Page 16 of Lost With My Enemy

"And the canoe."

We drive after lunch, heading northwest along the Lake Superior shoreline. The highway hugs the coast here, cliffs on one side, water on the other, and the scale of the lake is absurd. It looks like an ocean. Massive, grey-blue, waves breaking against rock in white lines.

Elise puts her phone down. Watches the water. Doesn't reach for her laptop or her planner or her itinerary.

"Have you ever seen anything this big?" she says.

"A few times. Icefields in Iceland. The Sahara, from a ridge in Morocco. Lake Baikal in Siberia, but that was frozen."

"You've been to all those places."

"I've photographed all those places."

She turns from the window. "Is there a difference?"

The question catches me off guard, because nobody's ever asked it. People see the portfolio and assume I've experienced the world. But experiencing and feeling are different things.

"Yeah," I say. "There is."

"Which do you do more?"

The highway curves and Superior fills the windshield, steel-coloured under clouds. "Photograph."

She nods once, then looks back at the water. "I organize events I never enjoy. I coordinate other people's happiest days. Build itineraries for trips I'm too busy working to actually take." A pause. "So I get it."

"The doing-but-not-living thing?"

"Yeah. That."

A moose appears on the shoulder of the highway, massive and unconcerned. My foot lifts off the gas, and we slow to a crawl as it surveys us with an expression of pure indifference before wandering into the trees.

Elise is gripping her laptop bag again, eyes wide.

"Was that a moose?"

"That was a moose."

"It was the size of a car."

"Welcome to northern Ontario."

Her exhale is shaky. "Add it to the itinerary. Day five. Canoe capsize, Tim Hortons blizzard story, existential crisis, moose encounter."

"Busy day."

"The busiest." Her voice drops. "And none of it was scheduled."

The rental tonight is a basement suite in a house outside Wawa. One bedroom, pull-out couch, a kitchen with a toaster and a microwave. The owners left a note on the counter.

Welcome! Enjoy the fresh air. WiFi password is MooseCountry22. Please don't feed the bears.

"Please don't feed the bears?" Elise reads, voice flat.

"Standard northern Ontario hospitality."

"I'm locking every window."

"Bears can't open windows."