. The light settles into a faint glow of dark-orange and then briefly scarlet before finally giving way to dusk.
My photography session concludes. She asks if it's time for pajamas. She's been anxious to try the spring-loaded, fold-down top metal bunk. When we first arrived in the hotel room, she immediately protested the idea of sleeping solo on the fold-out bed. During those two nights in the hotel, she’d moved so much in the king-sized bed that I became wary of allowing her to sleep up there on the bunk.
After setting up the bedding, she climbs up and we struggle to incorrectly strap her in. Finally, I ask the attendant, who shows me where the straps hooked into a metal latch in the ceiling above, the straps acting like a net to catch any falling people. She snuggles in, delighted and cozy. As we approach Provo around 11, I realize I’m in Utah and think of two friends I haven’t thought of in a few years. One lives in Salt Lake City and another used to live in Denver, then Salt Lake City, and last I knew he was somewhere in southern Colorado. I email them, wishing them well.
Over the course of the train ride, we eat four meals with four pairs of strangers. One teenage boy. Two twentysomethings. Five middle-aged to late-middle-aged, older than me but younger than my parents. In the dining car, there’s one head waitress. She’s a tall, husky woman, probably 55, with a thin ponytail and an apathy about her. At first it’s off-putting, but then I realize this dining car transaction often doesn't involve tips for so many of the diners, due to the fact that the meals are complimentary with sleeper accommodations. Only the coach passengers pay and tip at the end of the meal. Sleepers have paid in advance and likely this waitress has been doing this job for decades, and, to be fair, who wants to be tossed to and fro while you're taking someone's meal order? It's an odd interaction for people used to sitting down at restaurants.
Divorce came up in a conversation on the plane and again today in the dining car. Karen and Linda, two sisters from Cleveland. They're on board with their 89-year-old father, a last hurrah on the rails for him. I asked about their childhood and they explained their parents divorced in 1975, when they were eight and 10. Their parents remarried and both outlived their second spouses. The sisters are married today, with grown children in their late-20s and early-30s.
I asked them what has helped them remain in their marriages. The sister who’s an electrical engineer replied, "Knowing when to bite your tongue." The sister who was a school psychologist and now a librarian nodded, then added, "Compromise and lots of therapy." I asked if they saw difficult times between their parents that led to the divorce. They said they had and alluded to how witnessing those interactions helped them see what they didn't want. How their arguing and negativity was a kind of living example of how not to behave in a relationship with a spouse.
My parents divorced before I was two, and I have no memory of any spoken interaction between them before I was about 14 and my brother was graduating from high school. This was especially strange because my dad showed up at Mom’s house every other Saturday morning and dropped us off at that house late Sunday afternoons. The distance between them was permanent and the silence became routine, but not comfortable.
I asked the two sisters how they got their children to eat vegetables. One said it was a challenge. The kids are now grown, but only now is the daughter eating vegetables. The son still eats whatever he wants. The other says, "My husband is a pediatrician so we were on the same page. And if they didn't eat the vegetables, I figured they'd be okay."
The night before, we found ourselves next to a father and son from Vermont. The dad, a chemical engineer who grew up in Florida, sat next to his pleasant, half-Asian 15-year-old son. I asked the dad at what age patience took root?
He chuckled and looked at his son. "Maybe middle school?" But the son was clearly more of an introvert than an aggressive type. He was happy to chat with eight-year-old Rebelle and she was curious about the teenager. When they rose, we realized both were about 6 '4" and Rebelle said, "Whoa! You're really tall!" The son had eclipsed the dad by about an inch. The impromptu conversations have been new experiences for Rebelle, who has been bubbly and engaged after her initial shyness. We guess ages.
The seemingly healthy 55-65-year-olds: three of the five in this group are women who don’t seem to enjoy the idea they are approaching 60 or have reached it, similarly to my mother who doesn’t like that she’s turned 80. They’re either newly-retired or hope to be retired sometime soon. These adults are forced into the age conversation by way of the curious eight-year-old. It becomes a game. What’s your name? How old are you? We'll guess and then you guess.
Everyone thinks I'm in my 30s or early-40s instead of 45. They think she's six or seven. I prompt her to ask questions. "Do you have children?" "Where do you live?" I usually ask about work.
People working on the train as others come and go. The rattle and hum. The soft whistle constant. The mountains have given way to the desert which has given way to the other ridges and then the valley and in a few minutes the blurry towns will appear.