Restoration

SYIC: Part 1: Survival — Chapter 18

The deep winter had finally loosened its grip. A year into his exile in upstate New York, there were finally subtle signs of a thaw. The maple buckets were gone from the trees; water ran freely through leaf-entombed streams, and the bright sunlight warmed the orange vests and hard hats of the crew along the tracks.

It was the first week of April 2003, and Jack was approaching a milestone. He had been toiling on the rails that threaded the Susquehanna and Chenango Valleys since late January 2002. Through weekly sessions with Burton Emery, AA, and steady work, he was making slow, incremental progress.

On a warm afternoon in early April, the trees glistened, branches brightening with the flow of life. Jack, Ben, and the crew were finishing a three-month refurbishment on the Chenango Valley line.

“Yo, Jack, how’s it lookin’?” Ben bellowed from forty yards up the track.

Jack, in a T-shirt and safety vest, called back, “Alignment’s good.”

A commotion rose from the road nearby. The Broome Community College women’s club lacrosse team passed by, laughing, loud, stealing glances at the crew. A few waved. Jack took off his hard hat, grinned, and lifted a hand in return. One of them, a senior captain with blonde hair glowing in the early-spring sun, an echo of Sarah…