She always bought two coffees. Even after he was gone.
Maya did it for 214 mornings straight. One black, no sugar, the way Daniel drank it. One oat milk latte, extra foam, the way she pretended she still liked it. She’d sit on the same bench at Kampala Road station, put his cup on the empty space beside her, and watch the 7:12 to Jinja pull in.
“Force of habit,” she’d tell herself. But habits don’t make your hands shake when the train whistle blows.
They met on that train five years ago. She’d missed her stop, crying over a job rejection email, and he’d slid her a napkin without a word. On the back he’d written: Bad days end. The train keeps moving.
He sat with her for 17 stops. Talked her out of quitting design. Talked her into believing her sketches were worth more than rejections. By stop 18 she was laughing. By stop 47, three months later, he was calling her his favorite detour.
Daniel was a civil engineer. Built bridges, he said, but really he built her back up every time life knocked her down. He had this rule: every Friday they’d buy a train ticket somewhere, anywhere, just to see where the rails went. Soroti. Gulu. Kasese. They collected destinations like other couples collected photos.
The last ticket was for Kisumu. “Cross-border adventure,” he’d grinned, pressing it into her palm. “You, me, and terrible lake fish.”
He never made it to the station that Friday. A bus swerved. A bridge he’d inspected months earlier held, but his car didn’t. The call came at 6:44am. She still had his coffee in her other hand.
Funerals teach you strange things. Like how people say “he’s in a better place” while you’re thinking but this place was ours. Like how you can nod through an entire service and only cry later, alone, because grief waits for quiet.
Maya quit her job. Sold their apartment. Moved back to her mother’s house. Everyone said “give it time.” So she gave it time by riding the 7:12 every morning. Not to go anywhere. Just to sit where he’d first sat beside her.
On day 215, she didn’t buy two coffees. She bought one. Black, no sugar. She set it down and stared at the empty space.
“You’d hate this,” she whispered to the seat. “Me turning our train into a mausoleum.”
The train arrived. Same whistle. Same brakes. And there, in the doorway of car 3, stood a man holding a coffee. Oat milk latte, extra foam.
Her heart stopped. Then started again, stupid and hopeful. It wasn’t him. Of course it wasn’t him. The man had Daniel’s shoulders but not his smile. He scanned the platform, confused, then spotted her cup on the bench.
“Excuse me,” he said, voice rough from sleep. “Is this seat taken?”
Maya couldn’t speak. She just shook her head.
He sat. Sipped his coffee. Opened a battered notebook. Sketches spilled out - bridges, cityscapes, a woman’s profile she recognized as her own. From five years ago, when Daniel used to draw her sleeping against the window.
“I’m Eli,” he said without looking up. “Daniel’s cousin. He talked about you constantly. Said you had the worst taste in coffee and the best laugh he’d ever heard.”
Maya’s tears came then. Not the quiet ones she’d practiced. Ugly, gasping sobs that made Eli close his notebook and hand her his napkin.
On the back, in Daniel’s handwriting: If you’re reading this, I’m late. Again. Tell her the train keeps moving. And tell her I love her at every stop.
Eli explained later. Daniel had mailed him a stack of notes and napkins “for emergencies.” This one was labeled: For the morning she stops buying two coffees.
“I’m not him,” Eli said quickly, like he needed to. “I build roads, not bridges. And I drink tea. But Daniel made me promise... if I ever saw you at 7:12, I was to take the Kisumu ticket. He booked it before... before the accident. Said you two still had a cross-border adventure owed to you.”
He held out a faded ticket. Friday. Kisumu. Two seats.
Maya stared at it. At the empty cup beside her. At Eli, who had Daniel’s eyes but his own kindness.
She thought about staying. About 214 more mornings and 214 more cups going cold. About love that ends when a life does.
Then she thought about Daniel on their first ride, saying Bad days end. The train keeps moving.
Maya stood. Picked up his cup, now empty. “I hate oat milk latte,” she admitted.
Eli smiled, Daniel’s crooked smile but softer. “Good. I brought tea.”
They walked toward car 3 together. She didn’t replace Daniel. She didn’t have to. Love doesn’t work like that. But she let herself board the train again. Not to remember him. To live because of him.
As the train pulled away from Kampala Road, Maya set the Kisumu ticket on the window ledge. Next to it, she placed Daniel’s last napkin.
The train kept moving. And this time, so did she.
