My savior was Old Jack.

Jack was not merely a homeless man; he was the curator of the streets, a philosopher of the gutters who wore his poverty like a heavy, woolen coat. He had found me shivering, blue-lipped, and silent. He told me later that I didn’t cry. I had already learned, at that tender age, that crying required an audience that cared, and the river had been indifferent.

Around my tiny, shivering wrist, there was only one tether to humanity: an old, frayed, braided red bracelet. It was cheap wool, the kind that itches and frays, knotted with a clumsy but desperate love. Tucked into it was a damp, dissolving piece of paper, the ink bleeding into oblivion.