Pursing his lips, Matías says, “You’re American, no?”

“I am, yes.”

“When I was a younger, I spent summers in America with my aunt and uncle.”

“That’s where your English comes from?”

“Yes, I learn from them when I was younger. So, what brings you to Chile? You don’t really seem the hitchhiking type. What are you, sixty?”

“I am sixty-five,” Jack says, smiling.

Laughing, Matías seems happy with himself. He tells Jack, “I usually pick up younger folks—hikers and alpinistas.”

When he thinks about it, Jack has many reasons to be in Chile. In South America. He is in search of something. Of himself. Of meaning. The meaning of what, exactly, he can’t really say. All he knew when he came was that he wanted to see something other than the things he had already seen—something other than expensive suits and manicured buildings, boardrooms, yield reports, and balance sheets. Experience something entirely new to him, perhaps. And he tells Matías, “My wife recently passed away from cancer, and I have worked all these years and accumulated all this money. Working and saving, and of all the things I’ve bought—a big house, cars—none of it matters. I found myself alone and did a lot of thinking, and I recalled something my mother had told me. Just before she died, she told me to run away and never look back. At the time, I never understood what she was talking about. For the most part, I’d forgotten all about it. But there I sat in that house, with the flowers from the funeral all wilted, brown, and dropping all their petals on our sun porch. My wife was dead, and my mother’s memory—her words hit me like a head-on collision. I realized I needed to heed my mother’s words.”

Matías looks intrigued. “What do you think she meant?”