Transcription for The Second Train

A friend and I are working on a series of novels where a couple, separated by death, are attempting to be reunited. Those that choose to move on after death are sent to Heaven or Hell via a train that travels through Limbo. Each compartment of the train is a different significant memory from one's past, and when you're done moving through the train, you'll arrive at your final destination. Sam, the male half of the couple, is on a train when Rachel, who chose to wait for him rather than move on and thus was banished to Limbo, sees him. She can't catch his train, but the next time one goes by, she remembers seeing him again and manages to board this one (which is, of course, not supposed to be possible). By doing that, she puts her own memories on board and they get mixed up with the person's that this train really belongs to, and they are stuck wandering through both lives until a solution can be reached.

I've already written a few things in a notebook I keep around, so for today's post I'm writing these down just to get them in here. Tomorrow is all new stuff.

Thought 1 (and the intro to the book):

  A plant shriveled quietly on a windowsill as she sat at the kitchen table, staring blankly out the window at the nothingness outside. Something was important, once. What was it? Where was she? Consciousness returned for a moment, screaming and flapping as it broke apart the bars of its fleshy prison, and for a single beat of time her hands clenched the tablecloth, turning it blue with the force of the memories streaming into her, in a wave of light and sound and feeling-
  The gates crashed down.
  The hands relaxed as the tablecloth slowly faded into an indeterminate shade of gray.
  She sat,staring at the plain of gray grass that stretched to the gray mountains that silhouetted the gray sky, and was unaware that anything had happened. This cycle had repeated 31,462 times, and Rachel Forscythe still sat, in a place where time had no meaning, and stared out the window of her gray farmhouse.
  Until the day the second train passed by. 

I'm wondering if I should cut this second one. Giving the woman a miscarriage seems so cliched, and the way it came out I might just make it about the death of her father.
Thought 2:

  She sat in the bay window, staring out at the rain as she cradled a cup of tea in her fragile hands. A hospital bracelet dangled from one wrist, though the date was several days old. She hadn't cried, and was beginning to doubt she ever would. All liveliness had drained out her with the body of her little boy, and she simply soaked in the light mist of melancholy every rainstorm brings, noticing- but not caring- when Sam padded in to tuck a shawl around her shoulders.
  A cup of tea had been her go-to for years. At 7, when her father had thrown out every scribble of hers except the floral watercolors, she had retreated to her room with a cup of tea, and sulkily read several (also forbidden) novels until the following morning. When told she couldn't marry Sam, she had calmly gotten herself a cup of tea, drank it, and began packing her bags.

That's it for now. More tomorrow.