When he gets to Sal’s General Store, Walter browses through racks of fishing lures, debating whether to call home, trying to convince himself he is just being paranoid. At the other end of the store, a group of locals are gathered around the counter, watching the television perched on the shelf. “Hey, Walter, this shit is crazy, come check it out,” Sal calls over to him. Walter makes his way across the store, slowly, his feet heavy in his workboots. There is part of him that knows what is about to happen, but he raises his eyes anyway, adjusting to the faintly snowy picture just in time to see it.

Drop, bang, flip. The barrel, and his heart.

Then, in spite of himself, he allows himself to think about Kate. He thinks about the past few years of their marriage, the lies they have told themselves, pretending that everything is all right. How when he comes home from his guiding trips now, there is a brief moment when her eyes flash with confusion, until she shakes her head and says, “Walter,” answering a question that she understands she can’t say out loud. How he is such a goddamned coward, running away instead of staying, instead of dealing with what is right there in front of him.

“Pretty crazy, eh?” says Sal. “You hadn’t seen it before?”

Unable to speak, Walter merely shakes his head. But the truth is, he has seen it. He has been seeing it – or some version of it – his entire life.

Saturday

FIVE

Finn sits in the back of a cab, watching the familiar sights fly by the window on the short ride from the airport to Victor Street – a tree missing here, a new house there, a bigger sign at the Tiki Hut, the street sign for Victor Street hanging at a forty-five-degree angle, a new mailbox at the end of the long driveway. The stand of red pines in the front yard, the blue Civic parked on the grass, next to her father’s truck and her mother’s Volvo and Katriina’s SUV. Bruno, the Parkers’ ancient, arthritic husky, sits up on two of his three legs and barks half-heartedly as the cab pulls up to the house.