Excerpt:

I rushed from the chilled outside air into the warmth of the women’s locker room. Ana followed me. I had swum 80 laps, and she 100. My muscles trembled but I felt accomplished. Eight months had passed since my lung transplant, and I swam with new breath that made me glide through the water with ease. Ana’s presence motivated me; she had trained with the Master’s swim team and sped through the water with fervent determination.

My eyes diverted in modesty as naked women surrounded me, drying their hair, lounging in the jacuzzi and passing from shower to bathroom stall to locker stations. I couldn’t help but think that the women’s bodies were beautiful, mostly fit but of all shapes and sizes. My mind wandered. Everyone is locked into a mortal body that carries them through life. In this gym, everyone works hard to keep their bodies going.

The showers were crowded, and Ana and I removed our swimsuits and jumped into a stall together. As a child, I had been mortified being naked in the YMCA locker room or in the hot springs in Japan. Years later, as grown women, we had come to suppress that deeply engrained Japanese shame and show our bodies with only a tinge of embarrassment.

As I lathered my hair, I stared at Ana’s body. Her torso was covered with war wounds. A centipede-like scar covered her entire belly as a reminder of our diagnosis at birth of cystic fibrosis. Across her chest, curving under her breasts, was the mirror image of my own familiar ‘clam-shell incision’ that had saved her life with a lung transplant, marking the end of her cystic fibrosis four years ago.

“I can’t believe you already swam 80 laps!” Ana said, “I didn’t do that until I was 2 years post-transplant.” Our subtle competition never ceased.

After our shower, we grabbed towels from a shelf next to an alcove surrounded by mirrors. I imagined the stares of other women but hesitated to cover myself. This is who I am. I don’t need to hide my scar.

A lady brushing her hair stepped towards us and inquired if we were twins; pointing at our matching scars, she went a step further and asked if we were Siamese twins.

Ana and I laughed and glanced at each other.

I said, “Oh, no, we’re not. We just both had lung transplants.”

The woman reacted with amazement, just like so many people did when we shared our story.

-From the Introduction