Page 18 of Lost With My Enemy

What do you think, Mom? Am I in trouble?

The wind picks up.

Yeah. I'm in trouble.

CHAPTER FIVE

ELISE

Day nine. The prairies have swallowed us whole.

Manitoba stretches flat in every direction, wheat fields running to the horizon under a sky so wide it makes me dizzy. There's nothing out here. No rock cuts, no forests, no lakes materializing around every bend. Just land, sky, and the highway cutting through it all in a line so straight it could've been drawn with a ruler.

My itinerary says Winnipeg by 4 PM. We're on schedule. The Thunder Bay rental was clean, the couch was adequate, and we left by 8 AM without a single detour. Jaxon has been quiet today, not his usual humming-and-commentary quiet but an internal quiet, like his thoughts are somewhere else.

His phone buzzed at breakfast. He looked at the screen, set it face-down on the table, and poured himself a second coffee without comment. Kenzie's name was visible for a split second before the screen went dark.

I didn't ask.

I'm learning that Jaxon's silences are weather systems. Some are sunny, loose, comfortable. Others carry weight. This one has been building since we crossed the Ontario-Manitoba border, and I don't know whether to wait it out or offer an umbrella.

"You're staring," he says, eyes on the road.

"I'm observing."

"From three feet away, with direct eye contact, that's staring."

"Fine. You're quiet."

"I'm driving."

"You drove through all of northern Ontario narrating the geological history of the Canadian Shield, and now you're silent through the most boring stretch of highway in the country. Something's on your mind."

His thumb taps the wheel. Three times, rhythmic. "Today's my mom's birthday."

Everything in me goes still.

"Kenzie texted this morning. She's visiting Mom's grave in Edmonton. Brought tobacco and sweetgrass. That's the tradition. Mom always said you bring an offering, not just yourself, because showing up empty-handed means you forgot what they gave you."

The wheat fields scroll past. A grain elevator rises in the distance, white against the blue.

"What would you bring?" I ask.

"A photo." His jaw works. "Mom loved looking at my photos. Had this whole wall in her living room, floor to ceiling, every print I ever sent her from wherever I was. Iceland, Morocco, New Zealand. She'd call me and say, 'I'm drinking my coffee and looking at the glacier you sent me from Reykjavik, and I think it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and I wish you'd been in the picture.'"

My chest aches.

"She always wanted me in the pictures. Said there were plenty of photos of mountains but not enough of me." His voice catches, barely, on the last word. "I'm behind the camera in every single one. She didn't have any of me."

"Kenzie must have some."

"Yeah. But not from the places I went. Not from the things I saw. She saw the world through my lens and never saw my face in it."

The highway unfolds ahead, ruler-straight. Wind pushes through the cab, warm, carrying dust.

Reaching across the console, I pick up his camera from the seat between us. He glances over, startled.

"Eyes on the road."