Felix stood at the Carmody train station, craning his neck to look down the tracks through the gathering dusk as though the train would arrive faster that way. Janet smiled and rubbed his back calmingly.
"There's only one train she could have possibly been on if she only left this morning, and it isn't set to arrive for another ten minutes. Besides, the station master said the trains have been running behind all day," she reminded him.
"I know," he answered absent-mindedly.
"Wouldn't you rather sit down?" she asked, although she knew the answer before he shook his head in the negative.
She slid her arm through his. All of the pain and suffering of the last several days were fading already—it was almost surreal to think that only yesterday afternoon they had not known where he was, or if he were even still alive. Now here she was, standing arm in arm with her son, waiting for a train that carried, from the expression of eager anticipation on his face, a woman who had become far more important to him than Janet had realized.
"There it is," Felix exclaimed. "I knew she wouldn't be late," he added, as though Izzy had some influence over the railway system itself.
Janet released his arm and stepped back. He shot a grin in her direction and then turned his full attention to the train. As it approached the platform, slowed, he caught a glimpse of Izzy in one of the windows and waved frantically. In return she put both hands against the pane, smiling with an excitement Janet recognized very well. She opened her handbag, hoping she had remembered her handkerchief.
Before the train had come to a complete stop, Izzy had pulled a stack of boxes from under her seat and was hurrying along to the door. Felix was at the stairs to offer her his assistance.
"What's all that?" he asked, pointing to the boxes she held in front of her.
"Your welcome home present," she replied.
"Having you here is good enough for me."
"They're pies."
"You're the perfect woman," he said. "Although those pies are a little in the way, don't you think?"
"Not really, considering your mother is standing right over there."
Felix looked around as if he had just remembered that fact and caught his mother dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.
"Hello, Mrs. King," said Izzy, and Janet hurried over, embracing her from the side and kissing her cheek.
"Hello, dear," she said. "Do you have any luggage?"
"Mine and Felix's," she said. "I had to check both bags in order to take proper care of the pies."
"The perfect woman," Felix repeated, and Janet's heart twinged at the look the two young people exchanged.
No matter how happy she was for them, sometimes it was hard to watch her children grow up.