The Promise Read Online Free Page B

‘That’s what I suggest if this is your first crossing.’
    ‘I’m fine,’ I said.
    The train shimmied. Low murmurs filled the car, the passengers reassuring one another. My seat was second class, and I rode with my back to the front of the car. The woman facing me swayed. The man on the other side of the aisle held himself still as if his least movement might tip the train. Feeling ill, I closed my eyes.
    I had left Dayton three days ago with Oscar Williams’ last letter in my cloth purse. He had not referred to the wedding nor had he mentioned where I would stay. Instead, there were details of train schedules and railroad routes. The journey from Dayton to Galveston called for changing trains in St. Louis, Little Rock, and Houston. In each station, I was surrounded by strangers while I spent long hours sitting on benches waiting to make my connections. After eight months of being shunned, I was disconcerted by the suddenness of being in such close quarters with so many people. I held a novel open on my lap but the words ran together, and I couldn’t recall the sentences I had just read. On board, the trip was a series of frequent stops and delays at small-town depots. Beyond the exchange of brief pleasantries with my fellow passengers, I kept to myself and watched the blur of farmlands, the river crossings, and woods that existed along the railroad tracks. Each mile traveled took me farther west and then south from Dayton. Each one brought me closer to a life so different from what I knew.
    I opened my eyes. We were still crossing the bay – three miles, I thought – and now a crowd of steamships, tugboats, and schooners had come into view.
    ‘The last time I crossed the bay, it was storming,’ the woman across from me said. She wore a wedding band and her fingers were plump. ‘Gracious, that was quite the adventure. But today, we have blue skies and as for this breeze, why it’s little more than a puff.’
    ‘How fortunate,’ I said. I imagined the train tumbling off of the trestle, the car sinking and filling with water. The window, streaked with grimy water, was locked closed. I’d have to unfasten the locks and pull the window down. I might escape, but I didn’t know how to swim. Even if I did, my heavy plum-colored skirt would wrap and drag around my legs.
    ‘Nearly there,’ the woman said, putting on her gloves.
    The train floated above small islands of tall rippling grass and low dense bushes. We crossed over shallow reedy marshes where long-necked white birds stood motionless. The train sloped down. We bumped off of the trestle and onto land held firm by the occasional grove of listing short bushy trees.
    I leaned as far back in my seat as my bustle and the brim of my hat allowed.
    The train slowed, passing rows of storage sheds, warehouses, and grain elevators where Negro men unloaded wood crates from unhitched railroad cars. We passed along a wharf, the train running parallel to steamships and sailing ships held secure to the docks with massive ropes. Cranes hoisted containers from these ships, the straining men slick with perspiration.
    I was in Galveston, Texas, a thousand miles from home.
    The high arched granite walls and the turrets of Union Station shaded the platform, where I stood beside my two traveling trunks and column of hatboxes. People swirled around me, some of them hurrying up the stairs to catch the train on the other side of the platform, while others greeted passengers who had just arrived. Negro porters maneuvered through the crowds pushing dollies weighed down with trunks and bags. Up and down the tracks, trains hissed and black steam poured out of smokestacks. The air was thick and sultry, and smelled of oil, metal, and brine. I searched the faces of the men, but none of them were familiar, not even those whose glances lingered on me. I will Meet your International and Great Northern Train . Oscar had written in his last letter. I will be on the platform at Union Station,