I went to the ticket office. Bought a one-way trip to Tours. They had a big map of the French rail network up on the wall. The line went to Tours and then forked off towards Bordeaux and connected straight to Spain. I heard there was good surfing in Spain. I don’t surf, but where there’s surf there’s beach. And I sure as hell beach.

The train was waiting on the platform. I got on the first carriage and walked through looking for a good place to sit. There weren’t many people on the train just yet. Fifteen minutes or so remained before the departure time.

I pushed through the doors separating carriages. After a while I came to a rail car of old-style seating compartments. Each compartment had two rows of seats facing each other and a glass door to the corridor. Both the door and the outside window could be covered with curtains. I found an empty compartment and went in. I drew the curtains closed and sat down in the corner, all alone and peaceful.

Cecile Nazari was a missed opportunity. But missed opportunities happen all the time. No regrets. It is what it is. On the other hand, Mom’s distant relatives. The lunch with Simone Vaugeois had been okay. No regrets there. Good peach tart.

The compartment door rattled. I parted my eyelids halfway. A small boy was looking at me through a crack in the door. He was having a hard time opening it. I pretended to be asleep. Hoped that he would go away. An adult hand reached in to unlock the door. It slid open with a bang. A woman and two kids spilled inside. They began to settle themselves in the carriage. The boy was bouncing on the seat opposite. The baby was beginning to cry. I didn’t feel qualified to help. She was also dealing with a big suitcase. That was it. I opened my eyes.

“Can I help you?”

She needed the help. The suitcase was heavy. I threw it up on a rack above the seats. The woman began to unwrap an evening picnic. The woman offered me a Tupperware box filled with red cherry tomatoes. I declined politely.

The little family unit made me think. My family had been small, just me, my sister, Mom and Dad. Mom had died pretty early, and Dad wasn’t very family oriented. So it had been us kids, pretty much. Which is one reason why I didn’t think about family that often. But here I’d been gifted with another shot at family. Gilles, Mom’s distant cousin, who I hadn’t even met. I wondered if they had known each other growing up. They weren’t all that far apart in age.