Then the man looked at me with unmistakable pain.
“Help,” she whispered.
I took clean towels, pressed them against the wound, and told Martha to call emergency services.
“Stay awake,” I told him. “What’s your name?”
“Grant.”
“Hang on, Grant. Help is on the way.”
The paramedics arrived quickly and took him away.
I assumed I wouldn’t see him again, but three days later he returned with a bandage under his shirt. He sat in the booth facing the entrance.
“Thank you for saving my life, Lena.”
The coffee train.
“What happened?”
“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Her expression warned me not to ask any more questions, so I didn’t.
Grant became a regular. He always chose the same table and kept an eye on the door. We reached a tacit agreement: I wouldn’t question his past, and he wouldn’t question mine.
Over time, we began to talk. First about time and books, then about the truths we had both tried to escape.
