Happy Families (4 page)

I slump back and sigh, wondering if I should just go, wondering if people are watching.

The last song. The benediction. As soon as the service is over, I’m up and moving toward the front of the church. I’m not normally a band groupie, but I’m going to be one tonight. I make small talk and stand in the loose crowd around Karissa, Cory, Paul, and Brianna, watching them pack up their gear. Cory’s girlfriend, Rachel, smiles over at me.

“Where’s Justin these days? Haven’t seen him in forever.”

“Um, he’s around,” I say, waving vaguely toward the back of the church.

“Ysabel. We’re going.” My father’s voice is right behind me, and I jerk at the sound. I’m not ready, but there’s no more time.

“Uh, bye.” I step back as Rachel waves.

My hands are shaking, and I hide them, crossing my arms. My father is standing a few feet from me, smiling slightly. I take in his appearance with a quick glance. He looks exactly the same as always, his height and build a bulked-up version of Justin’s gawky long arms and legs. His bronze-dark skin contrasts with the charcoal gray of his good suit, and his dark eyes are watching me steadily.

“I like your boots,” he says.

I glance down, a little smile coming before I can stop it. “Thanks.” It’s really too warm for calf-high combat boots, but I love them, especially the roses embroidered up the sides. I wear them every chance I get.

My father clears his throat. “It’s good to see you, Bel. I missed you.”

My eyes are suddenly burning. I want to throw myself in his arms and forget all this awkwardness. “Thanks,” I mumble again.

My father half turns to leave, then turns back toward me. “That a new necklace?”

I run my finger along the beads on my throat. “Yeah. It’s just clay.”

“It’s pretty, babe. You do good work.”

I fiddle with the small clay rounds and shrug. Dad’s always thought it’s great that I’m artistic, but he doesn’t normally stand around complimenting me. This is weird. I do good work? What does he want me to say?

“I know.”

My father’s laugh is loud, and draws the smiling attention of the people around us. “Well, all right, then. It’s good you know that. Let’s go.”

I follow him out of the church, catching up to him as we dodge through the crowd at the door. As we step outside, his hand brushes my shoulder, and he briefly squeezes before letting me go.

My throat aches, and I open my mouth to take in little sips of air as my nose clogs with tears. I don’t know what to do with these feelings. I have missed my dad
so much
. Every time he’s called, I haven’t been able to talk to him, and yet, I haven’t been
able to leave the room. Mom puts him on speakerphone, and I stay, just to hear his voice. And now, he’s here. But, even though he’s here, he’s not … back, is he?

I can’t stand hoping.

Mom’s ahead of us, opening the door to the van. Breaking into a run, I cross the parking lot, needing a little distance. I hope Dad understands.

God, how do I do this? How do I love someone who isn’t who I thought he was?

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.