Life pretends to give you choices. I was twenty-two. I was on a sweltering, crowded train in Italy. It was summer. It was nighttime. I didn't know what Italians did during the day, but at night, they all seemed to get on trains and go somewhere, because the train was packed.

I was traveling through Europe alone. I was supposed to be there with my boyfriend. Actually, I thought that by the time we took the trip, he would be my fiancé. Two weeks before we were scheduled to leave was our second dating anniversary, and he said he wanted to talk to me. It sounded important. I thought I'd have a decision to make.

See? That was life pretending again. I thought I was going to be in a "yes, I'll marry you," or "no, I won't," situation, but the situation I was actually in was "I'm breaking up with you, so are you going to Europe alone, or are you going to cancel the whole thing?" type deal.

Ahh, life, you crafty devil.

I'd done everything we'd intended to do together, only alone, as if somehow that would be a fantastic "screw you" to the guy who thought that breaking up with me on our anniversary was a good idea because it gave our relationship "symmetry," whatever that meant. And because I was doing it alone, I was racing through everything with clock-like precision; I'd be in Athens  for the flight home in only a few days. I was a jilted woman on a mission, it seemed.

A little girl came  to use the bathroom. She couldn't have been more than seven. Wow, Italians were trusting people. She had a messy pony tail, huge, long-lashed eyes,  She flashed me a gorgeous, gap-toothed smile as she pulled the door shut behind her.

When she emerged she  sat down next to me, stretching her legs out and crossing them at the ankles. She patted me on the arm and rattled off a question in Italian, none of which I understood. Her mouth made the words mysterious and wonderful, each syllable lispy and marvelous.

"No parlo Italiano," I said, making a face of regret.

This didn't faze her a bit. She again blasted a blizzard of Italian my way, the only word of which I understood being "sola," inflected upward, like a question. She shook her messy hair out of her eyes.

Alone.

I nodded, smiling. Yes, indeed, I was sola, as sola as they came.

"An-ge-la," she said slowly, pointing at herself, turning her name into a glorious sound.

I said my name in a similar fashion, enunciating carefully.

Angela nodded, satisfied now that formalities were taken care of.

"Dove vai?" she asked, pointing at the forward direction of the train.

"Home," I said. I thought for a moment. "A casa mia," I tried.

"Ma perché?" she queried, raising her hands, palms outward and lifting her shoulders. She again shook her hair out of the way.

I thought back to my high school French, made an educated guess, and said, slowly, "I don't know," lifting my shoulders as she had.

Angela huffed out an irritated breath and pushed her hair out of the way.

I laughed and patted my legs, inviting her to sit. She moved without a qualm, sitting like my thighs were a pony.

I pulled out my brush, tugged the tie out of her hair, and began brushing the snarls out in long, sure strokes. Angela kept up a steady stream of unintelligible Italian, using darling hand gestures. As I brushed, her hair gave off the scent of her shampoo, some kind of baby soap, with something floral mixed in. It was lovely.

After her hair was tangle-free, I spent another two minutes doing it in a  French braid, like I did for my nieces.

When I was finished, Angela felt her hair, smiling with pleasure, even running into the bathroom so she could see it.

"Grazie," she said when she emerged, enveloping me in a tight, child's hug. She then kissed me, one gentle kiss on each cheek, before sitting once again.

She said another long sentence in Italian, which felt like it was washing over me in a soft spring rain; I found myself thinking how lovely it would be to just stay in this country and learn this language, do something that didn't involve any part of my nice, safe, Curtis-tainted life.

At the end of her words, Angela patted my arm, and said, "Rimani in Italia," in a wheedling voice that needed no translation.

Remain in Italy.

At that moment a woman emerged from the carriage in front of us. Spotting Angela, she let loose a torrent of Italian that did not sound pleased. She then turned to me and said many other words that sounded extremely apologetic.

Angela then spoke, presumably explaining our relationship to her mother, and the fact that I didn't speak their beautiful language. She finished by swinging her braid back and forth, and smiling.

Angela's mother then smiled at me and said something that ended in "Grazie," and took the lovely Angela by the hand and went back into the carriage. Angela gave me a wave as the door closed.

The train was slowing as it approached a station along the Adriatic coast of Italy. I had no idea where we were, I hadn't been paying attention, because it didn't matter.

But what if I made it matter?

What if I got off?

What if I did something that wasn't "neat and symmetrical"?

I rose before I could change my mind, and picked up my backpack.

I walked to the door of the third class train car that had carried me here, as I sat outside the bathroom.

I reached for the handle to the outside door; it was a knob, the old-fashioned kind that you turned, so I turned it.

It clicked as it opened, a decisive sound.