by Aimee Ross
“Ooooh, I hope so—I really like him. This could be the real deal.”
She laughed again.
“Now, Aimee, I know you are forty-three years old and a grown woman, but I’m still your mother,” she lectured. “You need to go slow. There’s no rush.”
“I know, Ma, will do,” I said. “Talk soon!”
• • •
Written in my notebook during the next week’s residency:
Only two weeks and two days. How can it feel like this so soon?
Well, Aimee, you tell us. What does it feel like?
It feels like I’m falling in love. Not in like, or like a lot. In love. Hopelessly, madly, and passionately in love. A grown-up, mature “in love.” With an awareness that YES, YES, this is the one. Mine to love. Mine to want to love.
It feels like those darn clichés about love—my heart skipping beats, finally finding the one, or when you know, you know—are actually happening to me, the cynical divorcée who no longer believed in fairy tales.
It feels like I’ve always imagined—unexplainable.
It feels like I could kiss him forever.
It only takes one, Aimee.
• • •
When your very own Prince Charming sent you text messages like these—
Everything’s so easy for us.
I keep thinking about looking in your eyes and smiling, and then I think, ‘Damn, she is so beautiful, in all ways.’
Love when you wrinkle your nose.
It’s your smile.
I’m probably the happiest man alive right now.
—you knew you better hang on to him. Like ever-after hang on.
Jackson. The One. I could feel it. He did exist!
I was under his spell, enchanted over and over and over again on a daily—sometimes hourly—basis. My smile, with its brand-new teeth, returned along with my laugh—the one that wrinkled my nose—because of him.
He was real, and he was mine.
Jackson. Handsome, energetic, and charismatic. A self-titled “simple man,” he worked hard and loved his two children even harder. Jackson’s hobbies included cooking and watching gory old horror movies (thankfully, not at the same time), and he randomly sang bits and pieces to any song, from the ’80s until now, like a human jukebox.
We shared a love of George Michael (“Don’t tell anyone,” he once whispered in my ear, swearing me to secrecy), and if I corrected his grammar, Jackson corrected me with raised eyebrows and a smile and said: “This is who I am—take it or leave it!”
He was comfortable, genuine, and silly—quite an inviting combination—and he made me laugh every day.
Jackson also made me feel attractive, sexy even, in spite of those ugly scars—the ones he brushed his fingertips against with empathy, the ones he wished had never happened. But Jackson also understood. Those scars had kept me from dying, giving me the chance to find him.
“Look, it’s just something that happened to you,” he told me. “I’m glad you’re alive.”
And I knew he meant it.
Jackson never treated me differently because of what I had been through, nor did he ask me to talk about it. He just accepted me.
Every time Jackson looked at me, he would say, “You’re so beautiful.”
And I knew he meant that, too.
• • •
Jackson has eight tattoos.
“Eight is enough,” he says with a grin, but they are not an issue for me, neither turn-off nor turn-on. They’re just a part of him.
He readily admitted that a few were crazy teenage/early twenties mistakes—the alien in a human uterus, the Buddha with back-to-back aliens behind it, and the creepy spider-looking tribal face—but his favorites were his children’s names, one on each upper arm. Jackson knew I had a tattoo, too, a sunflower, about the size of a 50-cent piece, near my right hipbone.
It was a badge of bravery from a years-ago, fun venture with my sister, an almost-dare. It sounded so exciting—and unlike me—to get a tattoo, so I did it.
A sunflower, symbol of warmth and happiness.
“Do you think you’d ever get another one?” Jackson asked. I just didn’t know. I had enough permanent markings to last three lifetimes at least.
And then, after only weeks of dating, Jackson made an intriguing promise—another pinky swear, actually—to me.
“I’ll tell you what,” he started one night as we sat outside on his back deck.
“I’m so proud to know you, Aimee. You have a goal, and I believe in you. This book you’re writing?” he went on. “I know you’ll do it. That’s something,” he said, looking directly into my eyes.
That look. Like he could see right inside of me. It always made me blush and giggle.
“I’m so sure you’ll write it, that I will have your name tattooed across my ass cheek when you get it published. I promise.”
I erupted into loud laughter.
“Realllly?”
How I loved him already. He made me believe in me.
“Yes, really. It would be an autograph of sorts, right?” he asked, also chuckling, his blue eyes sparkling with equal parts mischief and admiration.
So I said yes and stuck out my pinky finger for him to grasp, and he did.
Tattoo number nine: all mine.
I liked that. I really liked that.
During the next two years, any time I complained about my grad degree and what was then an elusive “book,” or whenever I struggled, sometimes threatening to give up and quit, frustrated and bummed by how difficult the task, Jackson would remind me of the promise. Our promise. The tattooed-ass-cheek pinky promise.
Which everyone knows you can’t back out of.
August 2012
Jackson had helped me start to feel like myself again on the inside, but I wanted the outside to match—at least more than it did then. I wanted that daily reminder corrected, lessened, and hopefully faded, so the memories, anger, and guilt could do the same.
I wanted my body opened back up, so I could get closure.
From the outside looking in. Oh, the irony.
But this time was my choice. I had control.
Scar revision, liposuction, and abdominoplasty: the requirements necessary to improve my abdomen, according to my plastic surgeon. Phew.
I’d had to wait a year from the initial consultation to make sure the scar and surrounding tissue had healed completely, but the doctor I’d been referred to was confident he could repair my scar in some way. I’d also had to wait until the settlement was reached, because part of it was paying for the surgery, which was now scheduled within the month.
I worried—about the surgery, about the pain, about the recovery—and I almost canceled. I knew this surgery really wouldn’t remove the scar, because scarring is the only way skin can heal. (Skin is a seamless organ, and when it is wounded, a scar forms. It can fade, be covered up, or be surgically altered, but it never goes away.) In fact, because of the tummy tuck, I would be adding another scar—one less remarkable—to a belly with enough already.
Would this really be worth it after all I had been through? What if I didn’t wake up? Or what if there were complications? What if my belly looked worse? (That wasn’t really possible, though—my scar was nothing short of grotesque.)
Then again, I didn’t want to regret not having the surgery, either.
I was torn. And afraid.
But I needed to do it. I needed a boost of confidence. I needed some peace of mind.
And those things were far more important than being frightened.
Before I knew it, I was standing naked in the coldest room ever, in front of strangers and the largest mirror ever, my torso covered with black Sharpie marks, etchings that magnified t
he flaws of my scarred front.
It was time.
• • •
My first post-surgery checkup, one week after plastic surgery.
The swelling was down, the soreness was diminishing, and I wanted to see what my mid-section looked like.
I mean, I really wanted to see.
The nurse helped me take off my shirt and lie back on the examination table. She removed the compression wrap Velcroed around my middle and gently lifted the gauze pad covering my new scars.
“The doctor will be right in.”
She smiled, then closed the door.
I looked down at my belly. I had to see it.
I wouldn’t mess anything up, I just wanted to peek.
I leaned up and propped myself on my left elbow, while I pinched the edge of the non-stick pad with my other thumb and index finger and gently picked it up. It pulled away without tugging or pain.
“Oh my God.”
I whispered the words aloud in the empty space of the examination room.
Was that really my belly?
I was in awe. Astounded.
The horrific, pink, stretchy skin splitting the mountainous fat of my stomach was gone. The fat was gone, too. My belly button was gone, and my tattoo—whoa—where was my tattoo?
That ten-year-old sunflower, supposedly everlasting and permanent, was missing.
The plastic surgeon must have removed it instead of worrying about trying to save it. I pictured it now, that flowered patch of skin, lying among the removed folds of fat and scar tissue, remnants of my old self, piled on a sterile steel surgical table. It must have looked ridiculous.
But the tattoo didn’t matter anymore. It was gone, just like that ugly, horrific scar. It was a part of my old abdomen, my old life, and my old self. It was gone, just like the former Aimee was. The Aimee before the accident.
I couldn’t stop staring at my stomach.
Every day for the previous two years—730 days—I’d had to see that horrible reminder of the night my life changed forever. That’s 730 times—maybe more—I’d had to think about the scar and what it symbolized.
But now I wanted to look. Now I was amazed.
The plastic surgeon had done what others said they couldn’t: He had revised the lumpy, raw scar gaping across my belly into a smooth, flesh-colored, skinny seam running the length of my new abdomen.
The pink seam was unexpectedly and delicately beautiful.
It joined a new scar now, one from hip to hip, and together they formed what looked like an anchor: the steadfast support I would need for the old scar to transform into a memory, to become the history of my story.
This permanent mark on my abdomen was the seal of a clean slate, a promise for peace of mind and an improved body.
One for which I would always be grateful.
October-November 2012
I stood in the kitchen of my new home and unwrapped the foil of a Dove Dark Chocolate Promise. I popped it into my mouth.
Mmmmmmmm.
As the sweet, chocolaty goodness melted in my mouth, I looked at the foil’s interior-printed “promise,” Dove’s attempt at a fortune-cookie surprise.
You are exactly where you are supposed to be, it read.
I smiled. How fitting. Yes, I was.
I sensed Jackson behind me and then felt his lips against the back of my neck. His neatly trimmed beard tickled, and I giggled. He wove his arms through mine, encircling me, and gently placed his hands on my belly.
“I love you,” he said into my hair. “I thank God every day for you.”
I loved him, too.
In fact, the more I had gotten to know Jackson, the more I knew I couldn’t live without him. So when we found the most wonderful house and property on the same busy state route where we had crossed paths that warm summer day, we knew it had to be our home.
Another case of love at first sight.
“Mom,” Jerrica said from the dining room the day we went to see it, “this house is so you.”
Sunlight streamed in through the sliding-glass door and accompanying bay window overlooking the backyard and the tree line beyond. It reminded me of the two acres between cow pastures where I had grown up.
Our home. A lovely, solid construction neatly tucked between cornfields and hills on almost three acres, beside a creek just as long. A place where I could immerse myself in nature and grow a vegetable garden and tend to flowerbeds and feed blue jays. A place where I could watch the sun set from white wicker furniture while enjoying a glass of wine on my front porch. A place where my children could crash on the sofa anytime they wanted or play whiffle ball in the backyard or throw a New Year’s Eve party. An enchanting place, our new home.
Somewhere I could feel settled and whole and normal again. I had found my heart’s desire.
I tried to hide the tears filling my eyes, but Jerr noticed.“Mom, don’t cry,” she said while laughing. “It’s such a good, happy thing.”
Jackson felt it, too.
“This is it, honey,” he told me. “It feels right.”
Not long after we moved in, with work boots on his feet and a chainsaw in his hands, Jackson carved an “A” and a “J” in two trees at the front of the property because their roots were intertwined. What a romantic.
Dream home. Dream man. Perfect.
• • •
“Let me see your teeth,” Jackson said leaning forward. “Smile.”
Smiling for Jackson was second nature by now and almost constant. We were out to eat, and I had just cracked open a crab leg with my teeth.
I bared my teeth, wondering what he might say next to get a giggle, and then I noticed him, face tilted, eyes examining my mouth.
He waved his hand in front of his own mouth, and squinted in the restaurant’s evening light intently. A look of recognition passed over his face.
“Honey, please don’t freak out,” he started, “but…”
Instinctively, I moved my hand up in front of my lips. The beautiful new tooth that replaced the one I lost in the accident had recently celebrated its first birthday in my mouth. I must have had a piece of broccoli stuck between my new front tooth and its neighbor.
“What’s wrong?” The dentist had assured me that nothing would ever loosen that implant, but I worried.
“It looks like you broke your front tooth on that crab leg,” he said.
I felt immediate hot tears behind my eyes. My breath caught and my heart raced.
I ran my tongue along the bottoms of my front teeth to see which one it was.
Oh, thank God! It was not my new front tooth.
But its front neighbor was missing a corner, a large piece, and it felt jagged and sharp.
“Oh no. What does it look like?”
I looked quickly to my left and right, worried that people would notice and see that I was fighting back tears. I had learned to be very self-conscious of my smile.
“It’s just a small piece missing; you can barely tell,” Jackson assured me. “It’ll be easy to fix, hon.”
I had to see. I grabbed my purse and reached inside for my makeup bag. I ripped the zipper back, and without even looking, found the mirror with my fingers. I held it to my mouth to see, while shrinking down into the restaurant’s booth to hide from view.
It was probably an old filling that had cracked off, which meant it really would be easy to fix, but still. It was my front tooth, and it was a pointy, nasty looking fang right now.
Memories of headlights tearing out of the darkness and slamming into my car swirled around me—shock and fear—completely blocking out Jackson and those dining around us. The feeling of the other front tooth lying on my tongue. The embarrassment I felt for the way I looked without that tooth. The feeling of
the “flipper” in my mouth, even when I slept. I didn’t feel whole without my front tooth, and now half of the other one was missing.
I started to cry.
“Aimee, it’s okay.”
Jackson’s voice brought me out of my momentary trance, and I looked at him.
“Baby, it’s okay,” he said again. “It’s not that bad. Just call the dentist first thing Monday and go from there.”
He was right. I couldn’t do anything about it now, and it didn’t hurt.
We left then, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the accident. The breaking of my other front tooth had cracked open a wound that hadn’t yet healed.
And I wanted to talk to Jackson about it.
“You know,” I started, “I know there isn’t one thing I could have done differently that night. It happened out of nowhere. I couldn’t prevent it.”
I had been saying this since the accident happened. Those headlights in the line of my left peripheral vision, the almost instant impact. I could not have swerved, braked, or sped up. Nothing would have mattered.
“So why are you still beating yourself up about it, then? Why can’t you try to let it go?” Jackson asked.
“Because I’m so angry. Still.”
I wanted to find forgiveness and closure, but it was taking so long. And I had a feeling that this was another one of those things—like a broken heart—that only time could heal.
“I understand,” Jackson said gently. “But, baby, he’s dead. You’re alive. You’re well, and your life is good.”
He was right. I had thought these things, of course—my brain understood—but I always made excuses otherwise, self-pity at its finest. I had survived, I was still alive, and I had moved forward. I was also happy.
But for some reason, in someplace deep, down inside of me, my soul wouldn’t let go entirely.
Yet.
2013
Though a settlement already had been reached with the other driver’s insurance company, worker’s comp had not determined theirs yet.
More doctors, dentists, and psychologist appointments. Even more reports. And during one of those visits—almost three years post-accident—yet another psychologist (number four, I think), told me I still exhibited signs of PTSD.
