My Son Doesn't Look The Same Anymore

 

My wife has been a plastic surgeon for six years. We married only six months after meeting. She joked that she only married me for my “perfect” features.

“No good plastic surgeon would ever touch your face.” She would say. “That’s why I married you, I couldn’t resist fixing you up if you were anything other than perfect!”

Even in our early stages of dating my wife would bring up how beautiful our child would be. I had to admit, she was drop-dead gorgeous too, I couldn’t disagree. But still, it was all she cared about.

Our baby boy arrived several months after we married. I’ll never forget the look on my wife’s face when she held Jaden in her arms for the first time. I swore it was a look of disgust.

You see, Jaden wasn’t exactly the cutest baby. I thought she was being shallow, but I figured once she came to love him, she wouldn’t care. Unfortunately, as Jaden aged, his features grew to be more…. interesting. His nose outgrew his face, his cheeks became so full he looked swollen, his lips were thin as paper, and even his forehead started to form premature wrinkles. Nonetheless, I loved him just the same. But, I could sense resentment grow in my wife.

When Jaden turned seven, I started noticing some changes. He started waking up far too groggy in the mornings, practically falling asleep in his cereal. Then the real changes came. At first they were subtle. The wrinkles started smoothing out, his lips showed some fullness, his cheeks thinned out. I chalked it up to aging.

But last month, he came downstairs in the morning, his nose bruised and swollen. My wife insisted that he must have fallen out of his bed overnight.

“Don’t worry! He’s going to be fine. I found him like this. I already stitched him up. You know he sleeps like a rock!”

After weeks of healing, it became obvious. His nose was completely different. Smaller, straighter, smoother.

I finally confronted my wife.

“Are you messing with our son’s face?”

“How ridiculous!” She yelled. “How could you possibly think that? Plus, he’s still ugly!”

We went to bed without speaking another word to each other.

I woke up in a fog this morning, stumbling to the kitchen. It was 10:00 am and Jaden hadn’t come down for breakfast yet, so I walked back upstairs to wake him.

I cracked the door open, only to find my wife hovering over our son, tears streaming down her face as she desperately tried to resuscitate him. Jaden lay still, a perimeter of stitches outlined the top of his face. His body showed no signs of life.

“It was supposed to be a routine face lift!” She trembled. "I.. I didn’t mean to!” 

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