Strangers

The subway car hasn’t moved in a long time, and things are starting to get awkward.

Maybe the announcement system isn’t working or something. The lights are still on, so the power can’t be down completely. There are five people in the car. Six, if you count The Baby. It’s late. Everyone’s tired. Nobody feels like breaking the silence that has stretched into an eternity.

But somebody has to.

The Baby decides it’s up to him.

The Mother shushes her child frantically. She doesn’t have time for this. She was downtown for the day, visiting her mother, the child’s grandmother. It went well. They visited the coffee shop. They sat there and chatted for hours, and the child burbled and smiled happily, with not a peep of discontent. She deserved it, The Mother thought. She deserved a happy baby after everything.

The Mother wasn’t supposed to be a mother, not yet. It isn’t that she’s too young; she’s not. She is twenty-six and has a decent job at a shoe store. Not exactly what she wants to do for the rest of her life, but it pays the bills for now. It’s just that she had a plan. A plan called Getting Married. Actually, the full name of the plan was Getting Married in a Perfect White Dress and Long Veil to the Man She Loves with All Her Heart Surrounded by Family and Old Friends Who Smile and Say “Aren’t They Just Perfect for Each Other?”

And then the second part of the plan was Moving into a Big New House that Looks Expensive but not Too Expensive and Getting a Career, not a Job, and then Having a Baby to Love and Make Everyone Proud.

The plan did not include anything about her manager, who had seemed so sweet that night as he ushered her away from the music and the talking that pulsed through the kitchen and pounded in her ears. He’d shut the door and the sounds became muffled and the bed was so soft even though it wasn’t hers. And she thought she’d said no, but it was hard to remember exactly. And then the sharp scent of urine and two blue lines a few weeks later.

Her manager is gone now, and that’s good because she couldn’t bear to even look at him. She would keep The Baby, of course. How couldn’t she? And she’s glad she had made that decision, she really is. She loves her child. At least that part of the plan worked out.

The Mother and The Baby live in an apartment. Third floor. She likes to take the stairs. She hasn’t gone to the gym since her child was born. She meant to stop by and cancel her membership today, but decided The Baby needed to get home and get to sleep, so she got on the last subway of the day. And now she’s here, and The Baby is wailing, the screeches bouncing off the closed doors and the dirty plastic seats and the metal poles streaked with fingerprints.

The Kid glances up and adjusts the volume of his headphones. He’s eighteen and tired.

Today he was late to his first class. The traffic has been awful lately. He wakes up at four in the morning to work a few hours at the fast food place. Hardly anyone comes through the drive-through so early, so he can doze off for a few minutes until his coworker nudges him awake. He knows the regulars. A black coffee at five for the suited man, a breakfast sandwich for the ponytailed girl, a pastry and cappuccino at a quarter to six, a muffin for the taxi driver, a strawberry-banana smoothie for the blonde headed to cheerleading practice. And whatever comes in between.

The Kid sometimes loses track of the time, especially when the sun doesn’t come up until after eight. Then he curses unapologetically and runs out the door, sometimes showing up to class in his khakis and black polo shirt with whatever name tag he managed to dig out of the drawer. He lost his own months ago. Then after school, back to the grease and ketchup and fake sugar smell. Until his shift is over at nine. He gave up on homework long ago. He gave up on asking for days off, too. His boss would laugh and say, “Son, you need to actually work if you want to keep a job. You’re lucky I go easy on you.”

He’s worked there for almost two years and never gotten a raise. He’s stuck at eight dollars an hour. But he’s not bitter. He’s too tired to be bitter. He takes the extra shifts on the weekends if someone else can’t work. He practically lives at the place. Good thing he’s smart enough to pass tests or he would have dropped out of school long ago. He needs the money. He only stays in school to make his dad proud and to set a good example for his younger brother and sister. He listens to rap music on the way home. He counts the curse words to keep himself awake. He doesn’t have time to listen to crying babies. That’s what he hears all night. His baby sister is hungry.

The Lawyer is watching The Kid warily. He’s just a kid, barely awake as it is, but he scares her. Her eyes flit over his baggy pants and dirty shirt. She was a safe distance away even before the car rumbled to a stop. She wishes she had her own car to drive. Every day she wishes it. She shouldn’t have to ride the subway after seven years at a university. Usually, at least, she takes a taxi. But it was pouring rain outside and she didn’t want to walk down the street in high heels to find one.

She misses law school, when everything was rich with possibility. She was a strong and smart young woman. That’s what they all told her. She buried herself in her studies to prove them right. And she graduated and got married within the same month. That’s called successful.

She loved her husband, and she thought he loved her too. They had only known each other for a year, but they were deeply infatuated with one another. Their friends joked that they would make beautiful babies together. Well, his friends said that. She didn’t have too many friends at that point. But she didn’t care. She’d left them all behind when she went to law school. She had to concentrate; that’s what she told herself.

He had a good job at a bank, but of course it was The Lawyer who paid the bills. She was proud of herself for starting such a progressive family, for living such a radical life. But he’d been so distant lately. He’d been missing shifts at the bank. She glanced at her bank statement and noticed that everything was coming out of her account. All the bills. She mentioned it tentatively to him and he promised to look into it, to get things fixed. But the next month was the same, and she didn’t want to bother him by mentioning it again. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have the money. But she wished they had decided to get a joint account.

It wasn’t just the money. He came home late and told her that he was “watching the game” with his friends. What game, she never knew. When she got up the courage to ask one of his friends, he was confused. Her husband is almost never at the bar with them to watch the games on the big flat-screen TV, he said.

She decided to ignore it. That’s her mindset now—just pretend like everything’s fine. She has a great career, she has a great husband, she has a great life. She’s ready to try for a baby—though maybe not after listening to the racket they make in subway cars. She will just be a more responsible mother, she decides. She won’t take her baby out so late at night, on public transportation, like this. It’s just inconsiderate.

The Baby won’t stay quiet. The sound has become a howl now, wavering only when he needs to take another breath. No one will look at The Mother. They’re embarrassed for her. Everyone but The Nurse. He wishes there were a polite way to ask if The Baby is still breastfeeding.

He’s still in his scrubs, like pale blue pajamas beneath his jacket. He likes to tell the kids at the hospital that he has the best job, because he gets to wear pajamas all day. That’s what a nurse told him when he was five years old and trying desperately to breathe through the pneumonia. He tells that story every time someone asks him why he wants to be a nurse, and follows it with, “I just want to help people.” As far as he’s concerned, he’s living the dream.

Still, when he was eight, that nurse didn’t tell him about the rest of the job. The things he would see. The screaming kids he would have to poke with needles, the frantic parents he would have to reassure. The smell of vomit. The blood. The coughing and crying and slow wasting away. The way he would put his arms around the other pediatric nurses on the shift the first time he lost a patient. And every time after that. He isn’t afraid to grieve.

But it isn’t all sadness. His favorite days are the ones with balloons and paperwork and descending elevators carrying smiles. That means they’ve made a difference. Sometimes they save lives. And sometimes the time passes slowly, and he busies himself with cleaning and double-checking charts. And he loves it all.

Tonight, just after he clocked out and stopped chatting at the nurses’ station, there’s a sudden rush of activity. A car accident. Two teenagers from one vehicle, a family of five from the other. The teens are both relatively fine. They’re being checked for concussions and broken bones. In the other car, there’s one survivor. A girl; seven years old.

The Nurse isn’t superstitious, but he isn’t exactly in the mood to get into a car after that. His own is in the shop for two days anyway. Instead of a taxi, he finds himself on the broken-down subway. He’s thinking about the girl, imagining her waking up. Hoping she has grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins who will help her get through. And he thinks about the teenagers, too. They’ll be fine physically, but he wonders whether they’ll ever completely recover psychologically, even if the crash wasn’t their fault.

The Nurse wishes he wasn’t so empathetic.

He asks The Mother if he can hold her screaming child.

The Mother nods in that exhausted, out-of-options way that you do before handing your baby over to a stranger.

But The Nurse is gentle and knows all the tricks. Soon the stalled subway car is quiet again. They can all hear the faint beat of the music punching its way out of The Kid’s headphones. But he’s lost in his own world.

The Nurse has broken the spell that kept them in their own boxes, their own worlds of thought. The Lawyer takes a step closer, her wedding ring clinking against the handrail. “How long have we been waiting here?” she mutters. “Wish they would tell us what’s going on. I’ve got to get home to see my husband. And I’ve got a lot of work to do yet tonight.”

Nobody answers, but they’re all thinking it.

We’ve all got our own reasons for wanting to get home. You’re not special.

Even The Baby is thinking it. He just wants to go to sleep in the warm crib The Mother rescued from Goodwill.

They keep checking their watches, peering out the windows, tapping their feet. They’re gathered like a tentative flock of birds, who know there’s safety in numbers. They gravitate toward The Baby, whether they realize it or not. Even The Kid keeps scooting a little closer. He is already lonely enough as it is.

The Baby has been quiet for a while now, and The Nurse hands him back to The Mother. She murmurs, “Thank you.”

The Kid takes his headphones out of his ears with a practiced tug and a slight turn of the head. “Man,” he yawns, only half to himself, “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” It’s been longer than a while. It’s been at least eight songs, plus the ads that play so often he has most of them memorized. He has this fluttering feeling in his stomach. The amount of time he’s spending not doing something is getting suspicious. The Kid rummages through a flimsy-looking backpack and pulls out a dog-eared textbook. He lifts his chin at The Nurse. “Bet you’ve had to take an anatomy class before, huh?”

It’s not an invitation, but The Nurse moves to sit beside him and peers at The Kid’s homework. “Oh, yeah. I had a lot of tests like that. You need to memorize the carpals and metacarpals? I’ve got a good mnemonic for that…”

While The Kid studies for the first test he’s going to ace in years, The Lawyer moves like a trembling shadow to take The Nurse’s place next to The Mother. Her heart is pounding like a frantic fist on a door. She doesn’t do things like this. She prefers to stay aloof and unemotional. But she can’t help it. They’ve been stuck for so long and her mind has wandered and she just has to ask if she can hold The Baby.

The Mother doesn’t hesitate to pass her little angel over to the suited woman. She can sense the anxiety, the longing. And she’s right. The Lawyer clutches The Baby like a lifeline. If she could just convince her husband that they were ready for one of these little bundles, things might be okay. Maybe he would become a family man, forget about whatever he was doing night after night. Maybe he would remember The Lawyer when he saw the product of their love.

And if not?

At least she would have her own child to love.

The Mother asks The Lawyer if she has any children. The Lawyer doesn’t answer for a moment, admiring at the perfect little ears and lips and nose. Then she shakes her head slowly, her eyes glistening. “No,” she said, and then again, “No, but we’re trying.” I’m trying, at least, she thinks.

The Mother nods. “They’re little miracles,” she says, her gaze dropping to her sleeping child, in a stranger’s arms for the second time in an hour. “Whether they’re planned or not.” And their eyes meet in the middle and something passes between these two women who would not have even noticed one another if the subway hadn’t stopped.

The time passes. Slowly. They don’t talk much, these strangers, but they are becoming familiar with one another now. Whenever The Nurse glances around, the faces are painted to the insides of his eyelids. The Kid grows bored. He slams the cover of the textbook closed and leans back in his seat. He’s losing sleep. He has to get up early tomorrow.

“Maybe we should try prying the doors open,” he says to nobody. After a moment, he gets up and wedges his fingers between the rubber. To his surprise, the doors slide apart. He keeps them wedged open with his shoulders and peers out into the darkness of the tunnel.

For a moment, The Kid considers hopping down, walking. He would make it eventually, he’s sure. He could even take some of the group with him. But then he imagines pressing his back into the wall as the train sputters to life and thunders away. Besides, he can’t just leave the rest of them. He can’t leave The Mother and The Baby.

They’re all staring at him when he returns. He doesn’t sit down, but begins to do pull-ups on the overhead handrail.

He’s done about five when the lights go out.

The Mother lets out a little screech and fumbles in the dark for her Baby, which The Lawyer relinquishes and then grasps the edge of the seat. This is really the last straw. Her eyes quickly adjust to the faint glow of emergency lights, and she blinks around at everyone else. The Kid is still doing pull-ups.

In the darkness, I move quickly, although none of them notice my shadow. They’re too busy inside their own heads.

I’ve stayed back all this time, and none of them thought to call me over because none of them really notice me, as I’ve mentioned. But it’s all right. I’m used to it. I find it endearing.

I first approach The Nurse and lay a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re making a difference.”

It’s what they need to hear. Up next, The Lawyer.

“Leave your husband,” I hiss. All the air leaves her chest as she’s hit with the idea.

Next, The Kid.

“Stop the early shifts. You need sleep. You need a life. This isn’t living.”

The Mother.

“Sometimes plans change. You’re strong enough.”

I pause, then add, “Talk to The Lawyer. She can help you file charges against the manager.”

The Baby is still asleep, so I pass him by and trust he knows what I would have told him—to appreciate how loved he is.

As soon as I’m done, the lights flicker back on and a voice comes over the speaker, apologizing for the long delay, giving details about the next stop, promising that the train will start moving momentarily. And it does. They all breathe sighs of relief at the familiar rumbling motion gaining speed as they head for the next station.

The Kid sits back down and puts his headphones back in. The Nurse rises and returns to his place by the door, where he stood before the train stopped. They all avoid each other’s eyes, not sure if they’ve even crossed the line from strangers to acquaintances.