“Let’s see,” he said, pushing Ashif’s curls off his forehead. “It’s hardly anything. You’ll be fine, son.”

Ashif tried to hold back his tears, but he couldn’t; they came pouring down his cheeks.

“Boys don’t cry, do they?”

Ashif shook his head. He wiped his tears away with broad, clumsy strokes.

“Come on, show me your muscles.”

Ashif flexed his arms for his father.

Mansoor squeezed his biceps. “Pretty good. Soon, you’ll be strong as me.”

Ashif basked in the warm glow of his father’s praise.

Ashif turns the key in the ignition and the rental car starts to purr. The dry-cleaning bag stuffed with the gleanings from his father’s car sits slumped on the passenger seat. He roots through it for the black notebooks, bundled together in fours. It surprises him that his father kept a journal. He yanks off an elastic band, eager to see what his father had written.

He opens one with the title A-M-J 1996 on the cover. The first page is divided into four columns: DATE, START, END, KMS. At the bottom, a total for the kilometres driven. On the next page, the total carries forward and the counting starts again. He throws the book down, picks up another, shuffling through the pages for a note, a few words. Then another. And another. Not even one sentence. Only a log of all the kilometres he’d driven to and from the dry cleaners, to and from the gas station. Numbers. Nothing but numbers. Deflated, he tosses them into the back, where they scatter across the seat and the floor.

He reaches again into the dry-cleaning bag and pulls out the suede steering-wheel cover and the police report. He fits the suede cover over the steering wheel, manoeuvring his hands through the wheel to tighten its strings. The wheel now feels soft and strong under his hands. He unfolds the map attached to the police report, traces the distance between the two Xs with a finger. From where the car was found and where his father’s body was found. Not even a kilometre.

What happened in such a short distance, Pappa? Where were you trying to get to?

Ashif had only been a few kilometres away in his airport hotel room. His day had been like the day before. A long day of meetings followed by a quick dinner with Mel. After, he lay in his hotel bed and mindlessly flipped through the TV channels. He emptied the bar fridge, too. He wanted to forget his day, as he always did. Escape his body. His life. Meanwhile, his father was in a farm field, fighting for his. Ashif’s heart suddenly feels hollow, as if it’s pumping air, not blood. He backs the car out of its parking spot and begins his journey.

On McKnight Boulevard, he has a full view of the Rockies, a canvas of snow and rock against the blue sky. He feels a magnetic pull toward the mountains, as if there’s a compass inside his body guiding him. He had intended to drive north to Airdrie, but suddenly the vastness of the prairies makes him feel as though he’s adrift in an ocean. He remembers this feeling even as a child. There was no easy way to locate yourself in such a landscape. No markers, no reference points, just wide-open space, a feeling that you could easily disappear.