Aunt Margaret stood up and pointed to the living room. “In there. We need to talk.” She turned to me and her voice was quiet and kind. “Susie, would you …would you mind leaving the cabin for awhile? I really think we need to talk in private. I’ll call you. I’m sorry, honey.”

I smiled at her and agreed, washed my glass at the sink and went outdoors.

The Cabin - Part 6

Chapter 17: The Discussion

I wandered down to the dock. I could hear Uncle Jack’s bellows, muffled by the cabin, grow less and less. I never heard my aunt; I had no doubt she was calm, cool, and collected. And probably winning.

Bonnie Doyle came out of her cabin and looked at ours, then saw me on the dock, came down and sat beside me. I could tell she was confused by my clothes.

“What’s going on? I mean, if you want to tell me. And you …”

“You know my uncle and cousins were on a hunting trip, right? Two things, one little and one big. I made a deal with my aunt that I’d dress as a boy when my uncle and cousins got back, to ease him into accepting me as Susan. So that’s the little thing, why I’m dressed like this. But the big thing …” I sighed. “Somehow they were all drunk and Chuck shot Larry. He’s in the hospital with a lot of internal damage. Chuck’s in jail for some reason, my uncle’s out on bail and I think my aunt is putting him through the wringer.”

“Wow. That’s ...wow! I can’t …” Bonnie shook her head, then frowned. “They’ve got hunting accidents all the time around here. Mom gets the local paper when we’re here, and they …” She shook her head again. “They’re so casual about it.”

“Casual?”

“Guys accidentally shooting each other. Don’t even know what they’re hunting, what’s in season, whatever.” She sighed. “I’m so sorry about your family.”

“Thank you, Bonnie. It’s Aunt Margaret that I’m really feeling for,” I nodded sadly.

Bonnie looked to our cabin. “She’s a cool lady. She’ll deal.”

“I love her so much!” I said, and surprised myself by how fiercely it came out.

“Yeah, I know,” Bonnie said softly. Then she chuckled. “So that’s the big thing. As to the …little thing …” she grinned, using air quotes. “How ya doing’–dude?” She knew the joke was weak.

I turned and looked at her. “Do you really think I look like a dude now? Seriously; I mean, really truly, unmistakably a boy? I want an honest answer.”

She chuckled a little and bumped my shoulder with her own. “I don’t know if you’ll like the answer. No, I don’t think so. I mean your nails, for one thing–”

I stared at my fingers and then rolled my eyes. “Aw, geez, I had to act quickly and got everything else right and forgot about the nails and that’s what set Uncle Jack off! Okay, forget about the nails. What about the rest of me?”

“Touchy, aren’t we? Don’t worry; I understand. Okay, here’s the honest answer: no. You look like a girl who’s wearing her brother’s clothes. At least, to me. Maybe from a distance a stranger might think you’re a guy. But up close, no way. And you know you don’t move like a guy. So maybe the stranger in the distance would see a girl, too.”

“Damn! And I thought I was so butch!” We both laughed. “Seriously, though, I’ll have to butch it up for a little bit. I promised my aunt that I’d dress and act like a boy until she could talk to my uncle, but after this hunting trip disaster, I’d guess that’s pretty well out the window.”

“Poor Sue! I mean that! That would be weird if I had to pretend to be a boy until I could go back to being a girl. Because that’s how I think of you, you know–my new girlfriend Susan.”

I gave her a hug and we could hear my aunt calling me from the porch. Bonnie wished me luck and I walked up to my aunt.

“I’m sorry about the nail polish, Aunt Margaret. I didn’t do it on purpose; I just got so used to wearing it–”

She smiled at me and I was relieved. “That’s alright. I could tell by the expression on your face that you hadn’t planned that. It actually worked out for the best, because it let me bring up the subject a lot sooner than I would have, and I think now is the time to discuss it. Come on into the living room.”

She held the door open for me; I let her pass me and followed her in. Uncle Jack sat in ‘his’ chair, with the letter from my folks on the table next to him. My aunt motioned to a spot on the couch and sat down in another chair. I sort of felt like I was going to be interrogated.

My uncle looked at me with a strange expression, mostly confusion. “This says ...your aunt says that you ...well, forget what they say. I see the polish on your fingers. Tell me what you say: Do you want to be a girl?”

Here it was; the moment of truth. I looked briefly over at my aunt. I think she was trying to keep a neutral face, but there was some encouragement. I knew I had to tell the truth; the alternative was too awful to think about. Oddly, knowing that I had to tell the truth made it easier, and hopefully made me stronger.

“No, Uncle Jack, I do not want to be a girl.”

I could see my aunt slump in her chair; clearly she was disappointed in me, but I knew she hadn’t heard it all. I went on.

“What I ‘want’ really doesn’t enter into it; I really don’t have any choice in the matter. As far as I can tell, I am a girl–”

“What?! How can you–” Uncle Jack started yelling.

My aunt rallied quickly and cut him off. “Jack! No yelling, remember? There’s been quite enough of that already.” She turned to me with a warm smile, now that she knew where I was headed. “Go ahead, honey, say what you have to say.”

Encouraged, I went on. “Okay, I have the physical body of a male. I know it’s no great shakes in that department, but it was enough so doctors called me a boy when I was born. But in my mind, in my heart, in my soul, I’m a girl. I’m female. Talking with other girls and women, there’s no doubt that I think and feel like they do. You’ve got to admit that I’ve never thought and felt the way you and Chuck and Larry do, right?”

He nodded slowly. “But how do you ...how do you know?”

“All I can say is …well, first let me give you this test, and I’m not trying to be rude or insolent, okay? Please, Uncle Jack, just try to answer my questions because they will answer your question, I think. So, Uncle Jack, how do you know you’re male?”

“That’s obvious. Because I am!”

“I know you are, I know; but how do you know? I mean to say, how do you know? If you were floating in darkness, like in the middle of a big black pool–”

“That’s silly!”

“Please let me finish; it’ll make sense. If you were floating like in one of those tanks where you can’t see, hear, speak, or feel anything, how would you know you were male?”

“Because I just am!”

“Yes, but how? And it’s more than ‘I am’. What do you think that makes you male? What do you feel that makes you male?”

He frowned. “Well, I …my whole life has been a male’s life.”

“Good, good,” I said, nodding, which threw him a bit. “I want you to think of your life in two ways, okay? External and internal. External is how the world views you, and internal is how you view the world.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my aunt’s eyes widen and a smile start.

I continued, “So, how the world views you. It’s the name you were given–Jack, a boy’s name–and your mother and father dressing you a certain way–pants and t-shirts and things–and talking to you a certain way. They told you which public bathroom to use, for example, right?”

“Right. Because I was a little boy.” He frowned. “This is stupid–”

“Simple, perhaps,” Aunt Margaret said sternly, “but not stupid! Listen carefully.” She eyed him to make sure he was done spouting, and then nodded to me. “Go ahead, honey.”

“Okay,” I nodded. “So that was the external stuff, all the things that were done to you. Now, the internal stuff, your thoughts and feelings. If there was a truck and a doll, which one would you reach for?”

“The truck, of course,” he said with a small grin. “Because I’m a boy.”

“You didn’t need your mom and dad to point out which one to take?”

“Of course not. Why would I want to play with a doll?”

“Okay,” I nodded again. “And if you saw a group of boys and a group of girls, which would you want to play with, play their games, talk with them, all that?”

“Boys, of course.”

“Weren’t you curious about the girls?”

He chuckled slightly. “Not till later!”

I realized it was a macho brag but let it go. “Okay, but maybe five, six years old, no curiosity?”

“Naw. Why? They were girls. Not as cool as being little boys.”

I caught my aunt’s jaw tighten and her eyes squint slightly.

My uncle said, “So that proves I’m a male.”

“No argument there,” I smiled as nicely as I could. “Okay; I’m almost done. Now, I want you to imagine something. You know how you think and feel, and you remember how you thought and felt when you were little, then my age, and growing up.”

“Right.”

“Okay. Hold onto those thoughts and feelings you had as Little Jack, alright? So, hypothetically, what if your mother and father had named you Sally, and your only clothes were dresses and hair ribbons, and you slept in a lacy bedroom with dolls, and were told to use the Ladies’ Room and to play with the girls and the girl games? But thinking and feeling the way you remember you did? Would that make you a little girl?”

He gave a scoffing laugh of a bark. “I’d like to see them try! I’d be one pretty pissed-off little boy, I can tell you!”

“Yep,” I grinned and nodded. “But don’t you think that, over time, you’d be persuaded to become a girl, to become feminine? Or if your parents threatened to punish you if you didn’t put down the truck, put on a dress and play with dolls like a good little girl?”

“Of course not! I’m male. And there’s no way that I’d …”

Suddenly, he got it. A shock first, then a dawning knowledge. His eyes widened and he spoke slowly, almost with stunned awe.

“I think I’m beginning to see what you mean. Because I was born and raised male, my …sense of myself is a man. I don’t have to reach down and feel that I’ve got a …what’s, uh …between my legs …or have to look at what kind of clothes I’m wearing; I’m a man–but wait, you were raised male, too.”

“Yes, but incorrectly. In your case, your mind and your body match. But what if they didn’t? Like I said, what if you’d been raised female with pretty dresses and dolls? How would you feel?”

“I’d still feel like a man, of course, but… I’d also be confused as hell, I guess. You mean it’s the same? Only backwards, I mean? Your sense of yourself is female, despite being born and raised male?”

“Exactly! This is great! Thank you for getting it, because it’s really hard to understand.”

“Your …internal …what’d you call it? Your view of the world?” I nodded and he went on. “Your internal feeling is female, but you were given a boy’s name and treated as a boy? But all the time you felt female? How long have you felt this way?”

I looked at my aunt and knew that on this question I’d have to lie. “All of my life. You probably know that I don’t have many friends. I don’t feel like ‘one of the guys’ and I was never allowed to be ‘one of the girls’, although that’s how I feel. I’m sort of like a girl letter inside a boy envelope. But I can’t stand it anymore; I want a girl’s envelope to match the girl letter inside.”

I could sense my aunt’s relief as my uncle slowly nodded agreement with this. If I’d said that I’d only just discovered the feeling, he might blame her for ‘perverting me’ or some nonsense. But maybe it wasn’t that much of a lie; maybe it had been true all along and I only just now discovered it. Like being nearsighted and thinking everybody saw the world that way–until the day somebody handed you a pair of glasses. The fact that you didn’t know you were nearsighted didn’t mean you weren’t nearsighted since birth.

My uncle started asking me questions about how it felt, about my feelings about girls and boys, about clothes, what I wanted to do with my life. Apparently my aunt’s talk and my dad’s letter had forced him to treat this seriously. I began thinking this actually relieved him of some responsibility about me. I was no longer his concern as much as I was Aunt Margaret’s. I knew he had a macho revulsion to the idea of any male even wanting to be a girl, but it was okay for real girls. In his macho brain I was being pulled from the ‘boy’ category and placed in the ‘girl’ category–a mental reassignment. This was a major shift for him; although I thought his macho stuff, the way he wanted his boys to act, was disgusting, but he’d always been courteous and kindly with his daughter Cindy. While he didn’t fawn over ‘Daddy’s Little Girl’, you could tell that he loved her and wanted her. He just didn’t seem to want the responsibility of being her instructor–or maybe he didn’t know how–so he was more than willing to let her spend her time learning ‘women’s things’ from her mother. Like many macho types, maybe he just didn’t understand females. Like many macho types, maybe he was afraid of females because of that.

My aunt joined the discussion. She’d been letting Uncle Jack sort things out in his own way, at his own pace. She added helpful comments and suggestions, and to my growing joy, we hashed out an arrangement. The initial idea was that I would present myself to my uncle fully dressed as a girl. We’d see how he took it; if it was too weird for him, I’d wear less feminine clothes, like shorts, jeans, and t-shirts, but could be treated as a girl, just like Cindy. At some point when he was used to the idea, I could gradually add more feminine clothes. In the meantime, I would be called Susan and treated as a girl cousin. I would continue to live in the attic room and begin buying girls’ clothes. We’d deal with my two cousins later.

As we were discussing this, Cindy came downstairs, still in her nightgown. She was woozy and still a little sick, but she gave her dad a loving hug and I got a chance to study how he reacted to her. It was totally different than the way he was with the boys. Even setting aside her being sick, he treated her gently, like she was a delicate treasure. We briefly told Cindy of our plan, and my aunt announced that she’d make lunch while Cindy and I got dressed. I started to point out that I was dressed, then realized what she meant. Surprisingly, Cindy reacted the most.

“Oh, this is great! Susan’s back! Thank you, Daddy, you’ll see what a great girl she is! Come on, Sue, let’s get ready for lunch.”

I could tell by the looks on her parents’ faces that they were amazed and happy that my ‘girlhood’ had had this affect on her. I followed Cindy up and we kicked into high gear. If my uncle freaked, this would be the last chance for awhile that I’d have to wear pretty things. I’d already had the shower, but sprayed some stuff in my hair that Cindy handed me, and began brushing it into shape. I still had the polish on my nails, so that was a time saver. I put on the shimmery lip gloss, thinking that the burgundy lipstick would be too much, and dusted my face with the matte power. Cindy picked up some brushes and did a quick splash of color across my eyelids and cheekbones, and said I just needed a pretty dress. Cindy pulled out a darling sundress, yellow with red flowers, with two thin shoulder straps. It was quite short and I wondered about that, but I might as well go all the way–my legs were shaved, anyway! She tossed me some panties, too, and white strappy sandals with a small heel. I darn near ripped the boy clothes off and jumped into the panties, pulled the dress over my head, and put on the sandals. And I felt immediately better!

Cindy had already put on a somewhat similar sundress, dark blue with hibiscus; she turned her back and I automatically reached over and zipped her up. She then zipped me up, and pointed out her jewelry box; I selected another small gold necklace. Cindy laughed and shook her head at me, then added a pair of small gold clip-on earrings, a gold charm bracelet and several thin rings. I’d never worn so much jewelry before! She played with my hair for a minute, then pulled my hair back from the sides and held it with combs. She spritzed both of us and we stood shoulder to shoulder to check ourselves out in the mirror. As objectively as possible, we were two pretty girls, two very pretty girls. We both struck girly poses, giggled, hugged, and went downstairs.

Chapter 18: Lunch With My Uncle

We walked downstairs; as we rounded the corner into the kitchen, Cindy reached out and gave my hand a quick squeeze of support. What a great cousin; what a great girlfriend!

My uncle’s expression was worth every minute of agony and doubt that I’d had. It was obvious that when he turned and saw us in the kitchen, he thought a friend of Cindy’s had stopped over. It was also obvious that he’d been expecting an awkward boy in a skirt. His face kept trying to equate the dull, unhappy little boy he knew with the pretty young girl in front of him.

“Well, Daddy? What do you think of my girlfriend Susan?”

“Susan ...omigod. I can’t believe ...you look ...” Uncle Jack sat down, rather hard.

I couldn’t resist playing with him. Innocently, I asked, “Uncle Jack, do I look too much like a boy?”

He shook his head emphatically. “No! Are you crazy? You’re really quite ...pretty!”

I knew how much that word had cost him. “Thank you, Uncle Jack.” I don’t know what possessed me, but I walked up and hugged him. Or rather, I started to. He received the hug like he would from Cindy, then, some last gasp of macho made him pull back and hold me at arm’s length, staring hard into my eyes.

“Is this what you want? Prancing around like a goddamn fairy?”

“Jack!” Aunt Margaret shouted.

“Daddy, please!” Cindy said at the same instant.

Before I could answer, my uncle’s grip on me softened. I guess he couldn’t reconcile what he saw with what he knew me to be. My aunt spoke quietly.

“Not ‘like a goddamn fairy’. Like a girl, Jack, a girl. Take your hands off her.”

“Her?” he said wonderingly.

“Yes, Daddy, her! Let Susan go!” Cindy said.

Startled and, I think, ashamed, Uncle Jack let me go. Now it was my turn to speak.

“I understand your reaction, Uncle Jack; really, I do. But remember what we talked about, and think about this, too: If things had worked out the way they should have when I was born, I would have been your niece Susan. For twelve years now. And I am now. You know that now, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“I’m not a gay boy. I’m not a fairy or a fruit or a faggot or a pansy or a queer or a fag. I’m a girl.”

My aunt had sucked in her breath at the hurtful words, but kept quiet when she realized that I’d been using his own macho code words to shock him–and to show that they had no affect on me. Cindy nodded, then broke the tension.

“Okay, then can we girls join you for lunch, Daddy?”

It was the perfect thing to say. Caught between his disgust for homosexuals and his courtliness to women, my uncle’s aggression fizzled out and he even managed a slight chuckle.

“Well, sure ...three very attractive girls, too, might I add.”

He looked at me while he said this, and I saw the beginning of acceptance. I smiled back, but didn’t try to hug him again–no sense pushing it!

My aunt had made sandwiches and a salad, and we all drank juice. Amazingly, my uncle adapted quickly to my situation; in fact, he asked me, ‘Please pass the dressing, Susan’ as if it was perfectly natural. My aunt and Cindy and I glanced at each other when this occurred, and smiled the second time it happened. We had to revise our plan a little; since my uncle seemed to think it was okay that I fully dress as a girl, it was agreed that I could start living as Susan full time immediately. That was a huge relief! As far as the boys, they would be told that it had long been a medical secret and only now was coming into the open. Lame as it was, if they thought for even one minute that I was a boy who wanted to be a girl, my life–and our summer–would be hell. It was much better that they think I was a girl who’d been masquerading as a boy. After all, their macho mind would tell them, what girl wouldn’t want to be a boy, because weren’t boys so much better than girls?

My father’s letter had also contained the name of a doctor to see in town, and my aunt told me that she’d seen his name on the hospital register where Larry was, so we could set an appointment as soon as possible. As for Chuck, he would be charged or released by the end of the day. Everyone assured me that he would be in such deep trouble that my situation wouldn’t affect him–as long as he didn’t think of me as a boy. For this reason alone, my uncle said–with some difficulty–that I must be absolutely full-time feminine and girly but not ‘faggy’. That didn’t seem to be a problem, he was told by my aunt; she said I was no more ‘faggy’ than Cindy was ‘faggy’. He looked at me hard, then nodded his understanding.

That settled, he told us with great shame how the shooting had occurred. It was pretty much as we’d expected; first some whiskey to keep warm, then it got into a manly ‘how much can you drink’ thing, a ‘here’s how to hold your liquor like a real man’ thing; then the hike back to camp and Chuck tripped, shooting Larry.

My uncle’s face went through so many emotions and I realized just how deeply he was ashamed. He’d been so proud and puffed up and full of his macho bluster when they’d left on the trip, and now he was mortified for what he’d set in motion.

I could feel the difference in the …I guess it was the ‘balance of power’ at the table. I already respected my aunt’s quiet strength and now I loved the fact that she didn’t gloat. She didn’t seize the opportunity to lord it over him. I realized that she knew he was deeply ashamed, and worried about Larry; but as intensely angry as she was at what had happened–and so disappointed in him–she knew he was suffering, too. She loved him and her family and she knew it was time to grow stronger together, not fracture.

Aunt Margaret had us join hands and say a quiet prayer for Larry. At first I was ashamed of myself because I had the fleeting thought of thankfulness that I was seated between my aunt and cousin so my uncle wouldn’t have to hold my hand. I thought this prayer was for Larry and shouldn’t involved any …squeamishness if my uncle didn’t want to touch me. Then I gave myself up to the prayer.

We were all silent even after we raised our heads. Uncle Jack was clearly thinking about Larry; his face was of a worried father. Aunt Margaret may have noticed, and added, “We should pray for Chuck, too.”

Yet we didn’t; the three of them just nodded slowly and the silence continued. Maybe it was the thought that counted, but I realized that they didn’t feel right adding Chuck to Larry’s prayer, like a last minute add-on. He had been, though; I could feel it. I had my own problems with Chuck so maybe I was biased.

Slowly, my uncle picked up where he left off in the telling. He had several charges hanging over his head but having Larry in the hospital mitigated the situation and he was allowed bail. However, Chuck was a different story. What had the police concerned was that Chuck had tried to be a tough guy, and said something like ‘The little faggot had it coming’. He might have drunkenly meant me, or he might have been overcompensating in the macho department, covering his sorrow at shooting his brother, but the police were required by law to treat it as a ‘hate crime’ and were questioning him to see if there was some premeditation. Since there wasn’t any reason for him to shoot his brother–and if by ‘the little faggot’ he meant me and I wasn’t there–there was no premeditation and he should be soon be released back to the family.

Everything in their lives was suspended.

After lunch, we cleaned up, and Cindy decided to lay down again–she still was sort of sick but had been running along on excitement. Her folks needed to talk some more, so I decided to go over to the Doyles. Bonnie answered the door and laughed when she saw me.

“You’ve really got to stop this butch dressing and try something a little more feminine!”

I laughed too; I felt great. “How’s this?” I said, executing a little curtsey. I still wasn’t very good at it.

“Ooo, needs work. Well, we’re finishing lunch but come on in and tell us about it.”

I sat at the table with them and began filling them in. As I did so, I couldn’t help but notice the fact that there were four females at the table, and I felt perfectly at ease with that. Like I told Bonnie, I felt great. I helped with the dishes, and we went to surf the Net. Bonnie had downloaded a bunch of stuff for me to read, and so we didn’t read too much online. She’d been smart enough to bookmark every spot she’d been to, as well, and made a folder named ‘Sue’ of all the files and bookmarks. I checked email and found a short letter from my mom, with some hyperlinks that I’d have to explore. As I began typing an email to my folks, Bonnie giggled. I turned and looked at her.

“What’s so funny? Did I misspell something?”

“No, no, relax. I just noticed–have you noticed the way you’re sitting?”

I hadn’t thought about it at all. I looked down and saw that I had adopted a perfect secretary’s posture, with feet and ankles together. What Bonnie had been laughing at was that my knees were together and apparently I’d unconsciously pulled down my skirt hem.

“What can I say, Bonnie?”

“Nothing. Except you can never say that you’re a guy!”

I laughed and went back to my typing. I told them everything that had happened, right up to Bonnie laughing at my feminine poise. I told them I would read the material, check out the hyperlinks, and that I loved them. Taking a leap off a cliff of faith, I swallowed hard and wrote, ‘I can’t wait for you to see me. Have a wonderful time until then and don’t worry. Your loving daughter, Susan.’

After sending the email, I began checking out the hyperlinks in my mom’s mail, and my eyes began to tear up. She’d sent me websites about cosmetics and deportment for transsexuals, and other sites unrelated to transgender people, but that wasn’t the real reason I got teary. It was because she’d bookmarked girl sites, like sites for Seventeen and CosmoGirl magazines, as well as other sites a normal teenaged girl would want to visit, like clothing sites. I took this to mean she was accepting me as her daughter, and telling me it was okay to explore my new gender–my proper gender. I was so grateful that finally the tears got the better of me; I logged off, put my head into my hands and wept. Bonnie understood, placed a box of tissues next to the keyboard and found something to take her out of the room.

Once I’d gotten under control, I went out into the living room a little sheepishly. Bonnie was reading a Time magazine, looked up and smiled.

“You’ve got some great folks, Sue. I was going to get a Coke; you want a drink?”

I nodded and followed her to the kitchen. Drinking our Cokes, we chatted for a bit about my family’s acceptance, my plans for the future, and so on. She reminded me that we still had a deal, and I told her I’d like to repay her for using the email; what would she like to know?

“Okay, for starters–and Mom and Hannah are next door, by the way, so we can talk–what do you do with your penis and testicles?”

I told her, and with more detail than she was prepared for, I think. She asked whether I’d ever had homosexual thoughts about other boys? Thoughts about girls? And so on. It was funny; she almost seemed disappointed that I hadn’t had any sexual thoughts about boys or girls. Then I pointed out the ‘neuter’ state that I’d been sort of floating in, and she got excited about that angle, because it was relatively unaddressed in the information she’d found so far. She thought it might earn her project extra notice, and I was happy to help her.

We talked for about an hour, moving from the kitchen out to the patio and continuing. Then Bonnie said I’d more than fulfilled my part of the bargain; did I have any questions for her? I told her that I really didn’t at that time; any questions I’d ask were about things I hoped to find out about myself, such as ‘what did it feel like when your breasts started growing?’ With luck, I’d learn these things and she’d have a lot more for her research!

It turned cool; we got up and went inside, but I noticed the hour and headed back home. I passed Mrs. Doyle and Hannah on the way, so the timing was right. In the kitchen, my aunt told me that she and Uncle Jack were going to go pick up Chuck. There’d be papers to fill out, a lecture to give, they’d visit Larry, then have dinner in town before starting back. They’d be back quite late and since Cindy was still sick, I would stay and nurse her. They told me to make sure I went to bed by 9:00 so that Cindy wouldn’t stay up late, and for me not to stay up. I’d see Chuck in the morning after he’d been told about me and had been disciplined. I was nervous about what tomorrow would bring; with Larry still hospitalized it was the last hurdle–would I clear it?

After they left, Cindy came down and I fixed us a dinner. We watched TV for awhile, curled up on the couch with our legs under us. Cindy had changed her sleep shirt and was wrapped in a blanket, sipping a hot buttered rum I’d made for her–but without the rum, of course; she just liked the mix. I’d gone up and taken off the sundress and put on leggings that Cindy had loaned me, along with an oversized sweater. Even though I didn’t need a bra–yet!–I put one on because I loved seeing the bra strap when the sweater fell off my shoulder. Besides, I needed to get used to wearing a bra. At 9:00 we turned off everything except for a few lights and went upstairs. I more or less tucked Cindy in; I was getting worried that she’d stayed sick and weak for so long because I’d kind of bounced back pretty quickly. Hopefully a full night’s sleep would finally cure her. I washed, went upstairs, and pulled on a longer nightgown that I found in the drawer. I lay awake for awhile, thinking about everything that had happened so far, and hoped for the best tomorrow.

End of Part 6