Something

“We’re right on time.”

Josie looked at her husband in the passenger seat with a reassuring nod. “Right on time,” she repeated.

“For once.”

“What was that, dear?”

“Oh nothing.” His nose scooted across the window. He was quiet for a few moments, then, “Are we sure about this? All this, kid business? I mean, how are we going to tell it’s them?’

“There aren’t going to be many children in groups of three at the train station, dear,” Josie said.

Her husband rubbed his eyes. “We don’t have children.”

“I thought that was pretty obvious.”

Her smirk was lost on him. “Then why take on three children for the summer? We aren’t qualified for this sort of thing.”

“You’re winding yourself up again, Simon.”

“You never seem to get wound up about anything!”

The wife laughed while the husband sank lower into his seat.

He folded his hands grimly. “Besides, what are we to do with them?”

Smiling fading, Josie gripped the wheel. “Well, of course we’ll… Um… There’s always…”

“You see, it’s hopeless.”

The car rolled to a stop, and she jammed the shifter into place. “Hopeless or not, they will arrive in a few minutes.” Opening the car door, she grabbed her purse and then her husbands chin. “Do try not to wear that face; it’ll scare the children off.”

Simon produced an even bleaker expression.

“Oh dear.”

Simon’s face, Josie had learned throughout their years together, was a better almanac than anything printed in some journal. It was like an arthritic hip when it rained, a frantic dog at the approach of a stranger. Simon knew trouble when it was coming, and although she had managed her best to ignore it that morning, she was realizing the dark circles around his eyes were not disappearing on their own.

She decided to remain cheery. “There’s no helping it now!”

The couple made their way on the misty platform as they train heaved itself to a stop. Inside, passengers gathered their belongings and stooped or stood on the balls of their feet to retrieve their bags. Josie and Simon scanned the dark windows for the children they were to retrieve.

“What do you suppose they’ll look like…”

The husband remained silent almost as if protesting their presence there.

Women bustled by them, and men with papers clipped past as well. They must have been off to another platform, for not many people stopped to stay at their little town. Or at least not for long. Little towns like theirs had a way of rejecting you or swallowing you up whole like a goldfish.

“Wait, that must be them.”

Josie grabbed a hold of her husband’s sleeve and pulled him down the platform. There was a gangly boy with a heavy bag next to a little girl. Their sister appeared with two more bags.

“You must be Rachel, Sarah, and Roger.”