The train hissed steam into the gray afternoon. Other passengers moved with purpose—mothers gripping children, businessmen adjusting cufflinks, lovers stealing last kisses. Dagmar simply stood, a comma in the wrong sentence.
The train pulled away from the platform, and Dagmar disappeared into the landscape—a small, deliberate vanishing. Somewhere ahead, a city waited that had never heard her name. Somewhere ahead, she would finally get to be the one doing the finding.
She stepped onto the train without checking the destination board. The carriage smelled of worn velvet and someone else's coffee. She chose a window seat facing backward—because forward seemed too much like lying.
A child across the aisle asked his mother, "Where is that lady going?"
She had not meant to become a question mark.
The mother whispered, "Shh. She's lost."
She had spent forty-seven years being found. Found by her mother in the wardrobe during hide-and-seek. Found by her first husband at a gallery opening. Found by her second in a hotel bar in Vienna. Found by her doctor, her accountant, her neighbor who always returned her mail when it went to the wrong flat.