1
Nearly half of the passengers were gone when the suburban train pulled out of Chestnut Hill Station, and she knew that by the time it reached Hillside the cars would be mostly empty. There were days when it did not even take that long before the train was vacated; on those occasions, one could see rows of empty seats in the adjacent cars when looking down the aisle, shifting continuously from side to side as the train moved along, like empty waves on an abandoned beach on a winter day.
She turned slightly toward the window, out of a habitual anticipation of what was to come. In a few seconds the last stretch of wooded land would come to an end, and the hilly scenes around Hillside Station would spread out before her eyes, like a Dutch landscape painting.
Hillside was a stop in the middle of a long stretch of flat land in an open valley. The gently rising terrain offered passengers a clear view of a range of small hills running parallel to the train line. The slopes were mostly bare, dotted only with patches of low-growing shrubs. On clear days, a strangely radiant light could be seen hovering just above the mountaintops, forming a striking contrast with the ageless brown of the hillsides and evoking an image that lingered long after the train had rumbled past the flat land.
That strange radiance over the mountain line always stirred something in her—a kind of longing, not unlike homesickness. It beckoned her to step off the train, to follow the light and cross the hills, to find out what lay on the other side.
And she knew that all of this longing could be ended, once and for all, if only she could make up her mind and get off at the station. She had seen other passengers do so, boarding a bus that always waited outside. The asphalt road the bus traveled ran straight over the hills.
2
Most passengers who used the station arrived by car, and she might have been the only exception. Although she had lived in this country for quite a few years, she had never learned how to operate a motorcar and had always walked home.
“Driving is not as hard as it might seem,” her husband had often tried to convince her. “We can get a second car. Besides, it’s a skill absolutely necessary for anyone living in this country.”
She had always believed him and was at first persuaded to give it a try. But after a few evenings practicing in a nearby empty parking lot, she gave up, and she had been walking ever since.
The walk from the train station to her home took less than fifteen minutes, and the route was one she had become quite familiar with. With its many lush lawns and quiet suburban houses on either side, the walk was always pleasant, if a little quiet and solitary.
The medium-sized house soon came into view. She and her husband had lived there for nearly two years now, in this upper-middle-class neighborhood. They had bought the house about a year earlier, and the price of houses like this had increased by nearly a third since then—a fact her husband often mentioned with pride.
The very sight of their house, however, had always stirred mixed feelings in her. Owning a house of one’s own was comforting, and yet she could not say she loved it: a structure standing alone, separated from others by fences and too much lawn, in a neighborhood where all the houses looked more or less the same and where one hardly ever saw anyone.
The first autumn after they moved in, the serene sight of trees turning red and gold around the house stirred a feeling in her each time she returned home. Yet that feeling seemed oddly unconnected to the idea that she herself lived there. Once she became aware of this, she could not help feeling unsettled, as if the house she called home were part of a public park and she had merely been granted permission to stay there temporarily.
Perhaps because of this, she had always felt uneasy when the subject of houses came up at the parties her husband took her to. When the women began discussing the topic, she found she had very little to contribute. She could not comment on houses others had just bought, since she did not know many people, and she found it difficult to repeat the figures that flowed so easily from the mouths of the other women, having little sense of what the numbers truly meant. Even if she had understood their market significance, she suspected she would still have failed to see the point of mentioning them.
Because of her lack of interest—or ignorance—in matters such as house prices, savings on auto insurance, and the tutoring of children, subjects with which the other mothers seemed intimately familiar, her husband was always accommodating.
“Just leave those things to me,” he would say, often in an affectionate, reassuring tone. “You don’t need to worry about them.”
3
At the time she was first introduced by a family friend to the man she is now married to, she was living in China, having just been admitted to a local college as a graduate student. He, on the other hand, was already in America, working as an engineer for a large company. After several months of long-distance phone calls—during which she mostly listened while he talked—he returned to China to meet her. Within a month, the two were married.
There was little surprise when she finally met him in person. He was much the same as his voice on the phone: warm, considerate, and difficult to disengage from once he began speaking. The pink shirt and milky-yellow pants he often wore also seemed inseparable from him, as though they belonged as much to his character as to his wardrobe.
His manner was plain as well. In courting her, he quoted no poems, spoke little of politics, and painted no grand visions of the future. But he was confident that he could make her life comfortable. He was also meticulous about details. He made sure the eateries they visited offered discounts, that the chair she was about to sit on was wiped clean, and he would not hesitate to return something she had bought if he felt it was unsatisfactory.
“No need to fret over it,” he would assure her. “This is how things are done here. Look—see the receipt? It says 100% satisfaction guaranteed. Return anytime. Exchange or refund. No questions asked.”
He was also forgiving toward her in many matters, often tolerating things he would not normally approve of. For instance, when the sight of a Salvation Army bell-ringer during the Christmas shopping season moved her to drop a five-dollar bill into the bucket, he might watch with a look of disbelief on his face, but he would not admonish her.
In many ways, she and her husband were opposites. She was someone who listened more than she spoke at social occasions, and if given a choice between staying home and going out—to a party or on a trip—she would choose the latter. This side of her had not changed much after marriage. When they traveled together, he was always tireless.
“Since we’ve driven so far to get here,” he would insist, “it would be a pity not to see this place. Besides, we’ve got a discount coupon.”
She, on the other hand, would choose to stay in the hotel room whenever she could.
“I don’t feel like going out this afternoon,” she would say, nodding toward their three-year-old. “You two can go.”
Once alone, she would sit by the window, her elbow on the desk and her chin resting in her hand, gazing at the unchanging scene outside—sometimes for hours.
4
She held a part-time job at an office, and twice a week she took the train into town.
“There’s really no need for you to go to work,” her husband would say from time to time, in a concerned and affectionate tone. “The money I make is more than enough for us to live comfortably.”
She believed every word he said. Still, she kept the job. The office manager was an older but very kind gentleman who had arranged things so that she only needed to come in twice a week. Everyone she met at work remarked on how beautiful she was. She smiled shyly—and at first even blushed—whenever they said so.
The suburban train swayed as it moved along. She leaned her straight back lightly against the seat, her gaze fixed on the scenery as it slid backward past the window.
The weather had been pleasant lately. The sky above the hills along the lowlands of Hillside appeared unusually bright; a thin, whitish haze spread across the sky behind the ridge. The deep green patches of vegetation on the slopes had turned brown, and the exposed rocky soil looked as though it had just been painted onto the hillsides.
As always, when the strange light came into view, she wondered what it was about the hilltops that made them so alluring. A yearning to find an answer would come over her. The image of the hills lingered long after the train passed Hillside, and it did not fully fade from her mind until she had stepped off the train and begun her walk home.
On this day, the train slowed and then stopped as it approached Hillside Station. Something must have happened ahead—perhaps an accident, or a fallen power line. From where she sat, she could see the familiar buses that ran the hillside route. If she got off now, she might be able to catch one. In a short while, she could find out what lay on the other side of the hills.
The passenger seated across the aisle stood up and prepared to walk toward the exit, but stopped when the train came to a halt just short of the platform.
“One of those things,” the man said, in a half-serious, half-joking tone of resignation, when their eyes met.
She smiled back but said nothing.
Presently the train began to move again and, a few minutes later, rolled slowly into the station.
“Wasn’t too bad,” the man said, swinging his backpack onto his shoulder. “Have a nice ride.”
“Goodbye,” she replied.
She watched him step off the train and walk toward the Hillside bus stop. The bus pulled away just before the train resumed its motion. She watched him board, and then watched the bus climb toward the hills—the same hills from which the mysterious light always came, the hills that had long held her fascination.
5
Some condominiums on Brighton Avenue had recently come onto the market. At friends’ parties and gatherings, people were talking about them. Some mentioned that they had already bought one; others seemed to be giving the idea serious thought.
One day, they drove into town to look at a few open houses. Historic district, trolley lines, a dense, close-knit neighborhood, convenient shopping. There was a sense in the air that prices would only rise, and soon.
But the buildings all looked rather old to her. Perhaps the bleak streetscape and the crisscrossing trolley wires overhead did not help. As they went into one building and came out of another, she began to feel quietly dispirited. Her husband, on the other hand, was in high spirits. If they bought one of these condominiums, they would own a piece of property in the heart of the city and gain a second, steady source of income—all with little extra burden. Just the usual responsibilities every landlord dealt with, which did not seem like much to him and were, in fact, the sort of things he took pleasure in managing.
They stopped at a Thai restaurant on Brighton Avenue for lunch. She ordered Pad Thai. Her husband ordered Pad See Ew. He said he was starving. They sat at the counter on high stools near the front of the dining area.
It was a cloudy, overcast day. Pedestrians with weary faces passed close by the storefront window, only a few feet from where they sat. Every so often, a Green Line trolley rumbled up or down the street.
6
The suburban train had just pulled out of Chestnut Hill Station. She sat by the window, as usual, her body swaying gently with the motion of the car. She was leaving work a little earlier than usual. There had been an event at the office—food, games, a cheerful, jocular atmosphere—and everyone had been allowed to leave early.
It was late fall, but the weather was pleasant—one of those rare days around here when autumn briefly offers such warmth. Most of the trees had already shed their leaves, yet under the mild sun the landscape appeared unexpectedly fresh.
Because it was not rush hour, the train was nearly empty; she had almost the entire car to herself. She knew the train would soon be approaching Hillside Station. She felt the familiar tingle of anticipation rise within her—the mysterious light over the hills, the buses, the road climbing upward.
Would she, on this day, finally heed the call that had been beckoning her for so long—from the strange light beyond the hills—and step off the train at the station? The thought had never taken clear shape in her mind. She had never deliberately considered it, never consciously weighed the idea. And yet the allure had always been there.
Then she recalled the man she had exchanged a few words with the other day—the way he swung his backpack onto his shoulder—and something stirred inside her. Before she knew what was happening, she found herself standing, her bag in her hand.
This is not happening, this is not happening, she repeated to herself. But like someone walking in her sleep, she could not stop. She moved toward the end of the car as the train slowed and gradually came to a stop.
After stepping off the train and walking toward the stairs that led down to the bus stop, she caught sight—out of the corner of her eye—of the same man emerging from another car farther down the platform, also heading toward the steps.
As they descended the steps toward the waiting bus, he recognized her as well.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi,” she replied, in a voice she herself could barely hear.
“Catching the bus?” he said. “Me too.”
As they walked toward it, she glanced up at the hills and the strange light rising behind them. The familiar tingle returned, now joined by a fluttering, butterfly-like sensation in her stomach.
There was something about the air that day—the place, the bus, the hills beyond. Everything seemed quietly, unmistakably beautiful.
Yego’s Chronicles 