Skin Deep

by Kathy Kachelries
September 4th, 2005

I know that Amy is in there. I can see her, in the smirks and smiles and the way she shoves her hair away from her eyes. She’s still the same person. She has to be. There’s no reason that this should feel wrong.

In a cinderblock building over the river, my fourteen year old body is submerged in a bath of pink nutrients. By the time I’m fifty, the body will be twenty, and I’ll be ready for transfer. Cancer didn’t wait until she was ready for transfer. Beside my fourteen year old body, the second chamber is empty.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with those tiny bones pressed against me and I don’t know how to feel. They’re Amy’s bones, I know. It’s Amy’s skin and Amy’s muscle and everything about her is Amy.

Most nights I push her away. I still love her, though.
I’ll always love her.