The Last Train Home

"Better late than never," my grandmother used to say, usually when I'd show up hours after I'd promised to visit, bearing apologetic takeout and excuses about traffic. She'd welcome me with the same warm smile regardless of time, as if my presence alone made up for any tardiness. I never thought those words would end up saving my life.

The digital display at Carlyle Station read 11:57 PM as I sprinted down the stairs, messenger bag slapping against my hip. The last train home left at midnight – it always had, ever since the line opened in 1943. My footsteps echoed through the nearly empty station, bouncing off worn tile walls that had witnessed eight decades of commuters.

I shouldn't have stayed so late at work, shouldn't have let Marcus talk me into "just one more review" of the quarterly reports. But that's what senior associates at Preston & Gray did – we worked until our eyes burned and our dreams turned into spreadsheets. Besides, I'd caught the last train plenty of times before.

The platform was empty except for an elderly woman in a red peacoat, sitting primly on one of the wooden benches. She was reading a book bound in faded blue leather, its pages yellow with age. As I approached, catching my breath, she looked up and smiled. Something about her seemed familiar, though I couldn't place why.

"Cutting it close," she said, marking her place with a tasseled bookmark.

"Story of my life." I checked my phone: 11:59. "At least I made it."

She tilted her head, studying me with unusual intensity. "Did you?"

Before I could ask what she meant, the fluorescent lights flickered. Wind gusted through the station, carrying the distinctive rumble of an approaching train. But something was off about the sound – it was deeper, more mechanical than the usual electric whine of modern subway cars.

The train that emerged from the tunnel wasn't the sleek silver one I rode every day. This was something from another era entirely: a massive steel beast painted in deep green, its brass fittings gleaming despite the harsh station lighting. Steam – actual steam – hissed from somewhere beneath its wheels.

I blinked hard, certain I was hallucinating from too many hours staring at Excel sheets. But the train remained, as solid and real as the platform beneath my feet. The doors were different too – not the automatic sliding ones I was used to, but heavy manual ones that swung outward with a sound like distant thunder.

"Last train," the woman in red said, rising from her bench. "Are you coming?"

I hesitated. Every instinct honed by years of city living screamed that this was wrong. But I needed to get home, and this was clearly *a* train, even if it wasn't the one I expected. Besides, the woman seemed completely unfazed, as if Victorian-era steam engines regularly passed through Carlyle Station just before midnight.

"I don't think this is my usual train," I said weakly.

She laughed – a warm, familiar sound that tugged at my memory. "No, it isn't. This one's special. It only comes when someone needs to make a different kind of journey."

As if to emphasize her point, the station lights flickered again, and the temperature dropped several degrees. The steam from the train took on shapes that almost looked like faces.

"What kind of journey?"

"The kind that changes everything that comes after." She held out her hand. "But you have to choose to take it. Nothing is inevitable until midnight."

I checked my phone again, but the screen was black. All the clocks in the station had stopped at 11:59.

The woman's outstretched hand remained steady. Something about her eyes reminded me of my grandmother – the same mix of wisdom and mischief, of patience and urgency.

I took her hand.

The inside of the train was nothing like the sterile, plastic interior I was used to. The walls were paneled in dark wood, inlaid with intricate patterns that seemed to move when viewed directly. Gas lamps cast a warm, golden light that softened every edge. The seats were upholstered in deep red velvet, showing no signs of wear despite their apparent age.

We were the only passengers.

"Sit," the woman said, gesturing to a seat by the window. "We have a long way to go."

"Where exactly are we going?"

"That depends entirely on where you need to be." She settled into the seat across from me, smoothing her coat with practiced elegance. "Tell me, Emily Harrison, when was the last time you were truly happy?"

I opened my mouth to answer, then stopped. Not because she knew my name – though I hadn't told her – but because I couldn't remember. Work had consumed my life so gradually that I hadn't noticed happiness slipping away, like a tide retreating one wave at a time.

"I used to paint," I said finally. "Before law school, before the firm. I had a little studio apartment with great light, and I'd spend whole weekends just... creating."

"And now?"

"Now I have a corner office and a view of the city I never have time to look at." The words tasted bitter. "I haven't touched a paintbrush in five years."

The train lurched into motion, but instead of the familiar forward surge, it felt like we were moving in all directions at once. Through the window, I saw not the dark tunnel walls but a rapid succession of scenes: my childhood home, my college dorm, my first apartment. Places I'd left behind, moments I'd chosen to leave.

"Time isn't as linear as people think," the woman said, opening her book again. "Neither are choices. Every decision creates branches, possibilities that continue to exist even when we don't follow them."

"Like parallel universes?"

"More like paths in a garden. Some are well-trodden, others overgrown. But they're all still there, waiting to be walked again."

The scenes outside the window slowed, focusing on my old studio apartment. Through the large windows, I could see an easel silhouetted against the setting sun. My heart ached at the sight.

"What is this? Some kind of Christmas Carol situation? Are you going to show me how miserable my life will be if I keep working sixty-hour weeks?"

She smiled that familiar smile again. "No, dear. I'm showing you that it's never too late to find a different path. Better late than never, as someone wise once said."

The words hit me like a physical force. I knew then why she seemed so familiar – she had my grandmother's smile, my grandmother's way of tilting her head when she was about to say something important.

"You're not really here, are you?" I whispered. "You died two years ago."

"I'm as here as you need me to be." She reached across and patted my hand. Her touch was warm and solid. "Death doesn't mean what most people think it does. Neither does time. Or choice. Or art."

The train slowed to a stop, though I hadn't felt it braking. Outside the window was my studio apartment, exactly as I'd left it five years ago. But it wasn't a memory – there was fresh paint on the palette, wet brushes in the jar by the easel.

"This is impossible."

"Improbable," she corrected. "There's a difference. The impossible can't happen. The improbable simply hasn't happened yet."

"So what, I just... step off the train and go back to my old life? Abandon my career, my responsibilities?"

"No. You step off the train and into a life where you never abandoned your art. Where you found a way to balance passion with practicality. Where you remembered that success isn't measured in billable hours."

I looked out the window again. The apartment looked so inviting, so full of possibility. I could almost smell the oil paints, feel the texture of canvas under my fingers.

"What about my job? My apartment? My life?"

"All still there, in one version of now. But there are other versions, other nows. The choice is yours."

"And if I stay on the train?"

"Then we continue to the next station. And the next. Until you find the path you need."

I stood, my legs shaky. The train door swung open silently, revealing my old studio exactly as I remembered it – but alive, waiting, possible.

"Will I remember this? Remember you?"

"You'll remember what you need to. The important parts. The parts that help you paint."

I took a step toward the door, then turned back. "Was it really you? All those times you said 'better late than never' – were you preparing me for this?"

She smiled my grandmother's smile one last time. "Time isn't linear, dear. Maybe I said it because I knew you'd be here tonight. Or maybe you're here tonight because I said it. Does it matter?"

"I suppose not." I took another step toward the door. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. Thank me when you finish your first painting. I have a feeling I'll know when that is."

The studio air was warm and thick with the smell of linseed oil and possibility. As I stepped off the train, I heard her voice one last time: "Remember, Emily – art isn't about making perfect things. It's about making things perfectly yours."

The train pulled away silently, taking with it any last doubts about whether this was real or dream or something in between. I walked to the easel, where a blank canvas waited. The palette beside it held fresh paint in all my favorite colors – cadmium yellow, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue.

I picked up a brush. It felt like coming home.

Somewhere, a clock began striking midnight. But I was already painting, and time – linear or not – had ceased to matter.

In the morning, I would find that my resignation letter had somehow already been sent to Preston & Gray. My expensive downtown apartment would have transformed into this sun-filled studio. My closet full of tailored suits would become shelves of art supplies and half-finished canvases.

But that was all in a morning that hadn't happened yet. For now, there was only this moment, this canvas, this brush. And on the palette, mixed with the paint, a single red tassel – one that had once marked a page in a blue leather book.

I smiled and began to paint, knowing that somewhere, my grandmother was smiling too. Better late than never, indeed.

Years later, when people asked about my mid-career switch from law to art, I would tell them different versions of the story. Sometimes it was a simple tale of burnout and brave choices. Sometimes it involved a mysterious train and an even more mysterious woman in red.

But in every version, I kept one detail constant: how it felt to pick up that brush again, to feel the weight of possibility in my hand. Because that's the thing about art, and life, and choices – they're never quite what you expect them to be, but they're exactly what you need them to be.

And sometimes, if you're very lucky, they come with a grandmother's wisdom, wrapped in an impossible moment just before midnight.