There was a knock at the door, which opened before I said yes, enter, hello.

“It’s Nurse Esther,” said a nurse I hadn’t met yet. “How we doing?”

“Good,” I tried, my face too numb to talk.

“Looks good,” she said, leaning in to see the drawings on my face. Her body reminded me of a cake pop, round on top, thin at the bottom, but ultimately short. Height, a particularly tricky physical trait to solve. The only surgery adds only an inch and costs a fortune, not worth the sacrifice for most. I should count myself lucky, I thought, for having the freedom to change myself this way. I should focus on living my lucky life, enjoying my privilege, rather than fixating on the problems I’ve created. But it was too late to back out. Esther was holding the mirror for me, showing me my marked-up face again, the lines on my skin like wrinkles, but also like a language I couldn’t read, a surgeon’s secret code. I felt excluded by the conversation he would have with my face, just the two of them under the lights in the operating theater, and passed the mirror back. In the process, my hand accidentally brushed Esther’s breast. Neither of us acknowledged the contact. She pulled a phone from her pocket, checked the time.

“Ready to go back?” she asked. I nodded, yes. Ready. She helped me out of the chair, walked me down the hall, past the obnoxious pop art hung on every door, canvases featuring old cereal box characters painted into selfie poses: the Trix Rabbit making a kiss face, Cap’n Crunch giving peace fingers, Snap, Crackle and Pop throwing what looked like gang signs. I realized then how high I was. High and thinking about Leah, girlhood, Rice Krispies breakfasts, how we’d put our ears to our bowls, receive messages before we ate, as if each kernel of dehydrated rice had a body, a soul. Little Leah would narrate Snap, Crackle and Pop’s pleas for mercy in an array of squeaky voices—please don’t eat me. Little Leah would have loved this heinous art.

Esther patted the metal table. “Hop right up,” she said. I eased aboard, shivered. Everything surgical is always cold. “You want a blanket?” she asked. I thought I’d say no but told her yes. She laid it over me and it was pure pleasure, a bath towel from the dryer on a winter night.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome, honey,” she said and I drifted a little, into the painting hung high on the wall, Tony the Tiger in a tracksuit, swinging an arm like he was saying they’re grrrrreat, like you were supposed to wake up, see him there, and know you were great, also; you were gorgeous, alive; you went under, got that close to death, and made it back.