blood had made the wound look
much worse than it was. The bullet
took off only a tiny flap of skin on
the side of her nostril, and it came
out clean, with no bullet fragments
left inside. She didn’t even need
surgery. They stopped the bleeding,
stitched her up in back, stitched her
up in front, and let her heal.
“There was nothing we can do,
because there’s nothing we need to
do,” the doctor said.
My mother was out of the
hospital in four days. She was back
at work in seven.
—