Sam wondered if her moving to Canada actually signaled the beginning of the end for them. Neither of them wanted to admit it out loud. In the years ahead, Sam was going to get a degree in medicine. There was no doubt about it. Where she would practice and live afterward, she didn’t know. And she didn’t know if Kevin would still be part of her life, or if she would still be a part of his.

Maybe we should end things when we get to Toronto?

Sam picked up her phone and began writing a text to send later. She was well into it when she bit her lip, stopped to think, unsure of what to do. She looked at the urn near her feet, which held her mother’s ashes.

I wish you were here so we could talk. You wouldn’t tell me what to do, but you’d say, “Let’s look at the pros and cons.” You’d help me figure things out for myself.

Sam picked up the urn, traced her fingers over the engraved leaves and doves. Her mother had picked it out in her final days. One of her last wishes was for Sam to disperse some of her ashes in the beloved Toronto neighborhood where she’d lived as a little girl, before her parents moved to the United States when her father was transferred back to New York.

I miss you so much, Mom.

Tenderly, she replaced the urn, taking care to wrap the thick towel around it. It was then that she’d noticed how her phone seemed to be glowing. The sun was sinking fast, and it was colder. She reached for the U of T sweatshirt she’d bought online. Unrolling it to pull on, she was delighted to find a banana and a Milky Way bar in the pocket. She peeled the banana, then took a bite.

As she chewed, she watched the sun disappear. The fading light painted the sky with blue and pink coral. That’s when she first saw the fog, coming in low to the ground, floating in thick tentacles, creeping slowly like a timid intruder. Maybe it was the elevation, but Sam thought fog occurred in the morning, not at dusk.

It was weird.

It didn’t take long for the fog to thicken as night fell, enshrouding her and the truck in darkness.

But she wasn’t afraid.

Sam was no princess. She’d grown up in Queens. There was nothing out here, nothing but nothing. The isolation was calming, not frightening, Sam told herself. Nothing out here compared with the things she’d witnessed and smelled on the streets of New York City, or the freaks, creeps, nut cases and weirdos she’d seen on the subway.