The Last Train to Somewhere

At eleven forty-three, the last passenger left a blue suitcase beneath the departure board. Mara called after him. He kept walking, his coat flashing between the columns, until the station swallowed him.

Inside was no clothing. There were six photographs, a brass key and a ticket for a station that had closed before Mara was born. The date was tomorrow. On the back, someone had written her mother's name.

Mara's mother had never traveled. That was what she always said. Yet the youngest woman in the first photograph wore the silver bracelet now sitting in Mara's kitchen drawer.

The night guard looked at the ticket and stopped polishing his glasses. "Don't open that station alone," he said. Then, after a long silence: "I can get my coat."