“It’s getting worse,” he said, stepping closer to his dock. “You can’t even see the Point now.”

“The Point? Where’s that?”

“It’s about a mile out. There was a lumber mill out there, long time ago. You can still see where the bridge was.”

“A bridge?”

“Look down this line. You can see the old pilings.” He gave the air a slow karate chop, and as I followed the line I started to see the dark shapes in the water. There seemed to be two separate lines of them, about five feet apart, running parallel out to where the island must have been.

“What was it, a railroad bridge?”

“Exactly. It was quicker just to go right through the bay, instead of going around. The line ran right through my backyard.”

“When did they close the mill?”

“It burned down one day, around the turn of the century. I’ve got an old newspaper picture hanging in the house.”

“And they just left those things in the water, all the way out there?”

“They go about halfway. If it wasn’t so foggy, you could see where they end. You have to watch out for them when you’re out in the boat.”

“I imagine.”

I kept looking at the old wooden pilings in the water. It looked like the backs of two long sea monsters, swimming side by side into the fog. Then I heard another voice behind me.

“Did the fireworks start yet?” It was Leon. He had a baseball cap on now, with the script D of the Detroit Tigers.

“Doesn’t matter much,” Tyler said. “We won’t be able to see them. Did you guys decide on a track yet?”

He looked back at the studio. There was a big picture window overlooking the lake, and the light was casting a faint glow on the backyard, all the way down to the water’s edge.