When my relationship unraveled nearly two years ago, I decided to suspend my career as an actuary in Boston and take a long vacation in Costa Rica, where I planned to learn how to surf and do yoga. Yes, it was the most clichéd response possible for a heartbroken 32-year-old Westerner like me.

After four weeks there, I was traveling by car with several friends I had met at surf school when we came upon a red-faced, middle-aged woman hitchhiking on the outskirts of a small village. Our radio was broken and we were bored, so one woman in our group, Abby, said: “We’ll offer you a ride on two conditions. First, you must sing us a song, and then you have to tell us a story. Do you accept?”

The hitchhiker, an American, responded with a crooked smile and a nod, freeing her hair from behind a Disney visor. “What would you like me to sing?” she asked.

“Anything you like,” I told her, “as long as it’s by Rod Stewart.”

One rendition of “Maggie May” later, her story began.