It was just before our family portrait for the church directory. I was eight.
This same parking lot where I’m standing was full of cars coming and going, just like now. The church secretary had set up a little station with hand mirrors and disposable combs for those last-minute fixes before families were seated in front of the camera in the courtyard. Dad was in the tiny bathroom between the secretary’s office and the senior pastor’s study, leaning into the small mirror, peering at his eyes and rubbing at his lashes. I came up behind him, walking heel-toe-heel-toe in my new black shoes, and he didn’t seem to notice me.
“Daddy?”
My father jerked, his hand flailing away from his eyes. A smear of black landed on his cheek. His fingers were black, I noticed, and he was clutching a thin black pencil in his hand. It was something I’d seen Mom use before.
“Justin. Buddy.” My father seemed out of breath. “How ya doing?”
“Do you have an eyelash?”
“Eyelash?” he repeated stupidly, then recovered. “Oh. No, Bud, I’m fine. You ready?”
“Yeah.” I grinned up at him. “Ms. Cochrane says she likes my jacket.”
“It’s a great jacket.” My father smiled down on me. “You look like a champ.”
I remember chewing on my bottom lip, watching. Daddy seemed so different that day. Nervous. I thought he was scared about having his picture taken.
“You’ve got something black on your cheek,” I informed him, and stared as he frantically scrubbed at his face in the mirror. For the rest of the night, I watched him, worrying. Why’d he get so jumpy? Was there something wrong with taking pictures?
That family portrait is in the stairwell at Grandmama and Poppy’s place, with all the others marching through the years. Every time I walk up the stairs at that house, I see my snaggletoothed grin, Ysabel’s soft, dreamy expression, Mom’s professional catering smile, and Dad’s startled, black-rimmed eyes, anxiety leaking from behind a shining wall of teeth.
Fear. Like a deer caught in headlights, just before the crash.
Before we realized Dad was gone, we had no time to miss him. He called us every night on his laptop, video conferencing to walk me through my algebra and discuss world history chapters with Ys and me. He actually sent us postcards—weird ones—from all the cities where he stayed. Mom was the one who missed him, who got quieter and quieter, who took more and more weekend catering gigs to fill the time he was gone. Worried about his daughter, Poppy took off one day last January and caught up with Dad on the way back from a cross-country business trip, hoping to talk him into coming home and letting one of his foremen do the traveling for a while. Then Poppy found out the secret that changed everything.
Dad wasn’t … isn’t … the same man. He doesn’t even want to be a man.
Voices rise, and a steady stream of worshippers exits the church building. Leaning against the door of the van, I watch people wave, chatter, and make plans to get together later in the week. I hear my name and see my former girlfriend, Callista, smile tentatively and wave before getting into her mother’s car. I give a lame wave, both glad and miserable to see her.
Man, I miss her.
The click of the van door unlocking distracts me. Mom’s on her way, striding down the walkway. I slide into the backseat and slouch. So Ysabel got stuck with Dad. I feel guilty for ducking out before he could talk to me.
Better Ys than me, though.
Poppy told Mom that if he hadn’t been watching Dad’s hotel room, he wouldn’t have even realized it was him, with the wig and all. He stood at Dad’s table in the hotel restaurant and just stared at him, trying to understand. “Christopher?” he’d said, not sure he was seeing right.
“It’s Christine,” Dad said.
Poppy told Mom that Dad set down his butter knife and said hello to him, like it was a perfectly normal day. And Mom found out that the linen suit she’d donated to the Community Service Center wasn’t as far away as she thought it was.
It’s not like I’ve never heard of guys wearing women’s clothes. I mean, every year at Halloween somebody does it, and I know there are female impersonators and stuff. But those things are just jokes. Dad’s … serious. I looked it up online and found a huge amount of people who are seriously into the whole thing—dresses, wigs, and women’s shoes. They don’t just want to put on a wig for a party or something. They want to live like this, full-time.
Full-time. Like the other person they were never even existed.
I’ve done the research. I know some people feel like they were born with the wrong gender, in the wrong body. The GLAAD Web site says not to say Dad’s a “transvestite” or a “she-male” because those words are prejudiced and derogatory and not accurate—duh. When he’s in drag, people aren’t supposed to keep calling him Christopher, but Christine, like he prefers. If he decides he wants to get surgery to change into a girl, then we say he’s a transgender person, not a cross-dresser. Blah, blah, blah, thank you, Internets.
I know all the vocabulary and all the rules about what we’re supposed to do to make my dad comfortable, but has anyone asked what would make Ysabel and me comfortable? No. Did anyone ask us if we even wanted this? No.
Dad told Poppy that he knew Poppy would have to tell Mom, and he thought it would be best if he didn’t come back home. After Poppy came home and told us everything, I spent hours—days—praying that please, God, this wasn’t happening. I read on a Web site that Ys and I are just two of thousands of kids around the world dealing with this right now, but funny thing—that just doesn’t make me feel any better. No matter how many people’s stories I read online, it isn’t the same. It’s my family crashing; it’s my dad. It’s me.
I look at the church people in the parking lot, smiling and talking to each other, and I almost want to yell out the window, “How well do you really know your friends? Nobody is who you think they are. Christopher Nicholas wants to be a woman.”
My father is cross-dressing, and my sister and I are spending spring break with him.
Mom thinks we should. I just can’t get my mind around why.
“Grandmama and Poppy got him from the airport. That’s where he’s staying.” Ysabel has closed the door to my room behind her and is filling me in, almost whispering.
“Wait, they picked him up?” I spin around on my desk chair. “I thought—” I thought Poppy and Grandmama were on our side. I don’t finish the sentence. I know my mother would say that “in a family, there are no ‘sides.’ ”
Yeah, like that’s even remotely true. There are always sides. Always.
“This is such bull. They planned all of this, behind our backs.”
Ysabel shrugs. “Probably. But, you know how Poppy is—he always tries to be on neutral ground when there’s a problem.”
“Well, I wish he’d warned us.”
Ysabel blows out a sigh, leaning in my doorway. “He came up for a work meeting on Friday, so he would have been here anyway. He said it was just as easy to fly back with us.”
Just as easy for whom? I want to ask, but I don’t bother. “So, where is he, then?”
Ysabel opens my door. “He went to get takeout from Piatti’s.” She makes a face. “As if anyone is even hungry.” Rolling her eyes, she heads down the hall.
I turn back to my laptop, hitting the space bar to disrupt my screen saver. Since Mom caters all week long, there’s leftovers galore. We rarely eat takeout from anywhere, much less somewhere fancy like Piatti’s. It’s a little strange that Mom’s not cooking tonight—but part of me is glad she’s not. Maybe Mom’s not as cool with everything as she pretends.
Ysabel has left my door open a crack. I hear her boots thudding against the floor. “Mom? Are we doing anything after we eat?”
Mom’s voice is closer now. “We’re just having family time. Did you want to suggest an activity?”
I snort. Yeah, we have suggestions, but I’m sure Mom doesn’t want to hear them.
“Do we have to have family time?”
My mother makes a little “hmph” noise, and doesn’t answer. Ysabel sighs.
“I just … I was going to The Crucible tonight. Mom, I’m not really ready to talk about anything,” she says, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the water running in the sink.
Mom turns off the tap. “That’s okay. You don’t have to talk,” she says. “Just listen.”
I kick closed my door, feeling a twist of angry joy as it slams. I might have to hear my parents’ voices, but I’m done listening to anything they have to say.
The rich manicotti, stuffed mushrooms, and parmesan-topped breadsticks are cooling on the table. The huge salad with artichoke hearts and pear tomatoes barely has a dent in it. Ysabel is nibbling on a breadstick, but everyone else is about done. None of us were all that hungry to begin with. I’m still willing to eat, until I pass out or throw up. Mom said we could hold off on any discussion until our plates were clean.
Dad pushes back his plate with a sigh. “Looks like I got too much food.”
Mom makes a resigned face. “You’d better take it over to Mama and Pop’s when you go,” she says. “I don’t want that sitting in the fridge all week; I’ll never eat it all.”
“We could stay here and eat it,” I mutter, and flinch as my father looks over at me.
“You’ll have plenty of takeout leftovers to eat at my place,” he says with a laugh. “I know you’ll miss your mother’s cooking, though.”
I lean my chin on my arm, my hand blocking my father from view. “Mom?”
She gives me a weary look. “Justin, we’ve been over this.”
Ysabel clears her throat, and I glance over at her. She’s fussing with her fork, making sure it aligns with her knife just so. Without looking up at my father, she asks, “So, what are we supposed to do all week?”
Dad laughs shortly. “What do you do during any spring break?” he asks.
“Whatever my parents aren’t doing,” I mutter.
“Well, my plan was to be at The Crucible all week and get in some real work hours,” Ysabel says stiffly. “But I guess my plan doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters. Belly, I especially went out and bought you a little propane so you can work on your small glass projects, at least,” Dad says diplomatically. “As for what else we’re going to do? Well, I want you to speak with some professional people I’ve met, and go on a couple of outings with other transgender individuals and their families—”
“Wait, what?” Ysabel looks rattled. “Dad, I don’t want to hang out with … people.”
“We read the stuff you sent us, and we looked at the Web sites,” I remind both my parents while staring at Mom. “I don’t think we need to meet anyone. That’s not necessary.”
My father laughs again, a humorless sound, and turns to my mother, as if expecting her to jump in. Mom quirks her eyebrows and shrugs silently. Dad rasps his hand across his stubbled chin and sighs. When he turns toward me, I look down, studying the congealing sauce on my plate.
“Not everything has to be weighed in terms of necessary and unnecessary, Justin. It’s important for us to be together for a bit, to talk things through, and get comfortable with each other again. It’s important for us to spend time together that isn’t stressful. And I also think it’s important for you to meet other transgender folks and their families.” He glances at Ysabel. “Yes, they’re strangers for now. But I’m hoping you can come away with a few friends.”
The headache that has been hovering around the edges of my consciousness lances me through the eye. “I still don’t see why we need to meet anyone. They don’t have anything to do with us.”
“Justin.” My mother’s voice is definite. “Your father is a transgender individual, and he will always have something to do with you. We are a family, and we will stay a family.”
I blow out an impatient breath. “You know what I mean, Mom.”
Mom nods. “I do. But I also know that other families who have been through this type of a change might be really helpful for you to meet, to give you some insight into how things will be from now on.” She pauses. “Do you understand?”
I look away. What I understand is that nothing we say is going to make a difference.
After a moment, Ysabel bursts out, “Well, I’m not looking for friends.” She fiddles with her beads. “I have friends at The Crucible.”
“And a week away from them won’t do you any harm,” Dad reminds her.
“What, now there’s something wrong with The Crucible?” Ysabel exclaims. “What happened to saying I did good work?”
My father closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Ysabel. There is nothing wrong with The Crucible. You won’t be gone for long. This is a step we need to take in putting our family back together, and you both might find that you enjoy yourself this week, if you just give yourselves half a chance.”
“I get that you want us to socialize, okay,” I begin, but Mom interrupts.
“We’re past the point of debate, guys,” she says firmly. “You’re both going to go.”
“Well, then, I’m so glad we had this talk,” I say, pushing abruptly back from the table. “I feel much better about everything. Are we done?”
“We’re leaving for the airport at seven,” my father says wearily.
I grab my plate and head for the kitchen. Ysabel is only a half step behind me. I’m around the corner and halfway down the hallway before my mother speaks again.
“That went well,” she says. Dad laughs, but it isn’t a happy sound.
When we read Anna Karenina for AP English Lit this year, that thing Tolstoy says about happy families got to me. Happy families are all alike—all of them are safe and confident that nothing on this earth can take that away from them. Just as we were, before Dad’s little secret hit us like a wrecking ball.
Now that we’re one of the unhappy families, all I can do is ask the questions I should have known to ask back then. Is Dad gay? Is this something he was all along?
And if Dad wants to be a woman, do I not have a father anymore?
God hates divorce. This is what it says in the Bible. Since God hates it, my parents aren’t big fans, either. From Mom and my grandparents I’ve heard that bit from Malachi about breaking vows and divorce so often lately I can practically recite it. “Honor thy father and thy mother” is also one of the Big Ten I learned before I was five, and I’ve filled up tons of notebooks and reams of paper for Bible class on what “honor” means.
Along with all the rules, I’ve heard enough about love to fill books. God’s love is supposed to be unconditional, never changing, always there even for the worst of us, blah, blah, blah. We’re supposed to love each other like that, but here’s the thing: people never do.
Fact: My parents have always said that love is enough to get me through anything.
Fact: They’re wrong. I love my dad, but I can’t deal with him.
Fact: I’m breaking a commandment. I know my behavior isn’t honoring anyone, but God really has to give me a break on this. I mean, did Dad honor us when he decided to put on high heels? Did he honor my mother when he took her clothes? Shouldn’t somebody say something about fathers honoring their sons?