HE THOUGHT OF it every day. He was American, and lived in a snowy American city, but a Canadian flag, with its broad bars of red and its red maple leaf, hung in his home office. A printout of the flag, on a sheet of computer paper, was taped to the wall between his kitchen and dining room. Pasted to the rear window of his car, a flag decal hinted at his love. When he dressed casually in wintertime, he favored a letterman’s-style jacket. The leaf, big and bright, adorned the back. If he’d won the lottery, he would have retired and moved to Toronto. If he could have designed his own world, that city would have occupied his entire planet. “When we had our son, I wanted what I call a T-R name,” he said, laughing at himself. “Tristan. Troy. Trice. I didn’t tell my wife why. I didn’t tell her, ‘Because it would remind me of Toronto.’ She said, ‘I’m not naming him Tristan, kids are going to make fun of him. I’m not naming him Troy.’ She said, ‘What kind of name is Trice?’”
