The Endless Day

By Penny Nolte

The station is packed and no wonder. Our train is delayed because of the storm and no one knows when it will get through, that’s good news for us because otherwise we’d have missed it. The trip is my present, because I hate to fly. We are taking a sleeper car all the way from our new home out to Denver, nearly 1700 miles away, to reunite with my in-laws for the holidays. I am really looking forward to a leisurely trip, reading, knitting, napping, with freedom to roam the isles and room to eat comfortably in the dining car. Instead of dashing through airports only to ride in a literal tin can. I am happy, I can’t wait to start, and I guess we already have, so I settle down with a book. My husband sits beside me, typing happily tappity tappity tappity on his own present, a Psion pocket computer, made for travel and only the size of a trade paperback. 

Five hours pass with no train. 

“What time is it?” I wonder. 

“Ten pm.” 

“When do you think we’ll eat?” 

“Eventually, I’m sure.”

More time passes. The station’s benches would be wide enough to sleep on, except for fixed armrests inconveniently placed every two feet. Instead, people are sleeping on the floor, with travel bags as pillows and winter coats as blankets. 

I say, “We’ll be on the train and in our sleeper soon.”

“Right.”

The train pulls in twelve hours overdue. In summer the sun would be shining by now. While it is late December and could still be midnight. At last, we are on board, stowing our luggage and then finding the dining car. It is cheerfully decorated with plastic green garlands and gold ornaments that sway as we get underway. We rock gently from side to side in our booth, in time with the clackity clack of the rails. 

We are given a menu and order, then two other passengers join us. One is a woman about our age, who we learn is a music teacher traveling with her college age daughter. 

My husband has many good qualities and one I have always admired is that he can talk to anyone about anything. It may come from working in libraries since he was a teen, I don’t know, but having small talk at one’s command is a great skill, one that I am lacking in. He picks up their thread, sharing our destination and plans for our trip — visiting family, and so on. They all chat amiably while I glance around to gauge how the food service is doing. No one has their orders, yet. My, I’m hungry, and more so because I’m sleepy. Come to think of it, when was the last time I ate, at lunchtime? Yesterday? I didn’t get any sleep last night, that’s for sure. The night before, we were packing, last minute, and all excited about the trip. Not much sleep was had then. Wow, now that I think about it, I really am tired. I look at the others. They all seem fine. My husband has launched into a new story and this one mentions Ohio. It prompts the question. 

“Where were you from in Ohio?”

“Akron,” he says. 

“Oh, we were from outside of Akron.” 

“Well, so were we, really, Cuyahoga Falls.” 

“Oh, we were from Cuyahoga Falls, too, what did you say your name was again?” And then, “Are you Joe’s brother?” 

I’m watching this unfold as if in a dream, which may have been truer than not for me at that point. Where is the food? The menu itself is beginning to look tasty. 

“I was Joe’s music partner! He was such a nice kid, good cellist too, with a good ear.” 

“Oh yes, I’ve heard about you!”

My husband turns to me, “Isn’t this just amazing?” I smile, while feeling like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors that says, “Feed me.” He turns back to the mother and daughter. 

“Did he keep up with his music?”

“No, but he still really likes music. And our other brother is a jazz pianist.”

Talk of Albert, then, his music and studies. I’m not unsympathetic to the conversation, I love my husband and his stories, and my in-laws. However, I have not slept since who knows how long or eaten since forever. I dream of the cheese sandwich that is coming, and then stealthily check the corners of my mouth to see if I’m drooling. Next, I languorously support my chin in one hand, like a Modigliani model. 

“No elbows on the table!” I can hear my Grandfather’s voice. Sorry Grandpa, I know, but this is an emergency. 

The conversation continues. “Well, Joe did become a great swimmer, the new school had a pool and, bla bla bla bla.” I’m sorry, I want to show interest, to sit up straight with shining eyes like our companions. Instead, I put the first one and then both arms across the table and lay my head down on them. Ah that’s better. 

I hear myself saying, “I can’t take this.”

The mother sympathizes, “Of course, we’ve all had a long day.” I know this is real sympathy. Still, I imagine a little rebuke. Something like, “We’ve all had a long day and yet we are able to sit up like human beings and hold a civil conversation.” I don’t say anything else, while the train rocks and clackety clacks.

After that I’m not too clear. I don’t remember eating the sandwich.

I do become aware of the daylight. My husband is sitting beside me in the dining car, still typing away on his Psion tappity tappity tappity. 

“Where are we?”

“You’re awake, great. We are just leaving Ohio.”

“Where are your friends from last night?”

“They got off, they were going to Oberlin, remember?”

“Not really. I don’t really remember them well.”

He’s chuckling, “That’s ok, I think they will remember you.”

Penny Nolte, from Montpelier, Vermont, is an author and educator creating gentle narratives of family and place. After a decades-long break from storytelling, her new work is beginning to appear in literary magazines including The Avalon Literary Review, Fall 2024 and Fireflies’ Light, Spring 2025.