The man sent several more objects from his shopping cart downriver. I discerned a piece of wire, a saucepan, a red bandanna. I had a terrible thought that he was ridding himself of all this in preparation for some self-obliteration. I started to walk down the slope toward him.

“Somehow that doesn’t seem strong enough,” she said. “Hey. I googled you. You’re a historian? Sorry, do I have to say an historian?”

“You don’t have to say either. I’m just a grad student.”

Close up, this man didn’t look like a person about to absent himself. He just looked leathered by sun and time. He pointed over my shoulder. Behind me, to the west, the sun was setting over the bursting red of the Bok-Kai temple.

The man splashed the river onto his face, lifted his eyes to the sky, then walked back to his tarp. I pictured Snider making these gestures, kneeling at the bank, brushing the water.

Had I been silent too long? “Your mom,” I said. “She looked different.”

“Yes,” Anita said. “Actually, that’s why I’m calling. It’s about my mom.”

I followed the man’s tread marks down to the water and dipped my fingers in as he had. The lick of the cold Yuba on my hand made me shudder, and a wave of visceral déjà vu passed over me. After a moment, the initial uncanny jitter ceased, but I still felt like the very surface of the Yuba was glistening with recognition.

Of course, though, it was just the girl on the line, Anita’s old voice, skewing time.

“Listen,” she went on. It was as though her words were reaching me not across miles but across decades. I had to ask her to speak up. “I’m out of town for a few weeks hustling up vendors for this ridiculous event I’m working on, a bridal expo,” she said, louder. “I’ll be back in two weeks. I know it’s been ages. But can we meet up?”

7.