Bustle and busyness, petty crimes and medical problems had earned the port the nickname of Rock Harlem among park and concessionaire employees. Though Anna enjoyed her occasional forays into this heart of commerce, she always found its urbanity jarring after the isolation of Amygdaloid.

As she dragged her kayak up between the docks that lined the harbor, she saw a blond woman in the khaki and green uniform of the Student Conservation Association. SCAs were volunteers, often college students, who traded their time for the experience and the joy of summering in a park.

Anna knew her slightly from the training provided for all seasonal employees the first week in June. Her name was Tenner, or Tinkle. No, Tinker, Anna remembered. She was married to a man of twenty-four, about ten years younger than she was. It had been the gossip for a day or two. He called himself Damien and leaned toward black capes and cryptic statements.

The woman had a vague and whimsical nature, as if she believed, along with Liza Minnelli, that reality was something she must rise above. At present she was leading a score of tourists around the one-mile paved nature trail.

Anna turned her back on the group and stowed her paddles in the kayak’s hull. If it was one of Tinker’s first nature walks, Anna didn’t want to distract her. Thirty-one years afterward Anna still remembered one devastating moment when she’d looked off stage in the middle of her big moment as Jack Frost to see her grandmother waving from the second row.

On the short walk up from the water, Anna deliberated between a drink and a phone call. The phone call won. ISRO was connected to the mainland by radiophone, and anybody with the right frequency and a passing interest could tune in. But it was the only link with the outside world and Anna was glad to have it.