Meanwhile, I have to tell this story.
I was on a 7:35 p.m. train out of New York last night. I was scheduled to take the Acela at 8:15 and the switch was going to improve my arrival time in Baltimore by only 20 minutes, but it meant 40 minutes fewer in Penn Station, which is insanely overheated. So I switched to a business class ticket on the regional (this is the only way to ensure a seat) and jumped on board.
There was a woman with two children in business class, a little unusual, but not extraordinary. The smaller child was fussy, keeping up a steady whimper, but it wasn’t particular noticeable. In some ways, I think it was the absence of the sound that I first noticed, shortly after we pulled into the Trenton station.
The woman, who had tickets to Baltimore, had gotten up, said something unintellgibile and strange, and bolted, taking one child, leaving the other.
The child left behind had fluffy brown curls and wide-but-sleepy eyes. Maybe 2, maybe younger. Maybe older. He didn’t speak to any of us, never made a sound. It was the other child, a girl, who had been fussing. Another woman and I crouched by him, holding his hand, and telling him that we were his “train friends,” and we would watch him until his mother came back. In trying to establish his age, we felt around the back of his waistband; he wasn’t wearing a diaper. Then, on a hunch, I felt the seat beneath him. The boy had wet himself at some point.
Meanwhile, the rest of the train was told we had a “mechanical problem” requiring a brief delay. One very young man, perhaps in his 20s, seemed worried about the delay and asked a little peevishly if we were sure the boy was traveling with the woman who disembarked. (Um, yeah, we’re pretty sure he didn’t get on the train at Penn on his own.) Transpo cops came, then a city police officer. They found the mother in the station, where she had abandoned the other child and was insisting that she had no children. We put the little boy’s jacket on him and handed him to the police officer. What else could we do?
Ninety minutes later, as the other woman and I waited in the vestibule for the train to come into Baltimore Penn Station — later, as it turned out, than the Acela I might have taken — we asked the conductor what he knew. He said the woman had been a little off since she boarded, but had purchased her seat upgrades with cash, alternating between pleasant and strange. (At one point IIRC, she had tried to block the conductor’s path into the cafe car.) It was only because he was keeping an eye on her that he noticed she had jumped off the train in Trenton.
I asked him if there was any way we might ever know the rest of the story. He didn’t think so. I’ve since e-mailed a friend at a New Jersey newspaper, but I can’t stop thinking about that little boy.
That hurt.
Keith, I’ve been crying off and on since last night.
That poor little guy. Thanks for being his train friend, Laura. I imagine he appreciated it and maybe will even remember the two of you who helped him not feel so alone.
You’re a good person, Laura.
One of the things I do as part of my day job is serve as the attorney for the Guardian ad Litem program. We represent the child in court in abuse and neglect cases. I see stuff like this, stuff that just makes me shake my head in disbelief. I have a saying: they make you get a license to cut hair, but any damn fool can have kids.
That’s a heartbreaker.
If you do learn anything further, please let us know.
My heart aches for those children.
I wouldn’t be able to abandon my pets, how on earth can someone abandon children?
Based on the very scanty information available to me — the woman is probably not well.
So distressing. The woman sounds seriously troubled, putting it mildly. Poor kids. It really breaks my heart to hear about such things. To experience it firsthand, even more affecting, obviously. And then, there are those situations we sometimes find ourselves in where we want to help a child, but cannot intervene directly. (Recently, for me, it was at the grocery parking lot, and a mom losing it while trying to get an exhausted, crying child into the car seat… She rather nastily refused any help.)
You did good, Laura, to get involved. It was exactly what was needed at the time. Please let us know if you hear any follow-up.
Thanks to Wallace Stroby of the Newark Star-Ledger — and, as people in these parts probably know, an incomparably wonderful noir writer — I have a little more info: The woman was arrested for charges not related to abandonment and the children were placed in state custody.
One thing that occurred to me is that those children may not even have been hers. Other than that I agree she is probably off, ill if they are hers. The next thing that I thought was wow that would make a great story for you to write Laura.
Children are abandoned all the time only not a;ways so overtly, a lot of child abandonment happens every day right in their own homes.
But then no one will know what the circumstances really were. Maybe there was some lunatic chasing after them and she thought that was the best way to protect them. In any case there simply ins’t enough information to make any kind of a judgement.
It was way cool for them that you and the other passenger were there at the right time in orser to comfort the child.
Sly
Twenty bucks says that kid grows up to be a writer…
how immeasurably sad.
What you and the others did likely made an impression on that little guy. One day he will remember that strangers befriended him when he was very scared.
Now what if more of us take action when we see a need instead of focusing soley on not getting involved???????
Oh, and just so you remember, nothing in life is an accident. You were supposed to be on that train.
People are very kind, but I’m not sure I did enough. I’m still going to try to follow up next week, but the fact that this is a different state from mine — and the mother is from a different state, still — limits what I can do. I knew that the children would have to be placed in protective custody that night, and it’s not as if I’m a certified foster parent in New Jersey.
As for what the little boy will remember — well, at least we didn’t add to whatever bad memories he already has. I got lost in Mount Vernon when I was 5 and, yes, I do remember the older woman who took me to a police officer. But what I mainly remember is the fear of thinking I might have lost my family forever.
I can’t even imagine what it was like for any of you. How terrified that little boy must have been and how unbalanced the mom must be. I’m glad the little guy had you and his other “train friend” to be there for him.
What a sad story, Laura! I’m so pleased that the child found someone like you and the other good samaritan when he needed you. It could have turned out so much worse. But it also sounds like he’s better off in State custody for the moment.
A writer who remembers the woman who looked after him for that brief cosmic moment…
How scary for him — I am glad that he had you as a train friend.
I’m catching up on the blog postings since I just joined up last week.
I have to say, as the mother of a young man who was 4 when his dad and I divorced, I cried, remembering my son asking, “Mommy, are you leaving forever?” It was so good to be able to say, “No, honey. I’m still your mommy and I am NOT going anywhere. I’m just moving to a new place to live where you’ll have your own room….” and other stuff. He’s nearly 18 now, about to graduate from high school, heading for a college career looking for a degree in computer sciences. AND HE IS A WRITER! and a good one!