The Fall

Nora clasped her mother’s arm and pulled her back through the crowd, ignoring the grunts and insults. Zack was on tiptoes, looking for them. Nora said nothing to him, not wanting to break down in front of the boy. But this was too much. Everybody has a breaking point. Nora was fast approaching hers.

How proud her mother had been of her daughter, first a chemistry major at Fordham, then medical school with a specialty in biochem at Johns Hopkins. Nora saw now that her mother must have assumed she had it made. A rich doctor for a daughter. But Nora’s interest had been public health, not internal medicine or pediatrics. Looking back now, she thought that growing up in the shadow of Three Mile Island had shaped her life more than she had realized. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paid government grade, a far cry from the healthy income potential of many of her peers. But she was young-there was time to serve now and earn later.

Then her mother got lost one day on the way to the grocery store. Having trouble tying her shoes, turning on the oven and walking away. Now conversing with the dead. The Alzheimer’s diagnosis prompted Nora to give up her own apartment, in order to care for her declining mother. She had been putting off finding a suitable long-term care facility for her, mainly because she still did not know how she could afford it.

Zack noticed Nora’s distress but left her alone, sensing that she did not want to discuss it. He disappeared back beneath his earbuds.

Then suddenly, hours after it was scheduled, the track number for their train finally flipped over on the big board, announcing the train’s approach. A mad rush ensued. Shoving and yelling, stiff-arming, name-calling. Nora gathered up their bags and hooked her mother’s arm and hollered at Zack to move.

It got uglier still when the Amtrak official at the top of the narrow escalator leading down to the track said the train wasn’t ready yet. Nora found herself near the rear of the angry crowd-so far back, she wasn’t sure they would make it onto the train, even with paid tickets.

And so, Nora did something she had promised herself she would never do: she used her CDC badge to push her way through to the front of the line. She did so knowing that it was not for her own selfish benefit but for her mother and Zack. Still, she heard the name-calling and felt the daggers in every passenger’s eyes as the crowd slowly parted, begrudgingly allowing them through.

And then it seemed it was all for nothing. Once they finally opened the escalator and allowed passengers down to the underground track, Nora found herself facing empty rails. The train was again delayed, and no one would tell them why, or give an estimate as to how long.

Nora arranged for her mother to sit on their bags at their prime position at the yellow line. She and Zack split the last of a bag of Hostess doughnuts, Nora allowing each of them only sips of water from the half-full gym bottle she had packed.

The afternoon had slipped away from them. They would be departing-fingers crossed-after sunset, and that made Nora nervous. She had planned and expected to be well out of the city and on their way north by nightfall. She kept leaning out over the edge of the platform, eyeing the tunnels, her weapon bag tight against her side.

The rush of tunnel air came like a sigh of relief. The light announced the train’s approach, and everyone stood. Nora’s mother was nearly elbowed over the edge by some guy wearing an enormously bulky backpack. The train glided in, everyone jockeying for position-as a pair of doors miraculously stopped right in front of Nora. Finally something was going their way.

The doors parted and the rush of the crowd carried them inside. She claimed twin seats for her mother and Zack, shoving their possessions into the overhead rack, save for Zack’s backpack-he held it on his lap-and Nora’s weapon bag. Nora stood before them, their knees touching hers, hands gripping the railing overhead.

The rest piled inside. Once aboard, and knowing now that the final stage of their exodus was about to begin, the relieved passengers exhibited a bit more civility. Nora watched a man give up his seat to a woman with a child. Strangers helped others hauling bags. There was an immediate sense of community among the fortunate.

Nora herself felt a sudden sense of well-being. She was at least on the verge of breathing easy. “You good?” she asked Zack.

“Never better,” he said, with a slight roll of his eyes, untangling his iPod wires and fitting the buds into his ears.