He always thought of his mother as that tall, pretty woman with dark hair. His little league baseball coaches always gawked at her. They’d ask him if that was really his mom. This was amusing the first fifty times. It happened so often he stopped answering them—instead choosing to furrow his brow at them. His mother’s favorite activity was sewing and she even had her own room dedicated to it. She’d win Halloween costume contests and lavish Matt and his sister Andrea with the prizes. One year it was a PlayStation video game system, and he still remembered staying up to 1:00 a.m. playing Resident Evil with Andrea, the cold October wind scattering leaves against the glass patio doors.

The cooking wasn’t the only thing that he used to go over to his mom’s place for. His childhood dog, Elmo, had lived there part-time after his father died. Matt and Andrea shared him the rest of the time. The poor old pup had been dragged in three directions at once. How he’d loved Elmo, taking him for long walks and giving him way too many treats.

But there was no Elmo at his mother’s place this time, no face-wide grin and wagging tail. He still had Elmo’s ashes in the house, on the corner of his dresser in a red aluminum case with a floral design.

Mile after mile, headlights revealed the landscape. A pair of glowing eyes hovered up the western embankment at tree line. A raccoon. They used to be uncommon here, but he’d read that climate change was pushing them north. He glanced to the oncoming lane. No cars. His mother always warned him about keeping too tight to the oncoming lane. Stay away from the death lane, she’d said, eyes pleading. It’s not as if he had a choice. Most Northwood’s roads were two lanes. You had to be near the death lane.

The temperature dropped and thick fog crept over the road. Cold air filled his lungs as he shifted the truck into fourth gear, then third, then second. He peered into the foggy night, searching for the right turn onto Julip Road. The thick boreal forest did not make it easy. Another five hundred feet of ferns and aspen and Julip Road emerged from the fog, wide at the highway like a river mouth. Gravel spilled out onto the asphalt, washed down by rain from the highlands.