Summary

Rather than describing the events that take place after the story, the epilogue is comprised solely of a flashback, back to when the boys and their father had just left Kansas and are making their way to New Mexico. The narrator, sitting shotgun, is responsible for using the map and navigating the father as he drives. He measures how far they have to go to the Oklahoma state line using a toothpick his father gave him, and the father resets the odometer in the car to zero to see how accurate he is.

They make a pit stop to get gas. The father goes in to pay and the brother takes the Jeep and parks it. The father exits the store and goes into the bathroom for a long time. The narrator goes to check on him and when he returns he finds the...