I'd never traveled alone. Not once. Thirty-six years of marriage meant someone else always holding the tickets.
After he died, I cleared out his side of the closet and found a fold-out map with one route highlighted in yellow. The line from here to the coast.
So I bought a one-way. The ticket agent raised an eyebrow but didn't ask. I kept that stub in my wallet, next to my debit card. It's still there, edges worn soft as cloth.
The layover was supposed to be four hours. A blizzard rolled in and turned it into eighteen.
I sat in that station with a cup of vending-machine coffee, watching strangers come and go. No one needed me to be anything.
That was the first time in my life I didn't have to be someone's wife, mother, or teller. I was just a woman with a ticket and nowhere to be but there.
When the train finally came, I folded the map back into my bag and stepped aboard. That beginning? I'll never get to live it again. But I still carry the stub.