Stand Clear of the Closing Doors

She’s surprised when Graham says, “Not yet,” but Val goes with it. True, this stop is closest, but they’ll sometimes get off at the next station if they want to hit up the good wine store or Mo’s falafel cart and don’t mind the extra seven minutes tacked on to the walk home. The doors slide shut, and with a rumble they continue uptown.

Val stands, crooking an elbow around the handrail to keep her balance. There’s a plexiglass-encased poster on the nearest wall, one of the MTA’s Poetry in Motion series. It’s that Yeats poem, the one about treading on dreams. She used to have it memorized back in high school, though she can’t recall why she would have gone to the trouble. Maybe for a class? Or some idiot boy she thought she needed to impress?

The train jerks to a stop-start-stop, brakes screeching. Graham holds his battered copy of Catch-22 loosely, like a prop. He looks past the pages, his eyes stuck to a discolored spot on the floor.

“This is us,” Val says.

He doesn’t look at her. “Not yet.”

She shifts her weight to the other foot, unsure. “What’s wrong?”

A pop of static from the speaker, followed by an automated warning to stand clear of the closing doors.

“Nothing,” he says. “Just … not yet.”

* * *

Val twists in the hard plastic seat, spine popping. It’s late. They’d been out in Brooklyn all day for her brother Isaac’s birthday. She should be in her sweats on the couch, devouring leftover Thai and pounding water as a last line of defense against tomorrow’s inevitable hangover. Five more stops have come and gone. Five stops farther away from home.

She sneaks a look at Graham, not that he notices. He seemed fine at the party, cracking jokes and playing soccer with their nephews. When asked, he says nothing happened. Everything’s fine. But his book is still turned to the same page. And he’s still staring at the discolored spot, which Val originally thought was spilled soda. Upon closer inspection, it appears to be the absence of something, a piece of fossilized gum finally scraped off after who knows how long. Maybe it’s the rest of the floor that’s stained.

The speaker crackles. They’ve reached the last stop. The only other person still in their car, an elderly man in a bright blue suit, shuffles out onto the raised platform and disappears into the night. Muggy air wafts in, mingling with the train’s antiseptic AC. Somewhere in the distance, a car horn honks in three quick bursts. Graham’s fingers slacken, and Val grabs the book out of his hands before it tumbles to the floor. The doors ker-CHUNK closed again. They’re alone.

The ride downtown seems faster. They pick up younger couples just beginning their night, pressing against each other, laughing and abuzz with anticipation. Val rubs Graham’s neck, his shoulder. There are only four stops until they reach their station again. Then three. Then two. She needs to say something, but her mind is blank. As they near their stop, he takes her hand and finally looks at her, through her. Is there a trace of apology in the downward curl of his lips? He doesn’t need to say the words. Their stop comes and goes for a second time.

* * *

They ride through midtown again, their car filling and emptying in waves. When they cross back into Brooklyn, Val wonders if they shouldn’t get off at her brother’s stop. Maybe they can retrace their steps from earlier, pinpoint the moment that flipped this switch in Graham. Isaac and his wife Jen will be so happy to help. They’re always asking if Val needs anything, anything at all. “Let us do something for you,” they say over and over, in slightly different variations, as if guessing combinations on the lock over Val’s pride. She stays silent as they pass her brother’s station.

The brakes sigh as they reach the opposite end of the line. It’s late, or early depending on your point of view. The lights in their car blink off and then on again, like a bartender signaling last call. Val waits for someone to oust them, but of course, no one does. They’ve paid their fare. They can ride this line until the end of time.

When they reach their stop for the third time, Val commands herself to grab Graham’s arms, yank him up out of the seat, call for someone to help get him off this train. She doesn’t move. She can’t shake the feeling that Graham is sleepwalking and that startling him awake could have some disastrous consequence. Unless they’re both asleep, and this is some kind of shared consciousness anxiety dream? She clacks her fingernails against the seat. It feels as tactile and real as anything else. She pinches her thigh, holds it, lets the pinpoint of pain center her. With her free hand, she squeezes Graham’s fingers. He presses back faintly. They’re both here, awake, together.

* * *

Tipsy couples lean against each other, swaying with the subway. A young man in a suit and tie sits incongruously nearby, scratching at a cyst on his neck. More nine-to-fivers filter in, replacing the couples. It’s the start of the workday, morning rush. A gap-toothed girl and her mother come by carting a cardboard box full of candy. Val buys a pack of Starbursts and feeds them to Graham one at a time.

It’s morning — then noon — then night — then showtime, two teen boys swinging from the handrails, one’s foot missing Graham’s head by inches. He doesn’t flinch. Val gives one of them a ten-dollar bill, hoping they’ll move along. Three men with voices deep as earthquakes shimmy past singing a Lou Rawls song, their a cappella harmonies ricocheting around the car. One waggles his hat, and she tosses more cash inside.

Her tongue feels layered in fuzz, so when a woman with a buzzed head admires her earrings, Val exchanges them for a tin of breath mints. An aging hippie carting an enormous shawl eyes the copy of Catch-22. With a look to Graham, she makes the trade, tenting the shawl around them both. Word of mouth spreads, and more strangers approach with items to barter. A neck pillow, which Val tucks behind Graham’s head. A calcified slice of pizza, which she peels strips from and pops into her mouth. As they reemerge from underground, the sun blasts through the opposite window, slamming into her eyes. She trades her concealer to a willowy teen for a chunky pair of sunglasses. When night falls again, she swaps them with a tattooed hipster for a pristine copy of Catch-22. She curls Graham’s fingers around it, and though the book stays put in his hands, his eyes remain glued to the spot on the floor. She takes the book back and starts at the beginning, reading aloud to him until she falls asleep.

* * *

When Val was ten, her mother slipped off a curb and broke her ankle, a freak accident. It had completely shaken up their homelife. Her father, a gruff man who always seemed somewhat surprised to have found himself with a wife and two children, had been forced to pick up the slack. He drove Val and Isaac to sports practices and dentist appointments. He took over the cooking and cleaning as best he could. And he insisted their mother rest, waiting on her hand and foot despite her protests she wasn’t an invalid. During that time, he looked at her in a way Val hadn’t even seen in their wedding photos, like her mother made up the entirety of his universe. Val’s uncle cracked a joke about her getting used to the arrangement; she’d break the other ankle to keep him doing the housework. Her mother laughed politely, but her father remained stone-faced. “It’s my privilege to take care of her.”

* * *

The alarm clock blares at Val until she smacks it dead. She brushes crust from the corner of her eye and drinks deeply from the bottle of water next to her side of the air mattress. Graham faintly snores next to her. She squeezes around so as not to wake him and unfurls the yoga mat, beginning her morning stretches. A sweating tourist raises his camera, and she smiles as he takes her picture. They’ve annexed a third of the subway car.

“You like it?” Val asks after a dinner of peanut M&Ms and dried seaweed. She helps him knot the belt of the tartan plaid bathrobe she traded for him that morning. It looks like he nods, but it may only be the motion of the train. He hasn’t spoken in days. She cleans her face, neck, and armpits with a makeup wipe before tossing it into the overflowing garbage bag in the corner. Franny paws at the bag, and Val scoops her up into her arms, plopping down onto the bed. She meows in protest, then settles as Val runs her fingers along her marbled coat. Did someone give them the cat, or did Franny just wander in one day of her own volition? She can’t recall.

“Maybe we should think about going home at some point.”

The words ring false as she says them, and she’s relieved when Graham doesn’t appear to have heard her. She slides the headphones back over his ears and adjusts her sleep mask before curling her body against his. Franny circles twice before nestling between them. Why would they leave? What’s at home that they don’t have here?

* * *

They don’t mean to take over the entire car, but they’ve accumulated so much stuff that there just isn’t room for it all. Inch by inch, they’ve advanced until the subway car resembles a ramshackle facsimile of their apartment. A vanity stands in for their bathroom mirror, a cooler for their refrigerator, posters taped up in place of the framed prints in their bedroom.

Val once watched a nature documentary about kudzu, the invasive vine that grows a foot each day, overtaking everything in its path. It can swallow a tree whole, blocking it from the sunlight and sapping nutrients for itself. Val eyes the door to the next car. How long until they spill through?

Tourists wait for them at the midtown stations, snapping pictures and cheering as the doors open. Sometimes, Val poses and signs autographs. Occasionally, she’ll flip the bird and scream at them to leave, but it only makes them cheer louder. People offer food, clothes, various tchotchkes. One person rolls a mountain bike in, and Val rides it from end to end of the car, Franny zooming after her. If Graham has an opinion on any of this, he gives no indication. Val can lead him around, lay him down for bed, maneuver him so that she can change his clothes, but he’s otherwise unresponsive.

NYPD officers sometimes wait for them on the platform. They only poke their heads in, never stepping inside, as if worried Val and Graham might be contagious. Since the cops never say anything, Val doesn’t either, staring them down in silence. They eventually shrug to each other and meander off, bored. That’s right, she thinks. Leave us to our peace.

* * *

Val trades clothes with Graham, and they go as each other for Halloween. Costumed children wait on the platform for candy, terrifying Franny, who burrows under a pile of clothes all evening.

* * *

At Thanksgiving, Val’s parents take the bus into the city, waiting with Isaac’s family at the 42nd Street station. Val invites them in, but they politely decline. Her mother hands her a casserole, and the last thing she says as the doors close between them is, “I’m proud of you, honey. Every relationship takes work.”

* * *

Flurries waft in at the raised stations, Franny lapping up the snowflakes as they melt into water. Children lob snowballs into the car, and Val repacks the slush, saving it in the cooler to arm herself for the next station’s assault. She decides to keep things simple. One Christmas gift apiece for herself, Graham, and Franny. Even though she’s the one who wrapped them, she manages to act surprised when she opens hers.

* * *

They’re aboveground when the ball drops, just catching the start of the fireworks before disappearing beneath the surface again. Val adjusts Graham’ New Year’s Eve glasses, kissing the side of his head. For the first time since she can remember, she doesn’t make a resolution. There’s nothing she would change.

* * *

It takes Val a minute to realize what she’s staring at. Twin pinpoints unblur at the center of her vision, rippling out until Catch-22 sharpens into focus. The book has just landed on the floor with a dull smack. She tells herself to bend over and pick it up, but she can’t move. The air feels heavy, like she’s submerged in water. Someone is touching her wrist, trying to get her attention. It’s Graham. With great effort, she turns her head to look at him. His eyes are half-closed, jaw slack.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” Val repeats, tongue thick in her mouth. What time is it? What day? She looks up at the digital display. Their station is next. She looks back at him, uncertain if she’s awake. “You mean …” She’s almost afraid to say it. “You’re ready?”

He squeezes his mouth shut like he’s trying to stop the words from spilling out. His eyes shut, lips barely parting as he says, “Please … just go.”

Val looks around at their comfortable, cluttered home. Aside from the gentle rumble of the train, it’s quiet, as it is most days now. They still get onlookers, but nothing like before. Franny and her kittens have long since been adopted. It’s just Val and Graham again.

They’re here. The train sighs to a stop, doors parting. It’s their same old station, only a four-minute walk back home. Her real bed awaits, drunken noodles sitting in the refrigerator.

No one is stopping her.

She peels herself off the seat and stands, taking a tentative step towards the doorway.

Then another.

Can it be this simple?

Her breath catches in her throat as her right foot crosses the threshold onto the subway platform. Then her left foot.

She’s off the train.

The ground beneath her feet is solid, but she sways as if she stepped off a boat. The first thing she notices is the smell, or more the absence of her and Graham’s scent, which now permeates their car. She tilts her head, listening to the muted sound of a dog barking from above. A slice of honey-colored light cleaves the stairs to the street in two. The sun must be setting or rising, she doesn’t know which. The platform is empty aside from a lone, scurrying rat and herself. No one else gets off the train. She’s alone.

The speaker crackles, and she braces herself for the inevitable. She can’t handle seeing the doors close between herself and Graham; the sound of it alone might be too much. She starts towards the turnstiles, stopping short when the expected announcement doesn’t arrive. They’re being held at the station. She swallows and risks a look back. Graham is staring down at the book, which she now realizes has landed on top of the discolored spot. She wills him to pick it up, but he remains frozen, framed by the doorway like a painting.

He could use a shave. She got him an expensive electric razor three birthdays ago. She knows exactly where it is, sandwiched between his mouthwash and deodorant. She would have to see them there on the bathroom counter when she gets home, deal with them in some way eventually, along with everything else. His record player. His first editions. His sneaker collection in the closet cubbies. So much of the apartment is filled with him, down to the indent on his side of the bed.

STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS PLEASE.

As the doors slide shut, she darts forward, barely squeezing back onto the train. What’s one more stop at this point? She bends down to grab the book and presses it into Graham’s hands. He shuts his eyes but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge her. They have a few minutes until they reach the next station. An eternity, really. She’s gotten complacent, but there must be something she hasn’t tried. Some magic word to break the spell. It will come to her. They’ll pick up a bottle of red, grab falafel wraps from Mo, laugh at the craziness of this — whatever this has been — until it all fades from memory like a dream. She settles back against Graham, and as the train gently rocks them, she slows her breathing to match his.

They inhale together.

They exhale together.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.