Dani’s eyes flicked across the board.
A single train to Mainz was listed for the rest of the day.
It left in four minutes.
“Track two.”
The shock lasted about a second.
Then we ran.
Bags bounced against our sides. The kids’ backpacks shifted on our shoulders. The stroller clattered over the tiles behind us.
We would have to check both sides.
At Track 2, I turned left and ran up the stairs to platform 2A.
Dani stayed behind with the kids, waiting for me to confirm the train before bringing everyone up.
The signs didn’t match.
Mainz wasn’t listed.
I looked across the platform.
2B.
The trains there were going the wrong direction too.
Somehow, we had the wrong track.
I ran back down the ramp.
The departure board was still where we’d left it, but now the letters and numbers seemed to swirl together: track numbers, abbreviations, unfamiliar destinations, times changing as I watched.
Below it, the information desk had a line five people deep.
We didn’t have five people’s worth of time.
I stopped running.
I looked at the board again.
Slowly, the pieces separated.
“There. Track seven B.”
We ran again.
People stepped aside as we pushed through with the stroller and bags. I ran ahead while Dani followed with the kids, waiting for my signal before bringing them onto the platform.
A train was sitting there.
Its doors were open.
MAINZ scrolled along its windows in yellow lights.
I yelled behind me.
“It’s here!”
Then I ran.
I remembered from guidebooks and experience that German trains in major stations could stop for barely two minutes. I had no idea how much of that time was left, so I stood in the doorway.
Dani came running up the steps toward me—first her head, then her body.
Behind her she bounced the stroller. Avery bouncing with it, as Corbin ran alongside.
I stayed where I was.
A buzzer sounded somewhere inside the train.
The light above the door flashed.
I helped lift the stroller over the gap, then stepped aside as Dani and the kids clambered aboard.
The doors slid shut.
The alarm silenced.
The train began to move.
Outside, the Rhine slid past the window in the dark.