Under

          He closed his eyes, the train passing near enough for him to touch if he had reached out. It tore through the early morning shedding an icy breeze, the sting of the cold invigorating, but his memories were still clouded. The woman’s name continued to elude him. He muttered, annoyed, having always prided himself on retaining facts and figures, an asset that had proved invaluable over the years. Dammit. It began with a “J”, he was sure of, but it would not come to him. Janet, Janice . . . ? It had been more than twenty-five years and it would be understandable to not recall every detail. But he did. Everything but her name.

          He brushed the long strands of hair that had resettled over his eyes as the rush of wind from the train had receded. He smiled. The last time he had been at this station, when he had seen her, he was only nine years old, sporting a flat top. If his parents were alive, they certainly wouldn’t approve of his current ‘style’.

          He could clearly see his Mother on that day. She was a recent widow, his father having passed just three months earlier. His hacking rasps and wheezes, the end result of three packs of Winstons a day, were still fresh in their minds. She shunned the customary dark mourning attire, donning an elegant sky-blue A-line jacket and pill box hat, a blond Jackie Kennedy waiting gracefully on the platform for the train to New York. She had always been a style conscious woman, but he suspected that it was an expression of her displeasure with her late husband, a life long critic of the insurance industry who had failed to adequately provide for his family in death.

          She held his hand as they mounted the steps to the nearly deserted platform. A few students were scattered about, but most had already returned home earlier in the week for Thanksgiving. It was Saturday, so there were no work commuters waiting, even so, Princeton was a sleepy college town in those days, the train station itself surrounded by rolling farms and virgin forests. It would be another fifteen years before it became a bustling bedroom community like those on Long Island or Westchester.
          They had been invited to New York by his Aunt Elba, his father’s sister, for the holidays, but his Mother insisted on having Thanksgiving at home, just the two of them. Elba was persistent, arguing that the boy needed his family around him at a time like this, but his Mother was steadfast, finally agreeing to only a day trip on the weekend.

          The train was not scheduled to arrive for another twenty five minutes so they settled onto a bench, his mother retrieving a Harper’s magazine from her matching sky blue purse. The boy began to hum to himself, swinging his legs rapidly back and forth, rocking the bench slightly, his feet just scraping the platform below. His mother shot him a glance, grabbing one leg to quiet it.

          Bored, he pushed himself off the bench and began to hop along the wooden planks trying to see how many he could clear with each leap. Being tall and lanky for his age, he found he could clear three of the foot wide boards in a single jump without touching the gaps in between. Turning, he looked to his Mother, but her head remained down reading an article or recipe, not noticing his achievement.

          He prepared himself for another attempt, squatting low, when shadows flashed across the cracks in the boards accompanied by peals of laughter. The sound rushed towards him, then passing beneath him before dissipating behind him. He looked to his Mother again, her head still hung low, the netting on the top of her hat facing him. He wandered to the stairs and descended, turning at the bottom. Shapes moved among the shadows further down, but he could not make them out in the dappled sunlight seeping through the boards. He moved closer placing a hand on the end beam and leaned in for a better view, his eyes adapting to the gloom. Bending slightly, he moved beneath the platform toward the flickering forms.

          The shapes came into focus, two teenage boys and a larger woman. The woman sat upright against the fence that separated the platform from the tracks. One boy stood above her, the other kneeling next to her, a hand on her shoulder or coat, he could not tell which. He moved closer sinking lower among the shadows, settling into a silent crouch, no more than ten feet away.

          “I got my hand right on it!” The kneeler shouted to his buddy, his hand inside the woman’s tattered coat and over her right breast. She sat placidly, as if asleep, but her eyes were open, her gaze not on either of the teens, but distant.

          “Hurry up. Squeeze it, or let me.” His partner leaned closer, hands on knees, eyes glistening like a child on Christmas.

          His legs began to ache, and as he shifted them slightly, his foot struck an old can that lay near him. The teens turned and looked directly at him, then each other. The kneeler jerked his hand from the woman’s breast and tore off into the gloom beneath the platform, his friend not far behind.

          The boy stood abruptly, slamming his head into the planks above him, the pain dropping him to his knees. The woman turned her head toward him slowly and stared directly at him. Even from this distance and limited light he could make out the bright grey-blue of her eyes. She smiled at him, and held out a slender hand, tipped with painted pink nails, but caked in layers of dirt and filth that seemed to extend down her arm and over her tattered brown coat and faded yellow dress beneath. She was of an age that is hard for a boy of nine to discern, neither old nor young, but he guessed a few years shy of his mother.

          He rubbed his head and began to inch backwards on his knees when she spoke to him, her voice calm and stoic, and he halted his retreat. She told him her name and asked his. He told her.

          “Tell them I’m here. Tell them where I am.” She rolled her head back against the fence, unlocking her eye’s from his and closing them. She began to repeat her name again, in a softer voice, almost a whisper to herself.

          He placed a hand on the ground to push himself to his feet and felt the ground tremble beneath him. His train was approaching. He heard his name being called and looked toward the woman, but she had fallen silent. It came from above, his Mother searching for him. Gathering himself, he backed out from beneath the platform, stealing one last glance at the woman before scrambling up the steps of the platform. His Mother grabbed him by the wrist with one arm, and brushed the dirt from his trousers with the other, scolding him as he tried to steal a glance through the cracks for a flash of yellow dress.

          Jenna? It sounded right, but he remembered that had been the name of his wife’s home care nurse. She was neither remarkable nor memorable, but she had lived with them for six months. She had stayed long after the insurance had lapsed and returned a year later for the funeral, helping with the arrangements. He had told her it was unnecessary, but she had insisted, having formed a close friendship with his wife over her long illness. Jenna had bonded with Marisol immediately, his wife having done social work for the elderly for many years, and both being in their early thirties. Her brother, an accountant, had even done some pro bono work for his bankruptcy and IRS audit.

          He shut his eyes and covered his face with his hands and concentrated on the memory of the woman’s eyes. Steel grey, flecks of blue. He closed his eye’s tighter. It would not come.

          The next train appeared as a pin point of light in the distance closing in on the station. The commuter crowd on the platform inched closer to the edge, jockeying for position, the regulars knowingly moving to familiar spots where they knew the doors would open. Their movements cast intermittent flashes of light through the cracks in the platform, forming a kaleidoscope of shapes and shadows across the frozen ground below as well as the coarse blanket that covered him. He felt the rumble beneath his shoulder and opened his eyes, the chain link fence inches from his face. He saw her face then, as clearly as he had seen it that day, her lips moving, her name flowing forth. And he knew. His voice was hoarse, he had not spoken in days, weeks, but he shouted it, the screech of the braking train drowning him out, but he knew. He shouted her name again, asking her this time, pleading. Tell them. Tell them about me.