She has seen her beautiful dying friend Mia in the hospice that morning. She will see Mia again tomorrow morning, and then (she thinks) she will depart and return home (New York City) and again return in a week or two weeks, or possibly sooner, for the funeral, for she cannot not attend the funeral; and then, surely, there will be a memorial service in another few weeks …

Blinking tears from her eyes as much of vexation as of grief. Oh, how life has caught up with her, who, as a girl, had been as fleet-footed as a gazelle!

And her nostrils pinch against the smells of the river, a smell of rotted things blown in gusts against her face and a smell of chemicals, repugnant yet in a way reassuring, familiar, unchanged over decades.

The intruder, her erstwhile companion, is peering at her beneath the rim of the soiled baseball cap, which she sees is a Detroit Tigers cap, white logo against dark blue.

She remembers: Detroit Tigers, Detroit Lions. One is baseball, the other football.

He is smiling, the corners of his eyes creased. Perhaps he senses that she has returned to Detroit on an errand of mercy. Even if it is a futile errand.

Something catches in her throat, she is stirred, aroused.

She wonders where the smiling man has come from. Her impression is, he’d crossed the bridge on foot, he lives close by or has parked a vehicle on the Detroit side of the bridge.

His clothes are work clothes, obviously. His khaki trousers have numerous pockets, such as a carpenter or a plumber might have; his shirt is a shapeless jersey pullover, stained and stretched at the neck.

When she first noticed him, he’d been walking briskly. Like one accustomed to crossing the narrow bridge to Belle Isle. Until he’d sighted her on the embankment, and paused.

Wind stirring her clothing, her hair. She is thrilled to imagine how she’d appeared to him initially.

On the dark green choppy water a cruise ship is passing. Festive sounds, music and laughter. At this distance L.K. can just make out the name on the white bow—Spirit of Belle Isle.

Often, years ago, she’d seen this boat, or its predecessor, on the river. Making its festive way west from Belle Isle to the farther side of the Ambassador Bridge and back again.

Who takes a cruise on the Detroit River? Presumably tourists—but who would come to the ravaged city of Detroit as a tourist?

The smiling man in the baseball cap comments on the Spirit of Belle Isle. Has she ever taken the cruise? No?

He tells her that he has lived most of his life in Detroit but has never stepped foot on the Spirit of Belle Isle. Yet, a few nights ago, he’d dreamed of the boat.