2016

Hank McAlester’s thoughts were adrift when the wind from the incoming Blue Line train slapped him across the face. It was a Tuesday, the day before the “official” start to the Thanksgiving holiday. He had just stepped off the Blue Line coming from the opposite direction when he paused, tuning into the sounds of the evening hustle of executives making their way home to the suburbs. He was in the Metro Center station, right in the beating heart of downtown Washington, D.C. The 6:15 p.m. train flew by him, pulling him back into the moment. The stopping train ground its brakes to a temporary halt, filling the air with the smell of hot wheel grease. The mechanical doors all along the tube opened simultaneously. Waves of people washed into partially occupied cars, now filling them to the brim. The pre-recorded voice reminded passengers the doors were closing and, just as timely as it had arrived, the train promptly pulled away from the station. 

Hank had been at a hearing at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, and was now on his way to Vienna for a business meeting. Tomorrow, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, was still another workday for most Americans, but it was always a calm day in the business, legal, judicial, and political world of Washington, D.C. Hank had given his staff the Wednesday off and declared he would work from home. 

He guessed he must have zoned out for a moment amongst the hundreds of travelers. When he finally came to his senses, Hank realized he had missed the more convenient transfer at Rosslyn and had ridden the rest of the stops to Metro Center, as if he were headed home. He mentally kicked himself and switched platforms to the Orange Line for the trip to Vienna. 

Yes, Henry Blaine “Hank” McAlester, a gifted patent attorney with his own boutique D.C. law firm and practice, was in another room in his mind when he realized he was close to missing the next Orange Line train. Metro trains ran often, especially from Metro Center, so he did not feel the need to run. Something told him, however, to pick up the pace, and he followed that inclination. 

That is when it happened. 

Rounding the corner, fresh off the steps from the level above, heading for the Orange Line train just arriving, was a girl. When Hank saw her, it stopped him cold in his tracks. His heart raced and his palms perspired. He could barely breathe. There was quite a bit of space between them. She was standing at the opposite end of the platform waiting for a train heading in another direction. He called her name in an inquisitive tone. The echo bounced off the concrete. The utterance, he realized, was preposterous, but he felt the need to say it, nonetheless. 

“Mary Kate?” 

The auburn-haired beauty never budged. She never looked his way. Maybe she never heard him through the deafening noise and bustle of the after-work crowd. She did not answer. How could she? She had been dead for almost 19 years. 

The youthful woman Hank saw was precisely that: a woman and not a freckle-faced, 16-year-old girl. Hank watched as the woman, possibly in her later 20s, moved gracefully onto her train. Hank missed his. He walked away from his side of the platform and toward her train. He could not stop watching her as she moved through the car to a less crowded space. He never made it to the doors before they closed. Hank transfixed his eyes on her standing near a pole. He could see her movements, if only briefly. The woman took her long hair into both hands and gathered it into an imaginary ponytail. With one hand, she made a spiral twist down the length of her hair, flipped it slightly into the air before letting it fall down her back. Her last move made Hank smile. He thought he saw her clasp her hands to her chest and then moved them into a prayer, lifting her fingers to her lips. Hank was forced to step back as the train pulled out slowly, then picked up speed exiting the station.

Hank watched the train, and the woman, disappear into the dark. He turned away and let out a nervous chuckle. Before he knew it, a new sea of people descended the steps onto the platform, filling in the cracks and crevices of life as they had for the last 19 years. He remained motionless in the ocean of faces. Hank McAlester blinked and a single tear escaped. 

After he returned home that night to his condo on I Street, Hank could not sleep. He lay awake, twisting in the sheets. He got up two or three times, paced through the sparsely furnished rooms and fixed himself a cup of tea. He did a few pushups and read every old newspaper he had. Nothing worked. He feared the same dream might come, and he wanted no part of it. 

Hank forced an all-nighter, his only solution. It had been a few years since his last nightmare, the one that left him sweating and screaming in his sleep. That nightmare was a relationship changer. Hank’s sudden scream upon waking startled every woman who made it to his bedroom and stayed the night. Many women never returned, and some left in the middle of the night. A few stayed a tad bit longer and one even stayed for a few years, agreeing to marry Hank. 

Cecilia Montenegro attempted to understand what was griping Hank so deeply. She later shared in an intense couple’s counseling session that she felt she was really never in the room when he “fucked” her, her words. She added she might even need to dye her hair and change her name to truly reach Hank’s heart. That was a low blow served by Cecilia that afternoon on a couch in the therapist’s office. It was a breaking point for Hank, too. Without a word, he rose from the couch the two were sharing across from Dr. Terrence Jacobson in his wingback chair and left the room. 

Hank stopped at a hardware store to purchase boxes and tape. He went back to the condo, the one he shared with Cecilia. He packed her things into ten boxes and placed their three years together on the outside stoop. She left her keys in the mailbox along with the 2.5 carat diamond ring and a scribbled note that said, “I’m so very sorry.” He was certain she was, but it did not matter. Hank was sorry, too. He should have known better. They never saw one another again except a few times in the District at fundraisers for the museums and political balls. There was nothing he could do to help her, or anyone, understand. Hell, he didn’t even understand it himself, why he thrashed as he slept to escape even the lightest of sheets wrapped around his legs. He couldn’t just wipe away the feeling. 

The sun was rising on that Wednesday morning and the 37-soon-to-be-38-year-old attorney was feeling the effects of a sleepless night. In his pajama bottoms and t-shirt, he shuffled to the kitchen to make a cup of morning tea. Mug in hand, he sat down in the living room and finally dozed off. He was back on the platform at Metro Center. Except in his dream, all color had been drained from the scene. All the passengers were dressed in white. They were faceless, genderless, and walked in unison onto all-white trains that came and went on a platform of pure white marble. Suddenly, the auburn-haired woman appeared, descending the stairs in a lime green dress with a yellow bow around her ponytail. She floated toward him, smiling and giggling, leaving pools of color in her wake. Soft waves of red, orange, yellow, and green light trailed behind her. Then she appeared to speak. “Henry Blaine, I love you,” she mouthed from across the platform. Her vibrant hazel eyes bore into him. 

Hank shook himself awake and jumped out of the armchair where he had fallen asleep. It couldn’t be. It wouldn’t be. It never was. Mary Kate died so long ago and with her, his future, Hank feared. He went straight to the shower and stood under the nearly scalding water. He stayed until his skin had reddened and his mind cooled. 

Hank dressed, peeked outside into the 5:00 a.m. darkness and saw large flakes of snow falling. He wondered when the winter wonderland scene had started. He should have known. His foot had throbbed all night, a dull but persistent pain. His ankle, the one he broke in his youth, only ached when it snowed. The snowflakes were sticking, and the surrounding city was bright, lovely, pure. Just like Mary Kate. Hand on the door to his memory, he decided not to pull the handle. He would avoid the pain one more time.

Hank suddenly changed his plans regarding work for the day and chose a wool overcoat, scarf, hat, and gloves. Work could wait. He needed a distraction, any distraction, to fill this emptiness he suddenly felt. Hank walked quickly to the underground garage and retrieved his BMW. He drove to a cemetery in Fairfax. He had to visit her grave. It was the one place he felt at ease. 

By the time he reached the gates of the cemetery, the flakes were falling harder, thicker and accumulating at a rapid rate. The snowstorm the meteorologists had predicted might just be here earlier than expected, Hank thought. He parked on the side of the road and left the engine running. The temperature was dropping, and he felt a slight gust of wind. It wasn’t yet biting cold, but it wasn’t comfortable either. Twenty rows up the side of a gently sloping ground, under a bare winter tree, was a bench next to a large headstone of brown and pink granite. Hank used the back of his gloved hand to wipe the snow from the bench and sat down. The top of the gravestone was covered in two inches of what looked like cold coconut cake frosting. Ironic, he thought, how we see things in ordinary life that take us back to extraordinary moments in time. 

He spoke tenderly, “Hello, sweetheart…”