The train to Marigold only ran on Tuesdays, and only for passengers who weren’t sure where they were going.

Ellen bought her ticket with exact change and a destination she invented on the spot. “Marigold,” she told the clerk, because it was the name of her grandmother’s street, and because a woman who has just left a job, a fiancé, and a lease in the same week is allowed one decision made purely on sound.

The carriage was nearly empty. An old man slept under a newspaper. A girl of about nine sat across from Ellen, swinging her legs, holding a paper bag that smelled of oranges.

“Are you running away?” the girl asked.

“I’m between addresses,” Ellen said.

“That’s what my mum calls it too.” The girl offered her a segment of orange. “I’m between addresses every Tuesday. Dad’s in Marigold. Mum’s in the city. The train is the only place that’s just mine.”

The conductor came through, punching tickets with a silver punch that left tiny star-shaped holes. When he reached Ellen, he studied her ticket a long moment.

“First time?” he asked.

“Does it show?”

“Everyone’s ticket shows.” He punched a star into hers. “Marigold’s a good choice. People go there to start chapters.”

Outside the window, the fields were doing their evening trick of turning gold and then violet. Ellen ate the orange segment slowly. She thought about the fiancé, who had been kind in the way furniture is kind. She thought about the job, which had been a room she kept tidying for people who never entered it. She thought about how neither loss felt like falling. They felt like setting down bags she’d forgotten she was carrying.

“Do you know what you’re going to do in Marigold?” the girl asked.

“No,” Ellen said, and was surprised to find it was the most hopeful word she’d said all year.

The train slowed. Marigold station was small and lit like a birthday cake, and a man with a bicycle waited on the platform — the girl’s father, waving like the train was a ship coming home.

Ellen stepped down with her one suitcase. The evening smelled of rain and somebody’s garden. She did not know where she would sleep, or work, or begin. But for the first time in a long time, the not-knowing felt less like a hole and more like a door.

Behind her, the conductor tipped his hat. “Tuesdays,” he said, “we run both ways.”