Chapter 4: Lucas

They took the last of the bandages off on the nineteenth day.

Dr. Hale did it herself, standing in front of me with a pair of small scissors.

She cut from the top down and peeled the gauze away in strips.

"Don't look yet," she said. "Wait until I've done the jaw."

I sat with my eyes shut like a child at a haircut.

There was a mirror on the wall behind her and I could see the shape of my own head in it, out of focus.

"Now," she said.

I opened my eyes.

The man in the mirror was about thirty-two and had never been in this room before.

The jaw was narrower. The nose was straight where mine had a small break in it from a rugby match when I was fifteen.

The cheekbones were lower, less sharp. My mouth was still my mouth.

The hair was gone. Short at the sides, a little longer on top, dark and flat.

I turned my head to the left and the man turned with me.

I turned it to the right.

I didn't know him at all.

"The swelling will go down over another two weeks," Dr. Hale said. "The numbness in the lower lip will fade. Probably."

I touched my own jaw with two fingers.

"Does it hurt."

"Not much, I imagine. You're on a great deal of medication."

She handed me a small mirror and I held it up and looked at the mouth.

"Thank you," I said.

"You're welcome, Lucas."

She said it lightly, the way you'd say a word in a language you were learning.

That was the first time anybody called me by it.

Martin came that afternoon with a leather bag and a folder.

He stood in the doorway for a second and looked at me and then came in and put the bag on the bed.

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