Autopsied by My Mother

Chapter 2 Scars and Blindness

My mother blinked once and looked down again. The Chief Medical Examiner had her hands back.

“Street drifters get into all sorts of trouble. Fires. Fights. It has no bearing on identification.” She reset the scalpel and pushed it through the scar tissue. Her hand stayed steady.

Behind the glass, my father rubbed his right shoulder. For sixteen years, after every long trial, I had brought him hot tea for the chronic pain.

I knew the steeping time and exactly how hot he could drink it.

He glanced at the ledge where I usually left the thermos. His hand reached toward it, then stopped.

At ten, I had waited through one of his late closing arguments under a scratchy courthouse blanket. He found me in the lobby after midnight.

He stared at the empty ledge for a second, then shook his head.

“She’ll come crawling back,” he told Julian. “I canceled her credit card. Give it a day and she’ll be on her knees. She knows who pays for everything.”

Julian said nothing. He moved to the other side of the table and helped roll my body. Several people behind the observation glass gasped.

His hands paused against my shoulder and hip.

An eight-inch surgical scar crossed my lower back above the spine. The edges were straight and clean. My mother had made that incision herself.

I was fifteen when she held my hand and called the kidney my duty and my purpose. Chloe needed a “better quality of life” so she could keep dancing ballet.

The forceps fell from my mother’s hand and struck the floor. She covered her mouth. Her eyes followed the line she had once closed stitch by stitch.

Her phone buzzed on the instrument tray. Chloe’s tear-streaked face filled the screen before my mother could pick up the forceps.

“Mommy,” Chloe said, catching on every few words. “I’m sorry to bother you, but people are talking. They say Harper ran away because she’s jealous of my premiere.”

“I told them that can’t be true, that she loves me. Did I do something wrong?”

My mother answered at once. She turned away from the scar and fixed her eyes on Chloe’s face.

“No, sweetheart. You did nothing wrong.” My mother had used that same soft tone all our lives. “Harper is being Harper. Focus on your performance. We’ll handle this.”

She ended the call and chose a larger scalpel. This time she drove it into my abdomen hard enough to rock the table. Julian flinched. She kept cutting.

My stomach had been empty for days. There was no trace of a last meal.

A small dark object rested inside it.

Julian lifted it out with tweezers and rinsed it at the sink. It was a cheap metal souvenir token.

He turned the clean token under the examination light. A stamped image came into view.

My father stopped rubbing his shoulder.