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It was not fine. I would have to compile a list of therapists when I got home and try to find one who specialized in auditory hallucinations—no, before I did that, I would have to get someone else into my apartment. It was still possible that I was right and there really was music playing. Maybe the plumber suffered from hearing loss. Maybe there was a defect in the pipes and it was coming from another unit across the building where the occupant liked to listen to the same song again, and again, and again. I would research that, too, by eavesdropping at their doors.

That was how I had first met my upstairs neighbor, the man now running silently on my left. I didn’t have a lot of air to converse anyway, so silence was fine with me. It was slightly strange that he’d chosen to run next to me, but maybe I had inadvertently taken his regular seven-mile route.

He didn’t seem to have a real direction, though. Every time I turned at a corner, he went along. He waited with me until the lights changed and we could cross other streets, too. We went as far as I was able to run and then I slowed down, figuring that he would keep going.

Oliver Marchand slowed down, too. “You said that your name was Kat. Short for Katherine,” he stated.

“That’s true,” I agreed.

“I’m Oliver.”

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too,” he said. We were walking together now, even though we’d gone nowhere near seven miles.

I opened my mouth to apologize for how I’d been bothering him about the song, but decided against it. I wouldn’t speak about that again.

Luckily, he was speaking instead. “How did you come to live in the Milaflores Building?”

“I went to college here in Michigan and I visited Detroit once. I really liked it and I like living in cities in general. It took a while to find an apartment but when Mrs. McGlothen opened the door, I thought it was the right place.”

“So, you didn’t move for a job?”

“No, I have my own business,” I said. “I can do it from anywhere.”

“That’s impressive for someone so young.”

“I’m twenty-two,” I said. “I’m not all that young.” It would have been impressive if I was sixteen and supporting myself with my business, but I wasn’t even doing that, not yet. “How long have you lived there?”

“Almost a year,” he answered. “After grad school, I worked out of state for a while before coming back home.”

“Where?” I asked, and he said that he’d been in California. “You must be thinking about La Grieta, then.”

“Excuse me?”

“The La Grieta earthquake,” I prompted, surprised that he hadn’t known what I meant. “Next month is the anniversary of when it happened, seventeen years ago.” It had been on my mind so much.

“I think I remember it,” he said. “That’s where you’re from?”

“No, but I was living there at the time,” I answered. “It was a terrible disaster and a lot of the town was wiped out. All the historic buildings from the railroad era, most of the Carnegie library, so many homes. The town was less than two miles from the epicenter. The library had been beautiful.” I found myself discussing Andrew Carnegie and his US Steel Corporation, and I also got more into his charitable works.

“You must have been a business major and done a case study on him,” Oliver said.

“No, I just got very interested in everything about La Grieta, including the library.” And at that moment, a rumble shook me. I froze, sure that—

A big truck continued past us on the street and my neighbor hadn’t even noticed it. Maybe I really did need to speak to a professional.

“Where else have you lived?” he was asking.

“So many places.” I named a few of them. “My mom wanted to experience a nomadic life.”

“How did you go to school?”

“I didn’t. She thought that she was teaching me, but she didn’t believe in books or classes. Her lessons were more…nebulous. They were supposed to be life lessons,” I explained. “There was not a lot that actually would have been taught in a school. I got serious about learning when I was twelve. I had to do a lot of summer work and then I started eighth grade at a boarding school and graduated from there.”

“With basically no previous instruction, you jumped into eighth grade?”

“It wasn’t easy and I was at the lowest level of all the classes.” People had been doing algebra and I’d been working on two-digit multiplication. “You said that you’re from Detroit?”