Nine Hours of Track

The train shudders through another small town, 

lights flickering across her face  

like someone flipping through  

the pages of her life too fast.

Her phone buzzes again —  

not new messages, 

just the same ones she keeps rereading  

until the words blur:

“Bone marrow biopsy.”  

“B‑cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.”  

“We’ve started labs. He’s stable for now.”

She doesn’t know what half of it means, 

only that her four‑year‑old  

is lying in a hospital bed  

nine hours away, 

and strangers are saying words  

that sound like storms  

with no shelter.

The train hums beneath her, 

steady, indifferent.  

She presses her palm to her chest  

as if she can hold herself together  

by force alone.

A nurse had tried to explain it gently —  

white cells gone wrong, 

crowding out the good ones, 

the kind of thing that happens  

in medical textbooks, 

not in little boys  

who still sleep with dinosaur blankets  

and mispronounce spaghetti.

She wipes her eyes with her sleeve, 

left‑hand trembling, 

right‑hand gripping the seat  

like she could drag the whole train forward  

with her bare will.

Outside, the night is a smear of fields  

and telephone wires.  

Inside, she counts the seconds  

between her breaths, 

trying to keep them even, 

trying not to imagine  

IV lines, 

monitors, 

the tiny hospital gown  

she knows he hates.

The conductor pauses beside her, 

asks if she needs water.  

She shakes her head, 

voice caught somewhere  

between her ribs and the dark.

She whispers his name  

into the window’s reflection, 

fogging the glass  

with a prayer she doesn’t know how to finish.

Nine hours.  

Nine hours of track  

between her and the room  

where doctors are fighting  

the thing she can’t touch, 

can’t fix, 

can’t mother away.

The train keeps its rhythm, 

slow, relentless, 

and she rides it  

with her whole body leaning forward  

as if wanting  

could be enough  

to close the distance.

-LR 🖤