Your heart gets the night shift
Corie Rosen It was the last train to the city, the 11:58 to transfer at Oakland, City Center. Jacob and I were alone in the underground station. The only people breathing blue air into the cold. Mid-January, and I trembled in my thin coat, held the dog to my chest and hoped the two of us could warm each other. Her eyes had been closed like this, her breathing chattery and stilted, since before Jacob and I had run down to get the BART. Jacob shuffled ahead of me as we walked along the platform, toward the only sign that was still lit up. I tried to walk faster, to pull into stride alongside Jacob, but Woolf was heavy in my arms. She was his dog, or mostly, and when we’d left the apartment, I’d asked if he wanted to be the one to carry her. He’d given me a look I recognized, the one that always made me sorry I had asked. “It’s too much,” he’d said and ran his fingers through his hair. “Too much how?” “Too much like I can’t stand it.” Even before we’d gotten married, Jacob had been like this. Afraid of anything too big or too painful. I wasn’t sure if the thing he was avoiding was the fear or the sadness. Maybe it was the possibility of losing, the pain of wanting something and then being forced to let go. “It’s fine,” I had told him. “I can hold her.” In the station, we stood close together on the platform. Woolf was half-asleep. My arms grew tired under her weight, and I took a breath hoping the cold air would make me stronger. I pressed my cheek into her fur. She smelled like a normal dog, like city dirt