He adds up the distances between towns. It must be about seventy-nine miles home. That’s how far he is from the utility room, where she’s standing and staring at his phone, though no doubt Lisette’s there. Lisette’s playing the role of comforter, co-conspirator, and slave, yes, Lisette’s her slave too, but a slave with privileges. While he heard something shrieking in the forest last night. Probably a fox, but wolves have been sighted here too. The hunters set up game cameras to get a glimpse of the animals they hope to shoot. Or else it’s farmers wanting photos of whatever’s eating their turnips, usually red deer, he supposes. Then one morning this wolf is standing there, staring straight into the camera. He’s seen it in the newspaper, but wolves can’t climb, and it’s just a question of time before she sits down next to the washing machine. Her hands cupped over her knees, and he hasn’t seen her cry in years. She didn’t cry when her mother died. Her face can clap shut over a feeling like the lid of a freezer over stick insects. He had some in eighth grade, in a terrarium, stick insects. They weren’t much fun, and then his biology teacher said that putting them in the freezer would kill them. He peered at the insects for a long time before he placed them in the freezer. They stood there rocking, looking stalklike. When he took the terrarium out the next day, they stood there stiff. They didn’t suffer, he supposed. Thinking back on them now, they looked like someone who’s achieved complete control over a stage illusion—and she’s been 14successful that way too. Maybe she doesn’t have feelings at all. She’s got lots of hobbies, but it isn’t clear that she has feelings. He has the distinct sense that Lisette’s standing in the kitchen area at this very moment. Lisette sits in the bedroom on the edge of the bed, she’s there for the kids’ graduation parties, she joins them on vacation, and for several years she drove their daughter to handball. Lisette’s got short legs and a driver’s license, and by now the police must have been brought in. It’s been more than a day since he drove off. In a depressed state of mind, though that’s not true. He just wanted the feeling of winning, and now he has a view of a landscape at dusk. His trousers are green from moss and something else, extending high up his legs. The boards he’s sitting on have been attacked by algae. If she saw this sort of algae on the patio, she’d have him fetch the poison. What hasn’t he done on that house? And now she wants to move into something smaller, though it’d be good to have an extra room. “An extra room?” he asked. “For Lisette,” she replied, and then he took the car and left his phone behind. His family’s grown used to his absence, and besides, he isn’t the same any more. Something has clapped shut over him. First she won all the battles, then he positioned himself squarely on her side. In that way, he stopped losing, and she tired of scrutinizing him. That was the logic, but now he’s sitting here. A mist has risen, the night will be cold, and a wolf has been sighted.