I spy

The child doesn’t speak. Just waves with a big laugh while watching their father grow smaller, swallowed by the growing distance. The train rattles over the tracks, a deep, rhythmic clatter beneath their feet. A muffled announcement crackles over the speakers, its words lost in the hum of movement.

The father lifts a hand — just slightly, barely a wave. Hesitant, as if he wants to say something but can’t. His eyes are smiling, but sad. Tired. Disappointed. When the train pulls away from the platform and he’s no longer in sight, the child squirms in their seat across from the mother, clutching the plushie to their chest their father gave them just minutes ago.

“I spy with my little eye,” the child sings, kicking their legs against the seat, “something blue.”

The mother exhales, smiling at the simplicity of the game. A welcome distraction. “Your jacket?”

The child shakes their head. “No.”

“The seats?”

“Nope.”

She frowns playfully. “Give me a hint, then.”

The child grins, pointing out the window. “It’s everywhere, all the time.”

The mother follows their gaze, then looks up. The sky, pale and endless, stretches across the horizon.

“The sky,” she says with a soft smile.

The child nods. “It looks like Daddy’s eyes today.”

The mother's fingers tense, fiddling with a button of her cardigan. “Funny how the sky always seems a little more like him when we’re traveling.”

The child considers this, watching the way the clouds stretch and change. Then nods, a quiet agreement in their eyes.

“I spy… something red.”

The mother hums, scanning the train. “That lady’s hat?”

“No.”

“My shoes?”

“Nope.”

The mother glances at a suitcase in the aisle. Deep red. Just like the one they used to take on trips with the father. The one she left in the hallway of their apartment because she still isn’t sure what to do with it anymore.

Something tugs in her chest at the thought. She swallows.

“That suitcase?”

The child nods. “It looks like yours.”

The mother forces a small laugh but her throat tightens. “I guess it does.”

The train keeps moving.

The child shifts, still peering around. Then, their voice lifts again, "I spy something important."

The mother smiles at them, surprised by the word choice. “Something important? That’s tricky.”

She scans the train car. Across the aisle, a young man reads a thick book. It reminds her of the folder sitting in her bag, tucked beneath extra clothes and travel snacks. The divorce papers. She had smoothed them out on the kitchen table last night, ran her fingers over the fine print, tracing every irreversible word. Important. Unavoidable. Final.

She swallows. "That man’s book?"

The child shakes their head. “Nope, but it’s close.”

Her gaze wanders to the young man again, but the child is already pointing to the book, yet not to the book itself.

“The bookmark,” the child finally says. “That’s the important part.”

The mother blinks. She glances at the child, who watches it with quiet intensity.

“Because people won’t forget where they paused?” she asks.

The child tilts their head. “Because it means their story isn’t over yet.”

The mother looks at her child a moment too long. It almost makes her tear up, the whole situation: the constant weekend trips, the increasingly frequent time spent apart from the father. The child, although thoughtful, swings their legs cheerfully in the chair, mother’s stomach twists from the emotions threatening to overwhelm her, but she suppresses them.

The child swings their legs. "I spy something… untied!"

The mother doesn’t guess it right away. She doesn’t want to.

But the child repeats, "I spy something untied."

The mother glances around. "Hmm... The luggage straps?"

"No."

She scans the passengers. "That man’s scarf?"

The child laughs and shakes their head, then looks down.

“Shoelaces!”

The mother follows their gaze. A pair of sneakers, one lace still knotted, the other completely undone, trailing toward the floor.

“Why shoelaces?” she asks while bending down to tie them.

The child nudges the loose shoelace with their shoe. “Because they were together, but now they’re not.”

The mother exhales, staring at them. ”Yes. Separated, but still part of the same pair.”

“That’s what I say! Because even though they're not tied anymore, they still. Belong. Togetheeer.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs. “I see.”

The child is quiet for a long time after that, taking a long look at the mother’s face. Minutes go by in complete silence. The city slowly fades into stretches of countryside, fields broken up by clusters of houses. The child watches them intently, their breath fogging the window.

“I spy something white,” they say.

The mother glances outside. “That big cloud?”

The child shakes their head. “Guess again.”

She looks again. Rows of houses rush past, their exteriors almost identical — brick chimneys, matching rooftops, all painted white. 

“The houses,” she says slowly.

The child nods. “They look the same, but they’re all different inside, right?” 

The mother silently watches the rows of windows blur by. Some with lace curtains. Some with heavy drapes. Some open, revealing a kitchen, a living room, the dim glow of a TV. Different lives, different rooms, but all tucked behind identical walls.

The child frowns. “Why do people make their houses match if they’re different inside?”

The mother thinks for a second. “Sometimes people want things to look the same. Even when they aren’t.”

The child tilts their head, considering. “Like how you and Dad still eat dinner together?”

The mother stills. She hesitates before agreeing. “Sort of.”

The train rattles beneath them and the landscape shifts. Fields fading into highways, highways fading into small towns. The mother watches the world blur past, thinking about the way everything keeps moving, whether one’s ready for it or not.

Then—

“I spy something broken.”

The mother’s fingers tighten for a second in her lap. Her heart thuds. She glances down, then forces herself to look up. Her reflection stares back at her in the train window. Tired eyes, lips pressed a tad too tightly together.

She forces a smile. “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

The child points out the window. Her gaze follows their finger and sees a glass pane in a small station they’re passing. The top corner is cracked, covered in hairline cracks, barely holding together.

She exhales slowly. “Oh. That glass.”

The child nods. “It looks like there was nothing wrong with it before. Why is it that people don't want to fix certain things? And who decides?”

The mother opens her mouth, then closes it. A lump forms heavy in her throat.

She doesn’t say anything.

The train keeps going.

They are halfway there when the child presses their cheek to the window and murmurs,

“I spy something invisible.”

The mother blinks, caught off guard, laughing a little. “How can I guess something I can’t see?”

The child doesn’t answer right away. They sit up straighter, small hands hugging their plushie. They seem older than they did at the start of the trip, the mother thinks.

Finally, the child turns to her.

“It’s Dad.”

The mother inhales sharply. For a moment, she just stares at her child. At their small hands gripping the stuffed animal. At the seatbelt strap pressing into their puffy coat.

At their eyes, wide and waiting.

“Sweetheart…” She tries, but the words won’t come.

The child looks back out the window. Their breath fogs the glass again.

“He’s not here, true” they say simply. “But it doesn’t mean he’s not with us… You know, Mama, just ‘cause something is invisible doesn’t mean it ain’t exist.”

The mother presses her lips together, feeling the sting behind her eyes. She reaches over, gently tucking a stray curl behind the child's ear. The train hums beneath them.

The child tilts their head, considering their mother’s silence. Then, softly speaks–

“I spy something far away.”

The mother exhales, watching the familiarly blue sky stretching wide and pale outside the window.

“Me too, sweetheart. Me too.”