The Pause

Mommy, can we get rice balls before we get on the train?

Good idea. I’m hungry too.

Alice checked Google Maps.

This way.

She looked at Angela’s thin sweatshirt and wondered if she should have made her bring the hooded jacket. Too late now. Their shadows stretched long in front of them. They seemed to be having fun, she thought.

There. That’s the store. Let’s hope they still have good ones left.

I want a plain one.

I’m not sure they make plain ones. Your father used to make that just for you.

I don’t miss him, but I miss his rice balls.

Alice pulled open the heavy glass door and let Angela go in first.

Look. They still have a lot.

I can’t see.

Angela rose onto her toes to look at the rice balls lined up on top of the refrigerated display case.

No plain ones. How about tuna?

I want the shrimp one.

Alice took two and went to the cashier.

Angela stood staring at the Japanese man behind the sushi counter. When he looked back at her, she turned away and came to take Alice’s hand.

Let’s go. We should catch the train.

Empire Service to Albany, departing in twenty minutes. Perfect.

They moved with the restless commuters heading home and boarded with the crowd. Alice became more forceful in these situations when Angela was with her. They found the first open pair of seats on the river side.

What happened to Grandma, anyway?

She fell in the shower.

How is she now?

She’s okay. It was just scary. So be gentle with her, okay?

Okay.

The train started moving without any fanfare. Angela looked at the brown paper bag on her lap.

Go ahead. Have one.

Angela took out a rice ball and struggled with the plastic.

Wait.

Alice took it from her and showed her how to unwrap it.

A chubby conductor with white hair came by to check their tickets.

Good. Now we can relax.

What happens if we get on the wrong train?

Then we get off at the next stop and go back.

What happens if you pull that emergency thing?

I think the engineer stops the train.

Has that ever happened to you?

No. But one time, maybe fifteen years ago, before I met your dad, this same train stopped between stations without saying why. It slowed down so gradually that at first I thought it was nothing. Just one of those routine stops. But it was dark, and there were only trees outside. No houses. No cars. It was the last train of the night. There were maybe five people in my car. For the first few minutes, nobody said anything. The man across from me stood up and looked at me like, What the hell is this. I shrugged.

What happened?

I never really found out. Eventually the conductor told us the engineer was gone. A crew member had gone up to the front and found nobody there. The police came later.

Was it scary?

Not really. Strange. I ended up talking to a man in my car.

What happened?

Alice was quiet for a moment.

His name was John. He had a panic attack.

How do you know his name?

I got to know him.

Alice looked out the window for a moment, then back at Angela.

The conductor’s name was Gus. After maybe half an hour, John started getting agitated. He kept standing up and sitting down, checking his phone, looking around. A few times he looked at me as if I might know something. I thought he might be panicking, but I didn’t want to get involved. I was burnt out then. I didn’t want to be the person who steps in.

What happened?

His breathing changed. You could hear it. Then he got up and went to the vestibule and tried to open the door. Gus saw him from the next car and ran after him. John was trying to get off the train.

Why?

He was panicking. Sometimes people feel like if they don’t get out immediately, something terrible will happen.

Did it happen?

No.

Alice adjusted the paper napkin on Angela’s lap.

Gus was trying to stop him, and I thought, all right. I know this scene. So I told him to sit down on the floor and breathe. I crouched beside him and told him it would pass. After a while, it did. Then I moved him back into the car and we sat in those seats at the front that face each other. Gus thanked me. The three of us exchanged names, and then he went back to work and said he’d check on us later.

Was John embarrassed?

He kept saying sorry.

What did you say?

That I was a social worker and I was used to it.

Sorry.

Don’t worry. I’m a social worker. I’m used to it.

They sat across from each other on the diagonal, Alice by the window. The car had gone quiet. A few passengers were still watching them, but once they saw John sitting down and breathing normally again, they settled back into themselves. The lights had been dimmed halfway. Probably to conserve power. Moonlight flashed now and then between the trees and off the river, but not enough to make anything out clearly. So far all they had been told was that there were “crew issues.” It was only when they saw police outside with flashlights moving along the train that the situation began to feel less ordinary. A little later Gus came through and told the car they were not in danger, that there had been an incident with the engineer, and that another engineer was on the way.

Where are you headed? Alice asked.

Peekskill.

I’m going to Cold Spring. Do you live there?

Yeah. I commute into the city.

Me too. What do you do?

He did not answer right away.

Sorry. You don’t have to answer that.

No, it’s fine. I just hate that question.

Why?

I work for a debt collection agency.

You call people and ask for money?

No. Thankfully not. I look at delinquent accounts and try to figure out who might be able to pay and who we should stop pursuing.

How did you end up doing that?

I studied business in college. The first job I got was with a collection agency, and somehow that became my specialty. Fifteen years later, I’m still there.

Did you want to do something else?

When I was applying to college, I thought maybe I should study something creative. My parents shut that down immediately. I didn’t fight them. It wasn’t like I had some great talent I needed to protect.

What did you want to do?

I didn’t know. That was the problem. So I thought, if I don’t know, I might as well choose the practical thing.

And you still don’t know.

No.

He looked toward the dark window.

I just have this feeling that I should be doing something else. I have no idea what. When people ask me what I do, I feel like I’m describing somebody else. Somebody I got stuck being. My heart isn’t in it, so I’m not even especially good at it. I envy people who seem to know what they want and then just go after it. I feel trapped, but nothing is actually stopping me from leaving.

Alice looked at him.

That sounds difficult.

Your work must be fulfilling.

It should be.

But it isn’t?

Alice did not answer immediately.

In high school, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. It sounds cliché now, but after I learned about colonialism, I got angry. Angry in that pure teenage way where everything suddenly looks rotten and you can’t believe other people are walking around as if it’s normal. So social work made perfect sense to me. I studied it in college, then went straight into an MSW. After that I got a job at a settlement house for immigrants and became one of their in-house therapists. They don’t pay enough to live on, so ten years later I’m still commuting from my mother’s house.

What happened to your dad?

My parents got divorced when I was in high school. It came out of nowhere. One night they sat me down, and I thought they were going to explain something. But it wasn’t an explanation. They just told me he was leaving. They were both professors. On paper we were one of those calm, educated families that seemed to have everything arranged in the right order. Then suddenly it was obvious they had another life I knew nothing about, hidden inside that marriage. My father moved to Philadelphia. We spoke on the phone once in a while. My mother fell into a depression and took a sabbatical, which didn’t seem to help. We barely spoke either. I started cooking for myself and eating in my room, so when I moved into a dorm it hardly felt like a transition.

My parents are still married, but I barely talk to them. So maybe we were both ahead of schedule.

Maybe.

She looked out the window.

Anyway, ten years later, I couldn’t honestly tell you whether any of what I do has changed anything. When I first started at the agency, I saw all these obvious problems and thought they could be fixed. I thought if people just cared enough, they would fix them. But the older people there had already settled into their roles. They needed the clients almost as much as the clients needed them.

What do you mean?

I mean the whole place runs on the existence of helpless people. That’s not the official mission, obviously. Officially we’re there to help. But institutions are like that. After a while they start preserving themselves. Everything else becomes secondary.

Even therapy?

Especially therapy.

She gave a short laugh without smiling.

If you sat in on one of my sessions, it would probably look absurd. People come in because someone told them to. Most of them don’t know why they’re there. Since they’re not paying, they don’t care in the way private patients care. And I was naïve. I thought I would be meeting people in pain and helping them name it. But sometimes the distance is so large that the whole idea of “therapy” starts to feel fake.

Like what?

There was a woman who used to come in barefoot. One day I asked her why. She said her husband didn’t want her going out, so he wouldn’t buy her shoes. Her English was very poor. I kept trying to understand what exactly was happening in that house, and I couldn’t. I was probably more useful to her as an ESL teacher than as a therapist.

John was quiet.

I don’t think anyone at that agency could clearly tell you what we are doing. If we could say it plainly, maybe we could decide whether we were doing it well. But we can’t, so we do what institutions do. We keep going. We sustain ourselves. We hit the numbers we need to hit for funding. That part is always clear. The rest isn’t.

So when I asked if your work was fulfilling—

That’s the problem. It should be. If I describe it to someone, it sounds meaningful. Maybe it even is meaningful. But from inside it, I can’t tell anymore.

They remained silent for a while. One of the passengers was snoring. The calm in the car was strange. It did not match the situation.

Gus came into the car again and stopped by John.

How are you feeling?

I feel fine now. Thank you. Sorry about before.

Don’t worry. It happens.

He glanced down the dark car.

Might be a long night. They’re having trouble finding an engineer. It’s too late. They’re probably all asleep.

Can’t one of you just drive it? John asked.

No. We’re not engineers.

Any idea what happened to ours? Alice asked.

Not really. Could be alien abduction. Could be he felt like taking a walk. Who knows.

Weird.

There’s a signal up ahead we used to get stuck at all the time, Gus said. That was years ago. So when we stopped, I thought maybe it was that.

How long have you worked for Amtrak? John asked.

Forty-some years.

Wow.

My dad was a conductor too. I started right after high school.

You like trains? John asked.

Not especially. I’m not one of those train people, if that’s what you mean.

So you did it because your father did it.

Yeah.

Did you ever want to do something else?

Why?

I don’t know. Didn’t you ever want to become someone else?

No.

I grew up hearing about trains. My father worked on them. Then I did.

Do you have kids? Alice asked.

A son.

Is he with Amtrak too?

Yeah. Corporate office. Down in D.C. — What about you? What do you do? Gus asked John.

John turned to Alice.

I work for a debt collection agency.

Oh. You’re one of them.

Why? You have debts?

Not me. My brother does.

Gus shrugged.

Don’t worry. I’m not judging you. Everybody’s got to do something.

Gus moved along to check on other passengers.

Maybe I should be more like him, John said.

Why?

I don’t know. Maybe I think too much.

You think he doesn’t think?

I have no idea.

Alice watched Gus disappear into the next car.

One thing my job has taught me is that everybody has something. Some private way of being miserable. Therapists too. People think therapists know what they’re doing. We usually just know how to name things a little better. Sometimes I feel like an impostor. Then I look around and think maybe everybody is one.

What’s your issue?

You don’t want to hear about my issue.

I do. It might make me feel better about mine.

Alice laughed.

That’s probably true.

Tell me.

I get angry.

You?

Yes, me.

You seem like the last person who’d say that.

That’s because I don’t usually say it.

You hide it well.

I have practice. I talk about it with my therapist.

You have a therapist too?

Yeah. A lot of therapists do.

I never think about that.

Most people don’t.

That must be strange.

It is. There’s always this feeling that we can both hear what I’m not saying.

So what do you talk about?

Alice was quiet for a moment.

For a long time I thought I was depressed. That was the word I used. My therapist thought anger made more sense. At first I resisted that. I thought, no, I’m not angry, I’m disappointed. Or exhausted. Or ashamed. But anger is closer.

About what?

Everything. The world, mostly. News stories. War. Exploitation. People acting like terrible things are normal. People not reacting at all. I used to think: how are you not angry?

And now?

Now I think the anger likes to stay large and abstract. It’s easier there. The closer I get to an actual situation, the blurrier it becomes. The people I think are on my side start feeling intolerable to me, and I know I probably become intolerable to them too. Everything gets smaller and meaner and more confusing. Then I get disillusioned. Then I get low. Then the whole thing starts again.

John looked at her.

That sounds exhausting.

It is.

At least you’re trying to do something. I don’t even know what I should be trying to do. That’s the problem. Time keeps passing around me and I can’t stop it long enough to think. And even when I do think, things keep changing while I’m thinking about them.

Alice looked out at the black window.

That’s interesting. I think I have the opposite feeling. The world around me feels frozen, and I’m the one forced to keep moving. Like I’m pushing something huge that won’t move, and somehow I’m the one getting tired.

She pulled her legs up onto the seat across from her and leaned back. After a moment, John did the same.

When was your first panic attack? she asked.

A few years ago. During an MRI. I had to crawl out in the middle of it.

That happens.

I didn’t know what it was then. The second time was on a plane. That’s when I realized the MRI had been one too.

Do you know what sets it off?

At first I thought it was claustrophobia. But then I realized it can happen in a big space too. Like here. So I don’t think it’s really about space.

What is it about, then?

Being trapped. It doesn’t even have to be a place. It can be a situation. If I feel there’s no way out, or no way to interrupt what’s happening, I start to panic.

So it could happen anywhere.

Probably.

He looked at her.

Do you ever get that? Maybe not panic exactly. But that feeling that you’re trapped?

Alice thought about it.

Not trapped.

What then?

Stuck, maybe. I get caught on certain thoughts and can’t get past them.

That’s different?

I think so.

Do you have an example?

I got into a fight with a friend recently about the war in Iraq. She was for it.

For it?

Yes. Completely for it. I couldn’t believe it. To me it’s just bullying. We’re bigger, so we decide we can do whatever we want to smaller countries. Then we come up with reasons afterward.

So you fought.

It turned into a screaming match. I haven’t spoken to her since. For days afterward I kept replaying it in my head, thinking of what else I should have said. I knew I should let it go. I couldn’t.

That happens to me too. Not about politics. But the replaying.

You don’t feel angry about the war?

Honestly? No.

Are you for it or against it?

Neither.

Alice looked at him.

Neither?

I feel like both sides probably have their reasons.

She turned toward the window.

Did I just annoy you?

A little.

Because I said I don’t know?

Because I don’t believe you don’t know.

What do you mean?

I think you do know. I think you just don’t trust yourself enough to say it. Or you say you don’t know because then you don’t have to do anything.

I do think about it. I’m not trying to avoid thinking. I just don’t think I can fully understand other people’s reasons. So I hesitate. I assume there’s something I’m missing.

And while you hesitate, time passes.

Yes.

That’s probably why you fail to act, and the time just passes you by.

John almost reacted, then stopped himself. He turned toward the window too. Because other people in the car were sleeping, he lowered his voice.

You said earlier that when you get close to something, it starts to blur. That happens to me too. Is that different?

Alice sat with the question for a while.

Maybe not.

Then what’s the difference?

I still think not doing anything is a cop-out.

Even if the result is the same?

Maybe.

But your way is more meaningful?

I didn’t say that.

You meant it.

Alice said nothing.

John kept his voice low.

I’m serious. If I hesitate because I don’t trust my own judgment, and you act even though everything gets blurry the moment you get close to it, are those really so different?

Yes.

Why?

Because one of them is still action.

That’s it?

That’s not nothing.

He looked at her.

We also get wars because people care enough to act.

That’s cheap.

Is it?

Yes. It is. You turn doubt into innocence. It absolves you from having to act.

After a pause.

And you turn conviction into certainty because uncertainty terrifies you.

The silence in the car seemed to deepen around them.

So quiet, John said. We’re so used to trains sounding like they know where they are going.

Yeah, Alice said. What’s supposed to be moving isn’t moving. It makes everything feel wrong.

Like the train lost its purpose.

Or forgot it.

How long were you stuck? Angela asked.

About six hours. By the time it started moving, the sky was getting lighter.

What happened to him?

He got off at Peekskill.

You didn’t keep in touch?

No.

Alice looked at the scratched window.

He got off like a stranger. Which he was. I don’t think either of us knew how two people were supposed to part after something like that.