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Finally, the day before we were to set out, I left José in a van idling outside my ex-wife’s building in downtown Saint Paul and climbed the five flights to her apartment. The ink was still fresh on our divorce, and I dreaded every interaction with Jane. I was 20 and she 24 when we first met in a Native American studies class at the University of Minnesota. She was pretty and outgoing, I was lonely and increasingly estranged from my family. And I couldn’t help but fall in love with Jane’s two-year-old daughter, Allison. In that brief initial period of purity in our relationship, I committed to raising Allison, and it was this that had kept us together through a series of moves across Minnesota, Spain, South Dakota, Texas, and Alaska.

We had shared incredible intimacy in our marriage, but in recent years Jane and I had come to distrust each other. And now I resented her for hovering as I hugged the kids and said a silent prayer. Having long subdued my emotions in her presence, I said goodbye without shedding any tears. But I couldn’t help but linger at the door as Malcolm and Martha pleaded with their eyes for me to stay.