My mom was in her slip when I got back from brushing my teeth, and my son Luca was nestled up next to her. They both looked at the TV as if it were telling them secrets.
I didn’t think much of it until Luca leaned forward and said in a flat voice, “That’s where you lied, Nana.”
My mum jumped. Not a twitch, but a shiver all over.
I went into the room. “What did he say?”
She didn’t answer. Just hit the pause button. It was a black-and-white movie about old train stops in the Midwest.
Luca pointed again. “There. That’s the place. You told Grandpa you were at a wedding, but you were really there.
The screen showed a terminal that was breaking down. Joliet, IL.
I looked at my mom. She shook her head and pressed her lips together.
“We’ve never been to Joliet,” I said.
She stood up and went to the hallway without saying a word.
After ten minutes, she still hadn’t come out. I checked on her. The door to the bathroom was closed. I knocked quietly.
“Mom? Are you okay?
“I’m fine,” she said through the door. She sounded anxious. “Give me a minute.”
Luca went back to his LEGOs and hummed to himself as if nothing had happened. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
That train station… That part… What made him say that? How would he even know about Joliet? He is six.
And how did my mom’s face look?
After Luca went to bed that night, I tried again. Mom was cleaning the counter in the kitchen, like she was waiting for anything to do.
“Do you want to talk about what happened before?”
She gave me a look. “There’s nothing to say.”
“Luca said something strange.” He lied about Joliet. And you looked like you saw a ghost, Mom.
She stopped her hand. The cloth was slack between her fingertips.
She said in a hushed voice, “I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Was there really a lie?” I asked. “Did you go to Joliet?”
She looked at me and then turned to me. I saw a woman for the first time in years who didn’t seem to know who she was.
She said, “I’ve been there once.” “A long time ago.” It happened before you were born.
I sat down. “Why did Luca say that?” He wasn’t even born yet.
She let out a sigh. “I’ve thought about that every day since he was born.”
I blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She sat across from me and laid the rag on the table like it was something really important. Then she said in a trembling voice, “I had dreams when you were pregnant with Luca.” Weird ones. They started after your first ultrasound. A young guy wants to be at that same station. “Always waiting.”
My throat felt tight. “Waiting for what?”
She looked down. “Someone who never came.”
The only noise in the room was the refrigerator’s hum.
She didn’t say anything else that night. I went to bed with questions buzzing around in my chest like ants.
The next day, I did what any girl with a little panic disorder and a curious mind would do. I searched up the Joliet train station on Google. They stopped using it in the late 1980s. Since then, it had been mostly unoccupied. Some pupils who were learning how to take pictures went there to take dark pictures. A local newspaper had tried to acquire money for repairs. The condition seems to be normal.
There is one piece of writing.
The title of the story is “The Runaway Bride Who Vanished at Joliet Station—1979.”
It was more of a story that folks told each other than a police report. It looks like Elise Warner told her fiancé the day before their wedding that she was heading to the store. She never came back. But the next morning, a caretaker at the Joliet station reported he saw a woman in a wedding dress get on a goods train. No bags. She was crying and holding flowers in her hands.
No one ever found her.
I read the article three times. I didn’t know what I wanted. But 1979 was a special year. That happened two years before I was born.
Before she was married, my mom’s last name was Warner.
That night, I asked her straight out.
“Is this Elise Warner?”
She stayed still. She closed her eyes as if she knew the question was coming.
I was Elise, yes. But I didn’t leave. I got home the next day.
“To Grandpa?”
“Yes, to your father.”
“But you went,” I said. “You went to Joliet.” She was wearing a bridal dress.
She nodded. “I was afraid. I guess I wasn’t brave enough. The stress… it was too much. We weren’t really in love with each other. People said we should be married. “I don’t want to let you down.”
My heart raced. “But you did get on a train?”
She said, “I didn’t get very far.” “I cried for hours on that platform.” After that, I went back, bought a bus ticket, and went home. Your father never knew. He thought I had slept at my sister’s house.
I tried to get it. ” ” That means Luca was right. “You told a lie.”
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “And somehow, he knew.”
It was hard to remember what happened in the next few days. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. My son, who was only a few years old, had learnt a secret that was fifty years old.
And not just any secret. One that transformed my life.
We went to the park that weekend. Blue syrup was running down Luca’s chin as he enjoyed a snow cone.
He said out of the blue, “Nana was sad that day.”
I looked at him. “What day?”
He said, “At the station.” “She sat next to the clock.” She held her knees tightly and had a hard time breathing.
I almost let go of my phone.
“How do you know that?” I asked respectfully.
He shrugged. “I just remember.”
“Do you remember being there?”
He nodded. “I was with her.” I sat close to her. But she couldn’t see me.
I got the shivers.
That night, I called a friend named Kira. She was highly interested in spiritual topics. Everything from crystals to regression therapy. I used to make fun of her, but now I’m not sure if I should have.
When I told her what happened, she didn’t say anything.
She said, “A soul echo is something.” “It’s when someone you love remembers something from a time when they weren’t alive.” Like a memory that has been passed down, but with emotions.
I said, “That’s not real science.”
She said, “It’s not.” “But a six-year-old doesn’t know what Joliet looked like in the 1970s.”
She was right.
I didn’t tell Mom what Luca said to me at the park. I didn’t want her to do it.
But something strange happened a few weeks later. There was a letter in the mail. In handwriting. There is no address to return to.
Inside was an antique photo. A woman in a wedding dress stood on the Joliet platform with mascara running down her face and bulging eyes. She was not even twenty. I knew for sure that it was my mom.
On the back of the photograph, there was simply one line:
“I never forgot about you.” I came back as well. – T.”
I stared at it for hours. “T”? Who was T?
I showed my mum the image.
She gasped as if she had been hurt.
“Tony,” she murmured in a gentle voice. “His name was Tony.”
She took her time before sitting down.
“He was the man I was supposed to meet there,” she said. “We were going to run away.” To California. He had a motorbike, dreams, and all the rest. We loved each other, but he wasn’t “approved of.”
“What happened?”
She laughed softly, but it sounded more like a cry. “I waited for him for hours.” I believed he was too terrified. But maybe—he showed up late. “I might have left too early.”
I looked at the picture again.
I said, “He took this.”
She agreed. “But how did he know where we live? How did he know?
Luca walked into the room. “I told him.”
We both looked at him.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He got the photo. “Where are you?” he enquired. That’s why I told him. He was quite charming. He said that Nana used to smile like the sun.
My mom began to cry.
She didn’t stop for a long time.
She went to Joliet a month later. I went with her. This time, the platform was covered with weeds and rust when she stood on it again. She didn’t talk much. “I’m sorry,” she muttered as she looked around.
She changed that summer. She smiled more often. She started painting again. She even joined a local group for seniors who wanted to travel.
What about Luca, though? He quit talking about the train station. It looked like the memory had finally returned to where it came from.
Then, around the end of August, another letter came.
This one had an address on it for sending it back.
Tony sent it.
He came from Oregon. He had already lost his wife to cancer. No kids. He said:
“I thought you weren’t coming.” I waited until it became dark, but I might have missed you by a few minutes. That day stayed with me for forty years. It was odd to see your grandson. He said you were safe. So you let it go. That you still painted daisies.”
When she read that, Mom cried.
They started writing to each other. Then came the phone calls.
He came to see me for Christmas.
I thought it would be embarrassing. Sadness. But when they met up again at the airport, it felt like time had stopped.
They hugged like kids do. Like those who lost years but found peace instead.
That night, they laughed and sat on the porch. They talked about old record stores, banana milkshakes, and songs they thought the other person had forgotten.
Mom looked like she was five years younger.
And what about Luca? He walked over to Tony and said, “You did it this time.”
Tony bent down, kissed him on the forehead, and said, “Thanks to you.”
I stood there and watched them, and it felt like the universe had just fixed something that was broken.
We always think that time only goes forward. You can’t get back a moment after it’s gone.
But perhaps some moments are worth the wait. You can find these moments at old train stations. In dreams. Kids typically remember things they shouldn’t.
My mom lied, but it wasn’t about betrayal. It was about being afraid.
And the truth that followed?
That was about being brave.
About love not going away, but instead waiting until the right time.
What I learnt is this:
The past doesn’t always bother us. It wants us to be better.
The world also lets us continue a story we thought we had given up on from time to time.
If this story made you feel something, please share it. Like it. Tell someone that they can always go home.
