He starts up the Mountain thinking of how his wife had always described the annual outing as taking the ladies on a short little drive to see the pretty leaves. She never once mentioned taking them to the ancestral place deep in the back country and he has no idea where on earth they are going. Charlotte is so sure of herself, though, that Adam assumes he can find it with her directions.

As they reach the top of the mountain there is a bad omen of a house, a decaying Victorian with an enormous rotting verandah and boarded-up windows.

“Right there is where your wife’s childhood best friend lived. Seraphina was her name. She was the one who put the idea of going to university into Bethie’s head,” Doris says in a clipped, sombre voice as she waves toward the house. “No one lives there now. That’s what happens when you learn more than you need to.” They continue on for another forty-five minutes. There is not another house in sight, just thick forest on either side of the small country road.

As the car bumps over the deep potholes Adam clings to the steering wheel, wondering why his wife might have lied about where exactly she took the old ladies every year. A part of Adam thinks he should turn around immediately. It is too late in the day for a long outing. It will get dark soon. The old ladies aren’t dressed for a walk. They should go home. The old sensible Adam would do this. But the new Adam keeps driving.

He is a graphic designer turned publisher of graphic novels, everything unfolding in his mind in carefully structured grids and panels. All his days storyboarded. As they drive along the dirt road with dense forest on either side, Adam observes how the autumn leaves are Pantone colours and part of the grid. The forest floor is a swatch book. Those long branches are PMS 1375. That massive leaf PMS 032 and the tree to the left is a brilliant PMS 101.

He, Adam, in the driver’s seat of the car, Great Aunt Doris beside him with her short PMS 877 hair and practical scarf, Grandma Charlotte in the back with her huge, dyed-mauve bouffant, PMS 2562, wearing a dress and scarf more suitable for a party than for a walk in the country. No speech bubbles today.

They are in the middle of nowhere. Grandma Charlotte lets out a huge rattling wheeze and it reminds him of Elizabeth on her death bed. The grid collapses. His memories, his impulsiveness, they are making it impossible to maintain order in his vision of the world. Ever since Elizabeth died, he’s felt like inside there is a part of him he’s never known, a part that opened its eyes when Elizabeth took her last breath.

Adam glances in the rear-view mirror and Charlotte smiles, a sly smile, her eyes glancing side to side. He always used to think of her as a sweet old lady, simple-minded but harmless, always wearing a dress. She gives him an innocent little wave.