Life Saver

A long time ago, in a hospital room, a woman saved my life. I'd had extensive surgery on a jaw that had gone bad; I woke (as I knew I would) to a mouth wired shut. When, in the evening, all who knew me had gone home, when the nurses were on their quiet rounds, when there was no one looking, the machine that had been pumping my stomach failed. I could not scream. I could not speak. I was drowning in my own blood.

It is true what they say about the mind spinning back. Over time, over roads, over regrets.

It was my roommate who saved me. A woman I'd met just hours before. She heard me struggle and rose in the dark—sat at the edge of my bed and cleared the pump. And there she sat, through the rest of that night, warding off trouble, keeping me safe, urging me to look beyond the window toward snow.

The other day, while taking a train to the city, I saw a woman who might have been the woman who one day saved my life. She sat on this bench. She was reading this paper. We waited, both in peace, both of us breathing.