Gazing out the windshield, Jack sees the wide expanse of bare ground and snow-dusted peaks with apricot slopes. The beauty steals his breath. After a moment, he says, “Since I’ve been here in Chile, I’ve had time to think, to really reflect on it. And I think what she meant was that I had more than enough money, and she saw what earning it was doing to me—what it had done to me, what it was causing me to do to my family. But I didn’t see it. She knew I was being consumed by my obsession with wealth. I believe she was telling me to leave it all behind—leave everything I’d built and amassed—and disappear. And I’ll be honest. In that room, after my wife’s funeral, that’s what I wanted to do, and that’s what I eventually did. I went to a sporting goods store and bought hiking gear, went to the airport with my passport and a wallet full of money, and I booked a first-class flight to Argentina. Hitchhiked from the airport to Chile.”

The only sounds are the engine, the tires rolling over the roadway, the wind blowing around mirrors and stacks, and the blessed blasting air conditioner.

Matías tells Jack, “That is deep, my friend.”

The sky overhead is a breathtaking blue unlike anything Jack has witnessed. Clear of smog and wind-borne dust, it sits like a brilliant sapphire bowl overturned on the world below.

Jack tells Matías, “But when she was in that hospital bed, raving half out of her mind, I never understood what she meant. I just thought it was dementia talking in the throes of her last moments of life. But here I am, all these years later, trying to make sense of what she told me back then.”

“You’re trying to understand your own existence—the most admirable pursuit.”

Jack says, “I’m searching for something, but I’ve little idea of what it is.”

“Well, it’s not the answer I normally receive,” Matías replies. “I am sorry for the losses of your wife and your mother. You know, my mother—she is still alive, in good health with a strong ticker—stays active, chews a little coca every day. Like me and my wife, Catalina, she lives a simple, low-stress life.” Matías’s face lights up as he reaches to his sun visor, where pictures are clipped. He thumbs them loose and hands them to Jack. “This is my Catalina and our son, Gabriel. They’re my world, my friend. My everything. Twenty years we been married. How long was you married, Jack?”