Faceless Read online

  In the morning, my parents are fighting in the hallway. I haven’t heard them fight since the night before my accident. That’s what we’ve taken to calling it. My accident. Sometimes I think that three little syllables have never been burdened with so much meaning.

  I close my eyes and imagine my father leaning against the nurses’ station, as though the extra support can help him withstand the onslaught of my mother’s argument. It’s littered with flowers, at least half of which are for me. My parents’ friends have been sending flowers throughout my stay here at the hospital. They don’t know that there’s no place for flowers in my highly sanitized room, so every single arrangement ends up decorating the nurses’ station. I wonder if my parents’ friends know what happened to me—the full extent of what happened to me. Do they know that Sue Winters’s daughter, the straight-A student, the track star, doesn’t have a nose? Do they realize that, without an actual nose, the apple of Graham’s eye no longer has the sense of smell?

  I can’t taste anything either. Yesterday, when I was panting from the effort of our physical therapy, Marnie handed me a plastic cup to sip from. I thought I was drinking water until I saw that the liquid coming up the straw wasn’t clear but golden: apple juice. I guess I haven’t actually tasted anything since I woke up from the coma, but the loss didn’t feel official until that moment.

  The last time I wondered if something was official, it was Chirag telling me he loved me.

  A couple days ago—the same day that I made it up to four steps without Marnie holding my hands, my left side feeling like it might rip in half the entire time—I talked to Chirag on the phone for the first time since my accident. He was on speakerphone, so his voice echoed across the burn unit for everyone to hear. We’d barely said hello when he asked about visiting. I could see Mom smiling—she was holding the phone for me—and for a split second, I thought she was about to surprise me by opening the door to reveal him waiting on the other side. That’s the kind of terribly misguided surprise my mother would think I’d like. Like the time she bought me this really expensive purse that was like nothing I would ever wear. She ended up keeping it for herself.

  Mom answered before I could: “I’ve already told you, Chirag. Maisie’s in the burn unit. Family only.”

  I wished that I could take him off speaker and hold the phone close to my face, the way I used to when he’d call to say good night, which he did nearly every day since we started dating. But then I remembered I didn’t have a face to hold the phone close to. And then I was relieved that the burn unit doesn’t allow non–family members in.

  Anyway, it would be weird to see Chirag without being able to smell him. He always smells delicious, like clean sheets and Ivory soap, plus a tiny hint of curry from his mother’s constant cooking. Although he’s always telling me that the scent I think is curry is actually cumin. Not that it matters anymore.

  “Maisie needs to rest now,” Mom said, signaling the end of our phone call.

  “I miss you, Maisie,” Chirag said.

  “Bye,” I answered. I couldn’t imagine saying I miss you, too, not when Mom could hear me.

  Serena and I talked on the phone for the first time yesterday. She asked how I was and I said I didn’t want to talk about it. So she told me about the summer classes she’s taking at a college in the city and the new SAT words she learned. Her bright shiny voice rang through the room—the phone was on speaker again, of course.

  I listened as she told me that last Sunday—not that I have any idea what day it is right now—a bunch of our friends went to the beach and Serena tried to surf for the first time, falling head over heels into the waves. She texted a picture to my mom’s cell phone. I know Serena well enough to know that she thought she looked awful in the picture, dripping wet and squinting her eyes because the salt water made them sting. But all I could see was how beautiful my best friend looked, tan and toned in her bikini, not a single burn or scar marring her skin.

  “The water was so cold I couldn’t believe it,” she said. She didn’t know that I could stick the left side of my face into the ocean and not feel a thing. Maybe the waves would wash away whatever the doctors left behind.

  I haven’t been outside in two months. Too many germs, and anyway, what’s the point? It’s not like I can feel the sun on my face or smell the eucalyptus in the air. I may as well not even be in California. It’s July; my favorite time of year, fall, isn’t that far off. Soon, the days will get shorter and the nights longer. Serena always said I was such a nerd for loving the fall; only a dork like me would actually look forward to going back to school. But I know that Serena loves school just as much as I do. We were both going to apply to Berkeley this year. We’ve been talking about it since the sixth grade. We wanted to get an apartment together off-campus.

  I wonder who she’ll room with now that I live in the hospital.

  Out in the hallway, my mother is having a hard time keeping her voice down. She keeps repeating the words tempting fate and not enough time.

  Now Mom’s voice rises, loud and clear: “It was enough of a miracle that she survived the accident in the first place. Her body has barely had any time to recover from the initial trauma. The doctors made it very clear that another surgery at this point would be risky.”

  Another surgery. What could they possibly want to do to me now? There isn’t much of me left to do anything to.

  My father counters. Sometimes their arguments remind me of an epic tennis match, just back and forth, with no end in sight. Although this one does sound different than their usual fights over nonsense. This actually sounds like they each kind of have a point. Since I’m still under eighteen, my parents have the authority to make all decisions regarding my treatment.

  “We don’t know when we’ll have a chance like this again. I don’t want Maisie to have to wait for years.”

  “I know,” Mom agrees. “I know. But this is all happening so fast.” Strange. Mom likes things to happen fast. She’s usually the one pushing them forward. Pushing me forward. She continues, “Most patients are on the list for a long time. Normally, she’d have had a series of grafts before this was even an option.”

  “Grafts that the doctors would have to replace periodically—more surgeries and more surgeries and more surgeries. Sue, they showed us pictures of the kinds of reconstruction they can do with prosthetics—you know as well as I do that they don’t look natural.”

  “But they’ve barely even begun her psychiatric evaluation. Usually they have more time to assess whether a recipient can handle—”

  “You think anyone can really predict how Maisie—or anyone—can handle this?” Dad interrupts.

  I didn’t know I was being psychiatrically evaluated at all.

  “She’s going to be wearing someone else’s—” Mom stops herself midsentence. “We don’t know what kind of psychological impact that will have on her. She’s only sixteen.”

  Nearly seventeen. It’s my birthday in a few weeks.

  “This is our chance to get our daughter back.” Back? I didn’t know he thought I was gone. A lump rises in my throat as Dad explains, “All the research I’ve done, every article I’ve read—every parent said the same thing—I have my child back—the instant they saw the results.”

  He continues, “She’s young and she’s strong. She’ll never look the same no matter what we decide. And the sooner she gets this surgery, the sooner she might be able to feel something, smell something, taste something.”

  There’s a surgery that might allow me to smell and taste and feel again? A surgery that will make my parents say We have our daughter back?

  Seriously, what could Mom be thinking? This is a no-brainer if you ask me. I wish I could see out the door, try to catch my father’s eye, but my bed isn’t angled that way.

  “I can’t believe we’re even arguing about this, Sue.” My father is whispering, but somehow it sounds as loud as a shout. His voice is hoarse, like someone has rubbed his vocal cords with sandpa
per. “This is a gift that luck has dropped in our laps. Maisie won’t have to wait for years like everyone else.”

  Won’t have to wait for what?

  “I can’t believe we’re arguing about this,” Mom answers, her voice growing more shrill with every word. “There are too many unanswered questions. She’ll have to take pills for the rest of her life, and their side effects could make her sicker than she already is. She’s supposed to go to college next year. The immunosuppressive regimen is impossible for most adults to maintain, let alone a college student. And you know what will happen if she—”

  I wish I had my cell phone with me. I’d look up the word immunosuppressive.

  “This surgery is Maisie’s best chance to live a normal life again. Who are we to deny her that chance?”

  My mother is crying. She isn’t even trying to be quiet anymore. Her sobs are as steady and high-pitched as the beep from my heart monitor.

  “This was never supposed to happen,” she says with conviction, as though the injuries and illnesses that happened to everyone else in the hospital around us were predestined somehow, but mine was a fluke, an error, a cosmic mistake.

  “Oh, Susie,” Dad says. I haven’t heard him call my mother Susie in as long as I can remember. He used to call her that all the time. But I guess it’s hard to use a nickname on someone you’re usually shouting at. Now my mother’s sobs grow louder, and I can hear my father take a step. I try to picture him holding my mother close, rocking her back and forth until her tears subside. It’s almost impossible to imagine, but I’m convinced that’s what’s going on out there.

  Finally, my mother takes a deep breath and says, “I just don’t know how many miracles one family is entitled to.”

  “We have to talk to Maisie, Sue. It’s her body.”

  “You’re right,” Mom answers finally. “It should be her decision.”

  I close my eyes when I hear them turn and walk into the room. I want them to think that I’ve been sleeping all this time. I don’t want them to know that I was listening, wondering what I’m about to get to decide.

  Mom shakes me awake. Even though she’s trying to be gentle, I can feel her fingernails through my thin gown.

  “Sweetheart,” she says, “we need you to wake up.”

  I flutter my eyelids, pretending that they’ve woken me from a deep sleep. “Why?” I ask innocently.

  “We need you to help us make a decision, and we don’t have much time.”

  I snap my eyes open wide. I don’t want to miss my chance for whatever this is. I wonder why the timing is so important. Maybe there’s some doctor they’ve flown in who’s only available today. Or maybe there’s some procedure that can only work now, exactly this many days after my accident. However many days it’s been. I press the button that shifts the bed into an upright position. I’m not allowed to sit like this for too long because lying down flat is better for my injuries. But I feel like I need to be sitting up to have this conversation. “How much time do we have?”

  As my bed lifts, Mom’s face comes into my field of vision. She’s been spending most of her days in here, with me, so her skin has taken on a sort of gray pallor from so many days without sunshine. Mine is probably even paler. Then I remember: I don’t have skin. At least, not in all the places I used to.

  Instinctively, I reach for the mirror on my bed stand. My reminder. I don’t hold it to my face but grip it like a security blanket.

  “I’m not sure exactly,” Mom answers, and she looks kind of frantic, so I release the mirror and take her hand in mine. She’ll never let me do this—whatever this is—if she’s too nervous. Why can’t she be levelheaded under pressure, like my father, like me? I’ve always been more like him that way; I don’t even break into a sweat before a track meet.

  “Graham,” she says, turning to my father, “how much time did they say we had?”

  I can’t see my dad, but I can hear that he’s standing to my right, just behind my mother. “Let’s not worry about that for now. Let’s just weigh our options first.”

  The bed groans as my father sits on the edge of it. He rests his hand on my right leg and squeezes.

  “Maisie, for a while now, the doctors have been saying that you’re a candidate for a procedure called a face transplant.”

  “A face transplant?” I echo. Could that possibly be exactly what it sounds like? “What does that mean?”

  “The same way they’d give a heart transplant to someone whose heart stopped working, or a kidney transplant to someone whose kidneys stopped working—”

  “But that’s different,” I interrupt. “A kidney goes inside of you.”

  “Yes, it’s different, but the idea is the same. When tissue dies, it needs to be replaced.”

  If I could shake my head, I would. A face transplant. It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if Chirag were here, he could rattle off the names of at least six movies where something like a face transplant happens. He always knows random trivia like that.

  My father continues, “The doctors say that with a transplant, you’ll probably be able to smell and taste again, maybe even feel.”

  “How?”

  My father clears his throat. “Well, right now you don’t have a nose. You’re missing some skin.”

  The implications take a second to sink in. He means that they’re literally going to put someone else’s nose and skin onto what’s left of my face.

  That’s how I’ll be able to smell—through someone else’s nose.

  That’s how I’ll be able to feel—with someone else’s skin.

  I seriously think I might throw up.

  “Are you guys joking?” I ask finally. It’d be a ridiculous joke, a sick attempt to make whatever the real decision is a little easier. “I mean, seriously, who ever heard of a face transplant?”

  “Not a full face transplant,” Mom adds quickly, as though that changes everything. “It’s just your nose, your cheeks, and your chin.”

  “Why both cheeks? My right cheek is okay, right?”

  “Your right cheek was still damaged, though not as severely.”

  If I could nod, I would. I know that even though only the left side of my face was completely destroyed, the rest of my face still suffered burns. One of the doctors said that it had to do with the mercurial nature of electrical fires and I was tempted to congratulate him for using such a good SAT word. But I guess, for him, it’s just a word.

  Mom continues, “If your right cheek had survived intact, they might have tried to reconstruct your left, but given the damage—”

  “Can’t they at least try?”

  “You’ll keep your own forehead and your lips,” she says, like it’s some kind of bonus.

  “Oh boy, I’ll get to keep my own lips. Why didn’t you lead with that? Now I feel so much better about giving up the rest of my face.”

  My mother sinks out of my field of vision, sliding her hand out from under mine. Usually if I talk to her like that, she scolds me for being rude. But now I hear her start to cry instead. Quietly, my father says, “Maisie, you aren’t giving up the rest of your face. It’s already gone.” He pauses, clearing his throat. “The only alternative to this is a series of skin grafts and prosthetics that will need to be constantly repaired and replaced for the rest of your life. And with the grafts, you’ll never regain any sensation; no smell, no taste. It’ll just be like a mask over your—” He stops suddenly. I think he was going to say a mask over my face. But since I don’t really have a face, it’d be more like a mask over nothing at all.

  I take a deep breath through my mouth. In the hallway, Dad said that this was my chance to live a normal life again. But how normal could my life possibly be after something like this? “And with the transplant, will I look—normal?”

  He doesn’t say anything and for a few minutes, it feels like the only sound in the room is my mother’s ragged breath.

  Finally, Dad says, “You’ll look more
normal than you do right now.”

  That doesn’t sound particularly promising. I mean, right now I barely look human.

  “So no matter what, I’ll be a freak?” I ask. Even though I can’t feel my tears, there is a lump in my throat so that I know I’m crying.

  “No matter what, you’ll be our little girl,” Dad answers.

  Liar, I think. He doesn’t know that I heard him when he was in the hallway: This is our chance to get our daughter back.

  I swallow and trace circles on my hospital gown with the fingers of my weak left hand. “You said we don’t have much time. What did you mean?”

  Finally, Mom gets her sobbing under control so that she can answer me. “When they first told us this might be an option, they warned us that it could take a long time to find a donor. That’s why we didn’t tell you sooner. Your body needs time to recover. There didn’t seem to be any reason to rush into telling you anything that might make this more stressful than it already is.”

  Why does my mother think that protecting me means withholding the truth from me?

  “But?” I prompt.

  “But a possible donor has become available, and we have to act fast, while the face is still viable.”

  “Become available? You mean someone died, right?”

  “Yes,” Mom answers. “Someone died.”

  So I won’t just be walking around with someone else’s face glued to my head. I’ll be walking around with a dead person’s face. I’ll be a living, breathing ghost.

  Dad stands abruptly, making the bed shake. “This is a big decision,” he says. “We know you must have a lot of questions. The plastic surgeon has more answers than we do.” I listen to his footsteps fade as he walks away to get the doctor.

  I wish Chirag were here. If I’m levelheaded, like my dad, then Chirag is next-level-headed. He would approach this as a future physician; he would ask scientific, logical, smart questions about my health and my quality of life. He certainly wouldn’t ask the one question that’s currently playing on a loop inside my head: Will I ever be pretty again?