Happy Families (5 page)

“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.

Grandmama has a saying she always drags out about eavesdroppers never hearing anything good about themselves. Fact is, people who don’t eavesdrop on their parents never find out anything. I
need
to eavesdrop. I have to know what Mom and Dad are thinking.

“I’ll load,” I hear Dad say, and Mom murmurs something in reply.

I open the door to my bedroom a little wider, straining to catch the words.

I didn’t really believe it, when Mom told us about Dad. Afterward, when I thought about it, I realized what I was missing was him saying the words
It’s true. I don’t want to be your father
anymore. I want to be a woman
. All the time Mom was talking, all I could think was,
It’s a lie. All of this is a lie
.

Starr is always saying that a true artist is someone who pays attention. After Mom talked to us, I paid attention, for once, to my family. And I watched as we each tried to live with what we knew.

The blinds stayed closed, even though it was autumn and my mother’s favorite time of year. She slept late, went to bed late, and walked the house at night. She wasn’t that bad, though, until she had to cater an October wedding. She worked like crazy on it, spray painting pomegranates gold, gilding leaves and faux pearls for the serving tables, and making everything memorable and breathtaking and beautiful. And then, when it was over, she just … stopped, like somebody had pushed the Off button on the remote.

It would have been better, maybe, if she’d cried. At least she would have been
there
. Instead, for weeks, all we had was Mom’s body. Her brain was someplace far, far away.

Mom’s voice rises again, saying something trivial about utensils, and I move out into the hallway, just a few feet from my door. The scraping of plates reminds me of the days when Mom would dump her food in the trash and go without.

When Dad left, Mom fell out of love with food, which was, for her, like falling out of love with her life. Not even Poppy bringing her the first persimmons from his tree perked her up. After the last wedding, she couldn’t even work anymore; nothing about food held her interest. And her collarbones started to stick out. By the beginning of December last year, Grandmama started showing up to fill the cupboard and cook for us.

It was hard to care about the things Grandmama fussed about, like laundry and dishes and making beds. It was impossible
to sit at the table and pass the bread and talk to each other like everything was okay. I found it easier to put on my headset at The Crucible and turn off the ringer on my phone.

After Dad moved up north to some generic little town called Buchannan, it was like Justin wanted to make sure no one mistook him for the same person. He’d already dropped debate team a month earlier, but once Dad moved, he seemed to disappear. He wouldn’t even answer questions like “How are you?” His friends and teachers nagged at him, and the more people tried to pull him out of himself, the quieter he got. He hardly said anything, and then what he did say was usually purposefully cruel so that people would leave him alone.

I pay attention to my brother, and I see someone who I don’t know anymore.

He was always the guy who was driven and intense, who aced his PSATs and took home a trophy for the national science fair competition and won just about every spelling bee. Now he doesn’t even bother to compete. He spends so much time online, Mom’s not letting him bring his laptop to Dad’s. He shrugged when she told him. I know he’ll just use his phone.

I keep trying to tune out the chaos and focus on the future. I can’t wait to get out of here. I’ve decided to go to college at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina and maybe apprentice to an artist, learn some glass technique or blacksmithing that isn’t taught anymore. And then I’ll make jewelry and sculpture, work on getting enough commissions to open a shop, and … move past this part of my life.

The clang of the trash can lid reminds me of the clash of metal on the anvil, and I think longingly of my little dedicated space at The Crucible.

Art was an interest that turned into a hobby. It is now an outlet that I
need
; it seems like the only time I feel calm and brave is when I’m playing with fire and glass and metal. My welding teacher thinks it’s amazing how I’ve gotten so much better with accuracy and control these past few months. Levi, the blacksmithing instructor, is impressed with the challenging work I’m doing now, but Mom doesn’t like how much time I’m spending with college students she doesn’t know, girls with muscular biceps and tribal tattoos and sweaty, shaved-headed guys who are straight-up pyromaniacs. She always asks, “So, how’s Sherilyn? How’s Kate and Dannika?” It’s like she can’t understand that their lives are so much different than mine that what they’re doing doesn’t really matter anymore.

The thing is, it’s easy to put people off. All you have to do is stop trying to have friends. It’s easy to put the projects between myself and everyone else.
I’m helping with a bronze pour tomorrow. I have a hundred beads to make for Sherilyn’s birthday present. I have a test tomorrow in trig. I’m so tired. I have a sore throat, a headache, PMS
. People know better than to ask me to do things now. I’m busy. I don’t have time to talk much, not even to Sherilyn, my used-to-be best friend. But it’s safer this way. It’s better this way.

Footsteps make me jump back into my doorway. A door closes at the end of the hall. Bathroom. The creak of leather tells me that someone is in the living room, sitting in the rocker. Probably Dad, since that was always his favorite chair.

After a moment I hear water in the bathroom, and the door opens. The sound of cloth and the muffled ting of the couch springs lets me know it’s safe to step back out into the hallway,
and risk moving toward the corner. I’m still hidden but can see the edge of the fireplace and the top of the recliner.

For a while, my parents talk about general things—Grandmama’s garden, Poppy’s visit to some friends in Portland, whether the tires on Mom’s car need to be rotated. And then Dad sighs.

“So, Stace … are we ready for this?”

I move closer, listening to Mom’s dry laugh.

“I don’t think there’s any way to
be
ready for this. But we have to start somewhere.”

There’s a pause, and I frown, wondering what “this” could be. Dad begins again, sounding uncertain. “Look, if you want to change your mind, I’ll understand. If you decide you don’t want—”

“Christopher—
Chris
. You belong with us, and we belong together. We’ll just take the rest a step at a time, all right?”

Silence, then Dad’s voice, low and pained. “Justin can’t even
look
at me.”

“He loves you. You know how much he loves you. Give him time. He’s just scared. It’s easier for him to play his computer games than interact with the real world.”

“I don’t like those shooter games he plays,” Dad says, his voice worried. “As angry as he’s been, I don’t want him to look at the whole world as a target.”

“We’ve talked about that—he’s playing something else now, a quest game, more world building and less shooting. He said he has no interest in turning out to be a statistic.”

Dad gives a ragged laugh, and I imagine he is shaking his head. “At least Belly’s not scared,” he says, and chuckles again. “I wouldn’t want to get between her and her blowtorch right now, but she seems like she’s doing all right.”

“Bel takes things in stride. Justin will need a little more from us, but both of them will be fine,” my mother reassures him again, and I frown, feeling vaguely annoyed to be so easily dismissed.

“And what about you, Stacey?” Dad sounds sad. “You’re worrying about the rest of us, but will you be fine?”

My mother hesitates. “I— That’s not important now. Justin and Ysabel are my priority.”

The leather creaks, and I flinch, stepping back silently.

“I understand, of course.” Dad’s voice is polite, free of any emotion. He clears his throat. “Well, I’d probably better get Poppy’s car back—”

“No.” Mom’s voice is stronger. “Pop can drive Mama’s car if he needs something. Stay awhile, all right? Just … watch TV with me or something. Read the paper. Be in the same room with me.” I hear the couch springs and imagine them facing each other, imagine Mom’s strained expression as she gives a painful laugh. “Every night Justin vanishes upstairs to his computer, Ysabel’s over at The Crucible, and I’m rattling around in here by myself. Pick something to watch. I’ll make coffee.”

Is Mom that desperate? She doesn’t want Dad to sleep over, does she?

“You sure?” Dad sounds tentative.

“I miss you,” my mother says simply.

My breath hitches loudly in my throat, and I hurry to my room, my hand pressed over my mouth. Closing the door behind me without a telltale click of sound, I wheeze, my exhalation sobbing out of me as my heart pounds.

I miss you
.

The simplicity of Mom’s words is what destroys me—I miss
my dad, too. But what brings the tears is what I know now: missing him isn’t enough to make him come back.

I hate weekend flights. Everyone at the airport is way too kicked back. No one is hustling off to meetings or rushing to work, and inevitably I’m stuck next to someone’s crying baby on a jaunt to Grandma’s house.

I also hate that we have to arrive an hour early for a flight, even though it’s less than an hour by plane up the coast to where Dad is now. Finally, I hate that my mother tried to keep me from bringing my big art case with my two torches and the larger annealing kiln. It’s perfectly legal to bring it, as long as it’s not a carry-on, and I have the perfect place for my tools—a suitcase modified inside with a thick liner of foam, cut to the shapes of the delicate tools.

“Dad promised he’d get me propane,” I argue, trying not to sound as hostile as I feel.