The sound is coming from the closet, she is sure of it. She feels around in her purse for some kind of weapon, but she has nothing, not even a can of bear spray or a hunting knife, what kind of northern girl is she? She does have her keys, which she holds in her fist as she slowly stalks across the room, before yanking open the closet door and thrusting her keys into the space with one hand while holding the other over her eyes.

Nothing. There is nothing in there, of course. Her hands shake. Stupid, stupid. She leans back against the door, breathing heavily, and snaps the elastic hard against her wrist. When her breathing doesn’t slow, she digs her fingernails into her opposite arm, pressing to the point of pain, then pressing past it, and as she scrapes her nails across her skin she can see the marks become freckled with blood. Her breathing immediately begins to even out. She tries again, in a fresh spot, and feels the panic begin to subside. She stands there, waiting for her heart rate to drop, for the world to return to normal again, and thinks about how it was just like her to be so undone by someone else’s tragedy when she was standing in the middle of her own.

THREE

At any given point, Shawn Parker’s life has only ever been about one singular thing. When he was younger, right up until the day he met Kate, it was basic survival. And then it was Kate, even though it took him some time to figure that out. And now, it is pancakes. Every day, pancakes. And not just any pancakes, but Finnish pancakes. And not just any Finnish pancakes, but world-famous Kahvila Finnish pancakes, the first stop for tourists and food bloggers and college students home on break, and the one thing, other than hockey players and high murder rates, that Thunder Bay is famous for. Yes, Shawn’s entire life is flat, golden, paper-thin pancakes, stacked on a plate.

He supposes it’s about Katriina and the boys, too, but somewhere along the line they got conflated with the pancakes.