Tonsillectomy
Danielle Aquiline
In the attic— sleeping on a blanket and spitting in a banana bowl, on one wall a poster of a muscled corvette, the other a beach beauty in a neon bikini, I was so jealous of all the other tonsilless, cherry-stained kids—how they bragged about popsicles and Jell-O. We were new to Mississippi. We'd moved that summer. We'd moved even though my mother swore we wouldn't. And what a sight— the attic of my stepfather's home, unfinished and sweltering, such a disappointing recovery room. Just me and a kid-friendly pamphlet taken from the hospital, each page a cartooned uvula attempting to swing. Until finally, up came my mother and her new husband, him looking at me awkwardly, pudding dripping down his chin.