Chapter 10 - The First Train Station
Spring in Columbus arrived slowly, washing away the grey slush of winter with weeks of steady rain that turned the dormant lawns a vibrant, electric green.
By April, our apartment had undergone a quiet transformation. The second bedroom—which I had previously used as a storage room for old boxes and winter coats—had been cleared out, painted a warm, inviting cream, and converted into a permanent railway room.
Micah and I had spent three weekends building a custom plywood table on folding legs, mounting a dual-loop HO scale track system complete with cork roadbed, miniature ballast, scaled pine trees made from sea sponge, and a little cardboard railway station with tiny glowing windows.
On a Saturday afternoon in late April, the sunlight streamed through the living room window, catching the dust motes dancing in the air above the tracks. Micah was kneeling on a small stool by the table, holding a tiny paintbrush in his left hand as he carefully touched up the white trim on the station platform.
I stood in the doorway, holding a basket of folded laundry, watching him work with steady, patient hands. The green wool sweater had long since been donated to a textile recycling bin, replaced by a bright yellow hoodie he had picked out himself at the department store downtown.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, expecting a work email from the supply chain logistics team.
Instead, it was a text message from an unfamiliar local number—not my mother’s, not Ross’s. It was a brief notice from the lender handling the home equity line: Co-Signer Release Review Completed. Liability successfully discharged effective April 15.
I stared at the screen for three long seconds. The weight that had lived between my shoulder blades for four years—the invisible, crushing burden of other people’s financial survival and emotional approval—evaporated completely, leaving behind a sensation so light and expansive it felt like breathing fresh air for the very first time.
I didn't reply. I didn't archive it. I simply locked the screen and slid the phone back into my pocket.
"Mom!" Micah called out, not looking up from his station platform. "Look. The switcher engine is ready for its test run."
May you like
"I'm coming," I said, setting the laundry basket down on the couch and walking across the room to stand beside him.
He flipped the toggle switch on the power pack. Down on the board, the tiny transformer hummed to life, and the vintage steam engine gave a smooth, realistic chuff before its polished steel wheels began to turn, gliding effortlessly around the outer loop, past the pine trees and the station platform, heading forward into a wide-open track that had no end in sight.
