The girl on the bus was reading my banned book

Dear Delyara, I wrote a novel twenty years ago that was never officially published in my country. A few photocopied copies circulated, then the authorities questioned me, and I stopped writing fiction. I became a translator, which is safer because the dangerous ideas can be blamed on someone else. Today, on the bus, a young woman was reading a badly printed copy of my novel. The cover was missing. Several pages had been stapled in upside down. She underlined sentences with a green pen and smiled at something I had written when I was younger than she is now. I sat across from her, staring so openly that she eventually looked up. I asked whether the book was good. She said some parts were too dramatic, but one character made her feel less alone. I wanted to tell her I had written that character at three in the morning while my baby slept beside the desk. I wanted to ask which sentence she had underlined. Instead, I said I had heard of the author. Before getting off, she tore a small piece from her notebook, wrote the title and a phone number, and handed it to me. She said, “I can send you a copy if you want.” I have spent two decades believing the book disappeared. Tonight, a stranger has offered to return my own words to me.