Walter lowers the camera. Behind them, the falls thunder on, oblivious to the family drama unfolding in front of them. He has been here hundreds of times, but the falls never fail to take his breath away – those twin curtains on either side of the exposed rock outcropping, spilling over the shale cliff and cascading down into the river in a cloud of mist. At the top, the river is traversed by a bridge, and the cliffs are built up with boardwalks and viewing platforms and informational signage, but Walter prefers to picture what the falls looked like back in the fur-trading days when they were discovered, wild and pristine. Untouched by man.

At the top of the staircase leading down to the falls is a brand-new sign saying that due to recent events, a security fence has been erected along the edge of the cliff, and any trespassers will be prosecuted. This makes little sense to Walter, considering that Kate accessed the river at the beach hundreds of yards upstream, but maybe the beach is closed off, too. Even though it’s crazy, he feels as though people are staring at him, as though they know who he is, who he is married to. Standing here, he feels a little like a criminal returning to the scene of a crime.

So why is he here? When he pulled the truck into the driveway at Victor Street last night, he realized he just couldn’t be there anymore. It had been hard, the night before, being alone in their bed without Kate for the first time in years, knowing that she was lying unconscious in a hospital room on the other side of town and he couldn’t be with her. But knowing that she was now conscious and had gone somewhere other than back home to him, to their bed – well, that was just too much to take. Wherever Kate has gone, it is difficult for Walter to not feel that it is away from him.

So he drove away from the house, and he found himself following the same roads that Kate had taken on Friday morning, staring out the windshield of his truck the same way she had, passing the same houses, the same trees, the same street signs. When he got to the village of Kakabeka Falls he checked in at a motel and stared at the television without comprehending what he was seeing. Finally he went out and ate dinner at the Chinese buffet at the Kakabeka Curling Club, where there seemed to be no shortage of old men like himself eating alone.