The Train to Union Station
Esther had rarely traveled more than ten miles from her home in Waterloo, Indiana, so when the Amtrak to Chicago groaned and lurched forward, her insides lurched with it. She let her purse thump to the floor and stared at the head of the young man in front of her, as a seasick woman might focus on the horizon.
From what she could gather, the man was a professional—a stockbroker maybe, or a lawyer—in the early stages of his career. It was mid-December, and his broad shoulders filled his cashmere overcoat. His hair swept from a glossy crown to a smooth-shaven neck. His shirt collar was eggshell white. Esther couldn’t see his tie, but she’d watched enough old movies to know it was silk and knotted in a V at his throat.
She closed her eyes, her stomach rocking with the train.
Esther’s fiancé Kenneth wore sweatpants in his home office every day, while his elder sister—she’d moved into the guest room after breaking a hip—criticized Esther’s cooking and fashion choices and job as a pharmacy assistant.
Esther had tolerated such treatment for years, but in the past month three things had happened in rapid succession:
She’d turned 40.
Her mother had died mid-solo during Talent Daze! at her retirement home.
Esther had seen an ad in the Tribune for a live-in nanny in Winnetka, Illinois.
With this last event, a tiny voice told her it was time to fish or cut bait.
“‘Fish or cut bait’?” Kenneth had repeated when she told him she was leaving him. “Sweetheart, have you lost your mind?”
She opened her eyes and took in her surroundings. Despite the Amtrak’s rocket-ship facade—the appearance of leaping forward even as it sat motionless—its interior was a gray hallway of cracked plastic seats and a conductor in a silly hat punching tickets. Passengers dozed, read newspapers, or soothed fussy children.
Her insides slowly calmed. People traveled all the time! Some to visit family. Some to see the sights. Some, like her, to start a new life.
The ad in the Tribune had promised “comfortable accommodations” and “two bright, active boys.” When she’d spoken with the husband and wife on the phone—a Mr. and Mrs. Glass—Mr. Glass had mentioned a tie to Chicago’s Mayor Daley, though Esther hadn’t caught if the relationship was blood or professional.
In truth, she’d caught little of the conversation after it became apparent the Glasses were actually interested. Her age was a plus, Mrs. Glass had insisted, as was the fact that she’d once worked in a daycare before a pharmacy. Their younger child had a food allergy and occasionally needed an epinephrine shot, and a “mature girl” like Esther who knew about such things was exactly what the doctor—
“S’cuse me, lady.”
The conductor was standing above her, nodding at her feet. Her purse had tipped over and spilled its contents into the aisle.
“Oh, goodness,” Esther said, her seasickness returning in a flash. “I’m so—”
“Carry-ons under the seat,” he said, moving toward the back of the car.
“Of course, of course.” Though Esther had little to take to her new situation, her suitcase was pitifully small, so she’d crammed spare underthings and toiletries into her mother’s antique purse, a yawning monstrosity like a pig sitting on its haunches.
She fell to her knees and began gathering things up, stopping when a hand plucked her mother-of-pearl tampon case from the clutter.
“Don’t forget your toothbrush,” a voice said.
Hot blood flooded Esther’s cheeks. The young man in front had bent into the aisle, his handsome face less than a foot away.
He dropped the case into her bag. “I spill stuff all the time when I travel,” he said. “You have so much to”—he rolled his eyes skyward, as if balancing a book on his head—“keep track of.”
When Esther didn’t answer he scanned the floor. “Is that everything?”
“I think so.”
“Need help getting up?”
Esther realized she was still on her knees. “Oh – ha-ha. No, I...”
He smiled and turned away.
Esther climbed into her seat and hugged the purse. From its mouth she took in the scents of pine wax and lavender her mother had used to keep the aged leather supple.
There’d been a dozen things to retrieve from the floor, but the man had chosen what he’d chosen. Yes, she was carrying her toothbrush in a tube, but it didn’t in any way resemble her tampon case, which she now pushed deeply into her purse.
She flinched as the man slapped open a newspaper. Beneath the rumble of the train, she thought she heard him chuckling.
Stop being crazy, she thought. He’d caught the noise of her bag tipping over, the conductor’s reprimand, and had leaned in to help, that was all. The case might have been for pills or tissues or any number of things.
What did a man know about the contents of a lady’s purse?
She looked out at the barren trees and boarded-up garages rushing by.
Kenneth had driven her to the station that morning and carried her suitcase to the baggage area. He’d stood so close at the ticket window that the man had said, “Is your husband traveling with you, ma’am?”
Esther had coughed and sputtered and explained that Kenneth wasn’t her husband but her fiancé except that they were now separated because she was traveling to Union Station in Chicago and then on to Winnetka for a new—
She’d flushed when she saw the man and Kenneth trading glances. “He doesn’t need to hear all that, dear,” Kenneth said, leading her where the train chuffed on the icy tracks. There he’d studied her sadly. “When this insanity becomes clear to you, Esther, I’ll be waiting at home.”
Of course he’d be waiting at home. He was always waiting at home. After his sister moved in, Kenneth had moved his business from an office in town to the den. When Esther came in at the end of her shift, she might find him at his desk, though just as likely he’d be on his sister’s bed, rubbing her feet as they watched game shows.
The old lady would throw Esther an indignant look before returning to the TV, but Kenneth would insist that she tell him about her day, her aggrieved customers, the latest FDA news.
“Just look at you,” he’d say proudly. “Out there slaying the wooly mammoth.”
His sister would sniff, and Esther would go down the hall to her and Kenneth’s bedroom, where she’d change out of her smock before starting dinner.
Kenneth’s sister belonged to a group called The Silver Sisters. Every other Saturday morning she and a half dozen “girlfriends” took the bus to the Fort Wayne mall, where they shopped, got their hair done, and had “lunch” at the Red Robin.
With the old lady safely out of the house, Kenneth would wash the breakfast dishes while Esther climbed back into bed. She’d hear him humming as he brushed his teeth, and then he’d appear in the bedroom with a towel, which he’d neatly arrange under her naked bottom. Children, they’d agreed, were impossible. Kenneth couldn’t stand noise, and the doctor had said Esther’s fibroids promised an unhappy pregnancy.
For the entirety of their five-year relationship—for the entirety of Esther’s life, in fact, as Kenneth was her first and only—he’d never once released himself inside of her.
They’d used condoms in their early days, but as Kenneth’s libido waned—he was 57, after all—the latex sheaths deadened his “plumbing down there,” so he’d taken to pulling out at the last moment, whimpering as he spilled himself into the towel.
Afterwards he’d give her a peck and take the towel to the laundry room, where she’d hear him rinse it in the sink before the washing machine kicked on.
In another hour or two his sister would come home—hair freshly blued, cheeks aglow from vodka tonics—and wonder why “her highness” was still pouting in bed.
Esther jerked from a doze. The conductor and the young man were engaged in a friendly shouting match about something called the Chicago Bears—their pathetic defense, their coach named Lovie Smith.
“Where have you gone, Mike Ditka?,” the conductor sang.
“Iron Mike has left and gone away!” the man sang back. He was sitting sideways, his left hand gripping the seatback. A Rolex watch circled his wrist. His nails were expertly manicured. His third finger had no wedding ring.
He glanced at Esther. “Oh, crap. We woke you, didn’t we?”
“It’s okay.”
The conductor wandered away, and the man—in truth, he was little more than a boy—draped his arm over the seat so his fingers nearly brushed Esther’s knees. His face was alert as a happy dog’s. His white teeth made him in his early 20s, while Esther’s had already taken on a dull patina, and Kenneth’s were positively beige.
“I gotta get Victoria a big-ass purse like that,” he said. “She’s crazy for old purses.” He jerked his chin at Esther’s lap. “Where’d you get it, anyway?”
She breathed out a syllable. “Sears.”
His eyebrows bunched into a line. “Huh, I thought Sears only carried crescent wrenches.” He laughed, then peered at her closely. “Lady, you okay?”
Esther was shivering in her thin jacket and flats. She’d brought a pair of cotton footies along, but they were somewhere in her bag, and the notion of digging them out and sliding them on while the young man watched was impossible.
“I’m just a bit chilly,” she said.
“No wonder. These cars are full of holes.” He brightened. “Hey, I got coffee in a thermos. You want some?”
“No, thank you.”
“C’mon. You look like the little matchgirl.”
Indignation tickled Esther’s gut. “I’m fine,” she said.
He shocked her by standing and taking off his cashmere coat, revealing a Chicago Bears windbreaker over his shirt and tie. He sat beside her. “C’mon,” he repeated. “Don’t be a hero.” He pulled her forward, wrapping the coat over her shoulders like a cape.
Esther squirmed and protested. “No,” she cried. “Stop it.” In an instant she and her purse were trapped in the cashmere like a pregnant woman in a straitjacket.
“Relax,” the man said. He stretched over the seatback for a thermos with a gold body and pointed metallic head. He held it up for her to see. “Know what this is? A mortar shell. My uncle brought it home from Vietnam.”
Esther watched in dumb fascination as he unscrewed the thermos lid, produced a styrofoam cup from somewhere, and began to fill it with steaming liquid. In her movies he would now dose the coffee with something called a “mickey,” before luring her into a life of careless laughter and jazz music and beds with satin sheets.
On the other hand, the train was full of witnesses and she hadn’t had any coffee that morning. She’d been too busy to brew some at home, and at the station Kenneth had been in such a snit she’d passed on getting some there.
The young man’s eyes danced as he topped off the cup. “Victoria buys our beans from her cousin in Ecuador,” he said. “Arturo or something.”
“I like coffee,” she said softly.
“Well, heck. Who doesn’t?”
“Kenneth.”
He lifted the drink to her. “Señorita, your hot beverage.”
“I can’t”—Esther struggled against the coat—“get loose.”
He reached to unfasten a button. “Who’s Kenneth?” he said.
She freed a hand from around the purse and took the cup. “My fiancé.”
“Mmmm-hmmm. And Kenneth doesn’t like coffee?”
“It gives him cold sores.”
“Ah…ha-ha. Kenneth sounds like a party.”
Esther breathed in the coffee’s heady aroma, then let loose a torrent of words as she had with the ticket man: “He doesn’t like coffee and he called my mother a diva and he clips his toenails watching TV and he keeps his socks on when we…when we…”
She looked up. The young man was gaping at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Wow, lady.” He stood so abruptly Esther’s cup upended, spilling the scalding coffee into her purse. She writhed and gasped, imagining it drenching her underwear, melting her Chapstick, fouling the leather itself. The bag’s seams were laced loosely like an old baseball glove, and in another instant her lap was soaked and burning.
If the man noticed he didn’t say so. He pulled the coat more tightly around her. “This’ll keep you warm until we land at Union Station. But wow, lady…” he said again, “I ain’t no marriage counselor.”
He fell into the seat ahead and opened his newspaper.
Esther hunched into a ball and waited for the coffee’s burning to subside. She was crushed, mortified. Kenneth was right to label her adventure insanity. She was no more capable of watching over a pair of active boys than a monkey was of learning pinochle. She turned her face to the window as the train made a long, slow turn into the city.
Her mother had lived in Chicago when she was young, a celebrated soprano in local theatre and later a Tribune columnist. But except for photos, Esther had seen the city’s skyline only once. She and Kenneth had driven for lunch to New Buffalo, Michigan, and later stood on the southeast shore of the lake.
Sixty miles across the water, Chicago’s spires shimmered, hazy as a dream.
“It’s Oz,” Esther had whispered.
“No,” Kenneth had replied, “it’s nothing like Oz. It’s the economic hub of the Midwest. It’s where men make fortunes one day and lose them the next. It’s—"
Esther had stopped listening, but it was too late. The sun on the water changed. The city disappeared.
“Aw, lady. Don’t cry,” said a voice at her ear. The young man had joined her again and was shaking a shoulder. “I was a dick just now, wasn’t I?”
Esther snaked a hand from the coat and wiped her eyes. “It’s okay. I’m just at sixes and sevens.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I’ve never been this far from home.”
“Coulda fooled me,” the man said, then slapped the side of his head. “There I go, being a dick again.”
“No. I appreciate your kindness.”
“Here”—he opened the cashmere an inch—“have a sip of your…oh, shit.” The cup’s bottom protruded whitely from Esther’s bag. “Ah, lady, look at you!” He spread the coat wide and made to lift the purse from her lap. “You’re soaked through.”
“No,” she cried. She hugged the bag to her. “That’s Mother’s.”
The man stared as though she were a fantastic creature at the zoo. “I thought it came from Sears,” he said.
“Let me be,” she whispered. “I’ll find a ladies’ room when we arrive and—”
She stopped when she remembered that the Glasses were meeting her at the station, Mrs. Glass in a red hat so Esther could spot her easily. She imagined stepping from the train and into their view—a woman on the brink of middle age, her face buffeted and tear-stained, her skirt front soaking wet.
She sank into her seat and closed her eyes. The young man’s hands fumbled about her with a hanky, making useless repairs. She felt suddenly, strangely on the verge of surrender, like the time she’d gone under anesthesia for an impacted wisdom tooth.
Rather than resist the descent into darkness, she’d given in.
The train rumbled over the earth. She rocked and swayed.
“You still there, lady?” the young man said at her ear.
“Mmmm-hmmm.” She took him in slowly. “Can you do something for me?”
“Sure. Whatever.”
She straightened and shook herself alert, the last of the coffee squelching through the purse’s seams. “I have people waiting for me at Union Station.”
“Uh-huh.”
“They’ve never seen me before.”
“Okaaayyy…”
“I’ve made a terrible mistake. I’m going back to where I came from.”
Understanding flickered on his face. He nodded. “You want us to get off the train like a couple. So your ‘people’ don’t see a lady by herself.”
“Yes. I’ll take the next train home. I’ll call them later to explain. I’ll—"
“You’ll go back to Kenneth and his cold sores,” he finished, then frowned and shrugged. “We could do that, I guess. I’m meeting Victoria.”
“Oh goodness, I don’t want to make trouble for you and your girlfriend.”
“Nah, Victoria’s a pistola, but she’ll be cool.” He showed his teeth in a silent laugh. “I mean, she won’t think you and I – I mean, she won’t…”
“She won’t think there’s anything funny going on between us?”
“Oh, hell no. Victoria gets excited, but she doesn’t get that excited.”
The whistle screamed. A garbled voice announced their destination.
“Might I ask one more thing?” Esther said.
He looked at her suspiciously. “What?”
“Would it be possible for me to wear your coat until we go our separate ways?” She glanced at her lap. “My front is drenched. I don’t want people to think I peed myself.”
“Oh, well…Victoria bought that coat for me.”
“I’ll explain everything. She’ll think better of you for being such a gentleman.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. She’ll tell your children about it one day.”
“Oh, ha-ha. Lady, we haven’t been together that long.”
“Nevertheless.”
The brakes roared. People gathered coats and newspapers and children.
The young man stood. He shrugged again. “Let’s do it. What the hell, right?”
Esther got to her feet and followed him down the aisle. Her hands were inside the coat again, cradling her mother’s purse as one might carry water in a paper bag. Other passengers began to stand, then shrank back as they caught her bulging approach. Men lowered their eyes. Women smiled shyly.
The conductor stood at the door. He tipped his hat as she passed, and in that instant the toe of one of Esther’s flats caught in the two-inch gap between train step and concrete landing. She tripped and bolted forward, hands trapped beneath the purse, and flung herself into the crowd as an armless woman might. Headlong.
People shouted and leaped aside. The young man reached for her, but Esther’s impetus was too great. She sprawled onto the platform, skirt riding up and both shoes flying. Her head bounced off the cement. She saw stars.
A chorus of voices rang out:
What the fuck, Juanito? Why’s she wearing your coat?
C’mon, babes. It’s not like that!
Are you the husband, mister?
What? No!
Did her water break? She’s soaking wet.
That’s coffee!
Somebody call 911. She’s going to have a baby right here.
Jesus, Victoria!
Jesus yourself, asshole. I’ll be in The Sunglass Hut.
Babes! Come back!
Is her name Esther? We were waiting for an Esther.
Hell, lady. I don’t know her name. She’s nobody!
A voice shouted in her ear, “Lady, tell them you’re nobody!”
Esther giggled. She hadn’t done so in so long, the sounds came out like hiccups instead of laughter, but they stilled the hubbub to a whisper. Someone tucked the coat beneath her naked bottom. Someone else laid something soft under her head.
Her giggles stopped. She nestled into the warm cashmere and took in a crosshatch of green and black shadows above her—the girded, impossibly complicated ceiling of Union Station.
She smiled dreamily, like a debutante tasting her first sip of champagne, like a diva bathed in applause, like a woman about to be soundly, gloriously fucked.
Editor’s Note
I met Bob Johnson in November 2025 at the Kentucky Book Festival in Lexington. His short story collection The Continental Divide was billed as Flannery O’Connor meets Quentin Tarantino. That got my attention, so I picked up a copy. I’m glad I did because this short story collection was my favorite book of 2025. And it went on to be longlisted for the 2026 PEN/Bingham Prize.
I couldn’t be more honored to have one of Bob’s stories as the first publication by Brown Hound Press.
___
Who of us hasn’t, like the narrator in “The Train to Union Station”, experienced the feeling that life may not be turning out the way we’d planned it? Esther leaves home not necessarily because she wants the job, or even because she wants to see Chicago. She simply needs something new. Something to break up the monotony that’s become her life, which is why the story’s ending is simultaneously so gratifying and unsettling—does Esther find what she’s seeking?
I paired this story with John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery” because of the similarities between the two narrators. Both women are unfulfilled in life. Both long for something they can’t quite name. “If dreams were lightning and thunder were desire…”
-Josh Boldt, Editor