A Holy Moment

Quoted from Moral Lessons by Richard Seltzer:

I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face post-operative, her mouth twisted. A tiny twig of facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Yet, to remove the tumor in her cheek, he had cut the little nerve. Her young husband is in room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. They touch each other so generously, greedily.

The woman speaks: "Will my mouth always be like this?" I respond: "Yes, it will. It is because the nerve was cut."

She nods, and is silent. But the young man smiles."I like it," he says. "It is kind of cute."

At once I know who he is, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with God. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works.