“Jesus,” said Matthew. He’d been behind her and now he was grabbing her upper arm, as if she were a child about to run into traffic. “Okay,” he told the man in front of them, “okay.”

“Gimme your shit,” said the man. He wore a ski mask and gloves—must have been sweltering—he wasn’t white, not black, not Asian nor Hispanic. He was tall, big; he was a gun. Matthew almost never lost his temper, but she was instantly afraid that in a panic he might go off, punch this man, land them both in further danger.

But he’d already handed over his phone and his watch. “Here,” said her husband. “Take it.”

“Fuck that,” said someone.

“Gimme your bag.” Did she detect a speech impediment? Slightly slurred?

“Fuck you.”

She hadn’t recognized her voice as her own. Her heart was racing fast—faster than the third and last time she tried cocaine, years ago. “No,” she cried out, as he waved that gun at her. “I’m not giving you anything.” Matthew had handed over all he had. It was Sarah shouting “no,” Sarah gripping her bag as the gunman grabbed the skinny strap.

“Gimme the bag.”

“Enough,” said Matthew. “Jesus, Sarah,” yanking her bag.

“No!” she yelled, fighting him now, too, both sweat and a chill prickling her skin, egging her on to scream at the top of her lungs, but she didn’t scream; she bit down on the insides of her already chewed-up mouth. “No.”

“Give it!” the stranger shouted.

Matthew successfully tore the bag from her and tried to hand the man everything, but Sarah reached into it, scrambled and failed to grasp her phone.

Then a spike of pain—unprecedented in its shock if not its intensity—pain that sent her off the pavement of the path and onto the damp, cool ground. The man with the gun had shoved her; her face—left side—had hit the pavement. These facts struggled to make themselves clear, to rise to the top of her consciousness and meet with the throttle of pain itself, as she registered heavy treads of rubber soles rushing away. She heard the sneakers through her own high-pitched wheeze on top of coughing; for a moment she struggled to breathe. She saw nothing but staunch gray bark. Undulating green. I am a big old tree, she’d sung to her baby daughter, stuck in the ground is me. She sat up too quickly and felt blood running down her right arm, which was confusing because her arm felt fine. The blood was coming from her arm? Her eye? Her nose. The blood was coming from her nose. It was gushing from her nose and down her arm.

Matthew came into focus. “Jesus, Sarah,” he repeated, keyed up. “Are you okay? Honey?” Taking her face in his hands, looking, checking. “Here”—he took off his running tank—“bleed on this.”

“I’m okay,” she said, after what felt like a full minute, but still she wasn’t sure. “I’m all right, I’m fine.” She touched the tank to her nose—there was tingling, throbbing, but most unsettling was the blood.