“You hit that metal support pretty hard.” Mimi checked the cut on my forehead. “It’s split pretty good. Who knew riding in a vaporetto could be dangerous.”

“Do I need stitches?”

“The bleeding is almost stopped,” she said, “so I think you’ll live.”

“It hurts.”

“Of course it hurts. ‘Blackbird Mavrias versus the Vaporetto. A limited engagement.’”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“No,” said Mimi, “it wasn’t.”

“Am I going to have a scar?”

“And a really nasty black eye.”

SO WE’RE IN PRAGUE, and Mimi takes me to a restaurant she has found. Terasa U Zlate studne. Up by the castle.

“This is fancy.”

We get a table by the window and look down on the city laid out in evening light.

Mimi turns sideways in her chair. “Look at that view.”

“Just how expensive is this place?”

“Tomorrow we fly home.” Mimi looks sad. “This is our last night in Prague.”

“That expensive?” I stretch my arms out and take her hands in mine. It’s romantic moments like this that strengthen relationships.

“You bought a watch?”

“What?”

I had forgotten about the watch. But there it is. On my wrist. All emerald green and sparkling gold.

“No,” I say. “Oz gave it to me.”

Mimi squeezes my hands. “You know, if you decided to buy a watch, you can just tell me.”

“I told him I didn’t want it. But he insisted.”

Mimi opens her menu. “Don’t order the black caviar.”

“Five thousand, one hundred Czech crowns?”

“About three hundred dollars Canadian.”

“For fish eggs?”

“The steak is only eighty-five.”

Mimi gets a pumpkin soup, which we share, and orders a beetroot risotto carnaroli for her main course.

“Look, Bird,” she says, “they have Canadian lobster.”

I order the pork chop on mint lentils, with carrot purée and apple glaze.

“When we get home, remind me to call my mother.”

I take the envelope out of my jacket. “You could give her this.”

Mimi looks at the envelope and then she looks at me.

“It’s the story that Oz made up about Uncle Leroy and the Crow bundle.”

“The one where he stays in the Czech Republic? Gets married? Has a family and a bunch of kids? So forth and so on?”

“I’m sorry you never met him.”

Mimi leaves the envelope where it is. “Did you think about what I asked you?”

“Sure.”

“About believing in something?”

“Good food.” I tap the menu. “I believe in good food.”

“What about that three-part article you started and didn’t finish,” says Mimi. “Lois Paul. Maybe you could start there.”

I shake my head. “I’ll never finish that story.”

Mimi cocks her head at me. “The problem with human beings,” she says, “is that we can describe what we do. We just can’t explain why.”