Summary

In Chapter 1, an 83-year-old woman named Etta Kinnick Vogel leaves a note for her husband, Otto Vogel, telling him that she has gone off to see the ocean. She has taken his rifle, but she has left him the truck. She also leaves her recipes so he will not starve while she's gone. Otto discards the idea of trying to find her. Instead, he checks his big globe and determines that she has probably headed east, even though it would be quicker to get to the water if she were to go west from their Saskatchewan farm. Etta never liked short cuts.

Otto grew up in a large farming family of fifteen children. People thought his mother was supernatural because all her babies lived during a time when most were dying. In contrast, Etta grew up with only one sibling, a sister named...