One afternoon, on a street in Yale­town, a man coming toward me said, “Oh, hi,” as if he was used to seeing me around. He looked vaguely familiar— there was a sort of outline around his ­features that I almost recognized, a translucent and shifting visage, as of someone I once knew.

She would see him sometimes around Yaletown, her former counsellor, heading glassy-eyed toward a bar or creeping up the back steps of the massage parlour.