Thin Skin
Wendy Fontaine
Word Count 1827
If we took our skin off at the end of each day, the pile of flesh would weigh eight pounds. That’s twice as much as a liver. Fifteen times as much as a heart.
**
On a windy afternoon at the beach, I look out across the sand and notice my daughter hopping along the horizon. Two friends lift her by the elbows, like college kids carrying a drunk roommate home from a party. Her face appears scrunched into laughter. Squinty eyes. Open mouth. I assume they are goofing around. Being silly. Teenagers enjoying the sunshine.
That notion disintegrates as one of the friends calls out to me, her voice slicing through the sea breeze.
“Angie’s bleeding!”
I stand and walk toward them. It’s probably nothing. My daughter is prone to small injuries. Splinters, skinned knees, jammed fingers from hitting the lane lines at swim practice. But as I get closer, her left foot comes into view. There is something black on her toe. No, not something black. Something red. Red and dripping onto the sand.
**
The outer layer of the skin is called the epidermis. Borrowed from Latin and Greek. Epi as in outer, derma as in skin. The layer other people can see. It keeps us hydrated, protects us from harm. It shields us from the cold, from bacteria and from other dangers in our environment.
**
When I reach my daughter, she stops hopping. Her friends release her arms. I lower her to the ground and lift the bloody foot onto my thigh. Her face goes slack. She’s pale, on the verge of slipping consciousness, as I rinse away blood and sand using bottled water from our lunch cooler. A flap of skin hangs from her toe, swinging like a door on a hinge. It seems implausible, the size of that flap. One-third of her toe hanging loose. Beneath it, broken blood vessels. Ripped tissue. Jagged edges of tender, pink skin. Something white I can’t identify. Something that reminds me of gristle on a piece of steak.
I close the skin door at its hinge and press to stop the bleeding. My daughter moans. A deep, guttural sound. Fearful and feral, like an animal in agony. I’m in agony, too, desperate to take her pain away. Desperate to keep her from feeling hurt or scared.
**
The word “skin” originated around 1200, when Norsemen used “skinn” to refer to the hides of animals. It didn’t appear in Old English until 1400, and then it was “hyd.” Humans have used animal hides since the Paleolithic era. For clothing or shelter. For protection and survival.
**
I help her to the car, then speed an hour up the highway toward home. We stop at an urgent care, where a doctor reopens her wound to clean it with iodine. Her pain awakens. She cries. She moans. She lies back on the examination table and closes her eyes. I hold her hand and kiss her forehead, which is cold but also damp. Once her cut is cleared of debris, the doctor applies antibiotic ointment and bandages. Probably stepped on glass, he says. Beer bottle, maybe a soda can.
“Beaches are dirty,” I say.
He shakes his head. “It’s the people who are dirty. They leave garbage everywhere.”
Later, at home, Angie tells me what she couldn’t tell me earlier. How she really got hurt. How a boy in her group of friends pinned her down at the beach and poured sand onto her head. The sand went into her eyes and ears, and she thought she was drowning. When she kicked to get away from him, her foot grazed something sharp.
“It’s my fault,” she says through tears. “I shouldn’t have kicked so hard.”
I look down at my legs. At my hands. At my skin still stained by her blood. “It’s not your fault,” I say to her. To her and to myself.
**
The second layer of skin, the dermis, is the thickest. Made of connective tissue, sweat glands, hair follicles and nerve endings, it controls our sense of touch. It’s how we feel hot and cold. How we feel comfort and pain.
**
That night, neither of us sleeps. Angie, because of the throbbing in her toe. Me, because my mind keeps replaying the scene. Picturing all the things I should have done to protect her. I should have kept her away from that boy, should have warned her about objects in the sand dunes. I should have canceled our beach day altogether, stayed home, and watched cooking shows and Friends reruns instead.
Beyond the physical pain, the injury contains a second layer of misery. The wound now jeopardizes Angie’s high school swim season. Toes may seem small and insignificant, but they are critical for a competitive swimmer. They help you launch off the diving block. They initiate the kick for strong propulsion. They push off the wall for a quick, tight flip turn.
The next day, Angie skips practice. She sits out a full week, then cheers from the sidelines for her teammates as they compete in the biggest meet of the season without her. She wants to be in the water too, but the risk of infection is too great. Pool water in an open cut could cause tissue damage, sepsis, or possibly lead to amputation. She watches as someone else swims her fifty-yard butterfly, her 100-yard freestyle. She watches as someone else swims her leg of the medley relay.
I sit in the stands, feeling her disappointment. Her sadness and longing. I have always felt every emotion my daughter feels, as if it is my own. I recite a silent prayer. Please, I say over and over, not even knowing exactly who I am talking to. To God, maybe. To the universe. Please heal my baby. Please take away her pain. Don’t let her feel scared or alone. Please help me take care of her.
Like someone should have taken care of me.
**
The hypodermis is the deepest layer of skin. It’s also called the subcutis. Borrowed from Latin. Sub as in under. Cutis as in skin. Most of the body’s fat is stored in the hypodermis. It creates a cushion to absorb shock, thereby protecting bones and organs from trauma.
**
When I was around ten years old, someone molested me. Someone I trusted. He snuck into the room where I was sleeping and put his hand beneath the covers. Down the front of my pajama bottoms or up under the hem of my nightgown. I don't remember exactly. What I do remember is the fatness of his fingers between my legs. The tingling sensation on my skin. The shame, hurt, and fear that stayed with me long after he left.
For years afterward, I blocked out what happened. I forced the memories out of my mind, cutting them off like dead tissue. Like a limb I no longer wanted.
I never told my mother what happened. I never told anyone. I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me. Or worse: they’d believe me and do nothing to protect me. What if they thought it was my fault? What if they thought I’d asked for it or somehow caused it to happen?
For nearly forty years, I kept the secret. Recipere, in Latin. To receive an injury. To hold onto something. To contain it. Don’t let it out, don’t let it be real.
The problem with holding things inside is that they never go away. They never have a chance to heal.
**
After an injury, the body’s inflammatory response sends cells called fibroblasts to the wounded area. There, they release a fiber-like protein called collagen. Collagen makes new connections. It makes healthy blood vessels and skin tissue.
**
When I got pregnant with Angie, I promised myself I’d be a perfect mother. I’d protect my daughter from everything. And by everything, I meant everything.
I nursed her for a year to bolster her immune system. I made her baby food at home to avoid toxins. I watched her closely at the playground, steering her away from rocks, bugs and broken toys. When she started kindergarten, I volunteered in her classroom just to keep my eyes on her.
Through the years, she’s suffered bruises, cuts and earaches. She’s had the flu, norovirus, and covid. But nothing severe. Nothing major or of great consequence.
Now she’s a teenager, on the verge of adulthood. Off to college in less than a year. Soon, I won’t be able to keep my eyes on her at all. She will be in certain places, doing certain things, and I won’t know about any of it. Sometimes, I force myself to stand back and let go. Give her more freedom and room to make mistakes. But it’s hard. I was abused, and it feels like the world will abuse her, too unless I stop it. Unless I stand in the way. Yet, things still happen. Rough boys and dirty sand dunes. Broken hearts and broken skin. I fumble for the words that will bring me away from the edge of worry. She is safe. She is strong. I say them over and over, like a prayer. Not to God or the universe but to myself.
**
Our bodies shed a million skin cells per day. Sounds like a lot, but just one square inch of skin has more than 19 million skin cells. As the old cells slough off, fresh ones move to the surface. Every 28 days, our skin, our derma, is brand new.
**
Two weeks later, Angie’s wound begins to heal. Dead tissue lifts away; new skin starts to grow. The door hinge slowly closes. When she feels ready to swim, we wrap her toe in three layers: gauze, adhesive bandages and waterproof tape. Like three extra blankets of skin. She goes back to practice. Back to her normal routine. She dives from the block. She flips at the wall. She swims her butterfly, her freestyle, her leg of the medley relay.
She will be all right. We both will be. Our skin is thick.
Wendy’s work has appeared in dozens of literary journals and magazines including Hippocampus Magazine, Jet Fuel Review, Short Reads, Sweet Lit, Sunlight Press and Under The Sun. She has received nonfiction prizes from Identity Theory, Hunger Mountain and Tiferet Journal, as well as nominations to the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthologies. A native New Englander, she currently resides in southern California and holds a master’s degree in creative writing.