A CORNER OF THE BLACK MOVIE PROJECTOR CUTOUT WAS coming loose from Sarah Tolley’s apartment door, and Laura pressed it back into place before ringing the bell. She could hear the television set blaring, and it was a moment before Sarah opened the door.

“Hi.” Laura smiled.

Sarah smiled as well, although Laura knew from the blank look in her eyes that on this, Laura’s third visit, Sarah was still not certain who she was.

“Is today the walk day?” Sarah asked.

“Yes,” Laura said, pleased Sarah was able to make that connection. “I’m Laura, do you remember? I took you for a walk last week, and thought I’d see if you wanted to go for another one.” Maybe she should try to come on the same day each week so Sarah would have something to look forward to.

“Yes, very much.” Sarah stepped back to let Laura into the living room. “I remember you,” she said. “You had a picture of a man.”

“My father. Right. And I have some very old pictures of him with me, in case you might be able to recognize him from long ago.”

Sarah walked over to the sofa to turn off the TV with the remote, then returned to Laura’s side. She took the pictures from Laura’s hand, holding them in the light, squinting and frowning and shaking her head. Her frustration at not being able to place the man in the photographs was obvious, and Laura wished she hadn’t brought them.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, slipping the pictures back into her purse. She noticed that Sarah’s skirt was on inside out. “Let’s fix your skirt,” she said, “and then we can go for our walk.”

“My skirt?” Sarah looked down at the pale fabric. “Oh, is it wrong side out?”

“Yes. Can I help you with it?”

Sarah struggled with the zipper, and Laura lowered it for her, wondering how Sarah had ever gotten the skirt on this way in the first place. She slipped the skirt down over Sarah’s narrow hips and lacy white slip, and up again, right side out this time.

“There,” she said, “and I see you’ve got good walking shoes on today, so we’re all set.”

“I’ve been putting these shoes on every day in case the girl comes…you come to take me out,” Sarah said, and Laura’s heart tightened in her chest. Sarah had been waiting for her. She should have come sooner.

Outside the retirement home, they began strolling down the sidewalk.

“Where is your family?” Sarah asked, surprising Laura with a question about herself.

“Well, my husband died,” Laura said.

“Oh. Mine did, too.”

“The man in the photograph in your apartment?”

“Yes. At least I think he died.”

Laura was jarred by Sarah’s inability to remember such a crucial fact.

“I have a little daughter, though,” Laura said. “Her name is Emma.”

“Emma. How old is she?”

“She’s five.”

“She must miss her daddy.”

“Yes, actually, she does.” There was a moment of silence while Laura pondered the lucidity of Sarah’s comment. “My husband, who died, was not her real father,” she said, wondering if Sarah would be able to follow her. “Her real father doesn’t know he’s her father. I’ve been trying to talk to him to see if he might want to be involved with her.” She shook her head with a laugh. “It’s pretty complicated.” The explanation made little sense even to her. She imagined she’d lost Sarah sometime during the first sentence.

“So, what does he say?” Sarah asked. “The real father?”

“Well, I spoke to him on the phone and he wasn’t interested in meeting her. So then, yesterday, I went up in a hot air balloon with…this is confusing.”

“You went up in one of those balloons?” Sarah looked at the sky as though she might see a hot air balloon floating above them.

“Yes. He owns…he gives people rides in a hot air balloon. So, since he didn’t want to talk to me, I pretended to be someone else and made a reservation to go up in his balloon with him. When I was up in the air with him, I told him who I was and tried to show him a picture of his daughter—Emma—but he was angry and landed the balloon and that was the end of that.”

“Shame on you,” Sarah said.

“Shame on me?” Laura asked, surprised.

“Yes. You tricked him. You weren’t honest with him. About something as important as his child.”

Laura actually flinched at the reprimand. “I didn’t know what else to do. Believe me, I wish I could take back that balloon ride.”

“Well, now you’ll apologize to him, won’t you?”

“I figure I’d better just forget about him.” She was beginning to think Sarah was more lucid than she was herself. But then the older woman stopped walking and looked around her.

“Are we on a ship or land?” she asked. “Sometimes I just can’t remember.”

“We’re on land,” Laura said, putting her hand gently on the older woman’s back. “See? See the trees?”

“Oh, yes.” Sarah looked at the sky again. “The first time I ever saw one of those hot air balloons, I was on a train,” she said.

“On a train?”

“Yes,” she said. “I was a stranger on a train.”

Sarah, 1955

“Look!” The little boy pressed his face against the train window, pointing toward something in the distance. The blond woman sitting with him followed his gaze.

“Oh, yes!” she said. “A hot air balloon. Why, there are two of them!”

Sarah sat across the aisle from the little boy and the woman she supposed was his mother, and could not help but overhear their excited conversation. Leaning forward in her own seat, she looked past them out the window. In the distance, she could see the two balloons, one yellow, the other blue, floating against the sunset. The sight nearly took her breath away.

“There are three, actually,” said a man sitting a few rows behind the woman and boy.

Sarah couldn’t resist changing seats now, moving across the aisle to give herself a better view. She took the empty seat in front of the man.

There were only the four of them in this car: the woman and boy, the gentleman who had spotted the third balloon, and herself. The gentleman had walked past her when he boarded the train in Philadelphia, and she couldn’t help but notice him because he bore a striking resemblance to Jimmy Stewart. He was in his mid-twenties, tall and lanky, kind-faced, and just shy of handsome. Sarah was on her way home to Washington after visiting family in Bayonne, where she and her cousins had seen Rear Window. She’d wondered if the Jimmy Stewart man’s voice would be like the actor’s. It was not. Instead, this man’s voice was deep and sure.

“See there?” The man leaned over the back of her seat and pointed a little to the north.

“Oh, yes!” she said as she spotted the third balloon. This one was purple and white, the colors of the sunset, and it nearly blended in with the sky. “It must be wonderful to be up in one of them.”

“Yes, I think it would be,” the man said, taking his seat again. She heard him open his newspaper, and she went back to reading her book, glancing out the window at the balloons until they disappeared from sight.

The sky had grown quite dark and Sarah was lost in her book when the car in which they were riding suddenly lurched wildly to the left. The little boy let out a yelp.

“What the…?” the Jimmy Stewart man said, but before he could even finish his sentence, the car lurched again, this time to the right, with an ear-splitting screech of brakes. Sarah felt the unmistakable jolt of the train jumping the tracks, and in an instant she and her fellow passengers were tumbling through the car, banging into seats and being pummeled by falling luggage. Sarah fell headfirst into the seat across the aisle. The man’s newspaper flew past her face, followed by the little boy’s toy truck. She tried to scream, but the sound caught in her throat. The lights in the car flickered several times before shutting off altogether, plunging them into darkness.

It was over in mere seconds. There was just enough light coming from outside the train window for Sarah to know they had landed upside down. She was sprawled on the ceiling of the car—now the floor—her skirt hiked up above her garters and her shoes missing.

“Is everyone all right?” the man asked. His voice came from somewhere behind her.

Sarah tugged her skirt down and tried to sit up, slowly, testing her limbs for breaks and sprains. “I think so,” she said.

“Donny?” the woman, crumpled in one corner of the car, called out.

“I can’t get out.” The little boy’s voice came from someplace near Sarah.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” The man started toward the woman.

“Yes.” The woman stood upright, balancing carefully on the ceiling of the car. “But the boy. Donny, where are you?”

“He’s here.” Sarah got to her knees. In the dim light, she could see that the little boy was trapped between the luggage rack and the crushed ceiling of the car. “Are you all right, sweetheart?” she asked.

The woman and man awkwardly made their way toward Sarah and the boy.

“Oh, Donny,” the woman said. “Are you hurt, dear? Can you get out of there?”

The boy was crying. It was too dark to see if he was injured.

“I can’t get out,” Donny whimpered. “I want to get out!”

“We’ll get you out, son,” said the man. He tugged on the luggage rack, but it was immovable.

The boy let out a wail. “I’m scared!” he cried.

“You’ll be fine, darling,” soothed the woman.

“We need something to prop under here,” the man said.

Sarah remembered seeing her suitcase fly across the car. On her hands and knees, she clambered across the ceiling until she found it and dragged it back to the man.

“Perfect,” he said.

With her help, he began the slow process of lifting the luggage rack, wedging the suitcase between it and the ceiling, and moving it closer and closer to the boy to widen the space in which he was trapped.

“Was it the b-bomb?” Donny asked.

“No, dear,” the blond woman said. Under her breath, she spoke to Sarah and the man. “Someone told him the Communists are going to drop a bomb on us,” she said. “He’s always afraid.”

He’s not the only one, Sarah thought. Three families in her neighborhood had built bomb shelters in their backyards.

“Donny,” the woman said, holding the little boy’s hand. “Remember those beautiful hot air balloons? Let’s imagine we’re up in one of them right now. Okay?”

What a brilliant idea, Sarah thought in admiration.

“But we’re not,” Donny said, tears in his voice.

“You’re good at pretending, though, aren’t you?” the woman said. “Let’s pretend we’re up there instead of down here. We’re floating on air. The sun is setting around us and the colors are magnificent. What can you see from up there?” The woman’s voice was so soothing that Sarah actually felt a sense of calm surround her as she and the man worked to free the little boy.

“I see my new h-house,” the boy said.

“Yes!” said the woman. “And do you see your new family? What do they look like?”

“Little, from way up here.”

The woman laughed at that, and there was relief in the sound. The boy could still make a joke.

“There,” said the man, finally getting the suitcase in as far as it would go.

“Can you get out, Donny?” Sarah asked. “Move very slowly.” If he had any injuries, she did not want them to be made worse.

It took a minute for him to slide from the confining space into the woman’s arms. From her comments about the little boy’s “new family,” Sarah figured she was not his mother, after all. But she certainly was relieved to have the child safe in her embrace. She wept, holding on to him, and Sarah put her arm around her.

“I’m a nurse,” Sarah said. “Let’s make sure he’s all right, shall we?”

“Oh, yes, thank you.”

The faint light made examining him difficult, but Donny appeared to have come through the ordeal unscathed, at least physically. As Sarah examined the boy, the man tried the doors at either end of the car.

“They’re jammed shut, both of them,” he called to the women.

In the distance, Sarah heard the wail of sirens. Moments later, the world outside the train filled with light from ambulances and police cars. The four passengers in the overturned car could now see the rest of the train. Most of the cars were lying on their sides; a few had landed upside down as theirs had. A couple of cars looked as though they had been crushed, and one was split in two. The scene was horrific, and the woman tucked the little boy’s head into her shoulder so he would not have to see.

“What a disaster!” the man said. He pulled a pen and pad from his pocket and began to write something down.

Outside one of the windows, a man in fire-fighting gear suddenly appeared, knocking on the splintered glass. “Any serious injuries in there?” he asked.

“No,” said the Jimmy Stewart look-alike. “We’re all right.”

“Can you wait there for a bit, then?” the rescuer asked. “We have some very serious injuries to deal with in a few of the other cars. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.”

“That’s all right,” said the man. As the rescuer walked away, he turned to the women, now illuminated by the headlights from one of the ambulances. “I hope you don’t mind. He said there are severe injuries up ahead, and we’re all right, for the most part.”

“We’re safe.” The blond woman sat on top of the luggage rack with the little boy curled in her arms. “We can wait it out.”

Sarah sat down next to the woman, looking the boy over more carefully now that they had more light. He appeared to be fine, his face tear-streaked and sleepy.

“Well.” The man lowered himself to the luggage rack opposite them. “My name is Joe Tolley. I’m a reporter for the Washington Post.” That explained the notepad that was now balanced on his knee, his pen poised above it. “And where are you ladies traveling to?”

“To Washington,” Sarah said. “I’ve been visiting family in New Jersey, but I live in the District.”

“With your husband?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

“No,” Sarah laughed. “Not that it’s any of your business. I work at Mercy Hospital. I’m a nurse. My name’s Sarah.”

“And my name’s Ann, and I’m a social worker,” the woman with the boy said. She pressed her lips to the sleeping child’s forehead. “I’m taking this little fellow to his new adoptive parents in Virginia. He’s been through so much, and now this.”

Tears rested in the woman’s eyes, and Sarah touched her arm. She was impressed by Ann’s caring nature.

“How do you do the sort of work you do when you care so deeply?” she asked. “You’re more upset than he is over what just happened to him.”

Ann smiled. “It’s a problem for me,” she said. “I’ve only been at it a few months, and my supervisor says I’m not cut out for this sort of work. I get over-involved with all the children.”

“If you ask me, you’re the type who should be doing that work,” Joe Tolley said. “The people who work with children damn well better care about them.”

“But it makes it too hard for Ann,” Sarah said. “It’s too hard for the caretakers if they feel every little ounce of pain the children feel.”

Ann nodded. “You’re right. You’re a nurse, you said? You must understand, then.”

Outside, men’s voices filled the air. One of the ambulances took off, sirens blaring.

“I’m a psychiatric nurse,” Sarah said. “And you’re right. It’s terribly easy to get pulled into every patient you see. You have to be careful to maintain some objectivity or else you’ll be of no help to them.”

“You sound like my supervisor,” Ann said.

“I don’t know.” Joe’s gaze was on the child. “I think little Donny here is mighty lucky he has Ann making this trip with him instead of some cold old prune who doesn’t really care what happens to him.”

“Well, my supervisor says my problem is that I have no children of my own and I try to make up for it through these little guys.” Ann nodded toward Donny, asleep in her lap.

“Are you married?” Sarah asked her.

“No. And I’m already thirty-four.” She whispered the age as though telling a dirty little secret. She was only two years older than Sarah. The difference between Ann and Sarah was that Ann thought she would get married one day. Sarah had no such illusions.

“What is it like, working with mentally ill patients?” Joe asked Sarah.

“Difficult. Rewarding. Challenging. Wonderful.”

Joe laughed. “All of the above, huh? Are any of them dangerous?”

“Some.”

“Aren’t you frightened?” he asked. “Repulsed at times?”

“No. I think about why they are the way they are. How they were raised. How they may have been unfortunate in their lives. I try to figure out what happened to them that left them so scarred and unable to cope. Then it’s easy to feel compassion for them.”

He was smiling at her, a smile that softened his eyes and made her feel suddenly shy.

“So you work at the Post?” she asked, anxious to get the attention off herself.

“Yes, I got lucky,” he said. “I worked for a few smaller papers but landed this job last year.”

“What sort of things do you write?” Ann asked.

“Some editorial columns. Some news stories. An occasional theater critique. That’s my favorite thing to write, actually.”

“Oh, have you seen Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?” Sarah asked, sitting forward on the luggage rack. “I’m dying to see it.”

“Yes, I’ve seen it, and you really mustn’t miss it,” he said.

“I saw Inherit the Wind last year,” Sarah said. “It was so powerful.”

“I can tell you like the same sort of play I do,” Joe said. There was that smile again, bringing heat to her cheeks.

“Do you have an article you consider your best?” she asked. “A favorite?”

“I don’t think I actually have a favorite,” he said. “What I like to do, though, is take an unusual angle. I like to write about the human side of a story. I’m not as keen on the facts. That’s why I like editorials. It’s hard for me to keep my opinion out of what I write.”

The three adults continued talking while Donny slept. It was odd how close you could come to feel to other people in the space of a couple of hours, Sarah thought. She felt as though she’d known Ann and Joe most of her life, and she liked them both. She actually felt as though she loved them, although that was ludicrous. Still, their warmth and their humanity touched her, and when the rescuers finally broke into their car and freed them, she felt an odd sense of loss at the realization that she and her companions would now be going their separate ways.

Before they parted, they used pages from Joe’s notepad to write down their names and addresses for one another, and they exchanged heartfelt embraces as they walked toward separate ambulances.

Sarah was still thinking of her fellow travelers two days later, when she read Joe Tolley’s editorial about the accident in the Washington Post. He wrote about strangers becoming friends through adversity, about three adults and a child drawn together by accident, touching one another with concern and respect, and leaving the scene with “genuine affection for strangers on a train.”

“Would that all our contacts with one another were marked by such a sense of urgency, such a safe and necessary intimacy,” he’d written. “It would be a better world.”

 

Laura drove home to Lake Ashton from Meadow Wood Village, her mind still in the upside-down car of the ill-fated train. Sarah was a natural storyteller. She’d described the wreck so vividly that Laura had been able to visualize the scene with ease.

At the edge of the forest surrounding the lake, Laura stopped by the row of mailboxes to pick up her mail. There wasn’t much, and she sat in her car and opened the only piece of mail that didn’t look like a bill. It was a long white envelope, her name typed on the front. Inside was a sheet of white paper bearing one short typewritten line: Leave Sarah Tolley alone.

Laura turned the paper over, but it was blank on the other side, and the envelope bore no return address other than a Philadelphia postmark. A chill ran up her spine. Who would send this to her? And why?

She stared at the note, brow furrowed, for more than a minute. This was crazy. Annoyed, she tossed the piece of paper onto the passenger seat and drove through the forest toward her house. Whoever had sent the note was out of luck. They were too late. She already felt genuine affection for this particular stranger, and she wasn’t about to let her be lonely again.