one scar that is a pale, thin, perfectly straight line. It is eight inches long and runs from just under my breastbone to my navel. It recalls a wound intentionally created with a surgeon’s scalpel, the one they made to remove half of my diseased liver. The edges the scalpel produced were sharp and clean, and could be brought together neatly. It healed well. In medicine we call it “healing by primary intention.”
