The following is from Nicole’s journal:
The prep room is cold green curtains. A window tinted violet, the color of my eyes, what’s left of them.
“Multiple grafts,” the surgeon says. “A degree of paralysis is certain, Nicole. But you were fortunate.”
“Fortunate?” Mom says.
“The rule of nines. We use it to describe burn coverage. The front of each leg is nine percent of your skin’s total surface area. Same with the back. The front of your torso: eighteen percent, the back too. Each arm is nine percent. And then your head is nine percent. You’ve burned somewhere between a quarter and a third of the left side of your face.”
Mom: “She didn’t burn anything, Doctor.”
Doc: “I’m just saying that if you break it down, the burn covers less than one percent of her body.”
Mom: “It was her face. It was Nicole.”
Doc: “It could have been much worse.”
Mom: “Her face. Can you get her back to-”
Doc cuts her off: “No. You can’t think that way. This is a life-altering event.”
Me: “The other one percent?”
Doc: “Excuse me?”
Me: “The rule of nines. If you add up all those numbers, the body parts, you get ninety-nine percent. What’s the other one percent?”
Doc: “That’s what we use to describe the males’ private parts.”
Me: “One percent, huh? I’m sure they’d be thrilled.”
Doc: “A sense of humor is important, Nicole. You’re doing great.”
Me: “The girls get nothing. The boys get the extra point. They’re complete at one hundred percent. That’s why women are stronger: We live with omission.”
Mom (sobbing): “Can’t you give her more morphine?”
Doc: “The left side of your face. I’m hopeful you’ll still be able to blink. If you can’t, we’ll give you drops to keep your eye lubricated. If you can’t cry, you’ll go blind.”
Me: “I’m sure I can cry, Doctor.” I’m crying all right. “I can’t see out of that eye anyway. I can’t see. I can’t see.” It’s blinding my rage!
Mom: “Don’t touch it, Nicole. Oh my god. Oh my baby.”
Me: “What does it look like, Mom? How bad is it? Please. Tell me.”
The doctor rolls me onto my side. With two tugs on the strings he unties my hospital gown to expose my left leg, and then he draws lines into the back of my hip with something.
Me: “Is that your fingernail? What are you doing?”
Doc: “I’m surveying the donor site, Nicole.”
Me: “Please. No.”
Doc: “I know this is horrible for you. Don’t try to look, Nicole. If you have to, look at your mother. That’s right, close your eye and hold Mom’s hand. Hold it tight.”
Close your eye, as in one.
“My other eye,” I say. “Is it-”
Mom cuts me off: “Hush now, sweetie. It’ll be all right.” Worst liar ever.
The surgeon’s hands are cold and way too soft on my hip. I feel tapping and tugging and a vague sense my skin is being stretched beyond the limits of its elasticity. A minute later they’re wheeling me down the hall for the surgery, the first of several, I’m told. The doors to the OR swing in. I see through a slit eyelid a nurse is checking the equipment. The scalpel flash reflects in the glass of one of the implement cabinets. Mom gasps. She nearly collapses as the OR doors swing shut on her.
Doc: “Do you like this music, Nicole?”
I didn’t notice any music was playing. It’s New Age, waves crashing, whale calls. “Got any Eminem?” I say.
Doc: “Atta girl.”
My attempt to make the doctor laugh surprises me as much as it does him. Where is this bravery coming from? I feel bolder now that Mom isn’t weeping over me. Or maybe I feel worse. The situation is absurd. Have I really burned my face?
Anesthesiologist: “We’re ready to go.”
Surgeon: “Beautiful.”
That word.
My first memories, going back to when I was four years old, maybe even three.
Beautiful.
My identity.
Oh Nicole, you’re simply beautiful.
Not the real me.
Sixth-grade yearbook: MOST BEAUTIFUL: NICOLE CASTRO.
The fake me.
Ridiculous, how beautiful you are-just beautiful.
Just? Nothing else?
Isn’t she just the most beautiful thing?
A thing.
What will it be like, not being the word anymore?
The mask goes over my mouth. Dad, where are you? I’m afraid of the dark.
Anesthesiologist: “Count backward from one hundred, Nicole.”
“One hundred, ninety-nuh. .”