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by Molly Fuller

We read the train schedule wrong. Me with my nearsightedness and you with your far-sightedness, between the two of us we should have been able to read the truth straight across those lines. Somewhere between three and five in morning when we should have been safely inside a train, arcing through the darkness behind two bright points of lights, instead we were wandering the streets of New York City. The unfamiliar feeling of people slipping by on either side of us, hardly more real than shadows in their determined steps behind us, next to us, past us. These were people that knew where they were going.

We held hands walking down the street, taking turns leading each other in circles. A cabbie, perhaps sensing our confusion, hailed us toward his window. The communication between the three of us was like talking on a cell phone that keeps cutting out. Anxiety helped us light our cigarettes. I watched the meter while you tried to figure out what needed to be done.

“No smoking in the cab,” the man said.

Sometimes, I follow the rules too well. I pointed the bright end of my cigarette out into the night and let go, watching the rosy tip cut a path through the darkness outside of my window. You did not stop smoking. I know it was not because you did not hear him and not because you wanted to break the rules, but because it was your way of saying, “I’m still in control of this situation.”

We jumped out of that yellow car, the dark black letters TAXI clearly spelling out a haloed beacon to those lucky ones, but not for us. And down we went into a thick rush of air smelling of things below the earth into the zing and pop of the subway that is something quite different from a cornfield at night. Back home we can walk five miles from our house in either direction and see nothing.

The possibilities stretched down either side of the track as I peered over the edge and you turned to me and said, “I’ll take care of you.”

“I know,” I said, and leaned my head into your chest. The only place we wanted to be was home.

We ended up depending on the generosity of strangers that night and how many times in our lives have we had to rely on the kindness of others to get by and how many times have we been the ones who are generous? The measure of our lives stretches a long way before us, but I do not think we will forget who we can be and who we do not want to be.

We curled up on our friends’ red couch, my head rested under your chin, my knees bent under the bridge of your legs and your arms held me snug to you as if we were floating on a rescue boat. I slept there, next to you, like I was already home.