He takes one last look at the apartment and leaves it behind without a moment of regret.

A week later, he watches the sun go down from his patio.

The seaside town in the Canary Islands is empty of everyone but locals, and the night is quiet. He adjusts the settings on his telescope while he waits for the stars to come out. The little apartment cost him next to nothing. He can live here for the rest of his life with what he’s made from Bernard Lam. He might be comfortable doing exactly that.

He didn’t get to Alberta, after all. But there are other places to go to see the Northern Lights.

To pass the time, he opens up his laptop and plays the video clip he’s been watching on a loop. Nate Marlowe, a different kind of star, no less compelling, is doing a filmed acoustic session for a Seattle radio station. It’s just him, another bass player, a woman at the keyboards, and a backup singer.

Nate starts playing. The intro is long, hypnotic. When he begins to sing, his voice is like sandpaper. The backup singer steps forward. She hasn’t yet lost her tropical tan, so her skin is the color he’s become used to seeing. She’s dressed in jeans, a loose sweatshirt, and a baseball cap. She looks like she wandered in from the street until you notice the mic in her hand.

When she sings the second verse, it brings tears to his eyes. Every time. It has nothing to do with the lyrics of the song, nothing to do with the arrangement or the haunting chords Nate Marlowe is playing. It is the pure, unadulterated emotion that her voice wraps him up in.

He has known Nora for a long time, but watching her sing is when he begins to truly see her.

The first time he met her was during an AA meeting. There was a thunderstorm raging outside and the church basement was almost empty. Only a few stragglers came in, some more for warmth than for anything else, and Nora. Whisper was at her side, and when someone mentioned that all pets should be left outside, Nora slapped the woman with a stare so cool the woman turned away and didn’t speak to anyone else for the rest of the meeting.

She holds so much of herself back, except when she’s singing. Embracing this raw, striking talent of hers. He wishes she would have shared this side of herself with him.

On-screen, the last chord is still reverberating through the air when a look passes between the two singers and Nora slips out of the room.

Brazuca searches daily, but there are no more videos of Nate and Nora singing. It is the best version of the song, with seven times as many views as the studio recording. The number is in the millions. It climbs every day.