Sequestered Trains, Salads and Cheeseburgers with Ranch in a Box
Wooden crate, plastic doll, glossy print paper, mirror, shredded green tissue paper, glass bulb, and papier-mache.
Sequestered Trains, Salads and Cheeseburgers with Ranch exemplifies the artist’s desire to contain her grief. This box representation after Joseph Cornell contains her collage of grief over a two-year period when she rode the train to the end of the route, had lunch, and returned. The artist repeatedly uses glass orbs in her work. The plastic doll with sunglasses is startling. The contrast between the textures represents the kaleidoscope of factors plaguing her during this period. The unnatural state the artist felt during this period. Is she helping or hurting her grief?
My husband is dead, so the obvious action to take is to ride the 207 train to the last stop, eat lunch, and return to the apartment. It is how I fill the time.
The sun wakes me, and I greet her with one cup of coffee. My sunglasses shield my wrinkles more than they protect my eyes from the sun. I wear them indoors. I am that woman.
There are many strangers on the train. The idea of them is exhausting. Most train people are tired and don’t make eye contact. It doesn’t matter to strangers what I am doing. My leave of absence from teaching allowed people hovering to pause. I spent my life paying attention and taking care of others. Now I can do what I want. I have a freedom I am not sure what to do with.
I wear an air of disgust and stare out the window. One long gray curl dangles in my face: wild and loose. I tuck it behind my ear. My body is a constellation, and I live alongside the ghost of my husband.
At the cafe at the end of the train route, I watch the fountain from the same outdoor tables every day. I envy the water because it circulates and is never the same from moment to moment. There are cobblestones, restaurants, and shops. Vendors with carts walk around the circle and down the paths that lead into the adjacent park. I can smell the water, a combination of mold and bleach.
I don’t have to order. My consistent lunch is a salad with a torn-apart cheeseburger drizzled with ranch. I count the days with notebooks filled with letters to William. Love cries onto the page because it has no place to rest. I don’t count because once I know the number, there is no unknowing it. Then I would know how long William has been gone.
A glass of sauvignon blanc appears crisp and cold. Most days the girls pour me a double portion and charge me for one. I appreciate the kindness and tip well. I catch glimpses of a man I know is not my husband by the fountain. I blame the wine for my peripheral visions. I eats one forkful at a time and place the fork on the table as I chew.
Being close to people is good enough. My life is a storyline I didn’t get to write.
I wanted to cook through a cookbook from beginning to end. I wanted to travel to Italy. Now it matters even less what I want.
As I stand, I notice a young woman at another table with long brown hair that shines in the sun. She wears a dress, long and flowy in dyed Easter egg colors.
Why am I here and he’s not?
I am not sure why the girl has triggered this question that has no answer.
“I never expected to be a widow at forty-seven,” I say to no one and hold myself stiffly as if I move the wrong way and my breath will be cut off.
Death is always unexpected; even when we know death is the finish line, it is a surprise. The words come but do not make me feel better.
Tammy L. Evans is a writer, teacher, and professional curator living in a tiny house on a peninsula with her husband, fuzzy adventure cat, and a parkour-loving black kitten. Her location device is her loud laugh. She is the creator and host of THE TRIO COURSE. Her poetry has been published in The Storyteller, FoxGlove Journal, Story Hall, Blue Insights, The Partnered Pen, and others. Her fiction has been published in Gone Lawn, South Florida Poetry Journal, Cabinets of Heed, Spelk, Five on the Fifth, Fiction Berlin Kitchen, and longlisted for the Welkin Prize 2026.