The day I was born, my mother died. The doctors had pulled me out of the womb, claiming that I was a healthy baby but something in their voices alarmed my mother. She demanded to see me. They cautiously put me into her arms; she screamed and fell into shock. She never recovered. My father told me this as I don’t have any memory of the incident. I would later find out that during my early development something went wrong and my facial bones never connected, giving me a squashed appearance as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to my face. Everything else about my body was perfectly normal, confusing the many doctors that examined me. At the age of five minutes and six seconds I became a medical mystery.

When I was five years old my father had to take me out of school. The kids in my class would cry at the sight of me and couldn’t do their work. I thought it was because I had to wear a protective face mask, but I didn’t realize that it was because I was, for lack of a better term, hideous. In my mind’s eye I looked like my mother, who had been a beauty in our community. When I asked my father about this he simply replied that they were jealous about my looks and that it would be better if I was home schooled, since none of the other children were good enough to be around me. This, I discovered, was a lie but I couldn’t hate him for it. My father, a handsome man in his own rights, loved my mother dearly and had decided to keep me in honor of her memory. Our relatives supported his action, but sent many sympathetic looks our way. They couldn’t understand how the offspring of a beautiful couple couldn’t be normal. The pain my father had to go through came to my attention much later.

One day I was playing in the sand box at a nearby park. My father was sitting on a bench outside the playground, dozing in the sunlight. I didn’t build anything; I just sat there admiring the way the sand shifted through my fingers. I love my hands. They are the only beautiful thing about me. Father said that I inherited my mother’s surgeon hands; they would remain steady underneath stressed conditions and gently caress anything they touched. They were perfect for playing instruments. I was so occupied watching the sun’s play on the sand that I didn’t notice the two old ladies whispering loudly and glaring at me, not at first. Then I heard them mention my father.

“The poor man, he looks exhausted,” said one.

“It can’t be easy living with that. I heard that that tv program is still hounding him, trying to do a special on it,” the other said, snorting in an unladylike manner. I wondered what ‘it’ was.

“He can’t find a date either, I gather, as long as he keeps it, though I heard that he still carries a torch for his wife.”

“My niece has a horrible crush on him but says that she won’t get involved with that thing.”

“It’s a good thing the mother died in childbirth. It would have broken her heart.” She shook her head sadly.

“I wonder how such a handsome couple could have such an ugly daughter. I have to hold back a shudder every time I see her.”

Ugly. No one had ever called me ugly before, at least not to my face. I remember the first time I had ever heard that word. I was still going to the elementary school and a boy brought in a frog from the school’s playground. The other children had crowded around it, and one pointed out how ugly it was, almost as ugly as me. I was too young to comprehend that this was a slur against me. I asked my father what ugly meant. He shrugged my question off and distracted me with a promise of ice cream. Overhearing these ladies then, there was no way that I didn’t understand what they were talking about. I was ugly. I was a frog. I was an ‘it.’

As soon as we got home from the park I ran into the bathroom, pulling up a stepstool so I could look in the mirror. I took off my mask and faced the silvered glass. There in the same mirror that I had looked into dozens of times and saw a pretty face was a reflection. There was a squashed nose, eyes that weren’t directly across from one another, one drooping on a slant, a weak, if almost invisible chin. No cheekbones. A gaping shapeless mouth. For the first time I saw the way I really looked. I was ugly. I cried and ran to my room, cuddling up with my favorite stuffed animal. I refused to eat or go outside for two days. At the age of five I discovered that I was a monster.