Part 2
The surgery took eleven hours.
The doctors removed part of my jaw and rebuilt it with a piece of bone from my leg.
When I woke up, I couldn’t speak. My face was wrapped, swollen, and numb.
There was a tube in my throat, and I couldn’t even ask for a mirror.
I was too scared to open my eyes all the way.
Then I felt a hand on mine.
Raymond.
He leaned down, kissed my forehead, and whispered,
“Hi, beautiful. I’m right here.”
I cried without making a sound. Thirty years of marriage, and he still said it like the first time.
Two days later, Joanna came in.
I watched her face, waiting for the shock. Waiting for her to look away.
She didn’t.
She sat on the edge of my bed, pulled out her phone, and showed me her screen.
It was the photo of me holding my sign.
She had made it her lock screen.
“Every time I look at my phone,” she said, “I remember the bravest woman I know.”
