MINEOLA, TEXAS (Texas Eagle)

About an hour outside Dallas, as the train keeps heading east, we begin to enter Wood County, named for an early Texas governor but that could be misconstrued for its origins as an important timber center in its inception. It´s not too long before to begin our approach to Mineola, the first stop after Dallas. The train stops just outside the station, waiting for it to get lined up to the station. From outside the window, we are face to face with the Iron Horse Square Park, a novelty train-themed kid´s attraction that includes a mini-train replica of a steam locomotive. It is packed to the to the rafters this Saturday afternoon with kids riding the mini-train and toddlers waving goodbye as the mini-train passes them by, from their parent’s safe hold.

A phone rings on the seat behind me, and a woman in her mid-30´s, who I remember boarding the train with me in Austin, answers it with an enthusiastic “Hya Pete”. She is dressed casually but impeccably tailored with just enough makeup and a professional-looking hairdo, to peg her as a typical city girl. After some quick exchanges, from which I gather that her brother is on the other side of the line, she begins to direct him to where she is sitting on the train. She has located him easily enough, waiting at the edge of the depot, and is now giving him clear directions to proceed near the mini-train ride. I see him walking towards us but unable to see inside the train. She tells him that she can see him right in front of her and counts the windows back to the end of our lounge car to indicate to him where she is sitting. She waves at him and asks: “Can you see me?... I’m waving at you”. He is still in the dark, but waves briefly in the general direction of her window.

They keep talking on the phone, the sister saying that he looks good, that he must have lost a lot of weight since they last saw each other. They probably haven’t seen each other for a long while and their sparsely phone conversations probably didn´t venture that much further into too many personal details about their lives. Nonetheless, I can sense in her voice, a kind of a nostalgic longing for othet times, which I gather were happy ones between them. The brother keeps looking intently, trying to locate her sister. He is a bulky, bald-headed man in his early 40´s, with a genuine smile on his face, that he tries to extend as long as he can while talking on the phone.

It dawns on me, by the way he moves, slowly and painfully it seems, that the weight loss must have been due to some serious health problem. The sister asks him about their parents and it’s all he can do to divert his eyes from the train, lose his smile and look down as he speaks. I can sense by the silence on this side of the line, that it must have been a serious concern in the past. She asks abruptly if he has moved out of the house again, followed by a swift reply saying, “Mom should have left him years ago... I always knew it would come to this”. I can feel the restrained anger in her voice in trying to stop saying any more of it.

The brother stops talking briefly but then offers he some advice on how to deal with their father, making her promise him to not to stir the pot too much, for their mom’s sake. I can sense a mixture of disappointment and resolve in her decisive voice as she proclaims, “Something needs to be done. He can’t just leave when he wants, leaving Mom all alone, while he’s out somewhere, on another drinking binge with his hunting pals. He’s in his seventies, for chrissake”, her voice suddenly raised and echoing through the lounge car.

The train starts finally moving into the depot and the brother can finally see his sister on the train and waves enthusiastically at her, like her outburst was something to be put firmly behind. The sister gets up, gathers her belongings and moves down the lounge car towards the exit as the brother starts walking towards the depot. The train stops and he hangs up the phone and waits anxiously, puppy-like eyes on his face, for her sister to exit the train. He hurriedly tries his best to run towards her and gives her an embrace so strong that she has to drop her two heavy bags to the floor to commit to it with the same vigor and being surprised by her own sudden emotions.

He smiles broadly as they keep the embrace, trying to hide the tears in his eyes. She smiles back at him and pats him gently on the shoulder, ending their embrace. He tries to pick up the two big bags, but she takes them from his slightly swollen fingers. He smiles innocently at her as they start walking in the direction of the parking lot. They disappear from view as the train begins its slow departure.

I look back at the Square Park and every kid stops whatever they were doing to wave goodbye to the train. As we leave the station behind, there’s a long line of cars waiting at the Railroad Crossing. A few, with kids, have their doors open to let them wave goodbye at the train. A few cars behind I spot the sister and the brother in their car, a smile as big as heaven in the brother’s face as he looks at his sister, and apprehensive but determined look in her face.

I try to see beyond her thin veil of contrasting needs and promises made to herself but see a definite resolve in her eyes to come to terms with coming back home as if she never had a choice in the matter but becomes her only possible choice. She looks at her brother, who’s now looking straight ahead at the train leaving, but still talking in his quiet manner. She smiles at him, a genuine happiness exuding from him. She diverts her eyes briefly and catches the tail end of the train as it’s leaving the town behind, tries her best to keep smiling, and seems to join everybody else in waving the train goodbye.