We heard someone come in the front door, and a voice came from the living room. “Hello?” Lisa, my cousin, and best friend was there to walk with me to school. My mom and her mom are twin sisters. We are Lisa Michelle Rivers and Tracy Morgan Brooks, hence, sometimes referred to as:
Living – or going through the motions
As my cousin, Lisa and I walked the main hall toward our next class; she looked me over and said, “That dress really looks nice on you.”
I opened my mouth to thank her but was interrupted by the bell. We were late, but the hall was full of students, everyone was late! The bell continued ringing with everyone looking around, wondering what was going on. Lisa reached out and touched my shoulder as the ringing continued. “Tracy!” The ringing stopped. “Tracy, wake up!” I opened my eyes. It was my mom touching my shoulder.
“Tracy, how in the world do you sleep through this alarm? I could hear it from the kitchen! You had a big smile on your face! What were you dreaming about?”
“Baseball.”
“Again? You sure dream about that a lot! Come get some breakfast and get ready for school.”
“Yeah, I scored a touchdown.”
“A touchdown, huh … in baseball? Even I know better than that!” She also knew I didn’t dream about baseball, but that was my standard answer. She accepted that I didn’t want to share. I groaned and dragged myself out of bed. After a bathroom stop, I shuffled to the dining room and sat down to eggs, sausage, and milk.
We heard someone come in the front door, and a voice came from the living room. “Hello?” Lisa, my cousin, and best friend was there to walk with me to school. My mom and her mom are twin sisters. We are Lisa Michelle Rivers and Tracy Morgan Brooks, hence, sometimes referred to as “Rivers and Brooks”.
Lisa’s parents were separated, and her father’s last name was “Parker”, so it was a mystery from whence came the name “Rivers”. When Lisa asked her mom about it, she said it would be revealed when the time was right.
She came into the dining room. “Hello, Aunt Kim. Hello Tracy … oh my! How much did you drink last night!?”
“Ha ha. Go away.” Lisa was always cheerful in the morning. I’m a morning person, too, when I get a decent amount of sleep.
“He was up on the computer until God knows when,” my mom advised Lisa.
“Homework.”
“We really did have a lot of homework to do on the computer last night, Aunt Kim.”
“Lisa, I’m glad that you want to help your cousin, but please, I’m not stupid. I’m somewhat computer savvy, and I know how to look at ‘history’, so y’all better be careful.”
“That’s right, Lisa. Don’t you wish we knew how to delete our history?”
Mom was on to us. “Except when you forget or don’t bother to delete it. Wanna talk about some of those histories after school?”
Lisa did an “Oh well, I tried” shrug of her shoulders.
“Ok, sure,” I said nonchalantly. But, what had she seen? Must have not been much, because she wasn’t insisting that we talk about it. I figured maybe it was a bluff. If she missed something, I was just lucky, because saying she was ‘somewhat computer savvy’, was a major understatement. She was a photographer and expert photo editor with a room full of state of the art computer and photography equipment, and she could create the most beautiful photos. She had an online business and had photos published in major magazines and websites. Her photos were used in advertisements and illustrations for books and magazines. She had recently started experimented with holograms. For her first hologram project, she got Lisa to pose for photos. She must have taken 1,000 photos of Lisa blowing a kiss. When she finished the project, she had a hologram of Lisa that that would blow a kiss as you walked by it. It looked just like she was pursing her lips, raising her hand to her lips, and blowing a kiss. That was her most impressive project so far. It had the quality of an HD video, except it was in 3D. It was awesome.
I finished breakfast and Lisa and I headed out on the trek to school. Lisa looked back at my mom. “I’ll brush his hair, Aunt Kim,” If it weren’t for Lisa I would go to school looking even more ragged. I cared little about the way I looked. I looked like a boy … at least somewhat … and, as I saw it, you can’t fix that.
Lisa also had a superpower. She could go into a room and tell you the length, width, and height within about ¼”. She then could do the math in her head, and tell you the square footage and the cubic footage of the room. If she went into a room that wasn’t perfectly rectangular or square, (i.e. the corners were not exactly 90 degrees) she could tell you how much they were off within a degree or two.
Note: The following paragraph is an explanation of Lisa’s math ability. This is optional reading for any reader interested in understanding her system. If you don’t care, I wouldn’t blame you. Just skip the paragraph.
Lisa could do some amazing things with math. In only seconds, she would make up short cuts with machinations that most people wouldn’t be able to keep straight without pen and paper. She used these short cuts to quickly solve seemingly complex math problems. She gave me a simple example of how she did it. How tall is a ladder that has 80 rungs that are 9 inches apart? If the rungs were 12 inches apart, it would be 80 feet tall but, since 9” is ¾ of 12”, multiply 80” by ¾ and you find that the ladder is 60 feet tall. As I said, this is a simple example, but when a problem requires 10 steps or more and you realize how difficult it can be to keep up with her machinations. She started working on her system when we first started learning math. She thought that it was so neat that you could multiply or divide by 10 by moving the decimal point. She started looking for other short cuts. She memorized the “times” table up to 15 X 15, and she made a ‘division’ table and memorized that up to 10 ÷ 10. She couldn’t look at a question involving dividing a 10 digit number by a 3 digit number and give you the answer in a few seconds. People who can do that can’t tell you how they do it, and they usually are deficient in other areas, such as social interaction. Lisa’s can tell how she solves because she consciously created her system and can tell you how it works. As far as social interaction, she excels. I’m the one who has a problem there. I ‘know’ her system, but I don’t have a memory like hers. Still, her system helps me.
Lisa also saw things others miss. Once, we were watching a movie on CD. The scene was some people driving through a city, with the thousands of city lights on buildings, billboards, etc. As we watched, Lisa said, “That reminds me, your dad told me that Wells Fargo Bank got into some legal trouble.”
“What reminds you of that?”
“The sign.”
“Which sign? There were hundreds of signs.”
“Well, obviously the Wells Fargo sign! I’ll show you.” She took the remote and ran the CD back, working with it until she got to the right place, then paused it. “See?”
It took a few seconds, but I finally picked out a Wells Fargo sign in the distance among the thousands of other, more prominent lights and signs. You had to have been familiar with the sign to recognize what it was because you could barely read “Wells Fargo”. As I said, it took me a few seconds to even find it, even with the picture frozen. Lisa saw in all the flickering of the scene as we watched.
As we walked to school, I thought about my dream. “Oh, by the way, I was gonna say thanks, but I was interrupted by the bell. Thanks, Lisa!”
“For what?”
“Well, you said my dress looked nice.”
“I said that?”
“Yes, just before I woke up.”
“Oh! That dream again. Well, you’re welcome. I’ll bet it looked better than ‘nice’. You were probably really hot! This has gone on … how long? No one has a clue except you and me … and, I suspect, your parents.”
“My parents don’t have a clue.”
“You misjudge them. See, parents have this kind of ‘radar’ when it comes to their kids, plus your mom has looked at your computer history. Wonder what she thought about the sites you visited that were stores selling dresses, jewelry, and ladies shoes. Parents are not as dumb as they look. I know if my dad was as dumb as he looks, he would be too stupid to breathe! He looks like he’s one brick shy of a full load … like his elevator doesn’t go to the top….”
“Lisa, I’ve seen pictures of your dad. He’s pretty good looking, as men go. If he’s so stupid, why are you making straight ‘A’s?”
“Well, my dad is not a genius, but he’s not as dumb as he looks. Still, I get most of my smarts from my mom. My dad’s parents are smart, too. He’s an anomaly.”
“A variation from the norm.”
“Close enough.”
Lisa and I had a running competition about vocabulary. We would learn a new word and try to stump the other by using it. We didn’t keep track of who was ahead, but we stayed pretty even.
“Tracy, when are you gonna tell your parents, ‘Mom and Dad, I am sick and tired of this ‘boy’ thing. A mistake was made somehow and I should have been born a girl. Could I please see about having surgery to correct this mistake’?”
“I said it!”
“You told your parents!?”
“No, I said it in front of the mirror. Just rehearsing.”
“Rehearsing? When is show time?”
“When I think I’m gonna do it, I consider it for about 30 seconds and I chicken out. I can see the three of us at the dinner table and the disappointment on their faces. I can hear the questions: ‘How long have you felt this way?’ ‘Are you gay?’ But the best one is, ‘You know, you could have come to us any time.’ Yeah, right. Not after I heard their comments about a transsexual who was in the news last week.”
“You’re right. That does make it tough.”
As we approached the school, we saw two girls standing near an oak tree, talking. They both were wearing tight mini-dresses … one blue, one with a flower pattern. I groaned.
“Damn Tracy. You’re just miserable! Most guys would be crazy with lust over those girls. You envy them! You gotta do something!”
“You’re right, and soon. Lisa, I want to show you something. Let’s find someplace private.”
Next: An unexpected disorder
An unexpected disorder
We went into the school and found a place under a stairway with no one around. I opened my shirt and showed Lisa my nipples,
“Wow! Tracy, you’re taking hormones….?”
I quickly pulled my shirt back down. “No, I’m not taking anything! My nipples just started getting bigger! I thought they would stop growing, but they didn’t!”
“This is great….”
“Yeah, if I was a girl! I’ve been careful in the locker room, but if someone sees these, I’m done!”
“Yeah, I see your point. Have you told your mom?”
“No, she’ll make me go to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor!”
“Get an ace bandage. You can say you broke a rib.”
“Good idea!”
“I’ll bring a bandage from my house.”
“Thanks!”
The bell rang and we parted. We would see each other in third, fourth and last periods, as well as lunchtime.
After school, we each headed to our homes to research my “disease.” As I was researching, my cell phone buzzed. “Got it, Lisa?”
“You have ‘gynecomastia’.”
“You’re fast. What the details?”
“It’s temporary, dammit. A few weeks … maybe months.”
“I’ve got to keep this hidden that long?”
“Now is the perfect time to talk to parents!”
“OK, soon.”
“Goodnight, Tracy.”
“Night-night Lisa.”
After getting my ‘diagnosis’ from Lisa, I told my mom, “I feel kinda bad. I think I’ll go on to bed now.”
“This early? You must feel bad!” She put her hand to my forehead. “You have a slight fever. Go on to bed and I’ll bring you some juice.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
The next day was Saturday, and I still felt down. I lay around the house all day. I asked Lisa not to come over in case I had something she might catch. Sunday, I was pretty much recovered, but still stayed at home.
I’ve always been an introvert and wouldn’t have had a lot of friends, but for Lisa. She had lots of friends, and they seemed happy to accept me as a friend. Lisa was beautiful, self-confident, and energetic. I never saw her overwhelmed by anything. Actually, I never even saw her ‘whelmed’. We were good friends, but I envied her. She seemed happy with her life and she always had time for me. Life, in general, seemed easier for girls. They could be mean, but they were generally nicer than boys. They also had more varied interests. All boys seemed to care about was sex and cars. The girls would talk about one boy or another, and I learned things they would never tell any other guy. But they would have been stunned if they knew the things the boys said about them. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them. They would make ‘hell’s fury’ look like a day in the park!
School was tough. Every school day, I was exposed to the repulsive stench and sights of the boys’ locker room. Most of them seemed to be years ahead of me in physical development, with lots of body hair and enormous …um… members? I had little body hair and what you might call a “junior member”. I kept to myself, usually managing to be almost invisible, and get out of the locker room quickly.
Bryan, one of the big guys asked me once if I was a “faggot”. I told him, “Actually, I’m not, but don’t you have a steady boyfriend already”? His buddies laughed, and I was seconds away from getting an “ass kickin’ ”. He approached and I backed up slightly, held my hands in front of me, and said, “Hey, I’m not judging. Live like you wanna live.” I figured if I was going to get an ass kickin’, I might as well make it worth it. The ass kickin’ was imminent, but Tim, who was even bigger than Bryan, said, “Back off dipshit.” Bryan walked off muttering something about me not being “worth it”. I mouthed the words, “thank you” to Tim.
Tim was awesome. He was a football star something-back and sometimes called “Tiny Tim” as an ironic reference to his size. Tim was one of those people who had everything going for him. He was big, strong, but very fast. When he ran with the football, no defender could catch him. If one of them somehow got a hand on him, they then had the almost impossible task of bringing him down. One time he ran for a touchdown dragging two defenders behind him. He was no dumb jock either. He was a straight-A student. Of course, he was also very good looking, but he was taken. He and Julie Reed had dated steady as long as anyone could remember. Julie was a star in her own right. Was she head cheerleader? No! She felt cheerleading was all about lust, and she wanted no part of it. Julie was an extremely talented violinist. Of course, her grades matched Tim’s. They were a star couple, and most people, myself included, were in awe of them.
So just a couple of words from Tim was all it took to get Bryan off my back. I could handle myself verbally. Physically, it was better to avoid conflict.
When my dad thought I was old enough, he showed me how to start the lawnmower. I didn’t have the strength to start it, so he started it for me. It was self-propelled, and I could manage to mow, but if the mower stopped, he would have to come out and start it again. My dad would say, “When you’re just a little bit older….” I really doubted I would ever be able to start that monster machine. When I pulled on the string, it felt like the engine was frozen. I couldn’t get it to move even slightly using both hands. Also, the smell of it was offensive and the noise was scary. It was kind of amazing to see my dad easily start it with one hand.
During one of my attempts at lawn mowing, the mower spit out pieces of a grass snake. I ran into the house, crying. I couldn’t tell my parents I was afraid of a grass snake … a dead one at that, so I told them I fell and hurt my back. Of course, I refused any treatment, and you can’t look at a person’s back and tell whether it hurts or not. I dried my tears like a brave little boy, and my dad finished the yard. I think he saw the dead snake and realized why I was crying, but he said nothing. I didn’t walk in the grass for a long time.
That was just one of the times I felt that my dad was disappointed in me. He never acted like it or said anything. I just felt it. He didn’t ask me to mow the lawn again. That was fine with me; I enjoyed helping my mom in the house. I had never told my parents about my wish that I had been born a girl. I wasn’t sure what my parents would say, but I didn’t have the nerve to find out.
My dad was a religious person who never went to church. If that seems to be an oxymoron, I should explain. He grew up in a strict protestant church. He said he sat through countless hours of preaching and Bible teaching. He felt like about 90% of those hours were wasted due to the preacher analyzing the scriptures, expanding on them, and sometimes adding their own opinions. When he left home for college, he quit going to church completely.
He was still a Christian and wanted me to grow up with the teaching that he had. He said that the bible is both critical to literature and a good guide to living a full life. He decided that he could impart this knowledge to me and my mom without all the “fluff” and the hypocrisy of organized religion. So, when I was very young, he took the family to a service in the church he attended as a child. He said he wanted us to see what we were missing.
I saw what I was missing! I almost felt like I should get down on my knees and thank God that I didn't have to go back. With the singing, the announcements, the ‘testimony service’, the sermon and the altar call, I thought it would never end. The preacher took 45 minutes just to tell us that, as the old song says, “Pharaoh’s army got drown-ded. Oh, Mary doncha weep.” I left there with a sore butt from sitting so long. I vowed that if my parents wanted me to go to another service, I would have a drug problem. That is: I would have to be ‘drug’ to church.
But, as I said, my dad just wanted us to see what we were missing. He seemed to have a cyclopedic knowledge of the scripture, so he set up Sunday morning “devotions”, during which he would read from the Bible, and ask me and my mom to tell what we thought the passage meant, and how it could be applied to our lives. Sometimes we would tell something that happened during the week that we thought tied into bible teaching. He would then expand on the story and what we said about it. He made the stories short, interesting, and we found that there was actually humor in the bible! If the session was very long, it might last 45 minutes. My mom told Lisa’s mom about the sessions, and they joined us every week. Lisa didn’t like the idea at first, but I asked her if she wanted me to take her to one of the church’s 3-hour services and she was more accepting of our devotions. She even grew to enjoy them and participated eagerly. Of course, she loved to talk anyway.
Once, during our devotion, the subject was ‘the fall’; the eviction of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. I told my dad I thought Eve got a raw deal.
“Well”, my dad opined, “whose side are you on, anyway?! How was she treated unfairly?”
“The serpent tricked Eve into eating the fruit. Then, she gave the fruit to Adam and he ate it. So, Eve was deceived, but Adam was disobedient. Yet, Eve got punished more than Adam.”
“Wow, I’m proud of you for coming up with that, because it shows that you’re listening and you’re thinking. You’re not the first to proffer that idea, however. Here’s what I can tell you about that. The bible just says she gave the fruit to Adam and he ate. It doesn’t say whether she told Adam what the serpent said or whether she tricked Adam into eating. When the bible is silent on an issue, no amount of analysis or conjecture will yield more details about what occurred. As Christians, we must remember that ‘there is no respect of persons with God’. Our God is a just God. There is no way to know all the ways of God. The book of First Corinthians says, ‘for now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ Thank you for pleading Eve’s case, though.”
“You’re welcome, Dad.” I looked up. “Eve, I tried.”
“Son, I know you’re only joking about talking to Eve, and I don’t want to nitpick, but the bible forbids trying to communicate with the dead.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“It’s OK. You didn’t know, but now you do. No séances or the like.”
“Got it!”
Next: Aced
Aced
Monday morning Lisa gave me the ace bandage on the way to school. I went into the restroom and put it on as soon as we got to school then came back into the hall to get her approval.
“Looks good. No sign of boobs.”
“How was your shopping trip?”
“Good! I saw a dress that would look soooo good on you! Who knows? Maybe I bought it for you! Are you feeling better today?”
“You know, my head and my stomach feel fine. Would you go for a body swap, you and me?”
“Babe, to make you happy, I’d do it. Of course, that’s easy to say, since it’s impossible.”
“Actually, if it was possible, I wouldn’t do it! I like you too much to condemn you to a body that’s going to morph in the most repulsive way I can imagine. You would hate me forever.”
“Look at it this way … there are a lot of girls … a majority of girls who wouldn’t find that body repulsive. They’ll probably be fighting to see who can be the first to get to do the ‘horizontal bop’ with you.”
“Very picturesque, but I’m afraid they’d be disappointed. They’d expect ‘sock it to me’, but all they’d get is ‘lay it on me’!”
“No way! Once that testosterone kicks in, things ‘down there’ will change in a way that they will appreciate.”
“You know … I’m starting to feel nauseous again. Could you not threaten me with my fate?”
“You can abort that process, but you better quit wasting time. Tell your parents how you feel. How about I talk to them?”
“No!”
“Tell you what … I won’t say a word if you promise to tell them. I’ll be there with you for support.”
“Lisa, I just can’t do it!”
“OK, I’ve been holding this card for a while. I can get you some hormones on the web without a script. I’ll get you a testosterone blocker and some Estradiol ….”
“… and you’ll get yourself some time in jail for buying them without a prescription!”
“No way! I’ll order them in your name!”
“So I go to jail? No you won’t. Didn’t we promise to ‘do no harm’ to each other?”
“OK, nothing illegal, but I need to talk to your mom after school. I’m really ….” The bell rang and Lisa hurried down the hall. She turned back slightly as she walked and wagged her fingers on one hand. “Bye-bye.”
It was incredible that she hadn’t already convinced me to tell my parents. I didn’t think she would talk to my parents but, if she did I couldn’t stop it, so there was no need to worry. Deep down, I wished she would, but dreaded what the result might be. I trudged through the school day, then went home, fell across the bed, and broke the law. I cried.
_____________________________________________________
The miserable days passed slowly. Two weeks later, a gloomy Saturday dawned on my pathetic existence. I got out of bed, took off my shirt, unwrapped the bandage, and went to the mirror. There was no doubt about it; my (not so) tiny boobs were thriving. Fat was forming behind my perky nipples.
Without warning, my mom opened the door. “Tracy would you….” She stopped. She looked as if she were frozen there with a pile of clothes in her hand and her mouth open.
“Not nice to stare, mom.”
My voice seemed to wake her out of her bewilderment. “Tracy! What’s…?. Why do…?. What’s going on?”
“Not much … just a little gynecomastia. It’s normal for boys my age.”
“Tracy, I know what gynecomastia is. This looks like it’s beyond gynecomastia. Are you taking hormones?”
“No, mom! I wouldn’t even know where to get something like that. It’s supposed to go away in a few weeks, so no big deal.”
“Right. No big deal. I’ll make you an appointment with Dr. Canton to make sure everything’s all right. I can just about guarantee you that this is more than gynecomastia.”
“You mean it could be something like cancer?”
“No. I’m thinking a hormone imbalance. We’ll let the doctor figure it out. In the meantime, keep your shirt on.” She smiled at her little attempt at humor.
It was pointless to argue with her. The next week, I would have to be checked out by Dr. Canton. He was old as the moon and almost blind. At least I figured that, at his age, he had seen everything.
__________________________________________________
A day off from school was nice. The waiting room was not very crowded, thankfully. We only had to wait a half hour.
“Gynecomastia”, announced Dr. Canton in his frail voice.
“That’s all? He has fat behind his nipples.” My mom was incredulous.
“I’ve seen ‘em bigger, and it goes away. I could give him medication, but I don’t like to do that unless it’s necessary. I’ll write him a note so he doesn’t have to go to PE. That might spare him some embarrassment.”
On the ride home, I said, “Told you, Mom.”
“Well, at least you have that note. I know how much you hate PE.”
“Yeah, guess it was worth it.”
When I got home, I called Lisa.
“It’s official, Dr. Canton says it’s gynecomastia. He gave me a note. I’m excused from PE.”
“Wow, that’s good.”
“I guess I’ll be wearing the bandage for a while.”
“OK, you can keep it. Nobody at my house wants to hide their boobs.”
“That’s not what it’s supposed to be for.”
“I know, but just keep it. Let’s go shopping.”
“Does anything happen that doesn’t trigger you to want to go shopping?”
“No, I celebrate anything that happens by going shopping. If nothing happens, I celebrate nothing happening by going shopping.”
“Bye, Lisa.”
“Bye-bye, Sweetie.’
Chapter 4
About a week after the doctor assured us that I had gynecomastia, and nothing fatal, my mom came to my room and asked, “How’s the chest?”
“It’s better. They’re getting smaller.”
“Let me see.”
I knew there was no need to argue, so I opened my shirt and showed her my healthily growing boobs. She took one look and said, “OK, back to the doctor. This time, I’m not taking ‘gynecomastia’ for an answer!”
So back to the doctor we went. Same office … new doctor.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Becker. Dr. Canton is retiring soon, and he’s working limited hours for a few weeks until his official retirement.” He looked at my chart a few seconds, then looked at me. “OK, Tracy, could you take off your shirt and let’s have a look.” He felt my nipples and the fat behind them. “OK, you can go ahead and put your shirt back on.” He turned to look at my mom. “Boys Tracy’s age sometimes develop slight growth like this. As Dr. Canton told you, it’s called ‘gynecomastia’ and it’s harmless and temporary. Tracy, however, has a bit more fat growth than what we normally see. Has he had any other problems recently?”
“He had a little stomach ... virus I suppose, and headache a few days ago, but he was better the next day.”
He turned back to me, “Cramps … did your stomach cramp?”
“Yes, sir. I guess I would say it cramped.”
“Tracy, go behind the curtain here and take off your pants and underwear, put on the gown back there, then come back and lie on this table. Mom? Would you like to stay?”
“I’ll go in the hall, doctor.”
“Ok, I’ll get a nurse in here and we’ll proceed.”
I did as he said and lay on the table. He had me put my feet in stirrups. A nurse came in and the doctor proceeded to fondle my genitalia. Doctor or no doctor … I was extremely uncomfortable.
“Looks … a bit … anom….” He mumbled a long word that I didn’t quite catch, but it sounded like ‘anomalous’. My genitalia are anomalous? At least he didn’t say ‘tiny’.
The nurse apparently understood. She nodded and quietly said, “Um hum.”
“Ok, Tracy, you can put your clothes back on. Lori, have his mom come back in.”
He wrote on my chart as my mom came back into the room. “The good news is; I doubt that this is something insidious and malicious. I would like, however, to do some blood work to see why he has the abnormal amount of fat growth behind the nipples. Lori will take some blood, and I’ll have some tests done. When I get the results, I’ll call you, OK? Tracy, let me ask you this. How are you getting along at school?”
“Ok, I guess.”
“Ever get the feeling you don’t quite ‘fit the mold’ ”?
“Exactly!”
“Well, keep this in mind; something unique and exceptional doesn’t come from a mold. I know Dr. Canton wrote you a note excusing you from P.E., but I’m going to write another one. When a doctor retires, things like this note retire with him. I wouldn’t want you to have any problems. If the school gives you any crap about it, give them my number and I’ll set them straight.”
With the last line, he became my favorite doctor in the whole world. He seemed to be both brilliant and wise, but I thought his questions seemed odd given the reason for my visit. Still, I was elated to continue my boycott of the dreaded boys’ locker room.
The nurse procured some equipment to take blood. She wrapped a rubber tube around the top of my arm and produced a needle almost the size of a pencil. “Ok, you’ll feel a sting, but please try not to move and please breathe normally.”
I closed my eyes and felt the needle go into my arm. Then, I opened my eyes and began to closely watch the blood flow through the tube. I wondered why she told me to ‘breathe normally’.
“Breathe!” she said sternly. Oh … that’s why. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath. I started breathing … normally? In a few seconds, she reiterated, “Breath!” I hate needles. She filled all the vials, removed the giant needle from my arm, and taped a piece of cotton to the wound.
“You’ve been so good! Would you like a sucker?” She was half joking. I refused the candy. I don’t care that much for candy and I hadn’t been that good anyway.
We left the doctor’s office and went to the hospital for more tests. I had to lie down and go through a machine that made a humming sound and clicks. When that was done we went home and I went straight to bed. I was exhausted from ‘guinea pigging’. Tomorrow was Saturday and I wasn’t sure I would get out of bed until Sunday. I thought about the bible verse that said something like, “…a little sleep, a little slumber….” Ah, yes. Just what I needed!
____________________________________________________________
“Tracy, wake up!”
Did I tell you about my totally annoying cousin, Lisa? I can’t stand her! … at least I couldn’t stand her on this particular Saturday morning at 9 AM when she was disturbing my wonderful, rejuvenating slumber. I had only slept 12 or 13 hours!
“Lisa, go the fuc….”
“Tracy, such language! OK, I’ll quit bothering you.” She walked to the other side of my bedroom, turned the chair at my dresser around, and sat staring at me. She knew I couldn’t ignore her. She sat completely silent. I tried to go back to sleep, but I would open my eyes and she was sitting there looking at me in complete silence.
“OK, Lisa. I give up. Just give me a little time to wake up.”
“I want to know if the doctor said you’re going to live. What did he say?”
“He wanted to know how I got along at school. I told him everything in my life was fine except for my annoying cousin who wakes me up in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday. Oh … he had me go through a big noisy machine and had the nurse take about a gallon of blood. I think they’re gonna drink it and worship the devil.”
“So he didn’t give you any answers. He didn’t tell you how to keep your boobs growing?”
“No, he wanted to know whether I ‘fit the mold’.”
“He has a mold for boobs?”
“Dammit, Lisa, it too early for crap like that! You are so full of shit!”
“Tracy! The way you talk!”
“That’s the way boys talk! It’s one of the very few advantages of being a boy! We don’t have to be all dainty and shit!”
“Ok, sorry babe. So you just went to the doctor, he charged your mom an arm and a leg, and didn’t tell you shit!”
I thought a second. “Yes. That pretty well sums it up, but he’s supposed to know more about what’s going on when he gets the test results.”
“Oh! What if it’s AIDS!?”
“No way! You gotta do some nasty shit to get AIDS. Oops … no pun intended. Either that or you have to have a blood transfusion and that nasty little bug swims right in.”
“OK. Well, let’s celebrate you going to the doctor. Let’s go shopping!”
“Any excuse, huh?”
“Yeah, I celebrate anything that happens by going shopping. If nothing happens, I celebrate nothing happening by going shopping.”
“I think I would too if I could wear some of the cute things you wear.”
“Yeah, I know how to shop, and you could wear them if you had the ball … oops.”
“Lisa, if I find out I’m not dying, I’m gonna go for it. I’m gonna have an operation.”
“Tracy, that’s wonderful … seriously!”
“I don’t think I’m dying. I think I’m gonna live … miserably!”
“I know you’re unhappy, babe. When are you gonna talk to your parents?”
“I’m gonna wait until the results from the blood tests come back. Then, I’m gonna go for it!”
“Good boy … girl
Monday, I was back at school, happily exempt from physical education class and the dreaded boys’ locker room. I got to go to the library and study, do homework or read. The school didn’t seem to care what I did during that time since they were deprived of the ability to torture me. I was able to do the small amount of homework that was assigned, and that left my time after school completely free of study or schoolwork. This wonderful arrangement lasted for 3 days, followed by a new and shocking diagnosis that, left alone, could be fatal.
Next: Possibly deadly
Possibly deadly
After school the next day, I went home and went to my room. Since my homework was done, I got on the internet and looked around for something interesting. I wasted time until my mom came to my room and rapped lightly on the door, then opened it a little. “Tracy, please come to the dining room. Your dad and I need to talk to you about something.”
“What did I …?”
“You’re not in trouble. Just come … let’s talk.”
I found my dad at the dining room table expressionless with his arms folded. He didn’t take his eyes off me. He seemed to be studying my face, like he had never seen me before. He unfolded his arms and smiled. “Sit down, baby. Don’t worry, you haven’t done anything wrong.” Then, he smiled and added, “…anything we’ve found out about, anyway”. My dad called me “baby”? He never called me “baby”! I sat at the table across from him. There were papers on the table. Some had the doctor’s letterhead, others were from the hospital. I sat down … my heart pounding. This could only mean one thing. I was terminally ill! My mind raced. What could I have? Not AIDS. I didn’t have the prerequisites. Cancer? … was it in my growing boobs?
My mom sat down and began, “Honey, when a baby is born, the first thing people notice is the sex of the child. It’s easy to determine, and someone in the room is sure to comment, ‘It’s a girl.’ or ‘It’s a boy’. I say ‘easy to determine’, because it usually is easy. Sometimes, however, it’s not so easy. In cases like that, the ‘diagnosis’ can be incorrect.”
“Mom, are you talking about me? Are you trying to tell me y’all thought I was a girl?”
“No, honey, we thought you were a boy….”
“But I am a…. Wait … You thought …. OK … this makes no sense at all. You thought I was a boy … I am a boy … so what’s the problem?”
“It’s called ‘anomalous genitalia’. Your test results show that you have two ‘X’ chromosomes and all the internal organs of a female, but as you grew in the womb you developed a small semblance of a penis and testicles.”
“I’m a girl?” My heart was pounding and I felt my face turning red.
“Honey, I know it’s a shock. It’s a life changer. You could try to continue living as a boy, but you would have to have major surgery to remove your reproductive organs, then you would need hormone therapy to cause your body to develop male characteristics. However, your fake penis doesn’t have the muscles to cause an erection, so you would never be able to have sexual relations. The doctor says that the best course of action is a relatively simple operation to remove the superfluous tissue and allow you to develop normally as a female. The doctor gave me the name of a counselor. It might help to talk to someone like that.”
“Mom … this is insane!” My mind was racing through the thousands of changes I would have to endure. Clothing was a big one. School? Oh…crap! I just show up in a dress? The scenario was as scary as it was predictable. Dating guys? Nope … can’t do it! Marriage … in a wedding gown … to a guy? Never! Wait … Can I get pregnant? I had heard some incredible things before, but I was facing something more unreal than any of them! I felt trapped. There was no escape. The hormones produced in my body would cause people around me to witness as I turned from a boy to a girl.
I heard a voice from somewhere. Oh, it was my mom! “… working in your favor. Your dad’s transfer at work is scheduled for May. You need to have surgery very soon. Possibly you can study at home for the remainder of the year, then take the summer to adapt. In September, you can start fresh in a new town … new school. It will be a big adjustment for your dad and me, as well. We have a daughter instead of a son. We have always had a daughter, but we tried to raise you as a boy. Also, you can be a mom, but not a dad ... biologically.”
Strangely, I wanted to giggle at that moment. I stifled that and looked at my dad. He was still sitting quietly and I turned to him. “Dad … help?”
“Son … uh … daughter … Honey?” he smiled, “We got this information yesterday and I was angry and wanted to blame someone. I wasn’t angry about having a daughter instead of a son. I was angry that the doctors misled us, causing you years of pain trying to fit in. I tried in my mind to blame the doctors, your mom, even you. I finally realized that, if it is anyone’s fault, it doesn’t matter. From this point, what you need is support, not accusations or ridicule. I also want you to realize that you are not at fault in any way. I also want you to know that our love for you is unconditional. We want to help you adjust to the changes coming your way. I loved my son from the day he was born, and now I love my daughter from the day she was born … actually the same day. I think we all see things coming into focus now…things that we didn’t even know were out of focus! Can I say now that you weren’t much of a boy … too feminine? I never would have said that before today, but it’s actually a compliment. Any girl would have a hard time trying to fit in as a boy. You probably did better than some. There may be some tough times ahead, but your mom and I will help you any way we can. But there is some good news! Effective immediately, you are exempt from working on the lawn. I’ll take care of the lawn … and the grass snakes.” He smiled again … a “yes, I knew” smile. “Actually, it was more work to have you cut the grass than to do it myself. I guess that’s one of the things ‘coming into focus’.”
“Thanks, dad.”
“Now, your mother has some things to discuss with you that should just be between the ladies. I’ll make my exit for now. Remember, I love you no matter what.”
“Oh my God. ‘Between the ladies’? This is wild!”
After he was gone, Mom started again. “Honey, there’s one more thing, and this affects the timing. As I said, you need to have surgery pretty soon.”
“Why? What’s the hurry?”
“The cramps and headaches you’ve been having were symptoms of your body trying to menstruate.”
I felt my body getting numb.
-----------------------------------------------------------
“Tracy? Tracy? Honey, wake up!”
I opened my eyes to find myself on the floor with my mom and dad hovering over me.
I heard my mom saying, “I told her about the period thing and … plop! Down she went!”
“That’s understandable.”
She who? Who the hell were they talking about? I closed my eyes again. “Mom, I just had the weirdest dream!”
“About sex?” my mom asked.
“Oh no, mom. About baseball … I never dream about sex!”
I heard my dad say, “She hasn’t lost her sense of humor.”
So it wasn’t a dream! Pronouns are a funny thing. At the moment, the fact that I would be referred to as ‘she’ seemed to be the strangest part of this whole situation. ‘Where’s Tracy?’ ‘Oh, she’s over there’. Strange!
I opened my eyes and looked at my mom. “Mom, you did say … Menstruation? Bleeding … down … there? I looked toward the lower part of my body. It comes from a girl’s … you know!”
“Vagina, right.”
At that point, without comment, my dad silently and quickly exited again.
“Uh … I don’t have a place for it to come out.”
“That’s exactly why the doctor said we have to do something soon. It’s not an emergency situation, but it could easily become one. The discharge could become septic, and the resulting infection could be fatal.”
“And that’s bad?”
“Don’t talk like that, Tracy. Let’s be honest, OK? Once you get over the shock, you’ll be glad to get your own dresses and makeup and not have to borrow mine when I’m not home. That’s a good thing, right?”
Well, my dad knew about the grass snake and my mom knew about the cross-dressing. You can’t hide anything from parents. I say ‘cross-dressing’, but the actual cross-dressing was every day when I got dressed for school in boys’ clothes. The whole situation was strange.
“I’m sorry, mom.”
“No, Tracy. Any apologies need to be made not by you, but to you. Any finger pointing should not be directed at you, and your dad and I will break any fingers that get pointed your way. You knew something was wrong more than anyone. I have to say that it’s probably rare for a mom to be proud of her son because he’s cross-dressing, but it turns out that it was your way of trying to correct an error made by someone else. What else could you do? Right now, I want to say something about which I am completely sincere, and I will be saying every day for the rest of my life: ‘I love my beautiful, smart and loving daughter.’ Now, we have years of lost mother/daughter time that we need to make up, and we need to enjoy every minute we spend doing it.”
“Thanks, mom. You make things seem not so bad … maybe something to look forward to.”
“Thank you, Tracy. Making you feel better gives me a really good feeling inside. Now, can we get you up off the floor?”
“I’ll try, but I feel like I weigh a ton!”
“Yes. Definitely female.”
“What do you mean?”
“About 99% of the females in the United States think they’re overweight.”
“Well, in my case it’s not fat. It’s stress that’s weighing me down. If I can lift all of this off the floor, I’m gonna go up to my room and call Lisa, OK?”
“Sure! You’re lucky to have her for a cousin. She’s also a good friend….”
“Yeah, she’s the best.”
“I’m sure you’ll share all of this with her. Just be sure to impress on her the importance of confidentiality.”
“I will, and she can definitely keep a secret. She calls it her ‘wild horses’ ability.”
Next: News Travels Fast
News Travels Fast
I made my way up to my room, called Lisa, and told her I was headed to her house with news. Lisa loves news … not TV news, but other news … OK, gossip. I told her it was something that involved my gender and it was amazing and incredible. I took my time getting to her house and made her suffer a little. She was waiting just outside her front door when I arrived, patting her foot and pretending to be looking at her watch. We talked as headed to her room.
“Damn, babe, took a while! What’s up?”
“Lisa, when I tell you this, I know you will understand the importance of keeping it confidential.”
“Ok, whacha got?”
“Let me repeat the word ‘confidential’ ”.
“OK. You know me. You know I definitely know the meaning of the word, as well as how to put the word into practice … ‘wild horses’, etc.”
“OK … here goes … ready?”
“Come on, babe, you’re killing me!”
“I’m a girl.”
“Of course! That’s not news! We talked about that! Inside, you’re a female, and you’re ready to have an operation to correct your body to match your soul. So you talked to your parents? “
“No, I didn’t tell them I want to be a female. They told me I should have an operation.”
“What!? A sex change operation!?”
“No. I’m already a girl.”
“Tracy, you’re an enigma, but I love you. I’m gonna sit here and let you put this puzzle together so it makes sense. As of right now, however, I don’t see any way you can do that.”
“Ok. It’s simple. The tests the doctor had done show that I have 2 ‘X’ chromosomes. The tests also show that, internally, I have female parts. I have a womb, ovaries and all the other parts that are female. I’m as much female as you, except for a small amount of tissue that resembles a penis and testicles. The muscles that would cause an erection are not there. So, I was right when I said I could ‘lay it on’ a girl, but not ‘sock it to her’. That would be one disappointing date!”
Lisa sat for a long time in shock. She said nothing. I didn’t know if she was going to laugh, cry, or … who knows? I looked closer, however, and saw wheels turning. Her complex super-brain was working at the speed of light (at least) to analyze every scenario this change would bring. She sat with wide eyes and her mouth agape as she thought of the changes for me, for her (we were cousins), for my parents, for the rest of the family, for the school. I’m sure her amazing brain continued analyzing until all possibilities were exhausted. This must have taken at least 10 seconds. Very slowly, the look of shock began to fade, replaced, gradually, by a smile. “Tracy … you’ll … Tracy … you’re … Tracy … Oh … My … God …. You’re my girl cousin! Life is beautiful!”
“Well, Lisa, it’s not that simple ….”
“It couldn’t be more simple, Tracy! You, see, there are only 2 sexes ….”
“Lisa! Stop!” She smiled. “Lisa, you’ve always known that you’re a girl, you went to school as a girl. You did everything as a girl, so it is that simple for you. I’ve been living as a boy, and there is no way I can just switch clothes, restrooms, and everything else. ‘Hey everybody! Y’all thought I was a boy. Surprise! How do you like me now?’ And the answer comes back, ‘Pervert’, ‘Queer’, ‘Homo’!”
“You’re right, people are touchy about gender. You’re either male or female, zero or one, a pointer or a sitter.”
“What?”
“Not important. What you gonna do?”
“Well, just before the end of the school year, in May, my dad is getting a transfer at work. I have to get surgery to remove this excess tissue, and hopefully finish the few weeks left of school by doing my schoolwork at home. When the school year is done, my mom and I can join my dad, and I can start anew in a new city, new school, new life!”
“Great!” She smiled a smile which quickly disappeared. We knew this move was coming. Likewise, we both hated it. We had campaigned, encouraged, cried, begged and made outrageous promises to get Lisa’s mom to move with us, but, so far, it didn’t seem like it was going to happen. Her mom had a law degree, but spent most of her time on her thriving online business, so moving was simple. She could work from any place in or out of the country. The only reason they wouldn’t agree seemed to be that they were adults, and adults don’t ‘cling’ to each other like that. Then, we tried to sell them on the idea that ‘clinging’ could be a good thing. We were desperate. We seemed doomed to both lose our best friend.
“Lisa. Our parents have to understand that I can’t do this alone. I need an advisor, a confidante, a friend! There is only one person I trust to fill these roles.”
“Who?”
“Lisa … come on … you!”
She smiled again. “Awww, thanks, sis … cousin … sis !” We frequently referred to each other as ‘sis’ when no one else was around. Now we could say it in ‘public’! “Ok, we’ve tried everything else. This will work. You can’t be just cast among a new group of people with no training on how to speak or interact with your peer group. Matter of fact, your old group had penises ….”
“Were penises, to be exact!”
“You’re right about that! Your new peer group has vaginas. Of course, the differences between the groups go way beyond what’s between the legs. You’re going to be in like … a whole different dimension! They can’t expect you to go it alone!”
We heard the front door open. “Lisa! It’s mom. I need to talk to you about something.”
Lisa hurried into the living room with me lagging behind. She could hardly wait to share. “Mom, we have something for you first.”
“No, mine first. Lisa, I’ve decided you and I are going to move to Houston this summer so you and Tracy can be together for the transition.”
“So, you know already!” We were stunned.
“Of course! I’ve talked to my sister. The situation is unusual, to say the least, and Tracy is gonna need all the help he … she can get. Dammit! I promised myself I wouldn’t get the pronouns wrong! Tracy, are you gonna change your name? ‘Tracy’ could be a girl’s name, but I’ll bet you’re gonna want to change it.”
“Yes, the name Tracy that I have is a boy’s name, because it was thought that it was being given to a boy. Yes, I’d like to change it. I want a clean break. I’ll have to think about it.”
“Good for you! I will help you all I can. Who knows? Lisa might even help a little, too.”
“Mom! I’m the supervisor of this whole transition!”
“She’s right,” I had to admit. “Since this ‘news’ broke, I think I’ve talked more with Lisa than my parents.”
Aunt Katy smiled. “Lisa knows about being a girl.”
“How are my parents, Aunt Katy?”
“Oh, they’re fine! We’re all in shock, of course. The question is ‘how are you?’ ”
“I’m good! A lot of things make sense that didn’t seem right before.”
“I’m not surprised by that. When I was a kid, I can’t imagine living as a boy. I was a real girly-girl; your mom was too. Now … what did you girls want to tell me?”
Lisa spoke up, “Well, it’s already settled, but I’ll ask anyway. Is there any way in the world we can move to Houston with Tracy’s family?”
“Well, let me think … OK, let’s do that. I’m glad it’s settled. I don’t think I could go another day with y’all pestering me about that.”
“I can hardly wait until tomorrow morning so I can not go to school. Sorry, Lisa.”
“I’m fine. I’ll be at your house after school every day to supervise your work.”
“You’re just supposed to bring me my work, but I know you. You’ll make me actually do the work!”
“I’m the supervisor of this transition, and schoolwork at home is part of it!”
“Lisa grabs as much power as she can. So, where are you girls headed next?”
“We’re off to my room to get Tracy into some decent clothes.”
“Ok. When you decide on something, I’d like to see how she looks.”
“With me supervising, you know she’ll look fantastic!”
“Of course! I’ll call Tracy’s mom so she won’t think …she … jumped off a cliff or something. Y’all have fun!”
“Ok, mom; we’ll be a while because I want to do this right!”
We headed to Lisa’s room. I couldn’t help but think how weird it was to be trying on all those neat clothes … and it was ok!
Next: No More Cross-Dressing
No More Cross-Dressing
“Ok, Tracy, the first item is your hair. It’s beautiful, but it’s just hanging there. Let me trim the dead ends then you can take a shower and wash your hair to make sure all the cuttings are gone. After you take off your clothes, set them outside the bathroom door so I can put them in the wash.”
I sat at her dressing table and she trimmed the ends of my hair. Then, I went into the bathroom, stripped, and set the clothes out as she said. At the time, I didn’t realize I would never see those clothes again.
After my shower, I found that she had brought a bathrobe in for me to use. She had foreseen this scenario (more correctly, a scenario similar to this), so she also had a bra and panties she had bought for me. I put it all on and, again, sat at her dressing table. She blow dried my hair, the brushed it for what seemed like an hour. Then she put clips in each side to keep my hair back. “I’ll just put a tiny bit of makeup on you. You’re pretty already, so you don’t need much.” It was amazing the magic she could work with a minimum amount of makeup.
Then she gave me some jeans, a silky, baby-blue top and some sandals with a 2” heel. I turned toward the bathroom.
“You don’t have to be shy. You can change right here.”
So, I pulled the jeans on under the bathrobe as she rolled her eyes. Then I dropped the robe and put on the top. Lisa’s mouth dropped. “Wow! Those jeans fit you perfectly! I can see now, we’re going to be sharing clothes a lot!” She gave me a necklace and a ladies watch. “I don’t have any clip-on earrings. Gotta get your ears pierced ASAP! Look in the full-length mirror in the bathroom.”
I looked. I turned and looked some more. “I look ok.”
“Oh my God! You’re hot!”
“Maybe so. Why was I so upset? I like this!”
“Ready to show your parents?”
There was a tap on the door. “I guess your mom will be first.”
“Come in, Mom.”
Lisa’s mom came in, stopped and looked stunned. “For the first time, I see the real Tracy! I love it! You have to show your parents!”
“Would you drive us there, mom? I think Tracy is still just a tad … shy.”
“Sure, but it’s odd that, after cross-dressing all these years, you don’t want to go out in regular clothes.”
“Damn, I guess that’s common knowledge! It’s just … different.”
“Well, let’s go show them their new daughter!”
When we pulled up at our house, my dad was gone … to work, of course. I was kind of glad. It was one less person to make a fuss over me.
Aunt Katy was first in the door. “Kim, I want you to meet your new daughter.”
At Lisa’s insistence, I made a grand entrance. My mom repeated all the superlatives about my “beauty”. I began to think it was a little overdone, but coming from my mom I knew it was sincere, so I tried to endure it gracefully. “The doctor is arranging a date for surgery. It’s not actually an emergency, but a ‘near’ emergency … unless she starts trying to menstruate again. If that happens, it will become a full-fledged emergency.”
“Mom!”
“Come on, Honey, we’re all females here!”
“Oh, that’s right,” I said, realizing there was a lot I would have to get used to.
Aunt Katy moved toward the door. “Well, we’re going to get some din…”
“No,” my mom interjected, “I had dinner ready and James had to go back to work. Let’s eat and talk.”
They stayed for dinner, and, not surprisingly, I was the main subject of conversation. At times, they talked about ‘Tracy’, and I had to remind them that I was there. Of course, there was a lot of ‘he … she’ when referring to me. After they left, I told my mom goodnight and went to my room. I found some women’s pajamas laid across my bed. My mom was wasting no time. I put the nightclothes on and went to bed. I lay awake for hours, thinking about the events of the day and wondering about the future. I knew that, whatever happened, my future would be different. At the time, I couldn’t realize just how different.
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I woke up the next morning at 8:00 AM, and for a fleeting moment, I thought yesterday’s happenings were a dream. I looked at the nightclothes I was wearing and the clothes I had taken off the night before and confirmed that yesterday was real. I got out of bed and went to my closet to find a surprise. All the hanging clothes were women’s. All my old, boys’ clothing was in boxes on the closet floor. I wondered when my mom had time to buy all these clothes, but a closer look revealed that she had gone through her closet and found some things she thought I could wear. I decided I could kill some time trying them on. Usually, this time of the morning, she was in her photo lab. Today, she had left, probably seeing a client.
My first order of business, like every morning, was breakfast. I slipped on a sleeveless dress and went to the kitchen to browse the fare. I found a frozen waffle, microwaved it and covered it with butter and cane syrup. (Gotta be cane syrup from Louisiana). I chased it with some cold milk and went back to my room to do some try-on. The clothes were very feminine, and I spent a while trying them on. When I was done, I had a pile of clothes that needed hanging back up. Had they been boys’ clothing, I would have left them for ‘later’; probably until my mom told me I had to hang them up. Then, I would have decided that most of them were dirty. Somehow, the task of hanging was not as objectionable as hanging up my boy clothes. I began hanging them; buttoning every button and zipping every zipper. As a girl, I’m a perfectionist. As I was hanging clothes, I heard someone come in the front door.
“Tracy, it’s Mom!” She came on back to my room, looked at me and smiled. I had a sleeveless dress on. “You look comfortable. I knew you would be bored, so I’m gonna take the rest of the day off. We’re going shopping.”
“Cool … for what?"
“Clothes of course! You’ll need a lot more than what I already gave you.”
“But, Mom, my closet is almost full!”
“It’s just a start. Girls need a lot more clothes than boys. I think it’s in the bible.” She smiled. Anything she wanted to prove was ‘in the bible’, even though she never said where. “If you run out of closet space, we will have to have your closet expanded.
“We need to get your hair done, and you have to get your ears pierced, too. That’s also….”
“I know. That’s also in the bible. One of these days, you’re going to have to show me where all this stuff is in the bible.”
“We have a bible or two around the house. Just look it up!”
She knew there was little to no chance of me doing bible research, but I was pretty sure the bible didn’t say, “Thou shalt get thy hair done and thine ears pierced.”
“Ok, but I need to finish hanging these clothes.”
“What? Who are you, and what have you done with Tracy?”
Together, we finished hanging clothes, then she fixed my makeup and insisted on brushing my hair even though I told her I would do it. She didn’t believe that, because I never brushed it before.
We headed out to shop. We went quite a distance so we were unlikely to see anyone we knew. “I’d like to get back before Lisa gets back with your homework.”
“Mom, it’s only 10 AM! How long are we gonna shop?”
“Shopping takes time. You will probably try on about 10 things for every one thing you buy!”
“I’m not that picky!”
“Well, I guess it’s a learned behavior. You have a lot to learn.”
“I’m beginning to see that more and more.”
“’ It’s a whole different sex.’ That’s from a movie. ‘Some Like It Hot’. We should watch it soon.”
I don’t think I had seen my mom as excited about anything as she was about this shopping trip. Her excitement was catching. Soon, I was as enthusiastic as she was. She had given me a different dress to wear, (something nice, but easy to slip off and on) and we were off. We went about twenty miles and stopped at a salon that accepted “walk-ins”, for a quick trim, then to a mall, and headed directly for a jewelry kiosk. I got 2 piercings in each ear, and numerous earrings, bracelets, and necklaces. Then to a clothing store, where I had to model for her everything I tried on.
At 3:45 PM, my phone buzzed. “Hello, Lisa.”
“I’m at your house. Where you at?”
“Shopping with my mom.”
“Awww, I wanted to go! Having fun?”
“Oh, yeah, and I’m sure they’ll be plenty more trips.”
“I have your school work.”
“Thank you. Just leave it there; I don’t know how long we’ll be.”
As I put my phone away, my mom’s phone buzzed. I heard one side if the exchange.
“Hello.” … “Yes, speaking.” … “Yes, that’s perfect, thank you.” … “We’ll be there.”
She put her phone away and looked at me. “You have surgery tomorrow morning!”
“Cool! So, they’re gonna cut away all the ….”
“They’re gonna cut away your fake penis and balls! You’ll be a perfect girl.”
“Mom! Please keep your voice down!”
“Oh, no one can hear us! Aren’t you happy?”
“Yes, but I don’t see a need to make everyone in the store happy!”
“We need to get home. On the way, we have to get some special soap for you to shower with.”
We headed home. My life was changing fast.
Next: What? No surgery?
What? No surgery?
We had to be at the hospital at 6 AM. Surgery was at 8 AM, but there were preliminary exams and a lot of paperwork. No hospital personnel seemed to view my procedure as unusual, but I was sure there was a lot of talk behind the scenes. I was fine with that as long as I didn’t hear it. The anesthesiologist came in and introduced himself, as did the doctor. Finally, they wheeled me to the operating room. They had me move myself from the bed to the cold, hard operating table without offering any help. I figured there must have been a lawsuit at some time about helping the patient. Someone probably sued saying, “I didn’t even want an operation, but they forcibly put me on the operating table!” Lawyers can be very creative when they see dollar signs.
A nurse held a mask attached to a tube near my face and said, “Now, count backward from 10.” A challenge! Of course, I can get to zero before I pass out! 10 … 9 ….
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“Can you tell me your name?”
“Yes, why. Is something wrong? No operation?”
“Can you tell me your name?”
With my best Spanish accent, I said, “I am Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
The nurse was puzzled, so I smiled and said, “Sorry, it’s a line from a movie. My name is Tracy Brooks. My birthday is August 13th. I like music, art, and computers. I don’t care much for sports, except for volleyball. I’m an only child, but my cousin, Lisa, is like a sister to me. The thing I wish for most is world peace. I also….”
“OK. That’s enough … please. We just need to make sure you’re awake.”
“The operation was canceled?”
“Oh no, it’s done. You’ve been under for hours.”
“Oh. I guess that explains the pain down there.” I cut my eyes down toward my lower body.
“Yes, but we’ll do our best to make sure you don’t have too much pain. You’re in recovery, but we will put you in a room in just a few minutes. The doctor will come there and talk to you and your mom.”
After a bit, they wheeled me into the hallway where my mom was waiting. “You did good, Honey,” she said as she followed me to my room.
“Well, that’s the easiest ‘good doing’ I ever did. I slept right through it.”
When I got to my room, a nurse got all the tubes and instruments set up. Then, the doctor came in and motioned for her to leave, which she did.
“The procedure went perfectly. She will have some pain, which is to be expected. I will call in prescriptions for pain and an antibiotic. Also, I want to keep her overnight as a precaution. Barring any problems, she can go home first thing in the morning. Do y’all have any questions?”
My mom and I indicated that we had no questions and the doctor left.
“Well, honey, it’s just a matter of waiting. You can watch some daytime TV, but I brought your Kindle.”
“Oh, wow. Thanks, mom. I can’t stand ‘The Price is Right’ or ‘General Hospital’! Can I get up if I have to go pee?”
“No. Just let it go.”
“What? I can’t do that!”
“Sure you can. Matter of fact, you won’t be able to stop it. You have a catheter.”
“Oh … for how long?”
“We’ll take it out a few days after you get home.”
“Good. If I wear a pretty skirt, the bag full of pee wrapped around my leg would ruin the look. Maybe if I wore a brown skirt! You know, brown and yellow?”
“Very attractive.”
“I’m kinda sleepy, mom.”
“Probably after effects of the anesthesia. Go ahead and take a nap. I’ll go get some coffee.”
The rest of the day was uneventful. Aunt Katy and Lisa visited, which helped pass the time. Next morning, I was more than ready to leave.
When I got home, I was even glad to have schoolwork to do.
After a few days, my bandages came off and I was ready to see my new … self. What I saw was a lot of redness and swelling. Mom took out the catheter and urinating was a bit of a chore, and my mom kept a supply of baby wipes in the bathroom and warned me that I had to keep myself clean to avoid bladder infections. She made a point of telling me that females were more susceptible to bladder infections and how extremely uncomfortable they could be. Lisa stayed with me a lot, which I appreciated very much. When I was able to get around pretty good, I was ready to go shopping for clothes. I also really needed shoes, because my mom’s shoes were a little large. I didn’t say anything about that to her, though.
Dad moved to his new job and we hired movers to move everything except bare necessities, both from our house and Aunt Katy’s. The school year was soon to end, and we would be on our way.
I was embarking upon my new life in a new school in a new city. It would be different … different in just about every way imaginable.
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My surgery wounds healed pretty quickly. Everything seemed to be going great. One morning, I woke up with a little stomach cramp. “No big deal”, I thought. I went to the restroom as soon as I got out of bed. I pulled down my panties and sat. My panties fell down my legs and made a “splat” when they hit the floor. I looked down at blood-soaked panties and blood splatters on the floor in a 3-foot radius from them. I stared for a few seconds and started to cry. “Mom!” I yelled between sobs.
After I cried and called for my mom for what seemed like an eternity, she opened the door and saw the blood. “Oh, dear!”
Still sobbing, I said, “Mom, I HATE being a girl, IHATE it!”
“No you don’t, Honey. Just calm down. Hold on, I’ll get you a tampon.” She went to her restroom and brought a tampon back. “Can you put it in, or do you want me to?”
Still sniffling, I said, “I don’t want you to have to. I’ll try my best.”
She took the outer paper off the tampon. “Push it in until the two outer sections are even, then pull out the casing.”
“Yes, mom, thanks. Where does it go?”
“You’re joking!”
“Of course.”
“OK. There will be a string left hanging. Don’t pull it. It’s for taking the tampon out later.”
“Got it, but … what if it goes up in there and gets lost?”
“Out of the billions of tampons used by billions of women, I’ve never heard of that happening. Scratch that off your list of things to worry about. I’m sure you have plenty left on that list.”
“OK, Mom. Will it hurt?”
“If it hurts, your surgery might not be completely healed. If that’s the case, we’ll have to get you a pad.”
“Piece of cake.”
“Sure, enjoy your cake. Yell if you have a problem.”
She left me alone in my bathroom and I locked the door. I felt myself down below. I thought to myself, “Wow, this is strange!” I found the place and pushed the tampon in. It went in surprisingly easy. For some reason, I wrapped the outer part in toilet paper before putting it in the trash. I guess it was so no one would know. Big deal, my mom would probably empty the trash and she already knew. I saw the string. “Don’t you disappear on me! I’ll need you later.” I took a quick shower and got dressed. I was wearing skirts anyway, and there was no way I would wear jeans today. I could just see myself with a big red spot in the crotch of my jeans.
I went back to the kitchen. “All done, mom.”
“Good, Honey. It’s not as bad as it might seem right now.”
“Can’t be!”
“Are you cramping?”
“Yes, a little.”
“Eat some breakfast and go back to bed.”
“I’m really not hungry. I’ll just go back to bed.”
“OK, Honey.”
I went and got in my bed and started thinking about “firsts”. This was a “first”. I hoped it was the worst one. My mom brought me some Midol … another “first”.
As I swallowed the pill, my mom commented, “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be doing this with you. Still, I’m happy to have a daughter.”
“Imagine how unreal this feels to me!”
“I’m sure it is! Rest now. I’ll come check you on after a while.”
I went back to sleep and slept another two hours. When I woke up, I went to the living room and found my mom reading. “Hi Mom.”
She looked up from her Kindle. “Hi, Honey. Feel better?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Feel like going shopping?”
“OK, for what?”
“Some clothes and some tampons of your own.”
“Don’t tell the store people they’re for me.”
“Like they would ask! Don’t be silly. OK, I’ll tell the cashier, ‘These are for me, not my daughter, here’.”
“No! It’s OK.”
“I keep forgetting how new all this is to you. Get dressed and we’ll go. We’ll be back before Lisa gets here with your schoolwork.”
So, shopping we went. We bought pads as well as tampons “just in case”. She talked me into at least trying on some jeans. I had to admit, they looked good on me. We bought two pair, but I told her I wouldn’t wear them during my period.
We got home just a few minutes before Lisa got there.
“Hey, babe! What’s new?”
“New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and my period.”
She was ignoring me until the last part of that sentence. “Really! How exciting!”
“Oh, yes … exciting”, I said with no enthusiasm.
“Yes, you’re a real woman. You can have babies and grandbabies and ….”
“Hold on! All that’s a very long way off … if ever!”
“OK, but just wait. The maternal instinct will kick in!”
“I would say ‘no’, but I shouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore.”
“One day, you’ll see a baby and something inside will say, ‘I want one!’ After that, nothing will do but a child of your own.”
“We’ll see. Right now, I just want to get through this period!”
“Don’t let anyone tell you, ‘It’s not all that bad’, because it is.”
“Even my Mom?”
“It’s her job to encourage you. It’s my job to help you transition. I don’t want to give you any over-optimistic ideas.”
“Oh, yeah, don’t try to make me feel good!”
“That’s not what I mean. I just mean a period is never any fun, no matter what! Would you believe there may be times in the future that you’re waiting for your period, and hoping it will start?”
“Lisa, you’ve said some crazy things in the past, but I think you just topped yourself!”
“Well, someday you might be thinking that you’re pregnant, and hoping your period will start so you know you’re not.”
“Wrong! That would mean I screwed some guy. Not gonna happen!”
“Never say ‘never’.”
“How about, ‘not in this lifetime’?” Oh, my mom and I went shopping today. I got some jeans, but not to wear until this curse is finished.”
“OK, you’re too cute in a dress or skirt and top to wear jeans, anyway.”
“Thanks. You have my schoolwork?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s why I came, isn’t it? It should take you about five minutes. Sometimes, I think they put us in ‘slow' classes by accident.”
“Yeah. I’ll bet next year will be different in private school.”
“I hope so.”
I suffered through my “curse” for another few days. I began to wonder what would happen if it never stopped. It was unlikely but, during that part of my life, logic took a back seat to worries and fears. My period ended, however, and I was so relieved! I vowed never to have another period. Again, not logical, but it was worth a try.
I was still waiting for the end of the school year. I was ready for a new town, new house, new friends and new teachers. Where I previously dreaded the move, I was ready for it since Lisa and Aunt Katy were coming, too. The whole family would be together in one house, just like God intended.
Next: The big move
The Big Move
The last day of school was a Friday, and school was released at noon. We could have waited until Saturday morning, but we had everything ready and we left Friday afternoon in a caravan of two cars … mom in one, and Aunt Katy, Lisa and me in the other. Lisa and I just had to ride together, and my mom said she couldn’t listen to us for two-hundred miles. The three of us chatted as the miles zoomed by, and we arrived in Houston in time for the evening traffic.
Luckily, we were going into town when the traffic was coming out. We were amazed at the uninterrupted miles of cars creeping along on the other side of the freeway. Now that we were in town, Aunt Katy followed my mom more closely through the exits, turns, and stop lights. (Running a red light or two). We came into a neighborhood with some of the biggest houses I had ever seen, and my mom turned into the driveway of one of the bigger homes. The house sat a long way off the road. It was a huge, 3 story place with another house even farther back.
“This can’t be it!” Aunt Katy followed my mom up the driveway until we got next to the house.
My mom got out of her car and waved for us to come. We got out of the car too, stunned by the size of the house and the property. “James got this on a lease with an option to purchase. He said it was big, but I never imagined this. The house in back was once the servants’ quarters. It’s bigger than what most people live in.” The yard was shaded by three oak trees, each with about a fifty foot circumference, and lower limbs stretching out several feet and seemingly struggling to hold themselves off the ground. Mom unlocked the huge door and it swung effortlessly and silently to reveal a room that could serve as a small gymnasium. The ceilings must have been 30 ft. high. Every step we took echoed back. “I wouldn’t cover these wood floors with carpet, but I think some area rugs would help mute the echoes.” My mom was already redecorating.
“Was it furnished, Mom”?
“It was partially furnished, but your dad bought some more furniture we needed. There are two bedrooms on the second floor for y’all. They have a big closet between them.”
We ran up the twelve foot wide stairs and found our rooms. They were ridiculously spacious and both had windows overlooking a large pool.
Needless to say, we were overwhelmed. In the closet were all the clothes that had been sent ahead via the movers. My clothes and Lisa’s were mixed and left for us to sort out when we decided who would have each room.
“Girls!” We heard my mom calling. We went back to the top of the stairs. “Put on something really nice. James is taking us to a really ritzy restaurant when he gets home.” Then she added, “dresses!”
I looked through a closet. The term ‘kid in a candy store’ came to mind. “Lisa!” I called to her. “I need help … no, I need you to tell me what to wear.”
Lisa was also awed by the selection. She picked me out a blue, rayon mini-dress. I picked out some tan espadrilles with a 2’ wedge heel. I sat down at the dressing table and Lisa did my hair and makeup. She replaced one pair of my stud earrings with some hoops. She then went to get herself ready. I went down to model for my mom.
“Put on some pantyhose and change shoes. There are some black pumps with a 3” heel. Wear those.”
I did as she said. The 3” heels were not near as hard to handle as some people make them out to be. After I walked in them a couple of minutes, they felt perfectly natural and they effected a perfectly feminine walk. The heels also made my dress look even shorter. I went back to model for my mom again.
“Oh, short!”
“I think she looks great,” Aunt Katy interjected.
“OK. Tracy. As long as you’re comfortable.”
I really wasn’t comfortable, but I liked the dress and didn’t want to change. My time in the spotlight was short-lived. Lisa was coming down the stairs. Her dress was red, and equally short, and her shoes were exactly like mine. Until that point, I didn’t think a girl could be too beautiful.
Aunt Katy found one flaw. “Oh, now that’s short!”
“I think she looks great,” my mom commented with a smile. Aunt Katy had no choice but to either let Lisa wear the dress, or display a tiny bit of hypocrisy.
I had to comment. “She’s just so … awesome! Lisa, you’re stunning!”
“Thanks, sis!”
“Y’all get ready to get a lot of attention tonight!” Attention was the last thing I wanted, but I figured Lisa would easily steal the limelight.
Just then, my dad came in the room. “Let’s go eat!”
“The girls are ready, but we’re not.”
So, my dad got dressed, then waited another 45 minutes for Aunt Katy and my mom. Then we piled into the car and headed out.
We pulled up at the restaurant and a valet took our car. Once inside we were seated immediately. There were a lot of choices on the menu, but one thing was missing. “Dad, there are no prices on the menu.”
My dad smiled. “If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.”
“…and we can?”
“We’re doing OK.” He smiled and winked at my mom. “I think I can manage this without taking out a loan.”
Lisa spoke up. “Wow. Y’all are rich! Can I be rich, Uncle James?”
“Lisa!” Aunt Katy corrected her daughter. Then, she turned to my dad and smiled. “Can we be rich, James?”
He smiled at them. “Lisa, Katy y’all are family. If we’re doing OK…y’all are doing OK.”
That’s my dad! He had always been kind and generous. Apparently, he now had the means to be very generous.
“I’ve said this before,” Aunt Katy added, “but I can’t say it enough. Thank you, James, for everything you’ve done for us. We’d be lost without you.”
“More blessed to give, you know.”
“Daddy, I know you must have gotten a gigantic raise to move us into River Oaks. Can you give me a hint how you pulled it off?”
“Well, it’s something I invented … discovered is a better word.”
“Can you tell us about it?”
“Sure!” He took out a pencil and notepad and drew a circle. “I call it a ‘wheel’. It’s circular in shape…”
“Aw, Daddy … seriously!”
He put away the pencil and pad. “OK, it’s a procedure I came up with that will greatly speed up the process of mapping the human genome.”
Lisa’s eyes widened, “Wow! You’re working with genes?”
I was amazed myself, “So, you patented this…procedure?”
“Yes, well the company patented it in the company’s name.”
“WHAT?” Lisa and I said in unison.
“Oh, yes. It’s a requirement of employment. Things like this stay with the company. You see, I developed it on company time with company equipment. I could hardly do it at home. I don’t have a few necessary tools, you know ,,, an electron microscope…stuff like that.”
“Wow, that’s too bad. You could’ve been a bgzillionaire!” I could almost see dollar signs in Lisa’s eyes.
“No. There’s no way I could have gotten the patent on my own. The company would have sued me, and they would have won. I would be looking for a job and a way to pay a ‘bgzillion’ dollar settlement plus my lawyers’ fees and probably the company’s legal fees. I did sign a contract, after all, and I want my word to be worth something. Let me correct that, I want my word to be worth gold. Let me tell you, though, the company was not shy about financially rewarding me. Hence, the new job at company headquarters, the huge raise, and the resulting move to River Oaks in our beautiful new old house. I’m now working in one of the most advanced, well-equipped labs anywhere in the world. This is actually better than hiring a large team of lawyers to get my own patent, hiring someone to market the procedure, hiring more lawyers to sue when someone ignores the patent. All these headaches belong to the company. You might say I belong to the company, but I didn’t come cheap.”
Words could not express how proud I was of my dad! I felt a lump in my throat. My dad noticed. “Tracy, what’s the matter?
”
“I just ….” My voice broke.
“Tell me later, when you’ve recovered.”
I made a motion with my hands like I was writing on a notepad. My dad handed me his pen and pad. In the circle he had made previously, I wrote, “Dad, I’m so proud of you. I love you. Sarah Rochelle Brooks.” I handed the note to him.
He read at the note and smiled. Then, he turned to me and said, “I love you, too. You’re the best daughter a dad ever raised as a son. I’ll bet I’m just about the only dad in the world who can say that!” Then held the note up for the family to see. “She has a new name. Her name is now ‘Sarah Rochelle Brooks’”.
Lisa, of course, was the first to give her opinion. “I love it!”
I had regained my composure, so I explained, “It rolls off the tongue easily. I considered ‘Sarah Michelle’, but the name ‘Michelle’ belongs to Lisa, so I took ‘Rochelle’ from mom’s mom. I didn’t want a boys’ name that had been ‘feminized’ by adding an ‘a’ at the end like ’Erica’. Also, in the unlikely circumstance that I get married, I’m keeping my last name to honor my father.”
My dad smiled. “Sarah, you know that’s not necessary, but I won’t tell you what to do. I’m saying this partly because I wanted to be the first to call you by your new name. I’m gonna keep this note forever. Bury me with it, and if archaeologists ever dig me up, they’ll say, ‘this is the guy who invented the wheel’! If everything goes ok, we’ll be able to live well and leave something to our daughters.” Lisa was smiling when he said ‘daughters’, Dad continued, “BUT, I’m not going to leave anything to two spoiled little princesses. You both are going to be well educated and you will learn to work.
“There’s a saying in the business world, ‘Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations’. It’s referring to a similar situation. A person starts off with nothing, builds a business and does well. His children grow up and run the company, but, by the time his grandchildren are old enough to run things, they haven’t had to work for anything. They see hard work as something beneath them and the company their grandfather built either goes out of business or gets bought out. So, I figure, if I spoil my daughters, they will think that spoiling your children is the way to be a parent, and the grandchildren will be spoiled by very good ‘spoilers’.”
Our food arrived just in time to end this uncomfortable conversation, and we turned our attention to the purpose for which we came. I stuffed myself on a small portion of my steak. “Daddy, can we ask for a doggy bag at this fancy place?”
“Don’t have to. It will be in the car before us.”
When dad received the check, he signed it and gave it back to the waiter. He tore off a perforated part of our parking tag, which he also gave to the waiter. “They will box it up and put it in the car before they bring the car around to the front. We will have our leftovers without having to carry them out.”
“They think of everything.”
Dad smiled. “They should for the price … whatever it is. To change the subject, I can sense the envy of that every man in this restaurant feels for me. They probably can’t believe how beautiful the women are that dined with me.”
Lisa took a quick look around the restaurant. “You’re right! We are the most beautiful women here … the youngest, too.”
“Not a lot of younger people make enough money to come to a place like this. Y’all ready to go back to ‘Brooks Mansion’”?
Everyone thanked Dad for the wonderful dinner, and we headed to our new, huge home. It had been a long day.
Before heading to bed, I told my dad, “Thank you for the wonderful dinner. I hope I never get too spoiled to eat at Floyd’s.”
He hugged me and said, “I’ll try to make sure you don’t.”
Lisa and I headed for bed too tired to chat … unusual for us.
Next: Daddy is Famous
Daddy is Famous
I awoke Saturday morning as the light was just starting to break up the darkness in my room. I got out of bed, slipped on a housecoat, and decided to see if I could explore the house without getting lost. I peeked in at Lisa and she was snoring. I went downstairs and saw a room with a light on. It was my dad’s home office. He was at his computer reading some gibberish. “Hi, Daddy!”
He jumped a little … he always got absorbed in his work. “Hey … Sarah! Come in! Sorry … still working on the name.” He leaned back in his chair to pause in his work to give me his full attention. It’s just a little thing, but I’ll bet a lot of dads would keep working and try to ‘multi-task’ having a conversion with his daughter. That’s the way it was with my dad, not only did he excel at the major aspects of parenting, he also got the details right. Family came first. I think this type of detail was as important an indication of his character as the big things.
I sat in a chair near his desk. “It’s OK daddy. I’m the same way. I’ll have to practice ignoring anyone if they say, ‘Hey, Tracy’ or ‘Hey, little boy!’”
Dad smiled. “You keep dressing the way you dressed last night, and you’ll never be called ‘little boy’! My goodness, you and Lisa were beautiful!”
I smiled at him and sat in a chair near his desk. “Daddy, for years, we thought I was a boy, and I hated it. Things turned out great for me, but suppose I was actually a boy and I came to you and mom and told y’all I hated being a boy and wanted to get a sex change? How would you have reacted?”
His smile disappeared. “Wow! Really?” He picked up his pen and clicked it a couple of times as he usually did when he needed to think. “Well, The Bible is not as clear on that issue as a lot of people think. It says, ’Male and female created he them.’ It also says, ‘there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus’. Under the scenario you put forth, I have to say, I would answer that question on my knees. I would pray until God led me in the way He would have me go. The Bible seems a little more clear on homosexuality, but if a man becomes a woman by surgical means, is it homosexuality if ‘she’ subsequently marries a man? I just thank God I don’t have to deal with questions of that nature! Did you consider asking me and your mom about surgery when you thought you were actually a boy?”
“Yes, daddy, many times.”
“Really! Honey, I’m sorry you had to deal with that alone. What kept you from bringing it up?”
“Well, one time you and mom were watching something on TV, and you expressed your opinion very clearly about transsexuals.”
His head dropped a little. “Well, I guess the answers are very clear as long as the questions are only rhetorical. As I said, I’m glad I never had to answer the question for real. I will tell you this, had you come to me and asked me that, my attitude would have changed drastically. I’m sorry now that I verbalized such opinions in your hearing. I’m only human, and I was clear about the answers because I thought such issues had nothing to do with me or my family. It’s easy to take a rigid stand when it’s regarding someone on TV that I’ve never seen or heard of. Had my own son come to me with such a problem, I can promise you that the ‘hard-ass’ you heard giving an opinion that day would have melted to jelly. You know I don’t usually talk like that, but I’m trying to emphasize how bad I feel that I would say things that would intimidate you enough to keep something so important from me. Let me say it again, I apologize for the way I talked and the way I made you feel when I said those things. In retrospect, it was immature and cruel of me to take such a stand.”
“Daddy, I never would have used the words ‘immature’ or ‘cruel’ to describe you!”
“Well honey, I’m not perfect. Maybe I put up a good front, but I still have questions, doubts, and fears just like anyone else. I don’t have anywhere near all the answers. God didn’t intend for mankind to know all His ways. I know I’ve just recently quoted the scripture for you that says, ‘for now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known’.”
“Daddy, it’s beautiful when you quote The Bible.”
“The Bible has to be a collection of the most beautiful books ever written. It’s also been the most studied, pondered, and criticized literature mankind has ever seen. This is, of course, because it is the Inspired Word of God. Now, many will say, ‘That’s your opinion’, but it’s more than that; it’s my absolute belief and my sincere conviction. If someone tried to convince me that The Bible is not perfect, or that other books are equally important, I would hear their words as mindless chatter, if not downright evil.”
“Well Daddy, you may not have all the answers, but I’ll bet you’re closer than most people get.”
“Maybe so, but if The Bible doesn’t have an answer we need, we should get on our knees and seek for an answer directly from Him.”
“Also, Daddy, I wasn’t completely alone. I had Lisa and she was a great help to me when I was down. She actually threatened to go to you and Mom herself and clue you in. There were times I was almost wishing she would, but she wouldn’t as long as I told her not to.”
“I’m sorry, Honey, from what you’re saying, you agonized about this. Once more, I regret expressing strong opinions in your hearing. Certainly, if I had had a clue that it was an issue so close to home, I would have behaved differently. But, I was blindly believing that you would come to me or your mom about anything.”
“It turned out cool, Daddy. OK, while I’m asking questions, how about this one? Do you remember the first time you thought I might be a girl?”
“Honestly, Honey, I had no idea until the medical tests told the tale. It’s ironic, my work involves gene research and then something like this happens. It’s so rare, though, that I didn’t think about it.”
“Well, when was the first time you thought I wasn’t like other boys? Let me put it more correctly: when was the first time you thought I wasn’t like boys?”
“Well, I remember the date; it was August 13th, 1999.”
“The day I was born?”
“Yes, someone said, ‘it’s a boy!’ I looked at you and thought, ‘a boy? No, there’s no penis! I had to look closer. Finally, I saw it, and I thought to myself, ‘That’s the tiniest penis I’ve ever seen!’ But I had never seen a just-born baby before, so I thought it must be normal, and your ‘parts’ would grow to normal size. Actually, I had seen Lisa when she was born, just a couple of weeks earlier but, as you probably know, she had no penis at all.”
“Daddy, you’re silly.”
“Honest! She didn’t … still doesn’t … far as I know!”
“Daddy! That’s not what I mean!”
“I know, Honey. I want you to know, I’m glad I don’t have a son with a tiny penis.”
“I’m glad you don’t have a son also unless I had a brother!”
“That’s unlikely, but not completely out of the question. Your mom and I are not elderly, yet.”
“Cool. Brother or sister, I’ll take either.”
“You’re not picky, huh?”
“Nope, just as long as we’re certain which.”
“Right, no more guessing. So, what are your plans for the day?”
“I don’t know. Lisa hasn’t told me.”
“She’s forceful, like Katy.”
There was a stack of magazines on his desk. I glanced at them and saw part of a face that looked familiar. I pulled it out of the stack and there he was … my dad … on the cover of one of his science journals! The caption read: ‘Dr. James Brooks and the future of genetic research’.
“Daddy! Why didn’t you tell us about this?
“No big deal.”
“No big deal! Come on Dad!”
“It’s a trade magazine. It’s read by … maybe 50 people in the country. The article does, however, put my company in a very good light, and that doesn’t do me any harm!”
“Daddy, every day you just get better and better.”
He smiled. “Every day, I love you more and more!” Then he added, “All my family, actually.”
“Your family worships you … Especially Lisa.”
“Well, she and Katy were dealt a bad hand when it comes to husband and father. There’s just no explaining it. Steve was from a good family … well educated … good job. I don’t understand how he could let it all go.”
“What did he do?”
“It started with prescription drugs. Then get alcohol in the mix and you have the potential for … well … the potential for exactly what happened to Steve. Just before he left, he was well medicated and lubricated 24 hours a day.”
“I feel so bad for Lisa.”
“She’s resilient … again, like Katy. They’re both better off without him, and I’m glad we can help them. Katy’s online business is going really well. I’m sure they could manage, but I feel a lot better with them here. Your mother feels the same way. Also, of course, Lisa has been such a good friend to you, and will be a big help for you in the coming months. This situation is so unusual! How do you feel about it, now that it has had a little time to sink in?”
“I’m good! Every once in a while, I think about things that happened in the past that make sense now, but at the time they were just ... screwy.”
“One thing about it; you have more insight into the opposite sex than most girls do. I’m sure you’re not so enamored of boys as so many teen-aged girls seem to be.”
“That’s an understatement! Boys are rotten!”
“They are, but some of them grow into good men. It’s hard to say which of them. So many of them don’t have a male figure to emulate.”
“Daddy, I think that was actually part of my problem in the past. I looked at you, and realized I could never even come close to you.”
“Yes, and if you emulate me too much now there’s something wrong with one or both of us, but you have my female counterpart that you can emulate. That’s your mom, of course. She’s every bit a match for me … but as a female. Hopefully, someday you’ll find a partner like her. Maybe a guy …?”
“I don’t know, dad. Any girl who could go through what I’ve been through would probably be turned off to guys. I mean … I don’t see any guys my age who I think will ever grow up to be anything like you.”
“You’re looking at the wrong guys. You’re looking at the cool guys who think the girls are blessed to be around them. Believe it or not, I was not cool in high school.”
“Daddy! You were a nerd?”
“Yes. That’s what they would call me now. But, after high school, the nerds and only a few of the cool guys go to college. There, the cool guys realize they’re not all that cool, while the nerds thrive. Then, of course, I continued to graduate school, then on to pursue my doctorate. When I got my doctorate, I was finally cool ... really cool … not some schoolboy who thinks he’s ‘Gods’ gift’.”
I held up the magazine with his picture. “You are cool, daddy. Here’s proof right here!”
Lisa had just slipped into the room. Her eyes got big and she took the magazine. “Is this for real? Uncle James, you’re famous!”
“I’m famous only in this house … and a very few other people.”
Lisa corrected herself, “Let me rephrase that, “Daddy, you’re famous!”
“In other circumstances, I’d say, ‘Don’t call me that.’, but, in this case, that’s up to you … and your mom.”
“She’ll be ok with it. She’s been a big fan of yours for a long time!”
“So we’re really sisters!” I interjected.
My dad leaned back in his chair. “We’re all family. That’s what counts. Lisa, I’m proud to have you and your mom as part of my family. So, girls, what’s the plan for today?”
“We could go swimming,” Lisa suggested. “I have a bathing suit. Sarah, maybe you have an old boys’ bathing suit in one of those boxes.”
Dad shook his head. “Buy her a bathing suit. I know there’s a big fence around the back yard, but I wouldn’t want to walk out by the pool and get a surprise.”
“Dad, when you said ‘buy’ you said one of Lisa’s magic words. You know … buy … shopping.”
“Well, girls, in this case, it’s a necessity. One-piece, bikini, whatever. She needs a bathing suit. Oh, when I say ‘one-piece’, I mean top and bottom together. Guess you could say a boys’ suit is a one-piece … oh … you know what I mean!”
"Daddy, you always overanalyze!"
“Well, in my business things have to be exact.”
“Yeah, Lisa, otherwise they might come up with someone with three arms!”
“We’re not in the business of ‘making’ people! We’re mapping the human genome for a multitude of purposes … cures for diseases ….”
“Daddy, please, you knew I was joking, right? I know you don’t create people.”
“Oh … yes. I just want you to understand a little about what I do ... and don’t do.”
“We do understand, Daddy, a little.”
“So, y’all are going shopping?”
“Of course, Daddy. We’re gonna get my sister a bathing suit!”
“When I say ‘bikini’, y’all realize I mean something decent, right.”
“Daddy,” I protested, “there is a fence!”
“Decent!”
“For you, Daddy, I’ll get more than decent. I promise!”
“Thank you. See one of your moms for funds. If you put it on my card, the company would wonder why I’m buying a girl’s bathing suit. Also, I trust y’all, but I would like to see that new bathing suit.”
“Ok, Daddy, see you tomorrow?”
“Probably … at the soonest.”
We headed out to find a mom to finance my quickly evolving addiction to shopping. We found both Aunt Katy and my mom eager to be enablers, as well as accompaniment. My quickly developing femininity would soon be well upholstered with little regard for cost.
Next: Tasmanian Devils
Tasmanian Devils
Lisa and I, plus our moms … The ‘River Oaks 4’ arrived at the mall like so many Tasmanian Devils. The cloth would fly, the price tags almost completely ignored. All we left were rejects to most likely be marked down and a great deal of money in digital format. The cashiers were more than willing to clean up our mess; their commissions would be substantial and well deserved.
Well, maybe ‘Tasmanian Devils’ is a bit strong, but we went through a lot of try-ons. Some of them we put back on hangars … others … well some slinky things just don’t want to stay on a hangar. If they want to be on the floor, so be it. My mom realized that I would soon outgrow much of what we were buying, so I tried to pace myself. To take up the slack, Lisa, Aunt Katy, and my mom decided that their closets had a good percentage of outgrown or (worse) out of style items. Both Lisa and I would benefit from their outgrown clothes, and maybe some of what they thought were out of style. Neither of us cared that much about ‘out of style’ if there was something we liked and looked good on us.
So we were a positive on the economy of Houston, especially when the ladies who helped us ended their shifts and headed out to turn their dollars over and treat themselves or their families with their windfall. I was thinking about this and thought, “Gotta love this country.”
“What’s that?” Katy asked.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes, you said ‘Gotta … something’.”
“Ok, I thought, ‘Gotta love this country.’, but I didn’t think I said it out loud.”
“What did you mean? I know this is a great country and all, but why this great insight all of a sudden.”
I explained the concept of dollars turning over many times and the positive effect it had on a free economy.
“Wow,” my mom spoke up, “it’s wonderful to have a daughter so smart that she thinks like that. So many her age would be thinking, ‘Wow, I really got some cool stuff!’ The country’s economy would be the last thing on their minds.”
“Most of them probably wouldn’t know the definition of economy.” Lisa was needing to show that I wasn’t the only smart one.
“Lisa, I wasn’t trying to compare you and … Sarah. I would like to see IQ tests for both of you. I’m sure you both would score off the charts.”
Lisa smiled. “Maybe up into the double digits, huh?”
‘Possibly,” interjected Aunt Katy, “on a good day.”
From the clothing store we headed for a jewelry store. I got all the necessary jewelry and a ton of the unnecessary. We then browsed the shops, frequently finding something that one of us needed to make her life complete. At 2PM, we realized we hadn’t eaten, and Lisa and I begged to let us order pizza at home so we could go to the pool. Somewhere in the confusion, I had purchased a bikini, and wanted to see if it ‘worked’.
So, we headed home, ordered pizza, and put on our bathing suits. I looked at my reflection wearing my first bikini. My boobs did their best to fill out the cups … succeeding better than I expected. Down below, success was complete. The cloth between my legs clung to every part of my perfectly formed femininity. Any tighter and it would have been indecent. The circumference of my hips and legs was growing too slowly for what I hoped, but they were easily sufficient to be in the ‘female’ category.
The cool water of the pool was so welcome after hours of the Houston heat and humidity. The pizza arrived, and we attacked it like we hadn’t eaten in weeks. Then, back in the pool, no waiting one hour.
I bounced in the water slightly and watched my not-so-tiny boobs actually bounce a little. Lisa saw me and did the same thing. Her boobs were somewhat more developed and did a slow, sexy up and down … endeavoring to free themselves from the restraints of her miniscule bikini top. The water rolled off her beautiful breasts like rain beading and rolling off a freshly waxed car.
“If one of the guys I knew at school saw that, he’d have to be restrained! I can just see a guy being carried away babbling. You’re such show off!”
“Your time’s coming, Sarah. You’ll catch up, then we’ll see who’s a bigger show off.”
My mom overheard us. “What happened to my smart daughter who was considering the effects of our shopping on the nation’s economy?”
“We’re talking about all the sex we’re not gonna have with guys at school.”
“Ok, did you purposely leave yourself an ‘out’?”
“An ‘out’?”
Your ‘out’ was ‘with’ guys at school’. So, you’re only not gonna have sex at school or you’re only not gonna have sex with guys who go to your school? The statement leaves a lot of possibilities open.”
“Well, I assumed you knew we weren’t gonna have sex with some guy we meet on the street, or at the gas station or at a bar. No sex.”
“Honey, I hate to nitpick, but you already have sex. I think you mean y’all are not going to have ‘sexual relations’.”
“Mom, that’s a lie!”
“You think you don’t have sex?”
“No, you love to nitpick! No ‘sexual relations’!” Then I quickly added, “I’m sorry I called you a liar!”
“Thank you, Honey. Guess we’re raising you right.”
The sun went behind the clouds, providing some relief from the oppressive heat. Then, the wind changed direction and blew cool across the area.
My mom said, “Wow, that feels go….” She was cut off by a loud clap of thunder. “Inside, everyone. Where there’s thunder there’s lightning. We wouldn’t want Dad to come out here to find his beautiful girls fried and floating … or would we be boiled?”
Lisa was always ready with a (sometimes strange) comment. “I’ve heard girls are delicious sautéed!”
“Y’all are gross!” I shouted over another clap of thunder as we all ran into the house.
So ended our first pool day.
Next: The specter
The Specter
The weather threatened for about 20 minutes before rain began to fall. It fell lightly at first, then set in seemingly trying to dump the clouds as fast as possible. The early afternoon turned dark as night, with the lightning bringing its version of daylight only briefly and intermittently. The thunder complained loudly and with less delay as the storm approached. We all dried off and decided that maybe it was cool enough to put a fire in the fireplace. It wasn’t necessary, of course, but it was cozy to sit around the fire and chat. Mom made some hot chocolate.
I got to thinking about my dad. It seemed he never had enough time with us. I started to say that I wished he was there with us, but Lisa seemed to be far away with her thoughts. Probably thinking about her dad. I kept quiet, not wanting to open old wounds. I wondered if her bubbly attitude was sometimes a cover-up for a sadness inside her. I would never trade my troubles for hers. I didn’t know what I’d do without my dad. Come to think of it, I’d be lost without my mom as well. I was grateful to have parents willing and able to share so generously with Lisa and her mom. Still, I was sure there was a place in her heart that only her father, with all of his shortcomings could fill. (I’m being very charitable to just say he had ‘shortcomings’) Lisa and her mom were not a priority for him. They were females, and from his point of view, there was only one thing they were good for … well, two; sex and bearing babies … boy babies. I once overheard Lisa’s dad talking to one of his buddies. He had been trying to show Lisa how to throw a baseball, and had, apparently given up. He was telling his buddy, “You know, a girl is just a girl. They can’t throw a ball. They don’t run like a boy. There just ain’t much you can teach ‘em.”
I didn’t listen to any more. I was afraid they would get around to talking about his ‘wife’s nephew’ (me), and there would likely have been the word ‘faggot’ and other related words. I didn’t tell Lisa anything he had said. No need to bring her down and make the rift between her and her dad worse. Even then, I actually kind of felt sorry for her dad. He understood so little about the relationship between males and females, and he probably would never be happy as long as he saw society develop in what he would see as a ‘perverse’ way … with women demanding at least a modicum of respect. He’s the type who would throw something at his TV when someone on it expresses opinions he doesn’t like. Then, he would have to have the TV repaired, or buy or steal another TV. Is that brilliant? His drug and alcohol use didn’t help, either.
With what I just wrote about him, you can probably understand why he would leave a family where the women outnumbered him 2 to 1. He probably looked around at his friends who had one or more boys (one of his friends had 4 boys) and said ‘what the hell did I do to deserve this? I’m outta here!’ Whatever he thought, he either didn’t miss them or he is dead. They never heard from him again. Aunt Katy wasn’t even able to find him to serve him with divorce papers. Without a divorce, she couldn’t sue for child support. She had to prove he abandoned them to be free of him. That’s one reason my dad found it his duty to make sure they were ok. He helped Aunt Katy get set up in her online business, bought a house when we were still in San Antonio and leased it to her for on dollar a month, and helped them whenever other problems arose.
The storm continued, then the lights flickered. We thought they would go out, but they came back immediately. We heard a hum down in the basement. Mom said, “James told me we have backup generators. We don’t even have to endure a power outage! We are going to be so spoiled!”
“I’m not really so much against being spoiled,” Lisa added.
“As long as we don’t lose all our money and wind up living under a bridge or something.” I felt like the voice of reason.
“Your dad is very careful with our savings, and we have tons of insurance. The only way we would live under a bridge is if he bought the bridge. Imagine a heated and air conditioned bridge with all the comforts. That’s what living under a bridge with James would be like.”
“And his trade magazines would probably ask him to write an article about what ‘bridge living’ is like.”
“Lisa, he would laugh if he heard you talking like that … well … all of us talking like this! By the way, y’all did see my dad on the cover of the magazine in his office?”
Lisa laughed. “He’s not in the centerfold!”
“Lisa!” Her mom shook her head.
“She’s right”, my mom added, “we really wouldn’t want a centerfold of him, but I love him.”
There were ‘dittos’ all around to that last statement.
“Rain makes me sleepy. Mom, I’m gonna get a shower and go to bed.”
“I think maybe the rest of us are ready, too. There’s no telling what time your dad will be home. Goodnight, Honey.”
Lisa stood up. “Right behind you, Sarah.”
“Practicing saying the name?”
“Yes, Sarah. Goodnight, Sarah.”
“That’s my name.”
“Honey, I have an appointment with an attorney to have your name legally changed and the gender changed on your birth certificate.”
“Aunt Katy, I can get the papers for her name changed on the web. You have to go to court with the papers, of course, and you have to get the doctor involved for the birth certificate.”
“Goodness! How long before you receive your degree?”
“I’ll bet I could pass the bar exam today!”
My mom spoke up, “I’ll bet you could. You and Sarah are both amazing. Katy and I are so lucky!”
“We are lucky,” Aunt Katy added, “and Kim is lucky to be almost as pretty as I am!”
Mom crossed her arms and asked, “How is one twin prettier than the other.”
“I don’t know, but don’t you think I am? It’s amazing!”
“Katy, you’ve always been full of sh … shoe polish!”
“Mom … shoe polish? … really?”
“I’m a lady!”
Lisa’s eyes lit up. … “Oh! Sarah! Remember a while back … let me quote you, ‘One of the few advantages of being a boy is that you don’t have to be all dainty and shit.’”
“I … don’t remem …”
“Look at her face! She remembers! I woke you up early one morning and you said that! Now you can’t say ‘shit’ anymore!”
“… and you can?”
“I only say it for purposes of illustration and interpretation.”
“What? … ‘illustration and interpretation’? What the hell does that mean?”
“Girls! Please! This conversation is going downhill so fast!”
“I love you, Sarah.”
“I love you more, Lisa.”
“That’s better. Good night, girls. Don’t use all the hot water.”
“Ok, Aunt Kim. The water heater is probably only about 5 bgzillion gallons.”
“Yes, and I think it’s about 500 degrees, so be careful!”
After a hot shower, (less than 500 degrees) I slipped into a silk nighty and got into my big bed. I enjoyed listening to the continuing storm as I lay warm and dry between super smooth highest quality cotton sheets. Lightning was still breaking into the darkness now and then. I felt the mattress move a bit. I turned over to find Lisa next to me. “I’m kinda scared. Can I sleep with you?”
“Of course.” She wasn’t scared, but her presence was kind of comforting. I reached over and held her hand and drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.
I awoke when it was still dark. It was 4:03AM. The storm had passed and the house was dead silent. I felt a presence and Iooked toward the foot of the bed. Standing there was a person about my size. “Lisa?” I asked. The figure walked away from the bed toward the center of the room and disappeared. I reached over to see if Lisa was there. She was. “Lisa!” I shook her.
She mumbled, “What? Stop!” I quit shaking her. Obvious, she had been asleep the entire time.
I didn’t feel fear, so I just pulled the covers a little higher and drifted back off to sleep. Our new old house apparently had ghosts. I didn’t mind. I liked a little mystery. I never could have guessed the origin of this specter.
Next: Appreciation
Appreciation
“We have a ghost.”
Everyone looked up from their breakfast plates. The clinking of utensils on plates ceased. Lisa, of course, was first to comment. “Cool!” I knew she would like it.
“Can’t be. The leasing agent would have said something!”
“Really, Daddy, about a ghost? I don’t think so.”
“There are a lot of disclosures required in a lease, especially a lease with an option to buy. For example, you have to disclose whether anyone died in the house from ‘other than natural causes’.”
“What does that mean?” Lisa asked.
“They’re asking if someone was murdered in the house.”
“That’s gotta be it! Someone was murdered in this house!”
“Well, the owners said ‘no’ to the question.”
“Well, we didn’t bring a ghost with us … I don’t think ….” Lisa’s voice trailed off.
Aunt Katy was also interested. “Tell us more. Is this ghost male or female … big or small?”
“I couldn’t tell if it was male or female, but it was about my size. It appeared near the foot of my bed, then moved across the room to where it was really dark. Then it disappeared.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up!?” Lisa was obviously disappointed.
“I tried. You were very sound asleep.”
Lisa’s mom spoke up. “You slept in her room?”
“Yes. That’s allowed, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but I feel like that’s going to be the norm, and we should make some changes. We should put all y’all’s stuff in one room.”
I liked the idea. “I’m for it!”
My mom was also for the idea. “That will help with crowding. We’re so limited on space.”
Lisa had to comment. “Yes … limited. This house is so tiny it’s all in one time zone!”
“Yes, you’re right. It’s so small that I think Sarah can find the kitchen. Sarah, you’re elected for dishwashing duty.”
“Y’all like to do things together so much, you get to help her, Lisa,” Aunt Katy added.
“Can’t we afford a maid?”
“Katy and I talked about this, and we decided that y’all needed to have at least some chores. We don’t want y’all to be brought up as spoiled brats who’ve had everything handed to them.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, it’s for your own good. It won’t hurt to put your hand in hot, nasty, just plain gross dishwater. Kim and I did. Oh, wait, you’ll just be putting the dishes into the dishwasher. We’ll come up with some more chores for y’all. Seems like I remember a boy named ‘Tracy’ who was assigned lawn duty. Maybe ….”
“Mom, I apologize for interrupting, but Dad gave Tracy an exemption from lawn duty, and why would you make me do his work?”
“I’m kidding, of course, your dad hired some people for the yard work. He doesn’t have time to take care of this massive yard but y’all do need chores. I’m sure there are plenty of things y’all can do. Seriously, we’re doing this out of love. We’ve seen some kids grow up spoiled, and they have all kinds of problems as adults. We don’t want y’all to go through that kind of thing.”
There was no use arguing so we started bringing our dishes to the kitchen. It took us only about 5 minutes to clear the table and put the dishes into the dishwasher, and Mom was right about chores. We had it good, and we should have been ashamed to complain at all. After that, I asked my mom, “The dishes are washing, what’s next?”
“Well, I have something that Kate and I are going to have to finish, but you and Lisa could do some preliminary work. I’m not going to say what it is, but I want one of you or both tell me ‘blindly’ if you will do it.”
“I’ll do it!” Lisa was so impetuous.
“Ok, me too. Not a lot to do, otherwise.”
“OK, girls, start researching private schools in the area. Later, we’ll look at schools out of the area if y’all want to be ‘sent away’.”
“Cool!” Lisa was already headed upstairs to her computer.
“Thanks, mom.” I followed Lisa.
When we got upstairs, Lisa took control. “Now, Sarah, it’s likely that we won’t have any problem finding schools here in River Oaks, since it’s such a wealthy area. Do we want boys at our school?”
“No!” I was very certain of that decision.
Lisa typed into the search bar ‘girls’ private schools River Oaks’, and pressed ‘enter’. Google gave us over ten million results (0.76 seconds). A map also with about a dozen places marked that were in or near the River Oaks area. Lisa looked at me. “Think we’ll find a school?”
“Probably, but pretty quickly you’ll find we don’t have ten million choices.”
“Right, this is where the work begins. I wonder if anyone ranks these schools as far as educational quality. Public schools are ranked, but the rankings don’t mean much. They don’t say things like ‘excellent learning environment’ or “this school sucks’. If they did, the latter would apply to almost all public schools. They have rankings like, ‘recognized’ and ‘acceptable’. What the hell does ‘recognized’ mean? Does it mean people look at the school and say, ‘Oh, I know that school, it’s’ whatever?”
“I doubt the rankings mean anything when it comes to public schools. A poor rating would make parents mad. Of course, parents wouldn’t be able to do much except get mad. The parents don’t have a say, the ‘experts’ are in charge. Still, I’ll bet the public schools in River Oaks are some of the best schools in the country. If they were lousy, most of the residents of the area would quickly move their kid to private schools.”
I got on my computer and we used it to make lists of schools on Excel. We ranked schools by distance from home and other criteria. We were going to consider cost, but I told Lisa that my dad might be insulted because it would imply that he couldn’t afford some of the schools. I figured if we ate at a restaurant where price was not even on the menu, he certainly wouldn’t want to skimp when it came to educating his little girls. Lisa had to agree.
We worked until midday and broke for lunch. During lunch, my mom asked how it was going. “I hope y’all are working on the project I gave you and not talking to boys or shopping.”
“Mom! Boys? No way! Shopping? Well…. Seriously, Mom, we’re looking at schools only. We’ll give you a printout when we’re finished.”
“Wonderful! Sorry I doubted you!”
After lunch, we went back to work with renewed energy. We got our spreadsheet perfect then printed it out. We brought the nine pages to my mom. She was surprised to say the least.
“Oh my goodness! Now, I really must apologize for doubting y’all!” She thumbed through the pages. “This is wonderful!”
“I like working on the computer,” Lisa said.
“I like making spreadsheets,” I added.
“Well, y’all make a great team!”
“Thanks mom, can we go out and play now?” I let my lower lip protrude slightly.
“OK, but watch out for cars, and if any boys ask you to stand on your heads, don’t do it!”
“What? Why would boys ….”
“Never mind, it’s an old joke. You know … a girl in a skirt stands on her head and the boys see her panties?”
“Oh, Mom! That’s gotta be a really old joke! Besides, we’ll be wearing shorts!”
“I know … I know. Like I said, it’s a joke. I’m sorry I brought it up!”
“Let’s go for a walk around the neighborhood,” said Lisa. “We’ll see if any boys want us to ….”
“Lisa! Please! I said I’m sorry!”
“OK, Aunt Kim. We’re not likely to see boys, anyway. Probably just old people.”
“Old people? Oh, you mean senior citizens?”
“Yes, ma’am … them too.”
“Right! Don’t get in the car with a stranger!”
“Since we just moved here, everyone we see is going to be a stranger, so which car do we not get in? Oh … I see … none of them. Duh! We’ll be careful,” I added.
Lisa turned to me. “Let’s go upstairs first. We’re gonna change clothes.” She turned to my mom. “No, Aunt Kim, we’re not gonna put on skirts … I’m not, anyway.”
I was puzzled. “And I am?”
“Yes! It’s part of my rules for transition. You wear skirts and dresses until you’re completely comfortable wearing them. Ok, I’ll wear a skirt, too. It’s only fair.”
Actually, I didn’t want to be comfortable in skirts or dresses. It felt special to wear them, and I felt like “being comfortable” meant that special feeling would be gone. I didn’t want that. We went upstairs to pick out what to wear. I found a blue, sleeveless top and a white, pleated skirt that was really short. I put some white short-shorts under it ‘just in case’. (In case the wind was blowing, I had no plans to stand on my head!) Lisa put on a white, spaghetti strap top and a short skirt, but she didn’t feel the need for shorts under it. We brushed our hair and put on just a little makeup.
We went back downstairs and my mom saw us. “So, you’re wearing skirts?”
“Yes, Aunt Kim, since I told Sarah she has to wear a skirt, I decided to be fair and wear one also.”
“Oh, I see. Well, I don’t want to mess up your transition rules. Y’all be careful.”
“See you, Mom.”
“Bye, Aunt Kim.”
When we were ready to head out the door, Lisa said, “Ready to cause some senior citizen heart attacks?”
“Lisa! That’s cruel!”
“Sorry. Let’s strut our stuff.”
“You strut, I’ll walk.”
We started out on our first tour of our new neighborhood. Lisa started singing, “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood….”
“Lisa, I think it would be more appropriate to sing, ‘Here we come, walking down the street’….”
“Sarah! You’re right, because the next line is, ‘… get the funniest looks from everyone we meet’.”
“Yeah, we’re a colorful couple, and we stand out in this wealthy, hundred-year-old neighborhood. We’ll probably get some funny looks.”
We didn’t get funny looks. Since we were new to the area, some of the people we met seem slightly surprised to see new faces, but they smiled and seemed friendly. They were probably happy to have two new pretty girls around.
River Oaks is the most expensive area in Houston. The trees are huge, as well as the houses. Each house seemed bigger than the last. If a house looked not so big, a look at the side of it revealed that it was built so the small side of the house showed from the street. Almost every house had what served once as servants’ quarters behind the house. Even the servants’ quarters could house 4 or 5 families easily. I wondered what people kept in them these days … money maybe?
As I looked at the beauty of our surroundings, I realized that we lived in luxury, peace and comfort enjoyed by a very small percentage of people in the world. I said, “Lisa, we are so blessed!”
“You mean ‘lucky’?”, she responded.
“No, the word ‘luck’ is derived from the name ‘Lucifer’. Use the word ‘blessed’.”
“OK, we’re blessed.”
We made a circle around part of River Oaks and were almost home. I smiled at Lisa. “I’m blessed to have you for a friend and cousin.”
“Thanks, Sis. I love you too.”
Next: Career planning
Career planning
That night, my ghost came back. Lisa was, as typical of her, in a deep sleep, so I didn’t try to rouse her. Instead, I bravely asked the specter, “Who are you?”
Once again, she moved toward the center of the room. As it moved, I heard a child’s voice say, “Help me.” Then, it disappeared near the center of the room as before. Somehow, I knew that this was a little girl, but I can’t explain how I knew that.
I pondered the meaning of this but saw no reason to try to wake up Lisa. She was unlikely to return that night. The two-word message seemed impossible to interpret.
Another day dawned on Brook’s mansion. At breakfast, I told the family about the return of my specter. Only Lisa expressed real interest I think the rest of the family was convinced I was a dreamer.
Lisa and I got an early start at the pool. We discussed my sighting, and she agreed that I should ask the spirit for details. As we sat by the pool, I wondered how long it would be before one or both of us got of sick going to the pool every day. “Lisa, we need to accomplish something this summer.”
“Right. I’m working on a perfect tan.”
“There are people who achieve the perfect tan, then commit suicide.”
“OK, Sarah, you’re an enigma. Maybe you could try to explain your point to a mere mortal.”
“One of the problems with wealth is the lack of a need to accomplish something. Our bodies and minds are made to face challenges and conquer them. We have an inner need for accomplishment. I feel like that’s the reason you see so many actors and rock stars commit suicide. There was even a minister in Sugar Land who did himself in! When someone rises to a place where they feel they can’t go any higher and they want for nothing, life becomes meaningless. Humans have to have challenges!”
“Ok, we may be bored, but I think we’re a long way from running out of challenges. Also, we are not wealthy. Your parents are. We do, however, need to start thinking about careers. In what capacity are we going to damage society?”
“Well, Lisa, I think I’d like to do my ‘damage’, as you call it, as a physician. I hate to see people hurting. Maybe I could do something with gene therapy. They have made a lot of progress understanding the genome thanks, in no small part, to my dad.”
“You have a right to be proud of him, just as I have a right to be proud that my dad left before he did too much damage to me and my mom.”
“I’m, sorry, Lisa.”
“It’s ok, I have my wonderful uncle. You know him right? Anyway, I think the legal field might be right for me. You get to lie a lot, plus, you get to know the judges, and you get to do a lot of illegal shit that would put most people away for decades!”
“How sweet, and your language is so refined!”
“But I’m right?”
“Seriously, I think you would make a great attorney. You’re smart and outgoing, plus, you could sell smoke to someone whose house was on fire.”
“Hey, I like that! I could put that on my ads!”
“There’s just one formality in the way of our dreams.”
“Come on, Sarah, what could be in our way?”
“Education!”
“Oh, that! Like you said, ‘a formality’. We just have to put in the time in classes, take a little exam to show off how much we know, and we’re on our way.”
“I’m glad it’s so easy! I was under the misconception that it was hard!”
“Well, there might be a few bumps in the road, but we’ll be traveling in a tank.”
“Right. You are the encourager!”
“I could encourage Forrest Gump through medical school! Then, I could make a million dollars defending him against the lawsuits certain to be filed when he does a cardiectomy on someone with a ruptured appendix.”
“Like you said, I’m the one who really cares about people!”
“Right, and the medical profession is one of the few where you can make a lot of money caring about people!”
“And you’ll make a lot of money not giving a sh….”
“STOP! Remember, that kind of talk is for boys. You now have to be ‘all dainty and shit’!”
“You have quite a memory, but you just used the ‘S’ word.”
“Well, my memory is selective. Other people’s sins are seared into my memory. My sins just go poof!”
“Ok. Lisa, I’d like to change the subject, because there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you about, seriously.”
“Oh! I’ll get serious.”
“If you don’t want to talk about this, that’s ok, but, if you can talk honestly about it with anyone, I think it would be me.”
“Ok, shoot.”
“You like to not be serious and joke around a lot. Do you think it has something to do with maybe … covering up some disappointment about your father, and the way he treated you and your mom?”
Lisa sat, squinting from the sun, looking straight ahead. I thought I saw a tear starting to fall. Finally, she spoke. “I find humor a way to deal with a lot of unpleasant things. As far as my father goes; it just don’t seem fair!” I knew she used the word ‘don’t’ for effect. She knew grammar better than the English teachers. “How could I be stuck with such a selfish loser? I don’t know where my mom and I would be without your dad. I mean, your dad and mine are at opposite ends of the winner-loser spectrum. Did my dad ever love my mom? Did he love me? He couldn’t love us and do what he did. If I had been born a boy, would he still be here? Kids always blame themselves when their parents divorce, but in this case, I’m sure of it. My dad thought he would have a son who would accomplish all the things he never quite pulled off when he was young. I’m talking about totally unimportant stuff, like sports. A daughter was no good to him.” A few tears were escaping by now and her voice was cracking.
“Oh, Lisa, I’m sorry for bringing it up, but maybe you need to cry about it. You can’t hold it in forever!”
“I’ve cried, believe me. I’ve cried until I thought I cried out all the tears. I’ve told myself, ‘Damn it, I’ve cried my last tear over that bastard!’, but there always seem to be more tears available when this subject comes up. I wonder what would have happened if I had been the child that they thought was a boy, only to find out years later that I was a girl all along. Wow, my dad … I just can’t imagine what would have happened!”
“I know. He would have had the doctors take all your female parts out and give you hormones to make you mature as a male. Then, he would have a ‘son’ he could force to play football and all the other crap that boys do. You would have been miserable, but that wouldn’t matter to him, as long as he had a ‘son’! Yes, you’re right about him being selfish.”
“Wow, that’s a scary scenario! Eventually, he would have to give up.”
“Yes, but there would be years of misery before he did, and you would have memories of a ruined childhood.”
“Sarah, you are so lucky … blessed. I guess I can’t complain too much. We’re blessed with your father also.”
“I’m glad y’all are. You and your mom are the best!”
“Thanks. I don’t know how we could ever thank y’all!”
“Lisa, I look at it this way; no sermon here, but The Bible says it more blessed to give than to receive. People who refuse help, or something that is offered, deprive the person making the offer of the blessing of giving. So, accepting help and a simple, ‘thanks’ is plenty. I can look at my dad and know that he receives a blessing from helping y’all. I feel blessed also, and I’m sure my mom does. Actually, I think you and I are the most blessed by this situation. Whatcha think?”
“Absolutely. Thanks for everything, including the talk. How about we go inside and research our careers? I wanna bless someone with a lawsuit. Oops … sorry, but I’ve been serious for about two minutes. I’m near my ‘seriousness’ limit.”
“Uhggg! Ok. We’ve languished here long enough.”
We headed into the house to change clothes and do some more research on schools and careers.
That night I had a strange dream. It was one of those dreams that is so confusing I didn’t know what was happening. The main thing I remember is that Lisa’s dad was in jail, and Lisa was going to get him out since she was an attorney. She was typical ‘Lisa’ in my dream; assertive and certain that she would succeed in getting her dad freed. Since it was a dream, the question of ‘why’ never came up.
When I awoke from the dream, my specter was near the foot of my bed. I shook Lisa a bit, even though I didn’t think it would wake her. I asked the spirit, “What do you want?”
The reply was, “Get me out!”
Again, the ghost began to move across the room. Suddenly, I realized that Lisa had awoken. She sat up in bed and let out a piercing scream that echoed throughout the house. It brought all the parents to our room, and my dad turned on the light. Lisa was sobbing uncontrollably, and Aunt Katy rushed to her side. I had never seen Lisa in such a state. I told my mom and dad, “The ghost came back for a visit, and Lisa got to see her. Guess she’s not as tough as she pretends to be.”
I realized then that Lisa was not completely unflappable. She left my room in tears and went to her mom’s room to sleep. My mom got into my bed to stay the rest of the night. I didn’t think I needed her, but it was kind of comforting not to be alone.
Everyone now knew I wasn’t making up a ghost story, but it didn’t help to understand where the specter was that she wanted out!
Next: A Test…MUST PASS
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A Test…MUST PASS
The State of Texas has decided that citizens must have had 16 years anniversaries of their date of birth before they are deemed mature enough to be licensed to operate a motor vehicle. Lisa and I were approaching our 15th birthdays. Hers was August 1st, mine was August 13th. The state makes an exception for special cases where circumstances necessitate a 15 year-old being licensed one year earlier. Aunt Katy agreed to sign the paperwork for Lisa and, with my mom’s permission, for me to take advantage of this exception. Why would she do this? First, the rules are very lax as to what makes the earlier licensure necessary. Second, Lisa, as I said before, could sell ice to an Eskimo. (Is that racist? Go tell someone who cares!) It didn’t take her long to talk Aunt Katy into signing this, and we were both itching to drive.
We knew the written part of the test was simple, and we figured we would pass the driving part as long as we didn’t ram someone’s rear end or kill a pedestrian. Regardless, we could not let history say we failed a driver’s license exam.
Aunt Katy had Lisa at DMV at opening time on her birthday. In less than one hour, she left there driving home with her temporary license. I thought I saw indentations on the dash of their car from Aunt Katy’s fingernails. Lisa is 12 days older than I am, so I had to ride nervously and anxiously while she drove. This made me feel very inferior and, had it been someone besides Lisa, I probably couldn’t have stood it.
When my birthday came, Lisa insisted that she drive me to DMV. It took a similar amount of time and the results were the same. We were both mobile! Aunt Katy was not … at least for one day. We must have driven her car 1,000 miles between the two of us. At one point, we found ourselves in a ‘bad’ part of town. We locked the doors as the ragged denizens closely watched the two little rich white girls who looked very out of place in their neighborhood in a shiny silver Land Rover. We could see a freeway, however, and made our escape. The roads in Houston are complex, but the freeway system is pretty simple.
We made our way back to River Oaks with a new appreciation for our living arrangements. We pulled into the long driveway and parked Aunt Katy’s car in its place; travelers returning from the journey. I can’t say we were tired of driving, but we got our fill for the day. We were ready for vehicles of our own, but we figured that would be asking a bit too much; at least for now. We figured that soon they would become necessities of life; food, clothing, shelter, and a vehicle.
As Lisa handed her mom the keys, I commented, “There are some really poor people in Houston.”
“Oh? Where did y’all go?”
“We went a lot of places,” Lisa volunteered, “but, as long as we could see a freeway, we knew we were not lost.”
“Well, y’all be very careful. There are some poor people, but there are some very bad people in Houston also.”
“Ok, mom. Sorry.”
“What’s up now for you two?”
“Guess we’ll head to the pool. Want to wash the city of Houston off of us.”
“Well, don’t drown.”
“It’s fine; if one of us drowns, the other can come tall y’all about it!”
“Oh yeah; that’s what’s important; telling us. Just make sure the other girl has really drowned before you come tell us. No false alarms! That would be so inconvenient!”
“Got it! See you, mom.”
With the beginning of school looming, the two weeks left of summer were filled with more driving and less swimming. We volunteered to run errands, go grocery shopping, any excuse to get to drive.
Our new school was pretty close, but just a little too far to walk. Some days, Aunt Katy let us use her car; some days, mom let us use her car. The rest of the time one of them drove us to school.
It was a girls only school, which was a big change from public school. Lisa and I found the change refreshing, unlike many other girls who complained about the absence of boys.
Our uniforms consisted of a white shirt, grey vest, and grey pleated skirt. It wasn’t that bad. It saved the time which would have been used picking an outfit every morning. Picking out an outfit every morning would have been kind of fun, but you can’t have it all.
One of the major differences we saw between public school and our new private school was the quality of the teachers. The teachers in our school were the cream of the crop. They loved to teach and took an interest in each student. This was facilitated by the smaller class sizes. My largest class was comprised of 15 students. The material was not easy, but it was made clear what was expected of us and there were no surprises on exams. Most of the teachers were well liked by students and everyone realized that we were all on the same ‘side’, if there were ‘sides’. Education was key. Tuition was high; so high that it was not an issue because, like the restaurant we went to the first day we got to town; if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.
If, as I said, education was key, but discipline followed close behind in importance. The rules were not overly restrictive, but they were not to be questioned, and violations were met with quick and public punishment. I say ‘public’ meaning public among the student body. Rule breakers were shamed for their behavior. Chronic rule breaking resulted in dismissal, which was a rare last step and was not to be reversed.
One thing that was not tolerated was any student who thought that disobedience was ‘cute’ or ‘clever’. The school did not need an ‘underground hero’, so that attitude was dealt with harshly. School administrator knew that problem could spread quickly, with disastrous results. Parents’ political connections were irrelevant, because the school was not funded by any government institutions.
All this sounds very negative, but the atmosphere at the school was anything but negative. Learning prospered in a positive and friendly atmosphere. Lisa and I were very happy to be there.
I’m sure my unusual gender history was known by someone in the system, but it was not an issue. I’m not a transsexual, but I don’t think it would have been an issue if I were. I am growing accustomed to my new life. Still, every day I was learning new rules, expectations, advantages, disadvantages, etc. regarding my new identity. I was also learning more about the attitudes people have toward me and other females. Doors are now opened for me. Men smile when they make eye contact with a pretty girl. Hey! They even smile when they make eye contact with me!
It’s hard to describe the subtle differences between the way girls interacted with me as my old school and the new school. Before, I was seen as a somewhat ‘sissy’ male. The girls were friendly to me, but there always seemed to be a bit of condescension. It was so subtle that they probably didn’t even realize it. Since I’m the only one who noticed, you might think it was my imagination. It was there, but I never let it bother me. Now that I was just another girl, the condescension was replaced with an almost imperceptible hint of animus. Even though there were no boys at school, I was a potential competitor. That could be seen as a compliment. One had to be pretty to be considered competition. Plain girls were just … there; someone to be ignored.
Lisa and I tried to set aside all the social niceties and concentrate on learning. As I indicated, the absence of boys was a big plus for the two of us.
The semester seemed to fly by. My mom informed me that we would be having visitors for Christmas vacation. To these visitors, my gender history might be an issue.
Next: Gender back on the front burner
Gender back on the front burner
For Christmas vacation, my maternal grandparents were planning a trip from Tennessee. Their last visit was at Christmas 2 years before. Needless to say, a lot had changed.
My mom had spoken with them about my gender issue and my grandmother understood completely. My grandfather, however, was another story. As he saw it, his grandson had had a male to female sex change and was destined for hell. An uncomfortable, possibly heartbreaking confrontation was brewing.
I anxiously awaited their coming, dreading the possibility that my issue would drive a wedge between such an otherwise wonderful, loving person and myself. My mom reminded me that there was no sense in trying to hide or minimize the changes, and I should place myself right out there. My dad’s office was near the airport, so he said he would pick them up. When my mom got the call that they were on their way, I put on a nice dress and got Lisa to be with me on the front porch of our mansion. I had already told my dad not to mention anything about me during the ride over.
Lisa and I were sitting in the big chairs on the front porch when they drove up. We stood up and walked toward the car. Lisa gave my grandfather a hug and said, “Remember me?”
My grandfather thought a few seconds, then said, “You look like my granddaughter Lisa, but she’s just a little bitty thing. You’re practically a woman!”
“I’m 15 years old!”
“Oh my goodness, you’re an old lady!”
Lisa smiled, then turned to hug grandmother.
I hugged my grandfather and said, “Remember me?”
He smiled and said, “No, I don’t believe we’ve met, but I’m pleased to meet you. I’m always pleased to meet a pretty girl!”
“I’m Sarah!”
That brought a blank look from. He didn’t know a ‘Sarah’.
“Sarah’s name used to be Tracy, Pop,” my dad interjected. “She decided to change it.”
Grandfather’s smile began to fade. He didn’t look upset or angry, but confused. The word ‘Alzheimer’s’ flashed through my mind. He stood there a few seconds, then he looked at my mom and said, “I need to sit down.”
Everyone scrambled to get grandfather into one of the porch chairs.
He sat and looked at me in disbelief. He squinted his eyes as if that would help him see better. “No, this is not possible! This is not my grandson.”
“That’s right,” said Dad, “she’s now your granddaughter!
“If you’ll claim me”, I added.
My grandfather was speechless. He sat with his mouth open.
When it was obvious that he wasn’t going to say anything, my dad broke the silence. “Well, come on in y’all. Y’all need to see the house!”
We all went inside. My grandfather looked like he was far away in thought. He had seen transsexuals that looked like men, and I think that’s what he expected. He had never seen a boy become a pretty girl. He didn’t think any such thing was possible. He stole a glance at me every few seconds when he thought I wasn’t looking.
They went into the living room, and my dad said, “Pop, come into my office for a little bit. I want to show you something.”
I suspected my dad had something to tell him rather than show him, and I suspected it was something concerning me. Dad had been doing research on my condition and I’m sure he wanted to educate his father-in-law. They were in my dad’s office for about 30 minutes. Lisa and I went to my room while my mom and grandmother caught up on all that had happened in the last 2 years. Of course, a good bit of their talk was concerning me.
Then, there was a knock on the door of my room. I opened the door and my grandfather was there. “I need to talk to you just a little.” He looked over my shoulder. “Lisa, get out.” He smiled at her. She understood that he meant no ill will by the words. That was just my grandfather’s way.
I sat on my bed and he sat on the chair at my dresser. “Your dad talked to me quite a bit about your situation and, I must say, it seems incredible, but babies are born every day with something … some part of their bodies that are unusual or not perfect. Your dad tells me that you have been a girl from the time you were born, and not just a boy who preferred to be a girl. He said you were born with the internal ‘plumbing’, if you want to call it that, of a girl, and you can even have a baby. That’s quite a bit different from the way I understood things. I want to say that I apologize for being so hard headed, and say to my new … well, maybe not ‘new’ … say to my granddaughter, ‘I love you’, and I look forward to the day … if I’m still around … when either you or Lisa present me with my first great-grandson … I mean … granddaughter … grandchild … either … it doesn’t matter, honest … it doesn’t matter. He or she will be great and grand!”
I walked over and hugged my grandfather. “Pop, I’m so happy that you understand. I love you so much, and I was afraid you wouldn’t love me anymore.”
“Well, to be honest Honey, if things were like I thought were, it would be … confusing. I was dreading the thought of seeing my grandson looking like a boy in a dress. You can understand, I hope.”
“Pop, you’re so funny! Yes, I can picture in my mind what you’re talking about. That would have been very uncomfortable!”
“When I look at you, all I see is ‘girl’! You know, you were always kinda … soft, I guess. Now, I see why. You fooled a lot of people … doctors! I guess I was the biggest fool of all. Sarah, you’re a beautiful girl! You’re gonna be a beautiful woman. I have two beautiful granddaughters, and they’re gonna have lots of beautiful babies … in the future. I don’t want to rush things. Don’t rush into getting married. There will be dozens of boys after both of you. Y’all get to pick the very best.”
“Right, Pop!” This was not the time to share my trepidations about boys.
“Ok, Sarah, I’m gonna go join the adults, and you and Lisa can do whatever teen-aged girls do.”
“Ok, Pop, love you.”
“Love you more.” He kissed me on the forehead and left my room.
Lisa rushed in as soon as he left. “Oh my God! I tried to listen through the door and couldn’t hear a thing! Is he angry? I guess not, he was smiling when he came out of your room.”
“He totally OK. My dad explained it to him so he could understand.”
“Oh, wow, that’s good. This family doesn’t need a big fight. I don’t guess I have to say it again, but I will. ‘Your dad is awesome!’ He’s probably the only person in the world who could make Pop understand!”
“Yeah, and he gets ‘awesomer’ every day!”
Next: The knockout
The Knockout
Lisa and I stayed in my room and chatted for a few minutes, then my mom rapped on my door, opened it and said, “We’re gonna show Pop Mama around the neighborhood. Y’all wanna come?”
“I don’t guess, mom. Maybe we’ll get into the pool.”
“Ok, we’re already dressed, after we ride around a bit, we’re going to take them to Floyd’s. Would y’all like for us to pick y’all up for that?”
“Sure!”
“OK, I’ll call y’all when it about time to start getting ready.”
“Ok, mom.”
“I don’t have to tell y’all how to dress, do I?”
“No, ma’am, we’ll be dressed to make y’all proud.”
“Good, see y’all after a while.”
Floyd’s was the restaurant that was so exclusive (and expensive) that there were no prices on the menus because “If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it”. The food was more than excellent … if you could afford it, that is.
We didn’t wait for my mom to call. We skipped the pool and got our showers and put on dresses that were equally short as our first trip to Floyd’s. They may have been just a tiny bit tighter. My boobs had prospered, and I was just about caught up with Lisa. Neither of us would be able to walk too fast in the dresses without putting a show bouncing and distracting every man in the place. Of course, we put on heels that made the dresses look even shorter and the bouncing more pronounced. We fixed our hair (by this time, I was able to do my own hair!) and added about 2 lbs. of jewelry each, and we were ready for mom’s call.
Instead of a call, I got a text from my mom. “I want a picture of each of you, before we head that way.” Oops! We actually didn’t think our outfits would ‘fly’, but we took the pictures and sent them. Soon we got another text. “Come on, y’all! Dresses that are not so short and not so tight!”
We changed and sent pictures again. Mom texted, “That’s better. I’ll call when we get close.”
After we changed, I paused before a full length mirror and looked at myself. I looked at a profile of my whole body. I was still in disbelief of the changes that I had undergone. The surgery was definitely a minor part of it. Parts of my body were bigger, parts smaller; all the variations were in the right places. The 3” heels made my dress look shorter and my legs look longer with a sexy texture. I said, “Thank you God. I couldn’t ask for anything more or better.”
Lisa was watching and listening, but I didn’t mind. “You’re right Honey,” she commented. “You are definitely blessed!”
I looked at her and smiled. “You are too. You need to realize it and thank God also.”
“Oh, I do!” She looked up. “You remember, don’t you, God. I thanked you, right?”
“Lisa, that is almost sacrilegious. Let go wait on the porch”.
As we waited on the porch, I was thinking. I didn’t think we really looked like hookers in the first dresses … well, maybe a little. After thinking about it a little, I was glad my mom made us change. After all, that’s what moms are for. Why did we put on dresses we didn’t think she would like? I guess a teen-ager has to rebel. My goodness … we were rebels … next thing you know we’ll be taking three aspirins and drinking a coke real fast. Someone told me that’s supposed to give you a buzz.
They picked us up and we headed for Floyd’s. When we got out of the car and walked into the restaurant, our reception seemed totally different from our first visit. As soon as we stepped into the place, it seemed every person there turned to see. I could feel myself blushing. Lisa didn’t seem uncomfortable at all. I said before I had never seen her overwhelmed, but I don’t think I have ever seen her embarrassed, either. When we sat down, I asked her, “Wow, what do you think of that?”
Lisa didn’t even notice. “Of what?”
“Everyone turned and looked at us when we walked in. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice!”
“Honest, I didn’t notice. I’m not surprised, though. We’re beautiful, especially when compared with some of the old ladies in here.”
“What’s that, Lisa?” her mom inquired.
“I said, ‘there’s a lot of beautiful ladies in here’.”
“Um hum. Yeah, I thought that’s what you said.”
Pop spoke up, “James, there are no prices on the menu.” Lisa and I smiled at each other.
“Right, Pop,” my dad answered, “if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.”
“Oh, one of those. You must be doing pretty good!”
“Yes, Pop, we’re doing OK.”
“Oh … we. You too, Katy?”
“My online business is doing great!”
“Online … work from home. Good work if you can get it.”
“Yes Pop, you just have to find out what people want and provide it.”
“I see. What the people I used to work for wanted was ‘more’. When you gave them that, they wanted still more.”
“Now, Pop, they provided a good retirement for you.”
“Yeah … decent, I guess. So, what are you 2 beautiful girls gonna do … modeling, acting … ?”
“No, Pop, I’m considering going in law, and Sarah is thinking about medicine.”
“You know, it’s not fair for two girls to have all the beauty and brains.”
“They’re smart all right, Pop," my mom added.
“I said I was proud of them”, Pop continued, “but now I’m just overwhelmed. They’re more than a grandfather could hope for. There’s one thing that could derail your plans … boys. Any boys in the picture?”
“None!” Lisa and I answered in unison.
“Well, that’s reassuring. Take it from me, boys are bad news! I know I was.”
“You were not! You were just as wonderful then as you are now!” Grandmother was adamant.
“See that, girls? She thought this rotten guy was wonderful! They still do! Most girls are easily fooled. Don’t be like that!”
“I think you’re full of it, Pop!” my mom opined.
“See that, James? I have all the ladies fooled.”
My dad refused to agree with him. “What? Did you kill a bug or something when you were a kid? Pop, you have always been a good man and a wonderful father. The one thing I can say is that you were always a bit hard headed.” My dad stole a glance at me.
“It’s called ‘standing up for your principles’ ... except when you’re wrong. I found I was wrong about something just recently, and I was man enough to admit it and apologize.”
“Well, there’s one thing you’re right about, my dad continued," boys should be avoided, or at least kept at a safe distance until they grow up a little. They want one thing, and will do anything to get it. They will lie, cheat … anything.”
I had to speak up. “I’ve had a unique opportunity to observe boys, and I can say that’s absolutely correct. It’s a miracle some boys make it through high school. They’re ruled by their hormones, and everything else takes a back seat. I wish a lot of girls could see what I’ve seen and hear what I’ve heard. Wait … let me take back the ‘see what I’ve seen’, no girl should be subject to such sights! As far as going through what I’ve been through, I wouldn’t wish that on a girl, but some of them need to have their eyes opened. A boy can ruin a girl’s plans for her education … plans for her life. It’s kind of sad to see. I can tell you right now, it won’t happen to me, and Lisa is mature for her years, and I seriously doubt she will be sidetracked by anything.”
Pop smiled. “I must say, I am impressed! I wish more girls had the maturity and wisdom y’all have. With your attitudes, y’all are destined to succeed!”
Lisa and I both thanked Pop, and our food arrived, stopping the conversation. It was, if possible, better than our first meal at Floyd’s. You don’t tend to talk with food that delicious in front of you.
While we were eating, a beautiful girl came in with a guy and sat at a table not too far from us. She sat facing me and she was so beautiful I could hardly take my eyes off her. I tried not to be obvious, but after a while it probably became obvious that I was watching her. I caught her eye once or twice. I told myself, “You’re a girl. You’re supposed to look at guys”, but, if someone asked me at that moment to close my eyes and tell me what the guy looked like, I couldn’t tell them a thing. I could, or course, describe in detail the stunningly beautiful blue-eyed brunette, about 5’ 7”, in a baby blue mini-dress and 5” heels. I finally forced myself to look anywhere except at her. If I had kept staring, it would be simply harassment. I wondered if she was a lesbian. She was out with a guy, but I knew that didn’t mean much. I thought, “This proves it, I’m a lesbian.” Of course, I rationalized, “It’s not my fault, it’s the way I was brought up. Who could blame me?” I started thinking about males and I wondered if a male would get an erection in this situation. It seems so odd that a muscle in your body could involuntarily cause something like that. Oh, I know that sometimes a female’s nipples would react to certain things, but that wasn’t nearly as pronounced and I don’t think any muscles are involved. I figure guys must wear their pants loose to avoid showing off what Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. called the “gallant reflex”.
I was glad when it was time to leave. Pop, of course, asked about ‘doggie bags’. Dad told him not to worry about them. He didn’t mention that the food would be in the car. When we got into the car and Pop smelled the food, he said, “They think of everything, don’t they?”
Dad gave what was apparently his standard answer to that: “They should, for the price … whatever it is.”
As we drove home, I wondered about the beautiful girl. I decided I had to put her out of my mind. She was much older than me, anyway. The question, however, was my sexual orientation. That question would have to be dealt with sooner or later.
It was late, and everyone said ‘goodnight’ and headed for bed. I wasn’t in bed for 10 minutes before Lisa slipped under the covers next to me. “She was beautiful, wasn’t she?”
“Damn, Lisa, I thought nobody noticed me looking. You would, of course.”
“Yes, I saw you looking. Who could blame you? She was a knockout!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t kick her out of bed.”
Lisa chuckled.
I added, “Just something I picked up during my time as a boy.”
“They do have their clever sayings, don’t they?”
“Yes, that’s one of the nicer ones.”
“So, any idea which side of the fence you’re gonna come down on?”
“I think I’ll have to get samples before I decide what I like. That’s in the distant future, though.”
“Maybe not as distant as you think.”
“I can keep it distant.”
“Good idea, if you can manage it.”
“One thing about it, I don’t have to worry about getting a girl pregnant.”
“You too? Neither do I!”
“Boys don’t have to worry about getting me pregnant, either. I’m not gonna give them the chance.”
“Good girl!”
“That still sounds strange to me, but I’ll adapt. Goodnight, Lisa.”
“Goodnight, Sarah.”
Next: The Window
The Window
Now that the possibility of a war was no longer a factor, the holidays were wonderful. Pop and Lisa were avid chess players and got a friendly competition going. Pop was an excellent strategist, and Lisa was able to hone her skill while he was there. I played, but I didn’t approach their ability. Pop did show me how to win in 4 moves, a strategy that only works against someone very inexperienced or, at least, against someone who has never seen the strategy. It is impressive when you are able to pull it off.
When he got into the pool, we found that Pop was also an amazing diver and swimmer. He, like my dad, was the type of person who made you wonder if there was anything he couldn’t do. Mama was strictly the indoors type. She was an amazing cook and meticulous housekeeper. They had been married over 40 years and their interaction seemed like a well-oiled machine; each seeming to know the other’s thoughts and predict the other’s next action. My mom offered Pop some coffee and he accepted. She said, “Sugar? Cream? How do you like it?”
He hesitated a few seconds, then said, “I don’t know!” He had not fixed his own cup of coffee in years. Mama had to be consulted for the preparation of a cup of coffee for Pop!
When it came near the end of the holidays, it made me sad to think that my grandparents would be going home to Tennessee. It just didn’t seem right to only see them so little. My dad was, apparently, feeling the same way.
“Pop, why don’t y’all move back to Texas where you belong? What does Tennessee have that Texas doesn’t?”
“Mountains and music," replied Pop.
“Well, Texas has mountains, just not in Houston. As far as music, do you go somewhere to see people perform their music?”
“Well, not usually, we listen to CD’s.”
“Pop, I know this is gonna surprise you, but we have CD’s here in Texas. We’re not all cowboys and hats. As a matter of fact, the great majority of Texans are not cowboys, and the hats are mostly caps, many times worn backward and not taken off indoors. I don’t think most young men don't even know that they’re supposed to take their hats indoors.”
“You want to educate me about Texas? Did you forget I lived here most of my life? Texas is great, but you should see the mountains in Tennessee!”
“If you could move to Texas and look out your window and see the mountains of Tennessee, would you go for that?”
“Yes, I would, and I would love to see that. I would say it’s impossible, but I know better than to doubt you.”
“You got it, Pop! Get ready to move. I have faith, and The Bible says you can move mountains if you have faith the size of mustard seed.” I was pretty sure that my dad would go to my mom about moving the mountains in Tennessee to Texas. She could do some amazing things with photography, but I was skeptical about this. Still, doubting my mom or dad when they said they would do something was a losing bet. Even though I doubted, I was hopeful that my grandparents would soon be moving to Texas.
My dad bought the best digital camera he could find to send with Pop with instructions on exactly how to take pictures of the mountains near his house. He also gave Pop instructions on emailing the gigantic files that the pictures would produce.
When Pop and Mama left on the plane for Tennessee, both Lisa and I cried. I hugged Pop and whispered in his ear, “Start packing as soon as you get back to Tennessee.” He just smiled and nodded like “OK”. Of course, he thought my dad was joking about moving mountains. They made tentative plans for a visit next Christmas.
The Christmas holidays ended and Lisa and I went back to school. Lisa started lobbying for a car for her 16th birthday. I thought it was asking way too much. Lobbying, however, was Lisa’s strong point, and I just wondered what kind of car she would get. With us back in school, my dad designed a room attached to the back of our house by one of the bedrooms on the first floor. He had a carpenter build the room. I thought he was going to expand the room, but the addition looked more like a giant bay window.
My mom began spending almost every waking moment in her ‘lab’, working on her and Dad’s project. She was very secretive about what she was making. After I thought about it some, I realized it probably had something to do with ‘moving the Tennessee Mountains to Texas’.
The weather in Houston was such that there were days in the winter warm enough to swim. The water was colder, of course, so we spent a majority of our pool time perfecting our tans. Lisa would lie face down and untie the ties of her bikini top to keep from getting a tan line. I was satisfied having a tan link, however, because a tan line, especially on top, says ‘girl’, and I like (almost) anything that brands me a girl. I say ‘almost’ because a period is exclusively female, and I refuse to say I ‘like my period’.
After a couple of weeks, the room was finished. My mom, however, worked on her secret project night and day for about 3 months. One weekend, my mom and dad worked together moving equipment from mom’s lab to the new room. My dad took 2 weeks’ vacation and they worked together, perfecting what was now one joint project. The longer they worked, the more curious Lisa and I became. If they didn’t have a big lock on the door that led to the new room, we would have had a look in there. Lisa suggested picking the lock, but I reminded her about parents’ ‘radar’. I didn’t want to do anything to alienate my mom or dad. Our relationship was too good to do something to damage it.
Finally, the project was done. Mom and Dad invited Lisa, Aunt Katy, and me to have a look. He opened the bedroom door and we went in. What we saw was the most amazing sight I had ever seen. Outside the window, the mountains of Tennessee stood proud and tall. Above, you could see puffy clouds floating by. I heard Aunt Katy softly say, “Oh My God!”
After several seconds I finally spoke, “Dad, how did you get the clouds to do that? They look so real!”
“That’s actually the sky. It’s just enhanced a little to give it more contrast. Wait until tonight. You’ll see more stars than you’ve ever seen before!”
“How did you do that?”
“I used telescopes and other … gear.” He seemed reluctant to give more details, so I didn’t try to push him. “I can’t wait for y’all to see it!” He looked at his watch. My dad was more excited than I had ever seen him.
“This took a super genius like Uncle … like Daddy … and Aunt Kim.”
“I don’t mind you claiming him. He’s got plenty of love for all of us. That’s my dad.”
“Thanks.”
I added, “Pop said when Mama was pregnant they felt like she would have a girl, but didn’t know it was twins until late in her pregnancy. He said he found when they were born that love is not bound by the laws of mathematics, so when you have more than one child, your love is not ‘split’ between them, but it grows so that both children get 100%. You can tell he loves his twin daughters.”
“Pop is pretty smart, too. I’m glad we share him.”
“’Smart’ seems to be a characteristic of this family, but ‘love’ is too. I don’t think you can get a better combination than that.”
“Yes, and Pop’s pretty tough. I think sometimes I’d like for him to run into my dad. Then, I think I wouldn’t. I don’t want Pop to end up in prison.”
“Well, I don’t know what Pop would do but, as bad as your dad has treated y’all, I don’t think Pop is capable of murder.”
“No, he’d probably just mess my dad up pretty bad.”
“…wishing he was dead.”
Lisa did her best ‘man’ imitation. “Put me out of my misery’!” Her imitation always sounded like someone who had been smoking weed.
Dad called Pop and told him he had moved some Tennessee mountains to Texas, and asked him if he and Mama had finalized plans for another Christmas vacation visit. Pop said he would talk it over with Mama and let us know.
Dad had added an addition to the bedroom for the window. But he said he wanted to build one that would just replace a window without requiring the construction of a room. He asked Lisa and me if we wanted to work on it. We enthusiastically accepted, of course. As the end of the school year drew near, he began gathering materials for a second window. He decided the second would be the same scene as the first, the only difference is not requiring a separate room just for the window. Regular new windows can range from $200 up to $700, depending on the type and size of the window. I was sure those figures would be a pittance when compared with the cost of my dad’s window. I thought it was worth it, though, for anyone who could afford it. It was relaxing to view, and it would be the ultimate ‘conversation piece’. Dad bought 2 ‘state of the art’ computers for Lisa and me to use on the project. I tried one out and couldn’t believe the speed. Thankfully, he said we could use the computers for homework, but not to just ‘surf the web’ since the danger of viruses was always present. It was doubtful, however, that these computers would be infected, because they had ‘state of the art’ protection tied into my dad’s work. (With permission, of course … the company was unlikely to deny my dad any reasonable request)
We chose the window in Lisa’s room for the new window. As much as I liked the window, I didn’t want to lose my view of the pool. Lisa and I decided to share my room, so we moved all her stuff. That way, anyone wanting to see that window wouldn’t also see panties and bras, etc., on the dresser, or be tempted to meddle; men are pigs, you know. The rooms were humongous anyway. Working in my room made it handy because we could work any time. If we had an idea in the middle of the night, we could just walk over to the computer and work a while. We didn’t have to get up early, so our hours could be whatever we chose. It turned out, though, that we rarely worked well into the night, and I don’t think either of us ever got up in the middle of the night to work. I need regular sleep, otherwise, I feel sluggish the next day. Dad said I was like a bird; when it got dark I had to go to roost. I had to agree.
When we actually started work, we began to wonder if we were in over our heads. We had worked with Photoshop Elements, but now we were working with the expensive professional version of Photoshop. There were dozens of features we had never heard of and it began to seem like we would use every one of them on this project. We saw why the hours of work were required. There were details my mom and dad put into the project that seemed unimportant, but they said detail was the secret to the magic of the project. We didn’t want to disappoint my parents, so we were careful not to overlook or omit a single detail. Mom trained us on the art part of the product, then Dad taught us about the technical aspects. When I saw how difficult it was to learn all this, I became even more in awe of my mom and dad’s ability. Lisa and I did it only with a lot of instruction and guidance. Mom and Dad did the first window with only their own experience and skills.
About halfway through the summer, Aunt Katy announced that we had a “Patent Pending”. Lisa and I didn’t know all the legal aspects, but we figured it had to be good. As soon as she told my dad that, he gave her an additional list of things that went into the making of the window that needed to be patented. These were the things that made the window behave as though you were looking at a real scene. She went right to work on several new patents. If someone wanted to counterfeit a window, they would infringe on several patents, making infringement less likely and more costly for anyone caught infringing. My dad said as soon as we got the ‘patent pending’ on these other parts of the project, we would be ready to test market. We were under no illusions that thousands of windows would sell, maybe not even hundreds, they would just be too expensive. We hadn’t got Aunt Katy’s breakeven figures yet. She said she had the hours on the first project, but she wanted to see how long the second project took. Then, she would try to come up with a trend line. She said basing a trend line on two data points was a little better than guessing, but not much.
If we ever questioned needing to learn advanced mathematics, that question was settled. Dad knew the many complex equations off the top of his head. On rare occasions, he had to look in one of his books or on the web. The things he could do with the equations were amazing. I could see someday when he died, the scientific community wanting to preserve his brain for research a la Einstein. Years from now, he would be referred to as just ‘Brooks’, again, like Einstein. I can see it now: “Newton, Einstein, and Brooks”. Hey! It could happen!
I wasn’t hesitant to ask for help, but Lisa felt like she could do without help. She would struggle with something until she had no choice but to ask for help from either my dad or my mom, depending on the part of the project on which we were working. (I know almost everyone would say ‘the part of the product we were working on’, but my mom told me that habits formed in youth are habits for a lifetime, so I thought I’d better start getting my grammar right immediately. Forgive me if I slip somewhere later in this document. Grammar errors like that are easy to correct in writing, but in speech, it’s easy to forget, plus, depending on your audience, you may feel like you’re sounding pompous to use ‘on which’. Imagine that: sounding pompous because you use proper grammar, but that is the state of our society today. Sticking to the rule, however, can yield some strange sounding results. Once, when Winston Churchill was criticized for occasionally ending sentences with a preposition, he is quoted saying ‘This is the type of errant pedantry up with which I will not put.’ The grammar is correct, but the statement losses it ‘punch’. I diverge greatly. I’m out here in the woods now, but I think I see my track in the distance and will try to make my way back to it.)
The project was an excellent learning tool for Lisa and me. Our pool time and driving time dropped drastically, but it was voluntary. We thoroughly enjoyed our summer, and the time flew by, causing the beginning of school to be uponus before we knew it. We had enough done, however, so that we could work on it after school and weekends. We were excited to see our window take shape, and we were proud of all we had learned. My parents and Aunt Katy were proud of us, also, and they were not hesitant to praise our work.
It was November before the project could be labeled “completed”. The unveiling was as awe-inspiring as the unveiling of the first window. I found it difficult to believe that I had a part of such a project, and that the names “Sarah Rochelle Brooks” and “Lisa Michelle Rivers” would be on the project somewhere, if not on the patent. It was humbling that God allowed me to be a part of a family that could produce such an amazing work of art.
Next: “Mama and Pop can’t stay here!”
“Mama and Pop can’t stay here!”
Christmas vacation was approaching, and my dad and Pop planned and made another Christmas visit a reality. Pop was coming to Texas to see the mountains of Tennessee.
On the day of my grandparents’ arrival, it was good to not have the trepidation that was a part of their last visit. The feelings this time were warmth and love of family. It was wonderful. Aunt Katy picked them up at the airport this time. Dad was at work, so the viewing of the window was delayed for his arrival. We chatted while we waited for him, but Lisa and I were on ‘needles and pins’ to show Pop and Mama the window. It seemed like twice as long for my dad to get there.
When Dad finally got home, we all escorted my grandparents to the room with the first window. They both stood silent, looking at the mountains. Mama had tears in her eyes. “Beautiful!” she whispered.
Pop turned to my dad. “Dr. Brooks … under the circumstances, I feel I should call you that. I’m glad I picked you for a son in law. I couldn’t be prouder if you were elected president, eliminated poverty, cured cancer, and brought peace to the world! I will never doubt you when you say you’re going to do something!”
Mom had to add, “In view of all the goodwill that I’m feeling in this room right now, I’m gonna let the phrase ‘picked you for a son in law’ slide.”
I had to pose the question burning on my mind, “So, are you moving to Texas?”
“Yes!”
“Really!” Lisa and I jumped up and down.
Mama spoke up. “We had already decided to move. We’ll be moving as soon as the weather gets better. It’s not so bad here, but it’s awfully cold in Tennessee right now, with a lot of snow.”
“Well,” said my dad, “I didn’t need to do all this”. He pointed toward the window. I’ll just tear it ….”
“NO!” Lisa and I protested in unison.
Dad looked surprised. “Girls! You can’t believe I was serious! After all, this is going to make a bgzillion dollars for our family.” He turned to Pop. “Kim, Katy, and I get credit for this window. If you’ll come upstairs, I’ll show you a window that was done by Lisa and Sarah … with a little help and advice, of course.”
We went to Lisa’s old room to see the second window. Pop said,” I think this one is actually better!”
Dad smiled. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that it was done by your granddaughters, would it?”
It was Pop’s turn to smile. “Well, I’m not even sure myself.”
“It’s Ok, Pop. They’re intelligent and talented girls. We also tweaked this one in places to make it better, so you’re right. It is slightly higher quality. I’m not sure if you picked up on that, or you’re showing a little grandfatherly bias.”
“Actually, if I’m biased, I’m proud of it!”
“That’s the way to be, Pop! Now tell us about the move!”
“Well, Nashville has the stars, the stars that are famous. We decided it didn’t have the right stars, the stars we wanted to see.”
“What stars would that be, Pop?” I was wondering what famous people they still wanted to see.
“Are you kidding? We wanted to see Kimberly, Katherine, Lisa, Tr… Sarah and James! Those are the stars that are important to us!”
I hugged Pop. “Pop, we’re all gonna be together, just as God intended!”
Lisa added, “We might even let you share in our bgzillion dollars when we get it! Can we share it with them, Daddy?”
Pop held up his hand. “Hold it right there. We’re not coming here as gold diggers. We don’t need a share of your zillion dollars.”
“It’s a bgzillion dollars,” Lisa corrected him.
“Oh, that much, huh? Mama and I have enough. You kids enjoy your money. By ‘kids’, I mean all five of y’all are kids to us. Just don’t expect any amount of money to give you happiness. But I sense that there’s a lot of love in this family, and someone said … who was that now? … ‘All you need is love.’”
Lisa was right on top of that, “John Lennon. You knew that Pop, didn’t you?”
“Oh yeah, John Lennon. He had a little band, didn’t he?”
“Pop,” I finally spoke up, “you say anything bad about John Lennon or the Beatles and you’re gonna find your approval numbers dropping!”
“I’m only kidding! I love the Beatles, too!”
Lisa raised her voice just a little. “Anyone here who doesn’t like the Beatles would be advised to keep it yourself for your own personal safety!”
“Wow,” Mama said, “serious fans!”
The biggest fan in the family, my dad, had to speak up. “Yep, we’re all fans of the greatest rock group of all time!”
(General agreement all around)
I decided to try a little white lie. “Pop, I just heard on the news that the weather in Nashville has all of a sudden turned unseasonably warm and dry. Guess y’all can go ahead and make the move.”
“They said that, did they? Sarah, we have to look for a house before we can move.”
“There’s a house that’s near here, it’s unoccupied, and the rent is free, right Daddy?”
“That’s right, Pop. Would you like to look at it?”
“It’s unoccupied, huh? It can’t be your house, would it happen to be the ‘servants’ quarters’ out back?”
Lisa was getting excited. “Pop! It’s perfect! Sarah and I can go bug … I mean we can go visit y’all the time … maybe not all the time, but a lot.”
“I would feel like I’m sponging off my daughters and son-in-law.”
My dad allayed his fears. “Tell you what Pop; I’ll draw up a rental agreement. I’ll make the rent affordable, and the whole family will be together. We really want y’all here. A long way down the road, y’all will be getting … not so young, and may have health issues. Y’all being here will make things a lot less cumbersome. As I say, that’s a long way off!”
“Yes,” replied Pop, “I hope so. Let’s think about it. I don’t like to make major decisions so quickly. Why don’t we go look at the place?”
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Lisa and I had been to the ‘servants’ quarters’. When we first moved to the property, we unlocked the door and took just a few steps inside. The small amount of furniture was covered with sheets, which added to an overall oppressive feel to the place, as if it was haunted by the spirits of long-dead slaves who, during their lives, were the targets of gratuitous abuse and misuse. We wondered what the place was like at night, but we were not about to find out for ourselves, for we were pretty sure that if we did we would find ourselves in the presence of spirits who had long waited to visit vengeance upon the ‘crackers’ who had long mistreated them … or take revenge against the descendants of those cruel taskmasters. Our ancestors were not, as far as we knew, slave owners, but we were white, and we figured a spirit could easily mistake us for someone who had beaten him mercilessly sometime in the brutal past of the Confederate States of America.
I headed for the door soon after we got there. Lisa stood still as if she were in a trance, studying the layout of the hall and an adjacent room. I didn’t want to study. “Come on Lisa. Let’s get out of here!”
She snapped out of her trance, and we left. “Something’s wrong,” was all she told me.
That was no surprise to me. “Yes, the place is haunted!”
Lisa didn’t explain what was wrong, but I got the feeling that she saw or felt something that most people would not sense.
We were not in any hurry to go back, but we decided to visit the house with Dad and Pop. We wanted to see if they felt what we had felt. Dad unlocked the door and stood aside and let Pop go in first, then motioned for us to go in.
“You go first, Daddy, please.”
Dad shook his head and followed Pop into the gloom. The two of them stood and surveyed the main room. We went in and stood behind them waiting for a reaction. They stood silently for what seemed like an eternity. Then, Pop said, “Servants’ quarters, huh?”
“Yes, but the people who own it said they didn’t use it at all when they first bought the property. More recently, they used it to store a few things.”
Pop stood another several seconds with his arms folded. Then he turned around and asked us, “What do you girls think about the place?”
Lisa opined first, “It’s awful”.
“I think it’s haunted by slaves,” I added. Neither of us wanted to go any farther into the house.
Pop looked at my dad and said, “I can feel it!”
Lisa and I responded in unison, “You can?”
My dad asked him, “Seriously? This place is ‘servants’ quarters’. It was never occupied by slaves. The slaves were freed in the 1800s.”
“Still, James, there’s something about this place. I don’t guess you feel it.”
“I can’t say I feel anything, but I’m in the minority. I think we should bring Mama, Kim, and Katy over and see what they say. Don’t say anything about haunts or anything like that. Let’s just see what they have to say.”
“OK, but not today. They’ll suspect something’s up.”
“Daddy, are you gonna go into any other rooms?”
“No, I don’t want to scare away the spirits before everyone gets a chance to ‘sense’ them.”
“Good! We’re leaving!”
“Right behind you,” Pop said as he followed. Dad came too, locking the house behind him. I guess he didn’t want the spirits escaping.
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The next morning, Daddy left for work, and Pop asked Mama, Kim, and Katy to come to servants’ quarters with him. “Kim and Katy, you’ve never even been in there?”
They told him they hadn’t been in there and agreed to go with him. Lisa and I tagged along to see what would happen. “Pop unlocked the door, and let the women in first. Like all of us before, they took a few steps inside and stopped. Pop tried to get them to go farther. “Let’s go to the back of the house.”
No one moved. Finally, Aunt Katy said what we were all thinking. “There’s something wrong with this house.”
Pop pretended not to understand. “What do you mean? It’s a well-built house, a fine house.”
My mom spoke next. “Katy’s right. There’s an oppressive feel to this house … an oppressive spirit”.
“What do you think, Mama?”
“They’re right. There’s a spirit here. This place is unhappy. I wouldn’t stay here for anything. It just feels … evil.”
Pop finally admitted that he felt it, too. “I felt it when I came in here with James. Lisa and Sarah can feel it. James is the only one who claims not to know what we’re talking about.”
“I’m leaving,” Mama said.
“Wait a minute,” Lisa announced. “There’s something else.” She walked into the hall. We all stood amazed at her boldness. She inspected the hallway and then walked into the room right next to it. After a couple of minutes, she told us the problem. “The size of the hallway and this room don’t add up. This wall has to be about 18 inches thick.”
Pop had a supposition, “Someone hid something … a body?”
Now Lisa was ready to leave. “I did my part … bye bye.” She went out of the door, followed by the rest of us.
“I’ll talk to James,” Pop continued, “and see if he wants to investigate.”
“Oh, he will.” My mom was certain. Then she turned to me. “Sarah, maybe it has something to do with the person you saw in your room”.
I had to update Pop and Mama about the specter I had seen in my room. “I don’t know, mom, a ghost from that house sees that some people have moved into the master’s house and says, ‘This place is dead. I’ll think I’ll go see what’s going on there’? Doesn’t sound like something a ghost would do.”
“Maybe he went looking for help,” Lisa suggested.
“Fashion advice, maybe,” I suggested. Someone from 100 years ago would need some help in that department. The ghost was about my size, and I think it’s a girl, and I could give fashion advice to a girl better. If it’s a boy, I would just say, ‘What you’re wearing is fine. Nobody cares what boys wear. It doesn’t even have to be clean’.”
My mom had listened to enough. “When you two girls get started, there’s no telling where the conversation will go. I guess that speaks to your creativity. I doubt that a ghost has ever needed fashion advice. Sarah, just ask her what she wants and we’ll work from there.”
“OK, Mom, if she even shows up again.” I couldn’t believe we were talking so matter-of-factly about consulting a ghost about her wishes.
“Well, maybe all of us going into that house woke her up and she’ll come back.”
“OK, I’ll chat with her. If she has a cell phone, I’ll get her number and we can text anytime. Maybe we can ‘Facetime’, and y’all can see her.”
My mom cut off our silly talk. “Pop, there’s loads of room in the main house. Don’t let this stop the move. I know James doesn’t want y’all to have to go looking for a place. We’ll figure out what to do about this place later. You know, if this place housed slaves, it would have to be over 150 years ago. The slaves were freed in 1863. I don’t think this house is that old, after all, it’s called a ‘servants’ quarters’. Still, I think James will want to investigate.”
We all went back to the main house. It felt good to leave the gloom behind.
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After being told about the ‘thick’ wall in the servants’ quarters, my dad took some tools and measured the hallway and the room in question. Sure enough, things didn’t add up. He waited until his first day off, and he and a reluctant Pop headed there with axes, saws, and other tools of destruction. After only about 20 minutes, Lisa and I headed there to see if they were still alive. Pop and my dad met us at the door.
“You girls don’t want to see,” Pop advised us. "This is a problem for the police."
“A body?”
“Well,” said my dad,” just something wrapped in some kind of cloth. I suspect it’s the mummified remains of a small person.”
We took off running to the main house; partly to get away from ghosts … partly to be first to give the news to the rest of the family.
Dad called the police, and they arrived almost before he hung up the phone. City administrators would deny it, but River Oaks gets a priority when it comes to security. Before long, our driveway was a parking lot for police cars (marked and unmarked), two ambulances, and a firetruck (?). Soon the press showed up. Something in River Oaks involving all these services was rare. Dad showed the police the scene and asked them to keep the press away from the main house. Then he came into the house with the rest of us to let everyone work. Lisa and I watched from a window until we decided we wouldn’t see much.
After about 2 hours, everyone began leaving. The body was removed and put into an ambulance. The police asked my dad a few questions and told him that we could go into the house, but asked that we please not go beyond the tape they had around the scene. He assured them that he would keep the house locked and no one in the family would even go in there until this matter was cleared up.
The story made the television news, with a cameo of my photogenic dad. It also made the newspaper; which nobody reads except the few who don’t use the internet. We bought three copies to keep in scrapbooks that we might start keeping some day.
Later, Dad found out from the police that the wall had concealed the remains of a white female, probably a teen or pre-teen, and had been there more than 50 years. The owners of the house were interviewed. That family had resided there about 50 years, and remembered that they bought the house from a family named “Baker”. The police told my dad that they would continue their investigation, but would likely find that anyone involved would be dead.
So, hopefully, the “specter” incident was finished
Next: Maybe not
Maybe not quite finished
A few days later my dad got a phone call. After the call, he announced that he had a visitor coming by regarding the body in the wall. He also asked that we not say anything about the specter.
About 45 minutes later the doorbell rang and Dad answered the door. To our dismay, he escorted the visitor to his home office, but they were only in there briefly when Dad came out with his visitor and invited everyone to meet at the kitchen table. We were assembled in a flash because not one of us would miss this meeting for the world.
Dad seated his visitor at the head of the table. He was thin, almost emaciated, had a full head of snow white hair and a face that emanated kindness. His eyes, however, spoke of immense pain. He obviously didn’t relish telling what he had to say but felt it needed to be said. Dad introduced him as Mr. Paul Baker, and said, “Folks, Mr. Baker, has begun to tell me a story that I find extremely interesting. I asked him if he would share it with the whole family, and agreed to do that.” He turned to his visitor, “Mr. Baker, you have the floor, and I beg your indulgence. Please begin again so you can catch everyone up.”
With his slight physique and obvious advanced age, I expected a weak voice and only partially effective communicator. I was surprised to find that he was extremely articulate, with a voice that resonated like that of a professional announcer. He began his amazing and poignant story. “Thank you, Dr. Brooks. I’ll start over. I have lived both in the servants’ quarters out back and in this house itself. The homeowner at that time was Mr. Richard Baker. You’ll ask, of course, if we were kin, and I’ll get to that. Mr. Baker hired my mom as a housekeeper, and she, my twin sister, Abby, and I moved into the quarters. My sister and I were 7 years old at the time, and I couldn’t believe it! We had never lived in anything like it and it was just the ‘servants’ quarters’. Mr. Baker was a bit of a grouch, to put it mildly, but his wife, Mary, was a wonderful woman and she kept him in check.
“Those were good times. Abby and I were very close, twins, you know, and she was just beautiful and grew more beautiful by the day! She was not beautiful only in the way she looked, but her speech, actions, every way, and I thought she might grow up to be a movie star or model. She smiled and laughed a lot, and spoke with a lilt, so her every sentence sounded like a line from a song, and people couldn’t help but like her. We looked a lot alike, and people sometimes told me I was too pretty to be a boy. I finally came up with an answer to that. I would tell them, ‘Part of me is a girl, and she’s really pretty!’ I would wait for their reaction. I loved that part. They would be puzzled, shocked, or think I was crazy. Then I would say, ‘It’s my twin sister, and she really is a beauty!’, and they would usually smile.
“The good times didn’t last. Mrs. Baker died, and we were stuck with Mr. Baker, 'The Grouch’. It was June, and school was out for the summer, so he said he wanted my sister to do the housework instead of my mother. My mother didn’t like it, but, without Mr. Baker, we would be homeless. After a couple of weeks, he moved my sister into the main house. She was in the bedroom next to his. We were 12 years old by then. I could see the constant worry on my mom’s face as she would stand at the kitchen window of the ‘quarters’ and look toward the main house. I didn’t understand, of course. I thought even a mean man like Mr. Baker wouldn’t hurt a 12-year girl! I had never heard the word ‘pedophile’. Even though I greatly missed Abby’s companionship and her magnetic personality, I thought maybe my mom would be able to relax for once in her life. Oh, I’m sure she only suspected the old man was up to something. If she found that he was actually molesting her, she would have taken us out of there. Living on the street would have been better than standing by and allowing that to go on.
“Then, Abby was gone, and Mr. Baker told us she ran off. My mother wanted to call the police, but Mr. Baker told her that she was to contact no one. He said he would call the police and have them look for her, and he had me and my mom move into the room where Abby had stayed. It was difficult, and having all her clothing and toys there made her absence even more painful. We certainly got no sympathy from the old man. It seemed like Abby’s disappearance was just an inconvenience to him.
“Then, he hired some carpenters to do some work in the quarters. After they finished, he locked the place up tight and we were forbidden to go back in there.
“My mother and I were heartbroken. For us, there was no life without Abby. My mother’s health began to fail. She went downhill quickly and died within a few months. You’ve heard of ‘dying of a broken heart’? That’s exactly what happened to my mother. Mr. Baker had an ambulance pick up my mom’s body and take it away. There was no talk of a funeral or burial. I realized much later that he probably had my mom buried in a pauper’s grave. With my mom gone, I wondered what would happen to me. For about a week, It was just him and me in the house, but I don’t know if he even knew I was there. There was plenty of food in the pantry, so I ate what I could find and did my best to stay out of his way for fear he would just say, ‘Get out!’, and that would be it. I would be on the street.
“Then, Mr. Baker hired another housekeeper named ‘Julia’. She was young, pretty, and smart and she took a liking to me. She made me feel loved. I said she was smart; she played her part just right and got him to marry her, change his will, and adopt me. I realized later that he probably had Alzheimer’s, and may not have realized much of what was going on.
“So, my parents were now Richard and Julia Baker. She said I could call her Mom, which I was happy to do. Oh, I still loved and missed my real mom, but Julia became a ‘mom’ to me. She made sure I went to school and made good grades, and she was a wonderful cook. I didn’t call him anything because I was still staying out of his sight as much as I could. He probably didn’t even remember I existed. I told Mom … Julia about my sister and she contacted the police and found that Abby’s disappearance had never been reported, so she made sure a report was filed. I don’t know how much they looked for her, and they never told us anything. I’m pretty sure that, based on what I told her, she understood more about what had gone on than I did.
“Mom … Julia discovered that Mr. Baker had made his money by using his political connections to be able to supply alcohol to the speakeasies during prohibition. Then, with those same connections, he made even more money importing alcohol after prohibition. As I said, he was a bit ‘out of it’, but he had lucid moments. When he was able to recall them, he was actually proud of his exploits, and freely admitted much of his story. He no longer had political connections; but most of his crimes were now covered by the ‘statute of limitations’, meaning he could not be prosecuted due to the amount of time that had passed. I say ‘most of his crimes’. The ‘statute of limitations’ doesn’t apply to murder, so he either never murdered anyone, or he never got caught.
“Mr. Baker died four years later. Julia sold this house and bought us a place much more suitable for just two people. Life was about as good as I could ask but, without Abby, there was a big hole in my heart that would never heal. When I really got down, Mom was the best counselor I could have gotten and she helped me over some really rough patches.
“Mom died several years ago, and she left me enough that I wouldn’t have to work for the rest of my life, even though she had seen to it that I got a college degree because she believed that education was important to the development of the whole person. I started a small business. It didn’t amount to much, but one of the many things she taught me was that man has to work; for his own well-being if not for the money. Mom also left a lot to different charities, most of them helping children. She loved children, even though she never bore any. I was her child, though, and she was my mother. Her love was a blessing for which I’m thankful, and I made sure she knew that. I told her many times she had saved my life and she told me she couldn’t have loved me more if I was her own flesh and blood. Her love, influence, and discipline made me a much better person than I would have otherwise been. She was a good woman. True; she manipulated and deceived Mr. Baker, but it was the means to an end. She was frugal with the money that this evil man had hoarded so it took care of me and went to good causes.”
************************************************************************
Here he paused; his eyes seemed to focus on something in the distance. No one interrupted because between him and that upon which his eyes focused was a distance that no one could traverse. This was a painful reality to Mr. Baker, because that distance was a distance, not of miles, but of years separating him from the people he loved so much … and those who loved him so much in return. It has been said, 'The eyes are the window to the soul.' This man’s eyes laid bare the terrible pain of loss he had suffered. The slings and arrows that had assailed him left a lonely, effete, shell of what was once a beautiful boy who loved his mother and admired his beautiful, talented sister. His reverie lasted two or three minutes. My dad looked at each of us with his finger to his lips; signaling us not speak; not to break the man’s trance. He didn’t have to give us that signal. We all knew the importance of the man’s quiet contemplation. We were witnessing a man finally laying down a burden he had carried for five decades. When his painful reflection ended, he came back to us and continued, “The main thing I want to tell y’all today is ‘Thank you.’, because when I saw your story on television, I recognized the house right away, and I got a lawyer to order DNA tests on the body found in the quarters. The results came back yesterday. It was Abby. Her body was in that wall all these years. It’s my dear sister, Abby ….” His voice broke and he bowed his head. Tears were flowing from everyone in the room by now.
When he recovered his composure a little, he continued. “Abby didn’t deserve this. She was the sweetest, prettiest little girl you would ever meet … 12 years old!” It seemed his own words stabbed at his very heart, rendering unable to continue. He broke down.
My dad stood up and walked over to the man and put his hand on his shoulder. “Would you like me to pray for you?”
The man nodded; his head bowed.
“Dear God, we pray for this man who you have led to us today. The Bible said, ‘The devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.’ Lord, you see the pain and heartache the devil has caused to be brought upon this man and his family. Help him to cast his cares upon you, because The Bible tells us to cast all of our cares upon You because You care for us. Lord, heal this man’s broken spirit and give him joy once again. If it be in Your Will, give him the assurance that he will see his loved ones again. Let him go from this place with a renewed spirit, knowing that You love and care for him.”
After the prayer, the man raised his head and shook hands with my dad. “Thank you, sir. Y’all have been too kind. I won’t take any more of your time ….”
“Mr. Baker, I would be ashamed of myself if I were to stand here looking at my watch and say something like, ‘I have to get to a meeting.’ We have plenty of time for you, and would gladly set aside more time, if necessary. If there’s anything else you need, we will be pleased to help in any way we can.”
“Thank you again, Dr. Brooks. I don’t know that I have ever met such wonderful people as you and your beautiful family. I can’t thank you enough for what you have done already, Dr. Brooks. I think God led you to this house, and led you to find my sister. The circumstances are terrible, but I don’t think I really expected anything else.”
“I don’t think you want to visit the quarters, but I thought I’d offer.”
“Oh, no! I don’t think I could take it! Thank you, though. I’ll be going.”
My dad handed him a business card. “Stay in touch, and don’t hesitate to call should you need anything.”
“Thank you, Dr. Brooks, goodbye and God bless you.”
After many goodbyes and hugs, Mr. Baker was gone, leaving behind many tears and a chorus of sniffles. Maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed to stand just a bit taller after having a burden lifted from his shoulders. Maybe my dad’s prayer helped.
“Dad, why did you not want us to tell him about the ghost?”
“Well, Sarah, he had told me a little about the situation when he called on the phone. I knew he was in pain and has been for decades. I didn’t think we needed to add to his pain by telling him that his sister has been crying out for help all this time.”
“Thanks, Dad. That makes a lot of sense.”
Dad continued, “It took someone sensitive enough to see the specter and someone like Lisa to immediately notice the problem with the dimensions of the hall and adjoining room. Yep. It took the team of ‘Rivers and Brooks! Now that I think about it, I do believe Mr. Baker is right when he says that God led us to this house, and led us to find his sister.”
After he said that, my dad stood with his arms folded a few seconds, looking thoughtful. “A few years ago, a national news magazine had a cover story entitled, ‘Does Evil Exist?’ After hearing Mr. Baker’s story, I think that question has been answered for us today.”
My dad was right, of course. Evil has afflicted man for thousands of years. Even today, in our beautiful, free country, evil flourishes. It thrives in the dark, behind closed doors, and sometimes hidden in plain sight. Incidents like the hell Mr. Baker went through sometimes bring evil to light like a sore developing on an otherwise healthy body. We rarely think about it because to do so would make it impossible to blithely live our comfortable lives. Thus, we have assembled a multi-layered army of law enforcement personnel spanning every level of government and built hundreds of jails, prisons, mental hospitals and the like. We hire people to manage evil people and build places to keep them from disrupting our comfort. I guess there’s no other way to handle it, because evil thrives partially because of our freedom, and it’s a complex undertaking to determine when someone’s freedom should be limited. The sad thing is, that freedom is almost always limited only after the damage is done.
Lisa and I went to see if we could go back into the quarters. Sure enough, the feeling of gloom and death was gone. With part of the wall torn down, Dad could get a better measurement. He found the wall to be 18¼ inches thick. Inside the wall, part of the original wall of standard depth could be seen. The room had been made several inches smaller, because taking it out of the hallway would have been noticeable, even by someone who was not Lisa Rivers. Walking back to the main house, I felt like we were at the end of a long ugly battle against malevolence. I don’t think we could claim victory. We think we found the truth, but a man still had his mom die before her time and lost his beautiful sister before her life could really begin. We could feel some relief, but no happiness. The devil was laughing at us as he planned and executed similar schemes around the world by the minute.
Next: Graduation-morning after
Graduation Day
Christmas vacation ended and, as my grandparents left, Dad told them he would prepare a place for them in the main house, where they could stay while a contractor came in to paint and update the interior to the servants’ quarters to Pop’s and Mama’s specifications. They made a short list of the things they wanted done, telling they trusted him to make whatever other changes he felt needed to be made. We said our goodbyes, but we were happy that they would soon be back to stay.
Of course, the end of Christmas vacation meant back to school. This was the last half of 11th grade, so Lisa and I made appointments with our counselors. Since we had both decided on careers to pursue, we wanted to see if any adjustments needed to be made in our course choices for the next school year. The counselors praised our initiative in making the appointments, and said the teachers had to guide many students closely, or they would start college still without a real career plan. Still, some started college with their career choice listed as ‘undecided’.
With the window completed, school alone was hardly enough to keep us busy. Lisa signed up as a volunteer tutor. So, two days a week Lisa stayed after school to tutor, and we got to borrow someone’s car. I am much too much an introvert for that. I like to help if I can keep my distance; that’s hardly possible for a tutor. I volunteered to do computer work in the school office. That was much more my speed. Of course, they felt the need to closely supervise my work and gave me tasks that were not connected with students’ grade. I wouldn’t have tampered with grades anyway, but they had no way of knowing that. Lisa was the only person I knew well, and her grades were already straight “A”s.
The rest of the school year was pretty uneventful. There was just enough controversy to fend off boredom. When the end of the year came, we both had maintained straight “A”’s for our entire high school careers. We realized it would be a shame to have any blemish on that record. “B+”? No way! We decided to be careful not to let things slip.
Pop and Mama moved from Tennessee, and the good life was even better. It was great to have so much of the family together. Some families, of course, couldn’t function with such closeness. The love is there, but the personalities clash. But most of the people in my family were easy to get along with. (Is that a dangling participle? “easy along with to get?” “easy with to along get?” I give up.) Most members of my family feel that family harmony was usually more important than winning an argument.
I mentioned our grades. Straight “A”’s? Nothing wrong with that, right? Well, maybe not, but it came with certain responsibilities. No problem for Lisa, but a big problem for me.
Near the end of the 12th grade, Lisa and I were called into the office and informed that our 4.0-grade point averages, while somewhat common in public schools, were a rarity at our school, and we were on a path to becoming the valedictorian and salutatorian. With equal grade point averages, she asked how we thought a decision should be made as to which of us should perform which role. It was, of course, very unusual to call in the top two students and ask which of them should be considered #1, but they knew that we were cousins and were very close. The thought of giving a speech to so many people was an extremely frightening idea for me, and Lisa and I both assure the Headmistress that Lisa was more comfortable with the valedictorian job, which would leave me with only leading the class in a short prayer and introducing Lisa. She would then give a speech, a task which she would actually enjoy.
Lisa would remember things differently, but in addition to writing my prayer, I wrote most of her speech with input from her. We presented them to the Headmistress, who enthusiastically approved them.
So, graduation day went like this:
School Headmistress
I’m not being facetious when I say our Valedictorian and Salutatorian are ‘Rivers and Brooks’. They are cousins Lisa Michelle Rivers and Sarah Rochelle Brooks. I asked them if they disliked being referred to as ‘Rivers and Brooks’, and they told me it was no problem since they came up with the term themselves. They each have an impressive 4.0-grade point average for their entire high school careers. When deciding which to have as Valedictorian, they both assured me that Lisa was more suited for the role and for giving the Valedictorian address.
We’ll now ask our Salutatorian, Sarah Rochelle Brooks, to pray that God will bestow His blessings upon this commencement service.
Sarah?
Sarah
Thank you, ma’am. Let us pray.
Dear God:
Thank you for the blessings you have bestowed upon this graduating class of 2016. We thank You that we live in a country that still allows parents to give their children a Christian education, even as many are fighting to remove You from every aspect of public life. Thank You for our talented teachers who have shown us in so many ways that they love us and care that we receive an excellent education. Thank You for the administrators, office workers, groundskeepers, custodians, cafeteria workers, and anyone I may have overlooked. Let this commencement be a start for these girls to lead exemplary lives of service to You and to their fellow man. We ask Your continued blessings on this school in the future, so that many more girls may experience the gift of true learning that we have received.
Amen
I would now like to introduce our valedictorian, and my cousin, Lisa Michelle Rivers.
Lisa
“Thank you, Sarah
“As Sarah said, we are cousins. She’s just a bit shy, so it was a miracle that she was able to get up here before this group. But, if you know her, you must know she is a wonderful person, and I hope you love her as much as I do.”
Pause
“There are some, I hope it’s very few of you, who ask; ‘Why do they call it ‘commencement’, it’s the end of school’?
“I think that the answer to that question is obvious to most of you here. This is only the beginning. Some say, ‘But, I’m seventeen years old!’. That should be, ‘I’m only seventeen years old!’ Our perception of a person’s age is skewed by our own age. A child turning 10 may say. ‘I’m 10 years old! Two digits! I’m practically an adult.’ To that 10-year-old, anyone over 15 is old. I’ve heard some people say that ‘old’ is 15 years older than yourself. Apparently, this skewed perception lasts a lifetime. So, a 40-year-old sees herself as young, and someone who is 55 as old.
“So, as I say, you’re only 17 or so now, with 12 years of formal schooling. After 12 years of learning, what comes next? The answer should be ‘more learning’, and most of you are headed to college. But, college or no, learning happens all your life. I say ‘happens’ because learning happens, whether you realize it or not and whether you intend to learn or not. A drunk, excuse me, alcoholic living on the street learns the ways of street life. A surgeon learns details about surgery and the effects, seen and unseen, on the patient not taught in medical school. We learn formally and informally. Most of what we learn formally is what we need to make a living. If you’re so inclined, you can also get some formal education in things that are of interest to you and improve the quality of your life; things such as art and music. Most of what you learn informally is what you need to get along with others and to, hopefully, improve the quality of their lives as well as your own.
“So, learning does not stop today, even if you wish it so. It’s up to you to make sure that what you learn in the future is positive.
“All the girls here are blessed. You are blessed with parents who want to see that you get the best education possible. Otherwise, why would they pay tuition to send you to school, when they could send you to public school and save all that money? They made a good decision. As my cousin said correctly, the teachers here are talented. Make no mistake, teaching is a talent and it cannot be bought. A piece of paper, even from the best school in the world, cannot give you talent. Talent is given to you by God on the day you’re born. Imagine going to a concert where the musicians are not talented, but they have a piece of paper that says they are qualified as a musician. Yes, they may know every note, timing, beat, and every detail they were taught in music school, but if they weren’t given that special skill, the results of their work may as well have come from a computer. Imagine going to a doctor who has gone through no internship and has only a piece of paper, but no talent for medicine and little ability to relate to people. You would soon be looking for another doctor. But, sadly, all you need today to get a job teaching is a piece of paper that says you spent the required time in classes learning to teach. Oh, there are teaching internships, but I’m assured that they are only formalities. A person can graduate from training as a teacher with excellent grades, but still not have that special quality that makes a good teacher. The result is likely to be a teacher who hates the job, and students who probably don’t learn a lot in that teacher’s class. That is a sad waste of resources, but even sadder is the long term effect on young students whose minds were never stimulated by a teacher who cares that they learn, and who has that special quality, that invisible, elusive, unmeasurable, unlearnable quality called ‘talent’.
“So, you have been blessed with talented teachers. The vast majority of you are headed to college, most of you to private colleges, which are known for providing quality education. Unfortunately, many professionals, especially in higher education, see teaching as a tool to advance a political agenda. Hopefully, during your years here, you have learned to distinguish education from propaganda, and will not sacrifice your principles on the altar of straight “A’s”.
“So, live your life by the tenets of truth, honesty, kindness, love for your fellow man and, above all faith in God. By doing so, you will be able to say at the end, as Paul said in the book of Timothy: ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which The Lord shall give me at that day’.
Thank you.”
Lisa got a standing ovation, and we got “rave reviews” from school administrators. I had tears in my eyes, and I wrote the speech! We had been told that most commencement speeches were more secular, but Lisa’s was a refreshing break from the tradition. It is, after all, a Christian school, and we thought we were writing something that was exactly what was expected. I guess we kind of stumbled on to something special.
High school behind us; Lisa and I were ready for our lives to “commence”
Next: Graduation, morning-after
Graduation, morning-after
We slept late the day after graduation. Eight A.M.! Talk about lazy slugs! I awoke, and whispered a simple prayer which I will now quote in its entirety: “Thank You, God.” He knows the reasons I thank Him; He’s God. Even a human looking at my circumstances would know that I am blessed beyond what anyone would dare expect. Failure to thank Him would be the sin of being “unthankful”. Yes, it is a sin. In II Timothy 3:2 it’s listed among a host of unsavory things such as blasphemy, kidnapping, and lust.
I rolled out of bed, made a stop at the bathroom, and went down to the dining room to find my parents and Aunt Katy all looking very serious, sitting at a clean table with no breakfast in sight.
My mom spoke first. “Honey, would you go wake up Lisa? We have something to discuss with y’all.” I glanced at their faces and saw no sign of a smile or indication that this discussion would be about something pleasant.
As I headed back to the bedroom, I wondered what rule we possibly could have broken. It was a bad start for the first day after graduation. I completed the nearly impossible task of getting Lisa out of bed, and we headed down to learn about our infraction and how we would be punished. We were both drawing a blank about any reason for this meeting.
“Girls,” my dad began, “The situation with the cars has been cumbersome this year, and will only get worse next year.” He stopped and thought a minute, then stood up and said, “Tell you what, let’s go to the porch to talk.”
We didn’t know why the porch would be better, but I could see us riding bicycles to school. The five of us headed for the porch. There in the driveway sat our graduation presents. It was two brand new silver Mercedes GLC Coupes!
I cried. Lisa was speechless.
I hugged my dad and Lisa joined in for a three-way hug. My dad told Lisa, “I love getting hugs, but your mom is responsible for your car.
She turned and hugged her mom. “Mom! I knew your business was good, but this is too much!”
“No. It’s not too much for my baby, that is … my ‘headed for college’ baby!”
I was still holding on to my dad. “Daddy, I want to thank you, mom, and God!”
“That’s my girl! Always remember that, without Him, none of this would be possible!”
We were given keys and started out for a drive, or two drives since we had to each drive our own car. I almost cried when I got into my car and found that it had every option available; no blank covers where the option you didn’t get would have been. The smell! My olfactory system was having a party! My car was so fine I almost hated to drive it for fear a bug would get on it and ruin the paint. But, I forced myself to drive it. You know, it’s a tough job but someone has to do it. I thought of a prayer that I heard on reruns of an old show for children called “Captain Kangaroo”.
Thank you, God, for the world so sweet.
Thank you, God, for the food we eat.
Thank you, God, for the birds that sing.
Thank you, God, for everything.
Amen.
I held back tears as I drove and thought about that simple children’s prayer. My prayers were not “lip service”. I was truly thankful. Since the show was filmed in Texas and the prayer was said by one of the children, lines 3 and 4 usually came out:
Thank you, God, for the birds that sang.
Thank you, God for everythang.
To me, that made it even sweeter.
Then, I turned on the radio, and Joe Walsh was singing, “Life’s Been Good”. For those of you who lead a sheltered life, the song is about a rocker who has made it big, and it describes the excesses typical of many rockers. It also hints about a feeling of dissatisfaction. I wasn’t concerned about the messages; subtle and otherwise; I just enjoyed the music.
OK, I went from praying one minute to rock music the next. Hey! I’m versatile! I lived my childhood as a boy and now I’m a girl.
As for the Window, my Dad asked Aunt Katy to hold off on publicity until they were able to make it “modular”, so it could be shipped unassembled, and put together with relative ease at the customer’s site. Aunt Katy and my mom worked to make sure that the customer would not have to any soldering or difficult wiring, etc. Lisa and I helped when we could, even though this was not as much fun as actually building a window like we did the previous summer.
We had both been accepted to several schools, but after all the research and spreadsheet analysis, we chose Rice University because it was very close. We would share a dorm room, so we had the option to stay there or come home any time. Even though the trip was short, the traffic during the week was such that we would probably only come home on the weekend. Lisa was fine with that, and I agreed that it was a good plan, even though I would probably get homesick being away from home more than a couple of days. Can’t help it … I’m a homebody!
Then, we found that we had flexibility with our schedules. We could schedule 50-minute classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or 75-minute classes on Tuesday and Thursday. Depending on class availability, we could have a full load being in class less than 12 hours a week. We would be allowed to sign up for up to 18 class hours a week, which was probably what we would do. Even with 18 hours, we were going to have a lot of free time. The college catalog said, “Two hours of study is expected for every class hour,” but we figured that number was greatly inflated, especially for brilliant students like Lisa and me. After learning about class hours, we realized that our dorm would probably see little use.
We got registered online. It was easy to get in almost classes together since we were taking a lot of basics and prerequisites. The first day of school was a bit of a shock, however. Far from the prim and proper environment of our private girls’ school, student … and a few of the teachers … were in varying forms of dress and undress. We hoped the education standards were much more stringent than the dress code. The uniforms in high school were simple; it was easy to choose an outfit, but it was nice to have a choice now. Lisa and I wore dresses mostly, and I was amazed at the college “men” who spent so much time girl watching. They hadn’t matured since 8th grade, apparently. I didn’t mind that much, as long as they adhered to the rule of “look, but don’t touch”.
On the first day of classes, however, I found one of my teachers totally unacceptable. Among other undesirable traits, his favorite word was “Goddamn”. How juvenile can he be? I was able to get a schedule change pretty easily because there are many choices when you’re taking prerequisites. After a couple of weeks, we settled into a routine. For P.E., I took out my excuse from the doctor from several months ago, and she accepted it! I just had to take some electives to make up the hours. Lisa was envious and tried to get my dad to write her an excuse since he is a doctor, but that was a non-starter. He doesn’t even have a prescription pad, and wouldn’t have done it anyway. He told me I should be ashamed to use an outdated paper like that. I told him that maybe I was a little ashamed, but I would get over it. I didn’t need P.E. I got enough exercise walking between classes on the huge Rice University campus.
So, Lisa got to be one of the runners along University Boulevard that the perverts ogle, while I sat in a course on astronomy one semester, and Psychology the next. Both classes were interesting, but I was surprised the amount of anatomy taught in the psychology class. I was sure I would have a lot more psychology during my schooling, maybe enough to understand Lisa one day.
One day we each took our own car because Lisa wanted to go to the library after classes. On the way home, I stopped to get a burger and went inside. That was rare for me; I usually preferred to take my food home. I wasn’t in a hurry, though, and I thought I’d take my time.
As I was eating, I felt someone watching me. I turned to look and … of all people … Bryan! (The bully from high school) He had looked away for a moment, and I quickly looked straight ahead, but I felt myself blushing. I could see out of the corner of my eye he was watching me again. Finally, he came over to my table.
Next: Tracy? Is that you?
Tracy? Is that you?
I, by chance, had met the bully from my former high school two-hundred miles away. Talk about coincidences! Even more incredible, he recognized me … kind of.
“Haven’t we met before?” he inquired.
“Wow, that’s an old line!” (OMG. When I was a boy, you wanted to kick my ass, now you’re gonna hit on me?)
“No! It’s not a line! I think I’ve seen your face before! Have you ever been to San Antonio?”
“Yeah, I had a couple of cousins who lived there.”
“What’s their names?”
“Lisa Rivers and Tracy Brooks.”
“Yeah! I’m Bryan Smith. I went to high school with both of ‘em! You look just like them! Actually, you look just like Tracy, but prettier. Lisa was beautiful! I see now that it runs in the family.” (You asshole! You’re not even worthy to make comments about the way either of them looks ... and I don’t need your compliments!)
“Were you a friend of Tracy’s?” (I knew the answer to that before I asked it! You wanted to beat the shit out of him, remember?)
“Nah. We hung out with different crowds.” (Yeah, you hung out with a group of thugs and you bullied kids like Tracy.)
“I don’t know that he hung out with a crowd. He was always really shy.”
“Yeah. Hey! You live around here?” (Yes, but you’re not going to get my address.)
“Not too far, Kirby Drive in River Oaks.”
“Oh. I’ll bet you’re a snob.”
“Yeah, guess so.” (Too much of a snob to have anything to do with you.)
“Oh, you admit it?”
“Well, I just think my family is better than most people.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yeah, I gotta go now.” I discarded my trash and left. I think he was too stunned to say anything. He probably knew it would be hopeless to ask for my phone number or address. He watched me from inside the restaurant as I got into my Mercedes and I saw him shake his head. Yes, I was rude, but it was nothing next to the way he had treated Tracy. He had that and more coming, but I really hoped I would never see him again. It was kind of cool with low humidity; unusual for that time of year. I opened the windows and felt the breeze as I drove. It felt good to get back into the nice weather after putting that asshole in his place. I was kind of like closing an unpleasant chapter in my life.
Then, something happened. It wasn’t something you could see. It was like a light switch clicking, I thought about him standing in the restaurant watching me leave and I felt something I never thought I would feel for Bryan … pity, and worse than that, forgiveness. I knew next to nothing about him, his family, or his life. I knew nothing of whatever he had to endure. Everyone has their trials and, I’m sure Bryan was no exception. Incidents in high school seemed ages ago. Suddenly, I felt shame that I was harboring resentment about things that happened so long ago. No matter what evil picture of Bryan I painted in my mind, I realized that he was just human. He had a mom and dad who loved him … or did he? So many problems arise when that question is not answered in the positive. So, with the pity and the questions about his life came forgiveness.
For most people, forgiveness is a conscious, sometimes difficult procedure. A person realizes she has wronged someone, agonizes over it, and goes to the person and (sometimes painfully) talks to the person about what occurred, and asks the person for forgiveness. That didn’t take long to write, but in real life, it can take years. Even after the “forgiveness”, the forgiver may struggle for even years longer to convince herself that she has actually forgiven. It doesn’t work that way for me; I forgive quickly and involuntarily. It’s mostly the ‘involuntarily’ part that upsets me.
“Crap,” I said out loud. Then, I thought, “Why can’t I just be normal and hold a grudge? How am I ever gonna make people pay when they mistreat me? ‘Oh, don’t worry; you can shit all over Sarah. She may threaten you, but she’s all bark and no bite.’” “Crap.” I said it again. I was angry at myself for forgiving Bryan, but it was done … Bryan was forgiven. All that was left was to tell him. How would I tell him? “My cousin, Tracy, says you bullied him in high school, but he wants you to know he forgives you?” No, I’ll just forgive him for the rude way I acted at our last meeting and leave it to Tracy talk to him about the past. Yes, I know there is no Tracy any more. Well … bygones.
I also had to straighten out the issue of my family being superior. That reflected on my whole family. Boy! I made a mess of things when I ran into Bryan!
I told Lisa about the encounter with Bryan, and she thought it was hilarious. I didn’t say anything to her about forgiveness, because she would think I was a wimp, but when I told my dad about it. He responded with Bible scripture.
“Honey, Matthew Chapter 5, verses 44 and 45 read, ‘But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.’”
“Well, Daddy, maybe God used me to send rain on Bryan.”
“You have it backward. Most people think ‘rain’ in that scripture means that God brings curses on both the just and the unjust. Remember the part of the world where Jesus came to earth was very arid and rain was a blessing. The scripture is saying that both the just and the unjust receive blessings.”
“Well, maybe it was the sun I brought down on him, because I’m pretty sure he was burning before I was finished with him.”
“So you should apologize to him.”
“I know, Daddy. Despite everything, I’ve forgiven him. I didn’t want to, but I can’t help it. I’ve tried many times to hold a grudge, but it’s just not in me!”
“Sarah, I’m so glad to hear you say that. I am so glad and proud right now! Remember, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. You forgave him even when you didn’t even want to! That’s the spirit working through you; a sign that God is working your life! Don’t ever lose that!”
“Ok, if I see him again I’ll apologize. It’s a big city. It was a real coincidence that I ran into him at all. It probably won’t happen again.”
“Just remember Proverbs, ‘Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.’”
That scripture hit home. I thought about it and, before I knew it, I was starting to leak a few tears. “You’re right, Daddy, I’m sorry. Thank you, Daddy!” I decided that, should I meet Bryan again, I would make things right. Maybe I would tell him my story. No … scratch that. The story could come back to bite me … maybe bring about “a fall,” especially if someone like Bryan has the information. I don’t think The Bible says you have to tell an enemy your life story. I decided I would apologize if I ran into Bryan again, and forget about it for now, since it was unlikely that I would see him again.
Why did my dad always bring up The Bible? Well, his straight-laced attitude was a big part of the reason for his success. That was undeniable, and it wasn’t long ago I was blubbering and telling him how proud of I was for the way he followed the straight and narrow path. I just wasn’t thinking just how narrow was that path. I made a vow to myself to follow that path as my daddy does, even with the multitude of temptations to stray.
After those considerations, I really wanted to talk to Bryan again. I felt I had been inexcusably cruel. I didn’t really know whether he was hitting on me. I knew little about him or his life. It was natural that he didn’t want to confess to bullying my “cousin”. I didn’t know what crosses he might have to bear. Also, it was a coincidence that I ran into him the first time, but he probably lived in the area where we met. I decided I would stop at that burger joint frequently to see if he was there. People change after high school. He’s probably not a bully, now. Maybe he’s a great guy. Who knows? We might … no … forget that! I figure I’ll tell him I know how he treated Tracy. He owes Tracy an apology and if he doesn’t know that, he hasn’t changed. I’ll still apologize to him for my rudeness, and without any indication of regret about Tracy on his part, that will be the end of it.
I thought about my dad’s reaction to my meeting with Bryan. I was proud of rudeness and arrogance until I talked with my dad about it. I was no longer proud and was ready to make things right. Once again, my dad showed how awesome he was. He indicated what he would do in the situation, and caused me to want to emulate him. This is called “discipline”. So many people confuse the words “discipline” and “punishment”. Punishment is what is resorted to when a subject rejects discipline. Discipline, based on the word disciple and it’s about setting an example to follow. It’s not just about “do as I say,” it’s about “do as I do”. What a wonderful example my father sets! I have never known him to lie, to break the law, or to harm anyone. He loved his family and my mom and was unquestionably devoted to us. He had his rules, but he made us understand that each and every rule was for the good of the individual and, by extension, for the good of the family. I hate to compare him to Lisa’s dad because the two were like different species.
My mom loved my dad and lived her life to make him a better man, and for the good of the family. When I think about it, my family actually was better than most; not inherently better, but better because my dad and my mom worked together to see that we were the best people possible. We weren’t snobs, as I led Bryan to believe, we were generous, caring people. My dad gave to charities, but he set up a company so that he could give anonymously. He didn’t take a deduction for charity on his income tax because he said that is what The Bible means when it says “don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing”. He was audited once by the IRS, and when the auditor looked into where a large amount of money went and saw that it went to charity anonymously, he complimented my father and put a quick end to the audit. He said looking for discrepancies in the records of someone like my dad would be an exercise in futility.
I asked him once why he went to all the trouble to give to charity without taking advantage of a tax break. He told me that The Bible says giving should be in secret and the Father would reward you openly. Everyone who knew about his giving, and that was only the family, his lawyer and his accountant, were amazed by the way he handled this. The accountant showed my dad the financial advantage of taking the tax deduction, trying in vain to get my dad to change. My dad courageously refused, and the accountant got angry and told my dad he was being foolish. Dad got a new accountant; a big blow to the accountant, but my dad said it wasn’t a good partnership if the two partners don’t agree on something so important. He also said that he refused to have an employee tell him he’s foolish.
By this time, Katy had finished the legal work and had a patent that protected my dad’s idea. He realized that people would have to see the window to appreciate it, but he didn’t want a parade passing through the house, so he rented a small storefront just outside of River Oaks. He also hired a person to show the window and a full-time security service. He opened it on a Monday at 9:00AM. At 10:30AM, Lisa and I decided to see how things were going. When we got close to the store, however, the traffic was too bad to get close. Apparently, there was a shooting or a fire in the area. We went back home and figured we’d go back after things settled down.
We went back at 2:00PM, and the traffic was worse. We asked a man on the street what all the excitement was about. “There’s a new store with some kind of special graphics where you can see in another state!”
“Oh my God, Sarah! This is all about your dad’s window … our dad’s window!”
“You’re right. We’re gonna have to train some people to build windows. If we don’t, we’ll never make it to college!” We parked and started walking, but we couldn’t get to the store. We called Aunt Katy’s cell phone and she let us in the back door. She was giving demonstrations of the window, while two new employees were compiling waiting lists of potential customers. She announced a web address to find more information and to get on a waiting list. That thinned the crowd out some. At 7pm she asked everyone to leave. The place was a mess, but Aunt Katy just locked up and left it. Whether we would open the next day was questionable. My dad had extra guards posted that night.
That evening, the whole family had a meeting about what to do. My dad decided to talk to the company he worked for to see if they could help. We had figured there would be demand for the product, but we had greatly underestimated that demand. The next day, my dad had someone go and remove the window and close down the store. Everything related to the window was on hold. Dad said his work with DNA was far more important than a window, regardless of how creative and entertaining that window.
The company had to send engineers, lawyers, and other people to inspect the window. Everyone was duly impressed and Dad worked out an awesome agreement regarding the window. A new company would be formed to handle franchising of the product and set up a production facility in Houston. Facilities would be set up in other locations should the need arise. The best part of the agreement was that my dad would be the 51% shareholder. He was free to devote full time to his real job without losing control of his creation. DNA research was his overriding interest and, I think he knew more about it than anyone in the world.
The pressure was off all of us in the family. Lisa and I were free to get educated, mom to return to her photography, and Aunt Katy to her online business or law. The window was awesome, but no longer having responsibility for it was like a weight lifted off all our shoulders.
Next: Apologizing
Note: For a look around the Brooks’ neighborhood, go to:
https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7507781,-95.4185729,3a,75y,0.79h,87.58t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sYcy5Ok82kBu9cFJ0OxuiYw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en&authuser=0
This link uses Google Maps – Street View. I assume that, if you use Google, you have Google maps. I’m not sure.
Apologizing
On my way home from school, I now made it a point to take the route past the fast-food restaurant where I had encountered Bryan. I would usually drive through the parking lot to see if he was inside. Yes, I was serious about making an apology. Then, one day, he was just walking into the place when I got there. I parked my car, said, “Here I go, making a fool of myself,” and headed inside. I sat down and waited while he ordered and waited for his food. He hadn’t seen me and he sat on the other side of the room. I walked over to him and asked, “Mind if I sit down?” He made a motion with his hand toward the other side of the table, so I sat. Of course, he didn’t stand when I approached his table. They’re not making gentlemen anymore. I would be a fool to expect it; especially from someone like Bryan.
“I want to talk to you about some things that I said the other day when I ran into you here.”
“Sure,” he said between bites. “What’s up?”
“I gave you a totally wrong impression about my family, and I want to apologize.”
“Apologize?”
“Yes. OK, it’s true, my family is well-to-do, but we’re not snobs. We try to be good people, and I was rude to you. That reflects, not just on me, but also my family. I really felt bad after we talked and I apologize.”
“Uh … apology accepted?’
“That sounded like a question.”
“That’s what I’m supposed to say, right?”
“Well, yes … if you accept my apology.”
“Sure. You know, I can’t get over how much you and your cousin, Tracy, look alike. You talk kind of the same, and you both use your hands when you talk.”
“In other words, he kind of had female mannerisms. Maybe you thought he was a faggot?”
His attitude changed. He dropped his chin just a little. “Yeah, I gave him a hard time. I guess it’s my turn to apologize. You see, my dad was giving me a hassle. He wanted me to be a big football star and make straight A’s so I could get a scholarship to a good college. He died of cancer before I graduated, and I let all that go.” At that point, he paused a bit. I could tell his emotions were near the surface, but I’m sure he had a lot of experience keeping them hidden. He continued, “After I graduated, my mom wanted to move back to Houston because this is where she grew up. She has to work because my dad didn’t have much life insurance.”
There it was in a nutshell; the trials and tribulations of Bryan Smith. It’s amazing how you view someone depending on what you know about them. In high school, he was a huge, menacing monster who could pick me up and snap my body in half like a toothpick and just might do that any time. The Bryan sitting across the table from me that day was a boy going into manhood with his personality negatively affected and his self-esteem all but destroyed by the stress his father caused, and the loss of his father who, despite possibly unrealistic expectations, was his guide through the morass of teen years. Bryan was suddenly freed of the only tether that had kept him on a path that would have brought him some degree of success in life. He probably felt relief when the pressure he had endured was suddenly released, but he was lacking the wisdom to make important decisions for himself, or the self-discipline to take the right path when that path involved sacrifice or time taken away from the hedonistic lifestyle he so wanted to pursue. Bryan’s dad obviously had his faults such as his desire to succeed vicariously through his son, but he most likely loved his son and wanted him to succeed and have a good life.
I saw things in a different light now. Tracy didn’t deserve to be bullied, but Bryan didn’t deserve to be put under undue stress by his dad or to lose his dad so early in his life. Chances are, his relationship with his dad would have improved with time, but he was deprived of the chance ever know. God had blessed me once again, by giving me a chance to offer a break to this downtrodden boy developing into a man.
“That sucks. Tell you what; are you pretty good on the computer?”
“Oh yeah, I can make a computer sing. I hacked….”
I held up my hand. “Stop.” I reached into my purse, got a pen and note pad, and wrote my email address. “Email your resume to this address. If you don’t have a resume, just email your name and a contact number. There is a big new company starting up right here in Houston. I’ll make sure you get a call, and if you’re really good on the computer, they’ll train you on their software. It could be a good deal for you.”
He took the note. “Great! Thanks! Tell Tracy I’m really sorry for the stuff I said.”
“Never say you’re sorry. Say ‘I apologize’.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. That’s what ‘they’ say. I guess it’s because if you say ‘I’m sorry’, people think it gives them insight into your character. The next time they see you, they’ll think, ‘There goes Bryan. He’s sorry’.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“I gotta go.”
“You’re not gonna eat?”
“No, I just stopped to talk to you.”
“Oh … well, tell Tracy I apologize, and thanks!” He held up the note I gave him.
“You’re welcome. Just don’t forget to send your name and a contact number to that email.”
“How many people work for that company now?”
“Very few … mostly my family. Lisa and I did the coding for one project ….”
“Lisa’s here?”
“Yeah, she’s here, but Tracy’s still in San Antonio. He’s taken boxing and karate and put on some weight. He said he’s gonna come to Houston and kick your ass.”
“I would say Tracy taking karate was impossible, but they put a man on the moon.”
“Tracy taking karate would be like putting a man on the moon?”
“More like putting a man on Pluto!”
“That’s cold.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“No, Pluto is cold.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it’s cold in the winter.”
I put my head in my hands, “Oh, God, give me strength!”
“Ha! Gotcha!” He flashed a smile of ‘victory’. It was a nice smile, and I felt something … what? I didn’t know, but I realized I’d better make my exit.
I smiled back and said, “I’ll tell Tracy to give you a break on the ass-kicking. I gotta go.”
“Hey, I’m honestly sorry … I mean, I apologize for the stuff I said to Tracy. I’m sure he’s a good kid and all. I acted like a jerk. Wow, I’m kinda embarrassed now. OK. Maybe I’ll see you around?”
“Yeah, bye.”
As I said, you never know what crosses someone has to bear, and Bryan’s home life drove that idea home to me. I left wiser and vowing to be more empathic and less judgmental in the future. I figured my dad would be proud. I also realized the truth in the saying, “It’s more blessed to give than to receive.”
Also, I told myself that any feelings I have for Bryan were pity; nothing more. I don’t like guys, and I don’t want a mutiny committed by my hormones and emotions. I wondered if my body was craving a baby without my knowledge. I realized that for a female, logic and hormones are at odds, sometimes negotiating as it were behind closed doors, with logic working with a handicap, and the result of those negotiations would be something I would be nearly powerless to overrule. So maybe my criticism of men for their subjugation to testosterone was a bit hypocritical.
Next: Lisa meets someone
Lisa meets someone
Hi! Lisa here. I’m taking over for a bit, because this part of the story is really not about Sarah, and if she told it, she would probably have to say, “Well, I guess you had to be there.” Or “… at least that’s what Lisa says”. So, since I was there, I will tell the story.
Sarah called this chapter, “Lisa meets someone”. What!? How about “Lisa meets a man she would have been looking for all her life, but she didn’t know he existed?” It was love at first sight, but not like you probably think, and I’m not sexually attracted to him at all. That requires a lot of explanation, doesn’t it? Well, here we go!
I woke up one morning and, as I came to the part of my obsessive-compulsive routine that ordered me to go to the kitchen and see what’s for breakfast, I found my mom sitting alone at an empty table. She said, “Come sit down, Honey, I want to talk to you about something.”
I was ready to deny anything and everything. “Whatever you heard about me and that boy, it’s not true.”
My mom smiled and said, “I know it’s not true, and there’s not even a boy, is there?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, let’s lay jokes aside. This is serious. I have some things to show you.”
My heart sank. “It has to be something bad.”
“I don’t think so. It depends on how you look at it. Here is the first item. I have a friend in Dallas that has been sending me stuff on this subject whenever she sees something. This is the most recent item she sent.” She handed me a newspaper clipping.
It was an obituary for Steven Owen Parker from the previous year. “Oh! He’s d….” I studied the picture. He looked happy, and I wondered if he ever got the son he so wanted. As much as I hated the man a tear still formed in my eye. I sniffed. No! Don’t show any emotion over this man! Damn! Why am I like this? “This was a year ago. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I was afraid it would just open old wounds. You were devastated from the rejection you felt when the only father you had ever known so callously left us. But let me fill you in on the rest of the story. Your dad and I hadn’t been married too long before he began to abuse drugs and alcohol. He was never home. There was a really nice guy named Joseph at the law firm for which I worked. We got to be good friends … then better friends. Sometimes, something happens when a man and a woman get to be too friendly. That ‘something’ happened and I got pregnant.
“I certainly couldn’t tell Steve that the baby might not be his. It would have killed him, but not before he killed me. I also decided to keep it from Joseph because he would have accepted responsibility, but I felt it was my fault. You know, the woman was supposed to be the one to make sure something like this didn’t happen … at least, that was the way it was looked upon back in those days. I resigned from the firm citing ‘personal reasons’. Your ‘father’ (She held her hands up to make quotes) was excited. He thought I quit my job because I was being a dutiful wife, and I would bear him a boy, apparently thinking he couldn’t father a daughter. When you were born, he was disappointed, but he apparently thought that a girl could be molded into a reasonable facsimile of a boy and taught, or forced, to take an interest in sports and other ‘boy’ things.
“When I left the law firm, I stole a hairbrush from Joseph’s desk. I used hair from the brush and some hair from Steve to have tests done. Joseph Rivers is your father.”
I just sat there for a few seconds with my mouth open; trying to take in all this new data and process it. I was so stunned that I said, “That means Steve is not my father!” That was obvious, of course, but I was disoriented at this point. Maybe I needed to convince myself. Now that I was convinced, I could react. “Oh, mom, that’s the best news I’ve heard since … forever ago! So that solves the mystery of my last name! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“He got married and I didn’t want to take a chance on interfering with his marriage because you would probably try to find him and contact him. If he didn’t want to see you, that would be another rejection. Recently, however, he got a divorce. I called him and told him he had a daughter. After I told him, he didn’t say anything. I didn’t hear anything on the phone, and I thought he had hung up on me, but apparently, he was just picking himself off the floor. He was overjoyed and wants to meet you.”
Only then did the enormity of this hit me. Tears started flowing, and my mom embraced me and held me as I cried the final tears about the loss of my dad years ago and the pain of being rejected just because I wasn’t a boy. Then, there were new tears; tears of joy because the ordeal was over. I had carried the burden of pain, loss, and rejection for many years. Regardless of what was happening in my life; good times or bad times; this remnant of past injuries lurked just beneath the surface. I had tried, crying it out, trying to forget, or laughing it off. I pulled a tarp of jokes and laughter over the undeserved cruelty visited upon me by someone who should have given me love and security. Suddenly, the nightmare was over. As you can imagine, it was a considerable time before I regained my composure. When I finally felt like the tears were finished for a time, I was able to tell my mom, “It’s so good to know I don’t have ‘loser’ blood in my veins. This changes so much! Can you tell me more about him?”
“Well, he’s an attorney working for one of the biggest law firms in Houston. He’s smarter and better looking than Steve. It’s just a shame I married Steve before I met Joseph. I assume you want to meet him?”
“Are you kidding? I want to meet him right now!”
“Well, I have a tentative dinner date for the three of us tonight at Floyd’s.”
I hugged my mom. “Oh, thank you, mom, for screwing around on Steve!”
“That’s the most unusual ‘thank you’ I’ve ever received. You can’t imagine how hard it was to keep this to myself for all these years while you pined away for a worthless bastard you thought was your father.”
“Wow. This is better than a birthday and Christmas and all other holidays combined! I better start picking out something to wear. I wonder if I look like him. Do I look like him, Mom?”
Mom smiled, “Maybe you resemble him a little in the face. The rest of you looks more like me.”
“Yeah, I would hope so. Do you have pictures?”
“I have some clippings from newspapers over the years. I knew that someday you would have to know about this, and you would ask for pictures. I’ll get them.”
She had the scrapbook handy in a kitchen cabinet, figuring she would need it after this meeting. I opened it to the first page. There he was … my father!
“Steve was actually trying to raise you as a boy. You probably remember that he tried to get you interested in sports. Eventually, he gave up on that and he became convinced that girls and women are not much use. When I got a divorce, I took my maiden name back and had yours changed to ‘Rivers’. Only James, Kim, and I know about this. Well, you and Joseph know now. It was difficult keeping this from you for so long, and I apologize, but I thought it was necessary. I thought if you had even a clue that Steve was not your father, you would start investigating and not stop until you contacted your real father. ”
“You’re right about that. Mom, that is so cool. You must have had an idea, right … I mean about who was the real father?”
“Female intuition. So, you want to stick with ‘Rivers’, or change to ‘Brooks’?”
“Mom, I’ll have to think about that. That’s a choice between two great alternatives! Wow again! This is wonderful. I don’t have to worry about following in loser footsteps. I worried about that because addiction is a genetic trait.”
“That’s true, but you’ve seen the results. I think you would avoid that at all costs!”
“You’re right about that too, mom!” I looked back at the scrapbook. Handsome doesn’t begin to describe him! He was stunning! (Can you say a guy is ‘stunning’?) I turned the pages and saw article and pictures about court cases and important meetings with important people. The pictures were in chronological order, and I could see that as time passed, his hair began to show a little gray, sometimes called ‘salt and pepper’, and he was even more beautiful! (Yes, beautiful!) I looked at my mom. “Oh, yeah, he’s divorced!”
“Oh, no, don’t get too far ahead!”
“Yeah, that would be just too perfect!”
It was my turn to tantalize Sarah with news. I asked her to help me prepare for a special dinner, and I revealed details to her in a painfully slow way. I went over the story about my parents and she sat mesmerized. When I finished, she hugged me as tears flowed from her eyes.
“Lisa, Steve was the one blemish on our family. He’s out, and I’m glad. We’re now as near perfect a family as you can get.”
“Yeah … near perfect. Let’s not mention the ‘A’ word.”
“What word is that?”
“Adultery.”
“Oh, yeah. What? I’ve heard the word, but I’m not sure about the meaning. It probably means ‘acting responsibly’ … like an adult. Yeah, that’s it!”
“Well, the ‘A’ word worked out for me. Ironic, ain’t it?”
“Ain’t it, though? Let’s pick out some clothes for you.”
We picked out a dress that wasn’t too tight and came to just above my knee. It was well-fitted and blue with tiny bits of something similar to glitter. We pick out some jewelry and some 3” heels. We were happy with our choices. My mom, of course, had veto power, but we saw no reason she should use it. It was only 10 AM, and I had all day to nervously wait. All day, I went over in my head what I would say. I wondered if I would faint. About 3 hours before the dinner date, I showered, fixed my hair, and got dressed.
We got in my mom’s car and headed to Floyd’s. We got there about 20 minutes early. I was more nervous now than I had been all day. Right on time, he arrived. The waiter showed him to our table, and now I knew I was gonna faint. Of all the ways I could resemble him, the most striking resemblance was our eyes. I looked into his eyes and it was almost like looking into a mirror! I held out my hand and he kissed it! That was good … I always thought it was odd for a man and a woman to shake hands. We all sat down, and he said, “Well, how are you ladies tonight?”
I opened my mouth to say, “Fine.” And my voice cracked. Then the tears started to flow. I tried to hide my face in my napkin. When I couldn’t stop crying, my mom suggested we go to the ladies room. Once we got in the ladies room I started hyperventilating. We didn’t have a bag, so I put both my hands over my face to try to cut some oxygen and calm down. I finally got better. “Now I’m embarrassed,” I told my mom.
“No need to be, Honey. He understands that this is a huge thing for you. It is for all of us. Let’s go back to the table. Don’t try to talk until you feel like you can without crying. OK?”
“OK.”
We went back to the table and my dad stood up when he saw us approaching and sat back down after we sat. What a gentleman! He began to reassure me. “Honey, I understand that this is really a big deal for you. This situation deals with who you are. Regardless of what some people say, who your parents are makes a big difference. It’s a very big deal to me, also. Your mom has told me a lot about you, and I want you to know I’m glad to have a son and two daughters. I’m glad to have you for sec... first daughter! You’re smart and very beautiful. I hope you’re happy about this too.”
A son and two daughters? I have a sister and a brother? This just gets better and better! I tried to speak, but couldn’t. I motioned to my mom to speak for me.
“She was happy to learn that Steve is not her father, and she was elated when I told her about you. Maybe before our meal is over, she will be able to speak.”
I nodded my agreement to my mother’s words. My father just smiled. I saw that I had his smile. He was so good looking that it was hard to look away from him. I finally regained my composure enough to speak a little, but I was unable to eat a bite. I thought about what Sarah had said about being “blessed”. She was right. Despite the questionable circumstances, I finally had a real father; a father with (maybe a tiny bit flawed) character. I was blessed and at peace. I was having dinner with both my parents. As I thought about this, the tears filled my eyes again. I dabbed the tears with my napkin and held on. Someone watching me would think I was miserable, but it was the happiest day of my life. I had gained a father, a sister, and a brother. I was elated, but I was so exhausted from the emotion, that I was almost glad when the meal was over. I went home and fell into bed. I was so tired, I think I fell asleep in mid-air during the fall, and I slept till the room was brightly lit by the mid-morning sun. I didn’t hear Sarah come to bed or get up. I awoke rested and happy.
Next: A cure for pestilence and an argument for prohibition
A cure for pestilence and an argument for prohibition
Hi. It’s Sarah again. You would probably know soon anyway, due to the superior quality of my writing. Also – with the bestest gramer and gratest speling in the world. Seriously the whole family was so happy about Lisa’s news! She came home exhausted after dinner, so I didn’t ask her how it went. I also got up quietly the next morning and let her sleep late.
But I realized that Lisa and I now had a growing problem at school with which to deal.
It was inevitable. Guys were taking an interest in both Lisa and me. Some just looked. Some looked too long; known as “leering”. Some tried to start a conversation, as though they thought we might have something interesting to say. Maybe we had some profound insights into the meaning of life. Yeah, that’s it. They were after stimulating dialog. It’s logical, the prettier a girl is, the more cerebral her interests are likely to be. Lisa and I both knew that they wanted to hear one word … “yes”. They never got far enough to ask the question (or even imply the suggestion) they wanted answered by that word. Of course, they were wasting their time. Lisa was drifting toward lesbianism more by the day, and I had seen enough naked males to want no part of them. Male bodies may be good for some things, but they were not made to look at. I may be wrong, but … no, I’m not wrong.
So, I approached my problem solver. “Lisa, is there some way we can head off the time-wasting conversations with these horny guys? It’s getting to be a real pain.”
“I have an idea. I’ll bring you something tomorrow that will fend them off kind of like garlic fends off a vampire.”
Before school the next day, she told me, “Hold out your left hand.” I held my hand out and she slipped an engagement ring on my finger, saying, “With this ring….” She had a similar ring on her finger. “We’re all set! We both now have finances ... somewhere. We’ve each set a date … sometime. Additional details are nobody’s business. I can guarantee that no guys will come up to either of us and ask, ‘Oh, when‘s the date?’ Girls might, and my answer will be in the future. I think some of them are too stupid to realize that it has to be in the future; it can’t be in the past! By the way, I’m glad we’re cousins, except for this one thing. Otherwise, I would buy you a real ring … or maybe you would do the ring buying.”
“Well, we’re cousins, but one of us is not likely to impregnate the other, so we won’t have inbred children. Anyway, problem solved!” I stretched out my left arm, held up my hand and said, “Looka dat rock!” It wasn’t really all that big. Lisa didn’t want something so big that people would think they were fake. They were fake of course, but they were good fakes.
After a few seconds, Lisa tilted her head put her hand up to her ear as if I had said something she didn’t almost couldn’t hear. “What? Oh, yeah, you’re right about that!”
“Right about what?”
“Oh, I thought you said I’m a genius.”
“Oh, right. I didn’t think I had to say that, but if you need to hear it, Lisa, you’re a genius!”
“Why thank you! I like a person who’s honest and so quick with a compliment!”
“Well, thank you for bringing the ring from my finance. He’s in the army, in Uberiquitzan.”
“I’m gonna find a place on the map that no one’s ever heard of. That’s where my finance is fighting for world peace. I think he flies a plane, though, so he’s in the Navy.”
“Yeah, mine’s on a boat, so he’s in the Air Force. We are so knowledgeable about the services because we’re future wives of servicemen. Gee, Lisa, are you pining away for your guy?”
“Sure! I pine every chance I get.”
“Yeah, me too, I’m a real piner.”
“Now we’re like Heidi; remember her? She supposedly had a boyfriend who was in the Army.”
“Yeah, ‘Hefty Heidi’. She weighed about 300 lbs. She had one ragged picture of her ‘boyfriend’. She called him her ‘fiance’. What happened to her?”
“I guess her fiancé came home, swept her off her feet, and took her away.”
“That had to be one strong fiancé. Oops. We better stop gossiping. God’s gonna get us”
We ceased our gossip hopefully in time to avoid God’s wrath … or did we?
It felt good that a lot of the problems, conflicts, strife, wars, and rumors of wars, etc. had been settled, quelled, or at least stamped down temporarily. I felt like our family had achieved a form of homeostasis. Things were pretty peaceful, and I hoped nothing would happen to burst our little bubble of happiness. I was mulling this over as I ordered a burger at the place I ran into Bryan. I thought about him and wondered how he was doing. I made a mental note to see if was working on the window. I hoped he was because I think he’s a lot smarter than he pretends. I wondered why someone would “dumb down” like that. Some girls do it because they think a guy likes a girl that, presumably, he can take advantage of. I wouldn’t know why a guy would do it, unless it was to be in keeping with his “dumb jock” image. I sat facing the freeway, where traffic had come to a standstill. I was glad to be in a cool restaurant instead of sitting in traffic. As I sat casually watching, a large tanker truck was coming up behind the line of stopped cars doing at least 60 MPH (96.56 KPH). He was making no attempt to stop or even slow down. I watched in horror as the big truck ran right over and crushed the small white car at the back of the line. It went so far, it completely covered the white car and half of the car in front of it. The moment was surreal! This can’t be happening! The person in the white car was dead for certain. Strangely, I thought of the words the reporter cried when the “Hindenberg” exploded, “Oh, the humanity!”
Right there in the restaurant, I cried. There were other people in the restaurant, but I was only vaguely aware of them or what they were saying or doing. Within seconds, sirens were screaming from every direction and a crowd of “looky-loos” was gathering. Traffic in the area would now get 10 times worse than before. TxDOT (Texas Department of Transportation) shuts down the whole freeway when there is a fatality. I quickly got into my car and began a circuitous route around the crowds and traffic, taking side roads and service roads to make my way home. I had just seen someone die. It wasn’t up close, but it was the closest I had ever come to death. I never knew the effect it would have on me. I wanted to go home and see the people I love and I wanted to hug them. That was something the person in the white car would never do again and his or her loved ones were soon to get a telephone call or a knock on the door that they will never forget.
I wound around until I got out of the area and headed straight for home. I even sped my car up when I got in our driveway; no speed limit. I ran into what seemed to be an empty house even though there were cars outside. “Mom? Aunt Katy? Dad? Lisa?” Some of them almost certainly weren’t there, but I didn’t want to miss anybody. I needed somebody!
“Sarah?” My mom came walking toward the front of the house.
I ran to hug her. I put my head on her shoulders and sobbed.
“Honey, what is it? Did you get in a wreck?”
I shook my head to indicate “No.” Now I was hyperventilating. Mom got me a paper bag to breathe into. After a few seconds, I was somewhat recovered.
“Mom, come see!” I went into the den and she followed. I turned on the TV and put it on the local news station. There was an advertisement which featured a slow-motion video of a woman shaking her head from side to side. Her hair was beautiful, and the slow-motion made it look even more so.
“OK, Honey, this can’t be about shampoo.”
“No, Mom! Look!”
The commercial was finished and the news was back on.
In breaking news here on Channel 13, There has been a major accident very near our ABC13 studios. Jessica Willey is on the scene and files this report.
Yes, Tom, here on Highway 59 at Buffalo Speedway, an 18 wheel tanker truck plowed into a line of cars which were at stopped due to road construction. The last car in line was a white subcompact car, and it got the worst of it. You can see that the 18 wheeler ran completely over the car and most of the car in front of it. This just happened in the last few minutes and there is no word yet on any fatalities. We’ll give you updates as we receive more information. Back to you, Tom.
Video was showing while the reporter talked. It was close to the wreckage, but avoided anything graphic. The accident was as bad as I thought, and I realized then that there was probably more than one death.
Keep it here on ABC13. We’ll give you updates on this and other stories.
The station went back to yet another commercial.
My mom queried me, “Was it someone you know?”
“No, Mom, but I saw it happen! It was terrible! Whoever was in that white car is dead. There’s no way they could have lived.” The tears started to flow again,
“Oh, my tender-hearted little girl.” She wrapped me up in a hug. “I love you and your tender heart! You have no idea who it was?”
I sobbed. “No, ma’am, but it was a human being! It was just … awful! Can I call Dad?”
“Tell you what; text your dad and ask him to call you if he has time.”
“OK.”
I texted my dad, “Call Sarah?” He would know that the question mark meant “when you get a chance”. It had told him ahead of time not to interrupt anything important. Sometimes, he called right back, sometimes it took hours, but he always called back.
This time he called almost immediately. “Sarah? What’s up?”
“Oh, Daddy, I just saw the most horrible thing!” I held back my tears as I told my dad the story. He advised me to get a shower and go to bed early.
When I got off the phone, I asked, “Where are Lisa and Aunt Katy?”
“They’re shopping.” Suddenly, she saw the anxiety in my eyes. “OK! Sarah, don’t start imagining things!”
“Well, I noticed the white car, but I didn’t pay any attention to what the other car looked like. Dad told me to go to bed early, but I can’t do that now!” As I talked, I punched in Lisa’s number. I heard her phone ring in the next room. She had forgotten to bring it with her. I tried Aunt Katy’s phone and it rang several times and went to voice mail. I left a message for her to ‘Please call’, then hung up. I looked at my mom with the tears gathering. “Oh, Mom, I can’t handle it.” She held her hands out and I went to her to receive her protection and solace. I sobbed again. Here I was sobbing over someone who probably had her ringer turned off, but I couldn’t go to bed without knowing my aunt and my cousin were OK.
“Honey, there are millions of people in this city. Please don’t make up things in your mind. At a time like this, your vivid imagination is your worst enemy. I’ll text Katy we urgently need her to call. Lay down on the couch and please watch something besides the news.”
“I want to watch the news to see what kind of car it was! If it’s a silver SUV I … I don’t know what I’ll do!”
“I’ll sit here with you and leave the news on to see if we get any more information.. Rest a little.”
“Thank you, Mom. Mom?”
“Yes, Honey?”
“I love you!”
“Honey, I love you more than tongue can tell.”
I lay on the couch listening to the drivel on television. When I closed my eyes, I could see over and over a tanker truck going 60 MPH and crashing into stopped cars. Could I see that second car? I opened my eyes slightly and squinted, as if it would help me see more detail of the scene. Maybe if I got hypnotized? Silly thought. I would know the whole story tomorrow morning. I wanted to know now! How ironic, if Lisa saw it, she could probably tell us the year, make and model of the car. I got a sick feeling thinking that my aunt and my cousin might have been hurt, or even killed! Wait … the next-of-kin have to be notified. How will they find us? Should we call the police station and say … what? … we might be next-of-kin to someone in that big wreck? No, they would find Katy’s and Lisa’s identification on their … Oh, God, I need You now! We all need you! Why are they so late? Oh, it’s only 7:15 PM. Thousands of thoughts swirled in my brain. I thought I would never go to sleep but, despite my emotional overload, I went to sleep on the couch. Deep, desperately needed sleep to prepare me for bad news.
Next: The bad news
The bad news
“Sarah? Sarah?”
Someone was shaking my arm. I opened my eyes just a slit. “Lisa!!!” I grabbed her and hugged her like she would try to escape, then released my hold and held her at arm’s length, “Oh, Lisa, I love you. Where is Aunt Katy?” Apparently, I looked desperate.
Lisa was calm. How could she be so calm at a time like this? “She’s right there in the kitchen. What on earth is the problem?”
My mom walked in from the back of the house. “She saw a bad wreck on the freeway and when y’all were a little late and she couldn’t get hold of y’all on the cell phones, she panicked.”
“Oh, I think my phone is up in my room,” Aunt Katy said.
“I left mine here, too,” volunteered Lisa.
I was relieved, but I thought it was time for some discipline. “Please, never never never leave your phones again. Please!!!”
Lisa smiled, “I think what you’re saying is that you want us to make sure we don’t leave our cell phones again.”
“Lisa! I’m serious! I thought y’all were dead!”
“She’s serious, she was so scared … you would not believe! For her sake and mine don’t ever leave your phones again. I tried to comfort her, but I began to have my doubts when it got to be late.”
“OK,” Aunt Katy agreed. “No cell phone … we come right back and get them!”
“Please!” I reiterated.
My mom had turned the TV off when I went to sleep, so she turned it back on. “It’s ten PM. Let’s see if there’s any news about the accident.”
I stood up to go to the bathroom.
“ … and Bryan Kenneth Smith, age 20, (his graduation picture showed on the screen) of Houston was pronounced dead at the scene when a truck carrying a load of crude oil plowed into ….”
“No! No! No!” My legs went numb and I sank to my knees and folded to the floor in a near fetal position, and began sobbing. “No, please God! He was … he was … he was….”
“A jerk?” Lisa queried.
I couldn’t answer. I sobbed.
Lisa was confused. “Sarah, isn’t this the Bryan we went to school with … the Bryan that was a bully?”
I continued to sob. I didn’t want to answer. When I thought about it, the answer was “no”. This was not the Bryan that was a bully. This was the little boy who lost his dad. This was the kid who might have had a chance to change his circumstances by going to work for a startup company that needed his programming skills. For the first time in his life, he would be accomplishing something. He could have helped his mom, who was most likely struggling to put food on the table. What would she do now? Oh, she would get help. I would prevail upon my daddy to help her, but that wouldn’t bring her son back. She lost her husband, and now she had lost her son. She would live with the pain of loss the rest of her days. I didn’t know her, but I figured she never hurt anybody in her life. She must be a saint to have put up with Bryan’s dad. She probably had to be a saint to put up with Bryan. Now, I’m sure she would put up with just about anything to have him back. It’s an amazing story of how he went from being my worst enemy, with his arrogance, harassing, and bullying, to a guy I’m now mourning on my knees in my living room. With everything I had gone through medically and all my other life experiences, I thought I was pretty smart, and when I heard someone say, “It goes to show you never can tell.” I thought, “What a stupid saying! The stupid saying was not so stupid now. Another thing came to mind that my dad had read from the Bible, “For now we see through a glass, darkly”. If Bryan had died during high school at the height of his bullying, I would have said, “Good! He had it coming!” I’m human, therefore I see through a very dark glass with tunnel vision at that. God knew better than to give me or any other human the power over who lives and who dies. But, why now? Bryan was getting it together. He was getting his priorities straight and was on his way to becoming a contributing member of society. I guess the answer to that is, “for now we see through a glass, darkly.”
I realized something else. I had told myself that my feelings for Bryan were pity, and nothing more. Why did I tell myself that? I had to, because I was falling in love with him! I knew it back then, but I couldn’t allow it to happen. I remembered the way he smiled the last time I saw him. It was a beautiful smile … a smile that was gone forever. I had told myself that what I felt that day was just pity because I couldn’t allow it to be love. But if I hadn’t left in such a hurry the last time we talked, maybe things would have been different. One little change in the present can make a big change in the future, so maybe he wouldn’t have been there on that freeway. Maybe he would have been in that burger joint with me. Maybe we would have been enjoying our food and our conversation; chatting about trivial things … slowly falling in love? Maybe I would have pointed and said, “Bryan! Look at that truck! Oh my God … he gonna ….” Bryan would turn around and probably said something like, “Oh, shit!” Boys usually have a limited vocabulary. Now, I wish he were back … limited vocabulary and all. God, why do we have to experience time in only one direction? Wouldn’t it be better if we could go back and make just slight adjustments? It would be better for us, and the changes we would make would likely please God. They would be good changes, and “God is good.”
I was still on the floor on my knees, and I realized Lisa was next to me … holding me … comforting me. I remember my previous fears that she might have been killed. It was a big consolation, but it didn’t help the poor little boy and his mom. The news was still on, but I hadn’t heard anything since they said Bryan’s name. I only found out later that two people in the car in front of Bryan were also killed. The truck driver was unharmed. His blood-alcohol was multiple times the legal limit. After his truck stopped, he sat in the cab of his truck atop the wreckage and carnage he had caused and fell asleep! He didn’t wake up until the police dragged him out of the cab. It made me wonder what was so bad about prohibition. He would probably spend 20 years behind bars for killing 3 people, and he probably won’t remember doing it. Yeah … only 20 years or so; one year for every year Bryan lived. It could even be a lot less depending on which judge and lawyers are involved. Gotta love our legal system. If Lisa winds up defending someone like that, I’ll disown her.
It had been an exhausting day. I thought about the day’s events. Just that morning, Lisa and I were putting on engagement rings to keep the men away, and joking about it. Now, the one man that maybe, just maybe I didn’t really want to keep away from me was dead, and I was mourning the loss; not only that, I was mourning the loss his mom suffered.
It goes to show you never can tell.
Next: No weddings and a funeral
No weddings and a funeral
My whole family attended Bryan’s funeral. We heard that, because his mom was so lacking funds, an anonymous donor had paid for the funeral, casket, and graveyard plot. I didn’t have to ask who that donor was; because there was only one person I knew who did such things anonymously. I decided to wait a bit to ask my dad to help Bryan’s mom any more financially.
Funerals are hardly happy affairs but, as in this case, when the person is so young, it’s especially heart-wrenching. Not only is the person being mourned, but the fact that he never really got a chance to live a full life is painful beyond belief. Also, the fact that his death could have been prevented so easily had one person who had contact with the truck driver acted responsibly. A truck driver thoughtlessly got behind the wheel of a huge truck when he was so inebriated he probably stumbled getting to the cab. No one saw a drunk getting behind the wheel? Did the bar employees let him wobble out of their establishment knowing he was a truck driver and would likely drive in his state of inebriation? Did someone in the parking lot see him shuffle around looking for his truck, then fumble for his keys? Did these people shrug their shoulders and say to themselves, “None of my business,” then proceed with what was their business; getting drunk themselves? The case would be in the courts for a long time. The moral responsibility belonged to the truck driver and the person or persons who continued to serve the man alcohol after it was clear that he was intoxicated; the legal responsibility would probably be the “deep pockets” of his or her employer and, by extension, their insurance company. There would probably be a cash settlement in the millions. That doesn’t mean that Bryan’s mom would be a millionaire. A settlement like that would go through a lot of sticky fingers before she got anything. As I said, that’s years away and she might not even still be around. The heartache brought on her by all of this would most likely shorten her life, and unless she had a will, her part of the settlement would probably go to the state. I can’t think of anyone less deserving than the State of Texas.
I think I cried more than some of the family members. Afterward, I wanted to go to the cemetery so Lisa stayed with me and the rest of our family went home. We got in Lisa’s car in line and slowly, somberly drove from the church to the cemetery. The weather was appropriately dreary and threatening rain any minute. The casket was placed under an open tent, along with chairs for Bryan’s family, and the casket was opened for the last time. This set off a crying spell for his mom. She knew that this was the last time she would ever see his face. I don’t know how she managed, it was almost more than I could handle. The preacher said a few words to everyone, then said a prayer and talked a little with Bryan’s mom and gave her a flower. Then they escorted her away. They knew she couldn’t handle the casket being closed forever and lowered into the ground. She was brought back to a waiting car, supported by two strong men holding her arms. Still, she stumbled. She didn’t want to leave. She would just as soon be put into the ground with her son. I had intended to speak to her, but I decided that she wouldn’t remember a lot of the details of this day. Maybe I would contact her later if it was proper. I would ask Dad; he would know.
After this terrible experience I’m a little older, but a lot wiser and less carefree. The changes I’ve undergone will never be undone, and when I’m old, there will be things events from my youth I will have forgotten, but the tragic and unnecessary death of Bryan I will always remember. Two experiences are universal for mortals: birth and death. Generally, we celebrate birth and mourn death, but there are cases where the reverse is true. There are those who believe we should mourn a birth because a human is born into a world where pain, suffering, and heartache are so prevalent. Looking into the eyes of a baby, you can’t know what pain he or she will endure, but you can know it’s likely that this person’s life will be punctuated with pain and riddled with unpleasantness. Conversely, some believe death should be viewed as a release from all those evils.
I spoke of mourning that Bryan did not get a chance to really experience life, but he did experience 20 years on earth. Maybe that was God’s plan, but that is difficult to accept. Was it God’s plan that the truck driver live the rest of his life in prison; that Bryan’s mother live a lonely life for the rest of her days?; that Bryan be taken from life just when he was beginning to be a productive person and learning that life could be joyful? It’s unlikely that anyone close to this disaster would ever see any good come of it. When I thought that, I realized that I might be the one person who gained anything from Bryan’s death. I gained knowledge and wisdom. I learned not to judge people based on limited information, and I learned about forgiveness. Of course, I’m just one person that Bryan’s life touched. I have no way of knowing all the things he did or all the lives he touched. Once again, I see through a glass, darkly.
Lisa drove us home. I sat silently, feeling her glances and her concern about whether I was “OK”. Apparently, she didn’t want to say something so cliché, so we rode in silence. Life goes on. I tried to think what stage of grief I was in. I was past denial, and I had experienced enough anger to last me a while. The next stage was bargaining, but I had no bargains to make and nothing with which to bargain. The depression stage I don’t need, so that leaves acceptance. I guess I’m accepting. What else can I do … reject? No … Bryan is dead. It’s not fair, but he’s dead. I lay across my bed to think. Then I remembered my intention to check if he had got a job working on the window. I had forwarded his resume to the hiring supervisor with instructions that he was to be hired. (It’s great to be the daughter of the boss.) I clicked on my cell phone to call the hiring supervisor.
“This is Susan Wilkenson.”
“Susan, this is Sarah Brooks. I sent you some information on a Bryan Smith for hiring. Did anything happen there?”
“Yes, he’s been working here. He hasn’t been in for a few days and I can’t get hold of him. I don’t know what’s going on!”
“Tell me, was he a good programmer?”
“He’s one of the best I’ve ever seen! Wait, what do you mean ‘was’? Has something happened?”
“Well, Susan, I guess you had no way of knowing. Bryan is dead.”
“No! He’s only like 19 or 20 years old! What happened?”
“Did you see a report on TV a few days ago about a huge wreck on Highway 59 … an 18 wheeler plowed into the back of some stalled cars?”
“Yeah, that was awful!”
“Bryan’s car was at the end of that line. His funeral was today.”
“Oh no! Sarah, he was such a nice guy, a hard worker, and a wonderful programmer!”
“Yeah, I’m sure he was all those. I had just got to know him.”
“Were you two dating?”
“No. Not yet. Not ever, now.”
“Oh, Sarah, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it! He was so sweet … and that smile!”
“Yeah, I know about that smile.”
“Oh … I know what that means. Sarah, I’m so sorry! We’ll really miss him!”
“Yeah, so will I. Well, I’m sure you have paperwork to do to reduce the workforce by one person. I hope he signed up for life insurance through the company. His mom can use all the help she can get.”
“I’ll look into it. I’m sure something can be done.”
“Nothing illegal.”
“Oh, no, of course not. Your dad gives a speech to every new employee about playing it straight!”
“Thanks, Susan. If I meet any more great programmers, I’ll send them your way.”
“Thanks, Sarah. Bye.”
That was it. The more I learned about Bryan, the more it seemed that his death could not be a part of God’s plan. Still, it was good to know that Bryan had found a job doing something he loved, even though he only got to do it for a short time.
I decided to talk to my dad without more delay. He was at home, opting not to go into the office after the funeral, so I made my way down to his home office and stood at the door. I didn’t want to startle him, so I said quietly, “Dad?”
He still jumped a bit. “Sarah! Come in! What’s up?”
“I want to talk to Bryan’s mom at some point. It was very obviously not a good time at the funeral. I’d like to tell her what a good job he had been doing on the window and how he was getting his priorities straight and all that.”
“Give her at least a month, then give her a call. When you tell her who you are, she may invite you over. If she doesn’t, just tell her over the phone. You’re not going to say anything negative, are you?”
“Oh, no sir! Bryan had changed so much! He was doing a wonderful job on the window. He had a whole new outlook. I can’t forget his smile the last time I saw him.” Suddenly, my voice was breaking and tears were forming.
My dad smiled and reached out to me. I moved in and he took me in his strong arms for a hug. “Well, now I understand. There was just a little bit more to this relationship than I thought.” Since my last cry, my body had produced a new supply of tears. These new tears began to flow. “Daddy, he had changed so much! He didn’t deserve to die! It’s not fair!”
“So, my little girl who is sick of boys found one she thought wasn’t all that bad.”
A thought came to me that stopped my tears immediately. “I’ve seen him naked!”
“Oh! Lucky you!”
“Daddy! I’ll tell you a secret. There is nothing attractive to a girl about a naked guy. They act like it on TV and all that. They show women going out to a bar where the guys strip. I guess some do, but it’s probably very few. Men and women are different.”
My dad picked up a pencil and spoke as he wrote. “Men … and … women … are ….”
“Daddy! Don’t be silly! I mean, guys love to see a naked girl, but it doesn’t work the other way around! The male body wasn’t designed to be looked at.”
“Honey, I’ve been around a while. I’m on to your ‘secret’. I have a secret for you. A nude female body is not that great to look at, either. Oh, a guy is not going to look away, of course. But what’s attractive is to show off some parts and cover others and leave them to the imagination. A guy’s imagination will create more beauty from a partially clad female than he would find in a nude female. Clothing designers make a lot of money creating clothing for women that inspires men’s imagination.”
“And they say women are complex!”
“We are all complex. It makes life more interesting.”
“You studied this issue?”
“Oh, yes. I studied what the experts had to say; experts such as Hugh Heffner. He was brilliant.”
“That name sounds familiar.”
“He published a lot of good information monthly. He called his literary work, ‘Playboy’.”
“Daddy, you read ‘Playboy’?”
“Yes, when I was a teenager. I wouldn’t have been normal if I hadn’t.”
“I wonder if mom read ‘Playgirl’.”
“Now, we’re back to differences in males and females. ‘Playgirl’ didn’t last long. Very few women would buy it.”
“I can see why!”
“Yes. Now, we’ve had our ‘birds and bees’ talk.”
“I don’t think that’s how most ‘birds and bees’ talks go.”
“You’re right, your mother should have been the one to discuss this with you, but I’m not sure she knows much about it.”
“Daddy!”
“I’m joking, of course!”
“I think I’ll hold that over your head next time I want something.”
“Like you need something to hold over my head!”
“You’re right, Daddy. I have more than I need. OK, Daddy, I’ll let you get back to your work. I think I’ll go for a drive.”
“OK, be careful.”
“After what I’ve seen, I’ll be super careful, Daddy. Bye”
“Bye, Sweetie.”
I felt better after talking with my dad. I put on a short sexy dress just for the heck of it. I checked my makeup and took off for … well, when I get there I’ll know.
I drove aimlessly and found myself in an area not too far from the university with numerous small shops. I parked my car, got out, and went into a clothing shop.
Now, a while back I saw someone with whom I was somewhat impressed. We didn’t know each other, didn’t speak to each other, and I thought it unlikely that I would ever see this person again. Some people use a phrase for this kind of meeting: “Ships that pass in the night”. I thought the phrase was apropos of my meeting with this person. But here in a dress shop idly looking at dresses … hoping to find that dress, I felt as if I were being watch. I looked up and found myself face to face with that “ship”. This is the “ship” that I quietly slipped by one night as it slipped by my “ship” as silently and stealthily. The two ships now met in daylight. Both captains issued orders to stop, and the orders were passed down to the crew. Both ships slowed, then stopped. There would be no stealth now. No slipping by silently without a word. Inevitably, one would accost the other. Who is this person? Houston is such a big city for a chance meeting like this. Then again, I ran into Bryan, and the odds of that were infinitesimally smaller because the geographical area involved was much larger. Am I being followed? I briefly thought about my former life. Was this the day it caught up with me? I doubted that. This person looked not at all like someone eager to expose someone secrets, lest they know some of hers. Yes, she looked like someone with a past. Either she had a past, or she somehow missed out on a lot.
Next: Rivers, Brooks, and Lakes?
Rivers, Brooks, and Lakes?
To catch up: After Bryan’s funeral, I had a chat with my dad, then decided to get out and go for a drive. I found myself in an area with several small shops near Rice University. I parked my car and went into a dress shop. I was thumbing through the selection when I felt as if I were being watched. I looked up and found myself face to face with someone I had seen a while back; someone I never expected to see again.
Continuing:
I was face to face with someone that Lisa and I had seen while dining at Floyd’s and had agreed could possibly be the most beautiful woman on earth. I was stunned, and I’m not very good at hiding a surprise like that unless I have a chance to prepare. When I suddenly found myself close to this incredibly beautiful girl, I involuntarily put my hand to my chest. I felt my heart racing and my face blushing. She didn’t have to be a really perceptive person to see that something was going on inside me, and her face showed her concern. “Are you OK?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. You just kind of startled me.”
“You look very familiar. Have we met?”
“Not formally, but I go to Floyd’s a bit with my family.”
“That’s it! Floyd’s! How could I forget that beautiful face? Your sister was there, too?”
“My cousin.”
“Your cousin! By the way, I should introduce myself. I’m Laura Lake.”
“Sarah Brooks. I’m pleased to meet you.”
“I remember that night at Floyd's. I’ve been there a few times, but I’ve never seen many beautiful girls there. That night, though, I was amazed at you and your cousin. But I thought, ‘This is an unusual family. There’s one dad, two moms who appear to be clones, and two daughters who appear to be sisters.’ I could tell there was a lot of love there, and I remember thinking, ‘I wish I had a family like that!’ And the beauty! It runs in the family! Are you maybe … models?”
“Models? … no way. But you must have caught me looking at you! I tried not to stare, but you were hard to look away from! You were stunning that night. I don’t think anyone would say otherwise. So you were girl watching while on a date with a guy.” I smiled to soften the accusation.
“Yeah, a date with my brother. He insists I get out more. He’s never been to medical school, so he doesn’t realize the amount of time it takes.”
“You’re in medical school? That’s where I hope to be headed as soon as I finish my undergraduate work.”
“Rice?”
“Yes, you go to Rice?”
“Yes! Sometime we should get together and I’ll tell you the best teachers and the ones to avoid. Most of the teachers are excellent, but some people just can’t teach, and the students are the ones who pay for it.”
“Oh, I’m very well aware of that. Would you like to come by my house sometime? I live near here, on Kirby Drive.”
“Sure! What’s your cell number?”
I gave her my number. She punched it in on her phone and my phone buzzed.
“Now, I have your number and you have mine. Are you dating anyone?”
“No, and to give you the reason I’d have to tell you quite a long story.”
“Whoa! Sounds interesting! I’m not dating anyone right now either … except for my brother. You might call it a ‘charity date’.”
“I wouldn’t know. After I saw you, I hardly noticed him at all. Being your brother, though, I would find it hard to believe he needs a ‘charity date’.”
“Well, he was facing away from your table or he definitely would have noticed both of y’all.”
“When we got home that night, Lisa asked me if I had noticed you. She called you a ‘knockout’.”
“Really? Well, I guess there was a lot of girl-watching going on at Floyd’s that night.”
“Actually, we probably wouldn’t have been girl watching, but a ‘knockout’ walked into the room. I think maybe most of the people in the room became girl-watchers when that happened.”
“Nah, I’m just ‘plain Jane’.”
“Oh, no. Don’t try to sell that shit to anybody!” I put my hand to my mouth. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to say that! I don’t talk like that! I’m so embarrassed!”
She smiled, “It’s Ok. I’ll take a compliment in any language. So you and your cousin don’t usually girl-watch?”
”It’s definitely not out of the question for me. When I tell you some of the problems I’ve had with boys, you’ll understand why an alternative seems somewhat attractive. I don’t want to say too much for Lisa …what the hell … she likes girls more every day. You should meet her yourself.”
“I definitely would like to meet her. Sounds like we have a lot in common.” She smiled, then looked at her watch and her smile went away. “Oh, gotta go. Give me a call soon. If I don’t get a call, I’ll be a bit disappointed, but I’ll understand.”
“I’ll call! Hope to see you again!”
She left and I watched her leave. She was beautiful even leaving. The quick meeting and her beauty left me a bit disoriented. I decided I was too distracted now to shop, so I headed my SUV toward home, hoping Lisa was there so I could tell her about my new girlfriend.
Lisa was home, and she met me at the door with an accusation. “I’ll bet you went shopping. Find anything?”
“Yes, I didn’t buy anything, but you wouldn’t guess what I found. Come to the bedroom.”
We went to my bedroom; now our bedroom. I sat on the bed and she did the same. “I found a lake.”
“Were we needing a lake?”
“No. I found Laura Lake.”
“Well, it sounds like a girl, but could you maybe give me more details?”
“She sometimes dines at Floyd’s.”
Lisa became wide-eyed. “No! You found the knockout?”
“Yes. She is that. Get this; she’s in medical school at Rice!”
“Oh my God.”
“I have her cell phone number. She said she would come by some time and give me a list of the best and worst teachers at Rice.”
“So, with Bryan gone maybe you’re gonna swing the other way?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure she prefers girls, but this is strictly business!”
“Yeah, until it’s not!”
“I know. She’s so beautiful! I think I’m in love … in a platonic way!”
“Sarah, you don’t have a platonic relationship with a girl like that. I’m sure a lot of guys have fed her that line, though. When y’all finish with your ‘business’, I’d like to chat with her.”
“What you’re thinking of is not called a ‘chat’.
“Lisa smiled. Let’s say I’m using it as a euphemism.”
“Lisa, I saw her first! She’s so beautiful!”
“Technically, I saw her first. I saw her reflection in a window before she came into the room.”
“I can’t argue with that since you sometimes see things before they happen, but I made contact first.”
“Just let me know when she’s coming so I can meet her.”
“Sure, as long as you mean m-e-e-t, and not m-e-a-t.”
“Ewww! Gross! Another one from your days as a boy?”
“Yeah. One of the grosser ones, but not the grossest. There are some I wouldn’t verbalize and some I wish I could un-hear.”
“Sorry you had to go through that, cousin. Look, I have a lab. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. See you.”
“Bye, Lisa.”
Lisa left and I lay across my bed and thought about Laura. She wished she had a family like mine. What was her family like? All I knew was that she had a brother. She could marry into my family. I smiled to myself as I thought about Lisa and me fighting over her. Then I realized I was being shallow. I just knew she was beautiful and smart and I was already thinking about marriage.
I decided to text her about coming over. I typed “What time Saturday is good for you?” Then, “7 1 3 END CALL”. I can’t do this! I thought texting her would be easy. I’m acting like a teen-aged boy! I typed again. This time, I typed in her whole number, then forced myself to send the text.
I lay back on the bed. She’s so beautiful!
The doorbell rand and I rush toward the front door. Laura was right on time. I opened the door, but it wasn’t Laura. It was…. No, it couldn’t be. What the hell is happening? I was confused, but I managed to speak. “Come in!”
I turned toward the door as I closed it. “Bryan, this is impossible! What is going on? You’re supposed to be …!”
Next: Undead, maybe?
Undead, maybe?
To catch up:
The doorbell rang and I rushed toward the front door. Laura was right on time. I opened the door, but it wasn’t Laura. It was…. No, it couldn’t be. What the hell is happening? I was confused, but I managed to speak. “Come in!”
I turned toward the door as I closed it. “Bryan, this is impossible! What is going on? You’re supposed to be …!”
I turned to my visitor again … it was Laura!
“Laura! What’s going on?”
“Sorry, Bryan is dead, and you’re left with just ‘Plain Jane’!”
“What?” I tried to move, but my legs were heavy. I felt myself falling. I fell with a “thump” to the floor … of my bedroom! I was at the foot of the bed. I heard Lisa coming down the hall.
“Lisa!”
She stuck her head in the door. “What’s up, buttercup?”
“Lisa, I had a strange dream.” I proceeded to tell her the details of my dream.
Lisa had an interpretation, of course. “It’s just like I told you. Laura is taking the place of Bryan. It’s pretty clear that you and Laura Lake will soon be an ‘item’.”
Her interpretation was as good as anything I could think of. “I texted her about coming by here on Saturday, but she hasn’t replied.”
“Don’t kiss on the first date.”
“Oh my goodness, the thought!” I put my hand to my chest.
“Girl, you’ve got it bad!”
“I imagine those beautiful lips touching mine!” I blushed just thinking about it.
“Am I gonna have to pour cold water on you?”
“Now I’m thinking of her in a wet T-shirt contest!”
“You know what? You’re in lust … not love … lust!”
“Yeah, like she would ever be in a wet t-shirt contest. It’s so inappropriate to think that about a woman of her caliber.”
“Right, that’s why you should pass her on to me. I’ll treat her with the respect she deserves.”
“Oh, please! You’ll treat her any way you think will get her into bed!”
My phone alerted that I had a new text. It was Laura. “How about 7 PM Saturday?”
”Make it about 5 PM and we’ll order pizza.”
”Sounds great!”
”What kind of pizza you like?”
”Any kind except anchovies or pineapples.”
”OK, see you Saturday.”
I kept busy, but it seemed like Saturday would never get there. Lisa and I had our room cleaned in case Laura came in there.
Lisa asked me, “Are you gonna tell her about your dream?”
“No way. She’ll think I’m weird!”
“She may as well know.”
After all the waiting, the doorbell rang and I answered. As I opened the door, I was thinking,
“Please be Laura. Please don’t be Bryan.” I didn’t really think it would be Bryan, because I was pretty sure I was awake.
“Laura! Welcome to our little shack.”
“Yeah, right.” We hugged and I introduced her to Lisa. Then she said, “Sarah, I have to tell you something.”
“OK.”
“Is there someplace we can go to talk? Lisa can come, too.”
The pizza arrived. I paid for it, and we went to the bedroom. I told them, “We can eat as we talk.”
Laura began, “I didn’t say anything the other day, but I gotta tell you this now. This is crazy. I dreamed a boy came to me and told me only two things. He said, ‘Tell Sarah I love her.’ And then, he said, ‘Make sure she’s OK.’ I was puzzled because I didn’t know anyone named ‘Sarah’! You know, I had seen you at Floyd’s, but I didn’t know your name. Then, I met you in the dress shop. When you said your name was ‘Sarah’, I wanted to tell you about my dream, but it seemed inappropriate since we just met.”
“Oh my God! What did this boy look like?”
“Oh, he was kinda good looking, kinda big. He was about your age.”
Lisa had an idea. “Let me get something.” She reached into a drawer and pulled out a yearbook from the school we had attended before we moved to Houston. She thumbed through the pages and found a spot and gave the book to Laura. “I have the book opened to the ‘P’s’. Start looking through the pages and see if you find the guy.”
Laura looked through the annual, commenting on how young everyone looked. She stopped and smiled. “’Lisa Michelle Rivers’, you were so cute, but you’re beautiful, now. She turned a couple more pages and stopped. “Oh My God! This is him. “Bryan Kenneth Smith’. He was older, but this is him!”
“No! Bryan!” I put my face in my pillow and cried as Lisa told Laura about the times I ran into Bryan, embellishing a bit to make it a story about love found and lost. She told about how he died. Of course, she left out the history of bullying. By the time Lisa finished the story; Laura was also crying and apologizing.
“Sarah, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
I had my emotions under control by then. “It’s fine, you were given a message and you delivered it. I’m glad you told me.”
“Well, I’d like to know more about the Brooks and Rivers families. Your moms are twin sisters, right?”
“Right.”
“What does your dad do? I guess it’s Sarah’s dad, right? At least, I hope he didn’t marry both twins!” She smiled.
“Lisa’s dad is another story. My dad is a scientist. He’s involved with mapping the human genome.”
“Wow. I’ll bet he’s smart!
“He is; have you ever heard of the window … not Windows for computers, but the window to look at scenery far away?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You gotta see this!”
We took her and showed her the window.
“This is amazing! Your dad did this?”
“My dad and mom. Lisa’s mom did the legal work. Lisa and I have done work on it with a lot of instruction. It’s quite complex, but it was a lot of fun.”
“This is an amazing family! Lisa, what about your dad?”
“That’s also a long story, but his name is Joseph Rivers and he’s an attorney.”
“I’ve heard of him! Joseph Rivers is your dad?”
“Yes.”
“My dad was an attorney, he worked with Joseph Rivers. He said your dad was one of the best attorneys he had ever met.”
“You say, ‘was’. Is your dad deceased?”
“Yes, my mom and dad both died in a car accident about five years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, you never get over it, but the pain eases after a while. They were also hit by a drunk driver, and it makes it harder knowing it didn’t have to happen. It’s just incredible to me that anyone would drive after drinking any amount of alcohol!”
I had stopped crying, and Laura asked me, “Are you OK?” She embraced me in a surprisingly tight and intimate hug. Lisa was smiling a knowing smile as my eyes got wide. My heart started pounding and I started blushing. When we separated, Laura looked at me, and I realized that the hug was as much information seeking as it was for comforting. She also smiled, because I’m sure she got answers to the questions on her mind.
“I came here to give you information on the teaching ability of different teachers at Rice. I have a spreadsheet with all that information on it. It’s quite extensive. It has ratings for each teacher, and notes on what affects the ratings. I started compiling this information as soon as I started school at Rice. I think it will help you both a lot. I’ll leave it with you.”
“Thank you.”
“Sarah, if you decide you want to start dating, let me know. I know someone who might be interested.”
“OK, I will.” I smiled because I was pretty sure the person of whom she was speaking was right in front of me.
She left, I closed the door, and I looked at Lisa. “Wow! Can you believe it?”
Laura had only been gone about five minutes when the doorbell rang again. I opened the door saying, “Laura, did you forget something ...?”
It wasn’t Laura. It was a tall woman about my mom’s age.
Next: Be prepared for something completely different.
To catch up:
Laura (the “knockout”) visited the girls at home and brought, among other things, information regarding the quality of the teachers at their school. The information included good points and bad points, teaching ability, testing issues, etc.
Laura had been gone only about five minutes when the doorbell rang again. I opened the door saying, “Laura, did you forget something ...?”
It wasn’t Laura. It was a tall woman about my mom’s age.
She stared at me … and I at her. After a several second “stare-down”, she said, “Sarah Brooks?”
“Uh, yeah, but I gave at the office.”
She smiled. “You’re sweet, Sarah. You’re just as you were written.”
“Written?”
“I have some information for you. Please believe me, I’m not selling anything. Mind if I come in?”
She was nice looking and neatly dressed in a business skirt and blouse. She had a briefcase and looked professional and harmless enough. “Oh, please come in. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“It’s alright. I’m a fiction writer. This visit is very unusual. I don’t know that this has ever been done. Let me show you something that might help you to understand.”
She pulled a computer printout from a briefcase. “Read some of this. I think it will help you understand what’s going on. I’ll also give you the link to look at it online. That way you can read more as the story continues. You wouldn’t need to, but you will probably find it interesting to see my ‘take’ on it.”
I began to read:
Rivers and Brooks
Chapter 1
Living – or going through the motions
As my cousin, Lisa and I walked the main hall toward our next class; she looked me over and said, “That dress really looks nice on you.”
I opened my mouth to thank her but was interrupted by the bell. We were late, but the hall was full of students, everyone was late! The bell continued ringing with everyone looking around, wondering what was going on. Lisa reached out and touched my shoulder as the ringing continued. “Tracy!” The ringing stopped. “Tracy, wake up!” I opened my eyes. It was my mom touching my shoulder.
“Tracy, how in the world do you sleep through this alarm? I could hear it from the kitchen! You had a big smile on your face! What were you dreaming about?”
“Baseball.”
“Again? You sure dream about that a lot! Come get some breakfast and get ready for school.”
“Yeah, I scored a touchdown.”
I looked up from my reading, “This looks like a story about me! It looks familiar and I think I remember it a little.”
“If you read on, I think you’ll remember more. It’s the day you showed Lisa your enlarged nipples. Soon after that, your mom took you to the doctor, who mistakenly diagnosed it as ‘gynecomastia’. You see; my name is Jamie Simms, and I’m your writer.”
OK, that cinches it. I’m dreaming again. Since it’s just a dream, I can say anything I want. “Ma’am, do you fell ok? Maybe I need to call the guys with the white coats and butterfly nets. They’ll take really good care of ….”
“Sarah!”
I stopped talking.
“Sarah, apparently you don’t believe me. Where do you think I got the information on that printout?”
She had details she had gotten from … where? I realized I wasn’t dreaming. “I don’t know. You realize how crazy this sounds?”
“Did you think you were dreaming? I’m a fiction writer, and just showed you some of what I’ve written. There is a lot more. I know a lot about you and your family because I wrote the story.”
Suddenly, it was clear. It was true. This was a woman who was writing a documentary of a child who was thought to be a boy until “his” body began maturing as a female and attempting to menstruate. That child, of course, was me, and she was my writer! But she said she’s a fiction writer! Are we all fiction? Can a fiction writer meet her characters? I thought the discovery that I actually have two “X” chromosomes was the strangest thing that could ever happen to me, but now I saw a situation that could quickly go to the top of the “strange occurrences” list. This brings up the question of whether I am a real person or a fictional character. If I’m fiction, does that mean I can meet Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn? Maybe I can meet some of Shakespeare’s characters, or Jane Eyre! Wait … all those are historical characters. Can I meet some of today’s fictional characters? I realized there isn’t much great fiction being written these days. If there was, I hadn’t seen it. I sat, stunned, for several seconds. Finally, she broke the silence, “Sarah?”
“I’m so sorry. I just don’t know what to say. I don’t even know what to think. Would you like some coffee … a soft drink?”
“No thank you. Is Lisa home?”
“Yes, hold on a second.” I sent Lisa a text, asking her to come to the living room.
“It’s a big house when you have to text each other inside the house. It seems even bigger than I imagined it.”
I thought a few seconds. “You say ‘bigger than I imagined it’. So … you imagined our house?”
“It wasn’t totally from my imagination. I used to live in this area and I’ve passed this house many times, and I thought it was the most beautiful house in the neighborhood. That’s why I had y’all move into it. I had never been inside, so I imagined the rooms and so forth. I’ve imagined quite a bit about the two of you, your family, your lives, etc. I’m your writer.”
Lisa now walked into the room. “Lisa, this is Jamie Simms. Ms. Simms, Lisa.”
“Just call me Jamie, please.”
Lisa smiled, “Pleased to meet you, Jamie Please.”
“Lisa!”
“No, it’s fine. She’s so cute … just as I wrote her!”
Lisa sat down. “’wrote’ me?”
“Yes, Lisa”, I broke in, “she’s our writer.” I handed her the printouts and she began to read. She read about half of it in about thirty seconds. She seemed as puzzled as I was. “You say you’re our writer. Is it, ‘We can’t do anything unless you write it?’, or ‘You can’t write unless we do something.’”
“Yes, exactly!”
“What do you mean, ‘Yes, exactly’? It was a question! An either-or question!”
She smiled as though Lisa were a child. “Have you ever watched a politician when he doesn’t know the answer to a question? He becomes evasive. That’s what’s happening here. I don’t know the whole story, but I’m glad to tell you what I know. It’s true, I have quite a bit of control, but I write more like a documentary. I get the ball rolling on something, so to speak, and as you two and your families react to events, each in keeping with his or her personality, I write. Of course, I’m the one that created your personalities with my writing. Also, I write in first person as Sarah, except for a couple of chapters where Lisa finds out about her real dad. Those two chapters are written in first person as Lisa. Some writers find it limiting to write in first person, but I find it easier. Any limits are easy to overcome, and the more first person one writes, the easier it becomes.”
I had become silent by this time. I was thinking about Bryan. “Ms. Simms … Jamie, can you make major changes about things that have already happened … you know?” I was going to keep the “major changes” of which I was thinking to myself.
“Sarah, you’re not being evasive, are you? Are you talking about Bryan?”
I said nothing, but she saw my eyes welling up.
“Sarah, I’m so sorry. I know you’re sensitive, and I think maybe I ‘overwrote’ your sensitivity, so I didn’t realize the depth of your feelings for Bryan after so short a time and considering your history with him! In answer to your question; yes, I can make changes. I can make unlimited changes before a chapter is published with no problem, as long as they’re in ‘sync’ with previous chapters. Once a chapter is published it’s difficult. Oh, I can still make any changes at all, but they have to be realistic. For example, bringing the dead back to life is not realistic. I could turn around and say, ‘it was a mistake … it turned out that it wasn’t Bryan in that car’. If I do something like that, though, I chance losing my credibility, and that is difficult to get back. Without credibility, readership drops. The story and your lives begin to lose any sense of reality or importance. I had a goal of writing a novel, beginning with a girl struggling with the issue of anomalous genitalia and continuing the story with her family becoming successful; that success coming from a high quality of character of the adults and that character passed on to the children.
“So, an occurrence that is just not believable taints everything. The novel descends into some genre other than a novel. That genre would be called, I guess, The ‘Almost made it’ genre or maybe ‘Fairy tale’ genre. So the amazing characters of your dad and everyone else in the family ends up in a bin reserved for either failures or some genre nothing like I intended.
“Besides all this, even if Bryan had not died, and you and Bryan had a relationship that culminated in marriage, I afraid it would bring a lot of disappointment for you in the short term and unhappiness in the long term. This is going to sound very callous, but Bryan is not of the same caliber as you. The term ‘All men are created equal.’ should be followed by the word ‘except’ and a very long list of reasons some people succeed and some fail. Those reason are almost exclusively connected with the way you are brought up. There are notable exceptions, but, generally, parents bring up their children up as they were brought up. They may see some of the mistakes their parents made and try to make some corrections, but the family status quo is a hard current to fight. Both of you have a big responsibility when you choose a spouse, and when you have children. That responsibility is to your children. They should be conceived with a man of high character and raised with the discipline and strength of family ties with which y’all were raised. If you marry badly, that’s one strike against you. It makes it more difficult to bring up your children right. Lisa’s mom can tell you some about this. That’s why I couldn’t have Steve be Lisa’s father. Katy was blessed to have James to help. Even though he was just Lisa’s uncle, he gave her an excellent role model of what a man should be. Without him, her role model would be, ‘A man is someone who like to drink, take drugs, and run around; then, when things don’t please him, just disappear.’ Lisa’s case brings up the old controversy about nature versus nurture. How different would she be if Steve were actually her father? We’ll never know. Sarah, you’re on your way to becoming one of the most respected members of society; a doctor. Bryan was on his way to a successful career, mostly thanks to you. But, he would have always been limited by a lack of formal education. In the long run, this would begin to cause friction between the two of you. Oh, I’m not saying you would feel superior to him, but you both would be constantly aware of the disparity in incomes; it’s just the way humans are. Studies have shown that a disparity in education and/or income between the spouses put a strain on a marriage, especially when the more educated or higher-paid is the wife. Additionally, people with wide differences in education tend to have greatly differing interests. Can you see you and Bryan going to see La bohème. Would you accompany him to a professional football game?
“In addition to all of this, Sarah, you have a history which makes it difficult to have a relationship with a man. Were you to marry a man, every time he undressed you would have memories of that dreadful boys’ locker room, and you would subconsciously be watching for personality traits in your husband that are similar to Bryan as he was the first time you knew him. Problem is, you would manage to find them! This would be another source of friction in the marriage.
“Sarah, it’s time to move forward. I think you know that Laura is part of that. Get to know her better. You and Lisa both think she’s beautiful. I’ll tell you a secret; she’s crazy about both of you. We don’t have a class system in the USA. If we did, though, Laura would be among the upper class and she wants friends who are peers. Your family is now to be considered in that very exclusive club of the unofficial upper class and she knows that. Laura is not after money, she doesn’t need it. She wants and needs friends. Her parents are gone, and many of her friends have married and/or moved away. As a single woman … among other things, it’s difficult for her to socialize with friends who are married. The two of you have a strong, loving family, and it’s easy to forget that everyone needs friends, including yourselves. Laura even loves the family and has said as much. Please, embrace Laura.
“Now, I realize it sounds as if I’m trying to be a matchmaker. Please don’t take it like that. If I wanted to do that, I could ‘matchmake’ with my pen. I’m the writer, remember? I don’t want to do that. I want your lives to flow naturally. If one of you ends up with Laura, I don’t want it to be because I forced it. For now embrace her, as I said, but as a friend.”
We sat silently for a few seconds, then Lisa said, “Wow, that’s a lot to take in! Do you have some advice for me?”
“Well, here something you might think ironic. You both get your sensitivity from your fathers. Lisa, you don’t know a lot about your father yet, but you will find he is very sensitive. Yes, he’s an attorney, and he uses his sensitivity to ‘read’ people. This is very helpful to him when picking a jury or questioning a witness. You’re not as sensitive as Sarah but in your case, I thought I overwrote your assertiveness. So I eased it up a bit; hence your reaction to seeing the specter. It shows you’re more sensitive than you pretend to be. Remember trying to talk to your dad at the dinner when you first met him? Yes, you’re very sensitive, but not super-sensitive. Here’s something neither of you have considered. Sarah was born with anomalous genitalia due to excessive male hormones during gestation. This hormone imbalance came from your mother. Since your mothers are sisters, that same hormone imbalance came into play with you, but in a different way. It gave you a somewhat more assertive personality alloyed with your sensitivity. Just as Sarah’s sensitivity will serve her well as a physician, your assertiveness combined with your sensitivity will be a great asset for you as an attorney.
“You’re both on your way to successful lives. Just don’t be tempted by anything that will side-track you. That’s a broad statement, right? ‘Don’t be tempted by anything.’ I can’t tell you everything that’s going to tempt you, but please be wary, and you will recognize the temptation when it comes. For most people, it’s very hard to resist, but the way you two have been raised gives you more than enough strength not only to recognize, but to also resist. Once again, this may sound callous, but Bryan could be thought of as one of those temptations. I don’t mean to be negative about Bryan, but he was not a match for you, Sarah.”
We sat, again, speechless. Finally, Lisa asked, “There are twenty-eight chapters here. How many more chapters in our novel?”
“It’s hard to say. I could say I’ll write as long as you two do things that are interesting. The word, ‘interesting’ however, cuts both ways. There is said to be an old English curse, ‘May you live in interesting times’. You see, if times are good and everyone is reasonably happy, that’s not interesting. The curse wishes the opposite on a person. I guess it would be interesting if the two of you robbed a bank, but it wouldn’t be pleasant for you or the readers. After the initial interest, readership would drop. The story would descend into a tale about two beautiful young girls in prison, and while that has a potential readership I have no interest in writing anything about that.
“Children and teens are usually inherently interesting. You two continue to interest … me, anyway. I think that’s possibly because your lives are not anything like most people’s lives, and most people take an interest in ‘how the other half lives’. Y’all are not, of course, representative of half the population, so I think a better term is the term used quite a bit these days; the term ‘the two-percent’. I think you know you have pretty easy lives, and the story is good escapism for those who don’t have it so good.”
I couldn’t believe what was happening. We were actually talking to our writer! “Jamie, you’re tall, and you have blue eyes … beautiful blue eyes. I would think you would have made us somewhat like you.”
Jamie smiled. “I hate blue eyes. The two of you look something like I would wish to look if I had a choice. Laura is beautiful, but it’s the two of you who are ‘knockouts’!”
Lisa smiled and waved her away. “I’ll bet you say that to all your female characters you visit.”
“Sure, if I had visited any others. This is a first. I really didn’t know what would happen. I’m sure I’ve broken some kind of literary law. The literature police might pull up in your driveway any time now. If that happens, I’ll have to start writing really fast to get Lisa her law degree so she can help me.”
“But, you can just write the police away!”
“That’s an interesting concept. I’m hoping to get a lot of feedback on the ‘Big Closet’ website. As far as I know, this has never been done before. We’ll see what happens.”
“Well, what’s next for us in the novel?”
“That’s the main reason for my visit. I’m kind of ‘blocked’, and I wanted to ask y’all to do … something interesting. Try not get in a rut, as so many people do, but don’t make it something that would get you in trouble. The two of you are young and creative. That’s why I’m asking for your help. I guess I’d better be going. I don’t want to interrupt so much that the story ends up in shambles. Where are the adults?”
“Dad went to the office and Aunt Katy is shopping. I’m not sure where my Mom is.”
“That’s good. I’m not sure they would believe I am who I say I am. If they refuse to believe me, it might cause a rip in the ‘time-space’ continuum. I think they said something like that in the movie ‘Back to the Future’.”
“Will you come back for a visit?”
“I’m not sure, but take my card. Call me if you need to.”
“OK, Jamie, we’ll try to do something … outrageous?”
“No, just interesting.”
“You got it.”
NOTE TO READERS:
Strange enough for you? I’ve wondered if this had ever been done before, but there are many scenarios that would prevent this type of thing. For instance, if you’re writing about something many years ago, a visit would be impossible with current technology. If the characters are on the other side of the world, or in some place very difficult to access, that would be a problem unless you have unlimited funds.
In my case, the advice given me about writing I took to heart most is, “Write what you know.” So my story is set in Texas, the state in which I have lived all my life … so far. More specifically, I had my characters move from Central Texas to Houston, in Southeast Texas, in an area where I used to live. I had them go to Rice University, which I attended. I now live only about 30 miles from the River Oaks area, where the Brooks and Rivers families reside. I knew the location of the house. So it wasn’t a long drive to go visit.
I have expressed a lot of views in this chapter. I don’t really think these views are controversial, but I’ll bet I’m wrong. I want criticism! Remember, criticism is not only disagreement. It is about what you think about what I’ve written. You can say you agree or disagree. Either is criticism.
Where do we go from here? Had enough of Rivers & Brooks? I have some ideas.
1. The girls run away with the circus.
2. The girls open up a brothel in the “servants quarters”
3. Sarah and Laura get married, but during an argument, Sarah strangles Laura. Lisa, now with her law degree, gets her found “not guilty”.
4. Lisa marries Laura. During an argument, they shoot each other, and neither is expected to live. Since Laura is shot in the head, Sarah, now with her medical degree, transplants Lisa’s brain into Laura’s body. Sarah then marries “Laura” who has the brain, personality, etc. of Lisa. Since they are no longer cousins legally, they marry and live happily ever after.
5. Sarah wanders into the woods and finds a cabin inhabited by three bears. Wait … scratch that one. Someone just told me it’s been done. Good! I can’t spell “porige”, and it doesn’t sound very tempting anyway.
.
6. At the beginning of the story, Tracy’s mom goes to wake him up for school. We’re led to believe he woke up and had all the subsequent experiences. He didn’t wake up, however. Since he didn’t wake up right away, she lets him sleep and tells Lisa to go on to school without him. “She says, I’m fucking sick and tired of having to wake this little faggot up three or four times every morning!” Tracy continues to sleep, and dreams everything else in the story from that point. Now, he wakes up, has missed a day of school, and has to go back to school the next day and face Bryan and all the other miseries he has always had to deal with.
7. I like this one: Jamie Simms wins the lottery of $10,000,000, buys the Brooks house for a mere $4,000,000, moves her family in, (yes, husband, too) and the entire Simms … and other surnames connected in some way (at my discretion) … families live happily ever after. Oh, she invites the Brooks and Rivers families to stay, and they agree. Hey … it’s a big house! Jamie also uses her funds to hire people to find Travis. He is found, and Jamie visits him to tell him all is forgiven, thanking him not following through with his plan to “make a baby” with her when she was eight years old, and wishing him well.
I dunno. Any ideas … anybody?
I may continue the story … or end it as gracefully as possible. Sarah, Lisa, and all the others will be a memory. I hope, for my readers, a good memory.
Note: just heard from Lisa so:
Next: Hush money
Rivers and Brooks 32 (Final Chapter)
Lisa and I were floored by our visitor. If she had not brought the documentation she had, we would not have believed her for a second. I wanted to tell Mom or Dad, but Lisa said they might get the police involved. They didn’t meet Ms. Simms but, if they had they would see that she’s not dangerous or anything like that. Maybe she’s just off-kilter? We got on the web and went to the link she gave us and found there were a few additional chapters after the ones she gave us. There was even a chapter that documented her visit to our house. Looking at the story, it’s amazing. There are things in there we forgot. I cried, of course, when I read the part about Bryan. The whole thing is weird … and she wants us to do something interesting! What if we don’t? Are we all just gonna disappear? No pressure!
Lisa had taken guitar lessons once, and a few days later she got the guitar out of the closet. Then, she dressed in some ragged jeans and top and started looking for an empty coffee can. She got all this stuff together and was out the door. I yelled after her, “Where will you be?”
“Just down the street on the corner.”
Uh oh. She gonna be a street musician?
With everyone gone, I took the chance to study my math. It wasn’t hard, but I had a chance at making 100% in the class and didn’t want to blow it. Yeah, I know, an “A” is an “A”, whether it’s 90%, 100%, or anywhere in between, but I felt compelled to make a perfect score. I studied for an hour and Lisa was still gone, so I decided to go check on her.
I drove down the street and there she was, playing guitar and singing. She had the coffee can next to her; I assumed it was for donations. I parked my car and approached her as she finished a song. “Lisa, what were you singing?”
“I was singing a sad song called, ‘If I Had It To Do All Over, I’d Do It All Over You’.”
“You’re insane.”
“Yeah, I guess. Before that, I sang a country tune called, ‘Don’t Run Through the Screen Door, Mama; You’ll strain Yourself’.”
“Do people seem to like your music?”
“No, but that’s the point.”
“What?!”
“Look at the writing on the coffee can.”
She had written in letters big enough for people to see from their cars, “Hush Money.”
“Lisa, you have got to be kidding!”
“Well, I’ve collected about $150.00. It’s a wealthy part of town, and they like good music. I guess they figure they’ll hear some if they can get me to hush!”
“Wow! Well, if it’s ‘hush money’, don’t you think you’ve collected enough to hush?”
“I guess so. It’s kinda hot out here anyway. I just hope our writer thinks this is interesting.”
“I think it falls into the category of ‘outrageous’. Are you coming home?”
”Yeah. I’m just trying to make sure we’re not a fairy tale.”
“We might be stuck with that, with our lust for Laura.”
“You know she didn’t mean that kind of fairy!”
“Yeah, see you at home.”
I headed home and my phone beeped. “Hello, Laura!”
“Sarah, how about dinner tonight?”
“I eat dinner almost every night! What’s up?”
“Can I pick you up for a date at Floyd's?”
“Is the pope a catholic?”
“I think so, why?”
“Laura, seriously?”
“Yeah, I know. Pick you up at 6PM.”
“OK, bye.”
Yes!!! I’m going to dinner with the most beautiful girl in the world! Gotta go pick out something to wear now! Something easy to take off. I smiled at my own little joke. But, she is so beautiful! Oh, I wonder if our writer will think lesbian sex is interesting. She’s actually married to a man! I would like to ask her why she took an interest in me. The website she gave us was mostly cross-dressers and transsexuals. I didn’t really qualify. I wondered if it would be rude to ask her why she interested in the subject. Maybe she used to be a man! If so, you couldn’t tell. I surely don’t want to be rude to my writer! No telling what she could cause to happen!
If she’s not into lesbian sex she’ll just have to deal with it … I hope. What if Laura thinks I’m too straight-laced to have sex? I think I can calm those fears if she kisses me. Oh, wow! Did you hear that … “kisses me”? What is the matter with me? I sound like a teen-aged boy! Oh, I’ll bet it’s those male hormones Lisa and I got from our mothers. That was pretty weird, but I guess it makes sense.
I got home and found the perfect outfit. It was a short (almost too short) red dress with tiny sequins on it. They reflected light with every move I made. I added a necklace to draw attention to the low neckline of the dress and spiral earrings to draw attention to the fact that I have ears. I finished it off with the highest heels I had. I realized when she saw me, any doubts about my wanting a more than platonic friendship would be gone. I hoped I wasn’t being too forward.
Laura showed up at my house at exactly the appointed time. She drove us to Floyd’s and told the receptionist, “Reservation for Lake”.
“Right this way, ladies.”
Any concerns about the way I was dressed disappeared. Laura was in a mini-dress and heels also. It was almost like we were running a contest to see whose dress could be shorter. There must have been a dozen pairs of eyes on us as we walked to our table.
I had to comment, “Laura, you look ravishing!”
“Plain Jane little me? Sorry, but I don’t think I hold a candle to you. I’m afraid all the guys here will have a hard time digesting their food tonight. I’ll fight them off! If you want me to, that is.”
“Oh yeah. I was gonna tell you my long story about my experience with guys.”
“Yes! I was wondering how I was going to get that question asked. Thanks for making it easy for me.”
I proceeded to tell her about being raised as a boy due to my ambiguous genitalia. I went through the terrors of the locker room, the cross-dressing, the bullying, and the subsequent discovery that I was actually a genetic girl. I went on to tell about the move to Houston and the chance meeting again with Bryan, and his death just when his life was starting to improve.
When I finished, Laura sat silent for a few seconds. Finally, she said, “Then he came to me with the message I gave you. Do you realize that if someone wrote a novel like this, no one would believe it?”
“I know!” I decided not to get into our visit with Ms. Simms.
“The locker room stuff is pretty gross. Guys say it’s no big deal getting naked in front of one another. I don’t see it. I think I would throw up if I saw all that. You thought you were turned off to boys forever, yet you were starting a relationship with Bryan.”
“I really don’t think it would have gone anywhere. We were from two different worlds.”
“Yeah, sounds like it. I’m so glad I met you … all of y’all! The girls I grew up with have mostly married and/or moved away. It’s kind of difficult to make friends. You might not believe this, but I’m actually kind of shy.”
“Yeah, like you’re Plain Jane?”
“Oh, I guess my looks are passable.”
“Laura, from the first time I saw you I’ve been in awe of you. We don’t have a class system in this country, but if we did you would be ‘Royalty’. Look at me! I’m on a date with you? I feel so out of place! I’m on a date with a princess or a queen! It feels like a dream!”
“Sarah … wow! OK … maybe I’m not ‘Plain Jane’, but let’s not go too far the other way! My feelings about you and your family are kind of similar to what you just described. If you stop and think about your family you have to realize how awesome they are. Besides that, the ‘Queen’ declares them awesome!”
“I guess we have a ‘Mutual Admiration Society’.”
Laura leaned forward and looked from side to side as if she had an important secret to tell. She whispered, “Or a ‘Mutual Attraction Society’?”
“Laura, I think you got it!”
“Sarah, if you’re still not dating anyone, I’d like to know how you would feel about the two of us dating.”
“I would love it!”
“You would? Wow, here I was agonizing over whether I should even ask you.”
“Laura, I’m honored that you asked me. I’ve been in awe of you from the first time I saw you with your brother here in Floyd’s.”
She picked up her purse and opened it. “I have a little gift for you. I hope you’ll accept it as something to remember our first date.”
She handed me a tiny box, which I opened to find a necklace with a heart-shaped pendant. I picked it up to put it on and she stopped me and took the necklace. “Let me put it on you.” She got up from her chair, walked around behind me, put the necklace around my neck, and fastened it. While she was still behind me she put her hands on my shoulders and bent down to kiss me on the cheek. “I would kiss you on the lips, but not here in the restaurant. Some people are uncomfortable with PDA’s. I think they’re kinda gauche, anyway.”
I had never heard the acronym. “PDA’s?”
“Public displays of affection.”
I reached behind my neck to take off the necklace I had on already. “Laura, it’s beautiful! You didn’t need to do this!”
“It’s something I wanted to do. I wanted to get a special gift for someone who is special to me.”
“Thank you. I hope I’ve made you understand the way I feel about you. ‘Awe’ is only part of it. I’m so glad I ran into you in the dress shop. If I hadn’t, I would have wondered for the rest of my life, ‘Who was that beautiful girl?’ Laura, in addition to being in awe of you, I’m very attracted to you!”
“Then it’s definitely mutual. If we hadn’t met in the dress shop, I would have always wondered who that wonderful family was with the two beautiful daughters.”
“Laura, I won’t disagree with you at all about how wonderful my family is. We’re blessed beyond way beyond what we could expect to deserve.”
“I was devastated when I lost my parents, and it’s taking a long time to accept. I’m blessed that my father had enough insurance so that my brother and I could finish our education without being financially strained. The hardest thing I’ve had to deal with is the loneliness. I hope you don’t find me too ‘clingy’. School takes a lot of time, which is good, but sometimes the loneliness gets hard.”
So we talked. Talking with Laura was easy. All the while, I wondered when she was going to invite me to her apartment. Instead, after dinner she took me home, walked me to the door and kissed me goodnight. This was the kiss I had been anticipating, and it was everything I thought it would be. Laura was a proper lady, but she kissed me with passion. I was blushing after. “Laura, I don’t know what to say!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought …. Sarah, you’re blushing! I’m so sorry. I’m such a fool. I totally misunderstood.”
I put my hand to my chest. “No, Laura, you didn’t misunderstand at all!” I put my arms around her neck. I loved that kiss, and I didn’t want it to end. I would say kiss me again, but I’d keep you here all night kissing if you let me.”
She smiled, “So it’s OK.”
“Laura, it’s more than OK! It’s wonderful! I think I lov ….”
“Shhh, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Goodnight, sweetie!”
Then she left and went home. I should have known that a first date with such a lady would not end in bed. I was almost ashamed to think it might.
Mom was in the living room working on her laptop. “How was your date?”
“Great! Laura is really cool!” I pulled my pendant out just a little to show her. “She had a gift for me.”
“Oh, that’s nice, but it looks expensive!”
“It probably is. That’s how she is.”
“So you like her.”
“Oh, yeah!”
“You’re versatile.”
“After Laura, I don’t see going out with guys. Mom, she so …! She so … something!”
“Wow! You like her a lot!”
“Mom, I think I love her!”
“You didn’t tell her you love her, did you?”
“Almost, but no. I know it’s too soon. I’ll wait a bit, then I’ll tell her.”
“The waiting is supposed to make up your mind. You sound like your mind is made up!”
“Yeah, it really is.”
“OK, we’ll see.”
“I see Lisa’s car is gone. Do you know where she is?”
“She’s studying with a girlfriend.”
“Oh, OK.”
I didn’t say anything, but Lisa did very little studying because she didn’t need to. I thought the word “girlfriend” was probably very appropriate in this case. She had likely ‘found’ someone and I was glad for my sweet little cousin. Now she wouldn’t be sitting at home during the time I would be spending with Laura. Her date wouldn’t be like mine, though. If she wasn’t in bed by a certain time, she would come home.
My mom wasn’t fooled by Lisa’s “homework” story. “One thing about you two,” she continued, “we probably won’t have a lot of men coming to visit.”
“Sorry, Mom.”
“No! Don’t be sorry. Neither of y’all is likely to come home pregnant, and your dad is plenty males for this house.”
“Cool! That’s the way I see it, too!”
I started toward my room and my cell phone buzzed.
“Hello, Lisa.”
“Hi, Sarah. I’m headed home, and I’m in love.”
“What’s her name?”
“Who said it’s a ‘her’?”
“What’s his name?”
“I didn’t say it was a ‘he’. I didn’t notice if it was a he or a she.”
“Lisa, you’re full of feces.”
“Wow, it sounds nasty when you use that instead of the‘s’ word.”
“What is his or her name?”
“Taylor.”
“That could be a male or a female.”
“That’s the last name.”
“Lisa. You’re trying to drive me crazy.”
“OK, it’s ‘Amy Taylor’.”
“Did y’all study?”
“Study?”
“Didn’t you go over there to study?”
“Oh, I did say that, didn’t I? You might say we studied Anatomy.”
“Oh, I know what that means.”
“I tell you the graphic details when I get home.”
“Do you have to?”
“I figure they’ll be interesting.”
“Oh. Not that again.”
“I’m pulling up at the house now. Meet me in the bedroom.”
I went into the bedroom and she soon followed. Her face was flushed. “Lisa, your face is red!”
“Still?” She pulled some pressed powder from her purse and proceeded to cover the red. “Well, when I got there, we went to her room. She said she hadn’t had a shower yet, so I told her I would wait. She called out from the bathroom ‘come in here a minute!’ I went into the bathroom and she asked, ‘Would you like a shower?’”
“It told her I would take a shower when she finished. You will never guess what she said!”
“She probably ….”
“She said, ‘Come on, there’s plenty of room in here!’”
“So, did you go into the shower with her?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want to be rude, so ….”
“Didn’t want to be rude … yeah, that’s the reason!”
“Well, I stripped and went into the shower with her. We washed each other’s backs and got really clean.”
The End
Dear Readers: Not really “The End”. I wouldn’t leave you hanging like this. I have decided to end the novel, “Rivers and Brooks”. I will continue to write about the girls and their family in short stories. This scene will be finished in the first short story and more short stories will follow.
I’m doing this because I’ve found that short stories are read much more than novels. I’ve been told that a possible reason for this is the fear that a novel will not be finished and will leave them hanging after they have invested quite a bit of time in it. I’m wondering if another reason is the pandemic of Attention Deficit Disorder. Some discount the idea that ADD is real, but I can tell you … what was I talking about? Oh, well, forget it!
Obviously, the girls have matured quite a bit during the novel. The short stories may be rated even more for “Mature Audiences” than the novel. These two girls, however, are not likely to get into anything kinky or illegal. Hopefully, they will entertain you, though.
Update 01
This is the first update of “Rivers and Brooks” following the end of the novel. If you haven’t read the novel, you may have a hard time understanding what’s going on, but you may enjoy reading about Lisa’s first date with her girlfriend. She tried to tell me everything was above board … no “hanky panky”. Those of you who have read the novel know a little about Lisa, and will not believe that statement for one second.
I had just returned from my first date with Laura. Soon after I got home, Lisa came home from her first date with her new girlfriend. My date was all prim and proper, but Lisa’s was not so prim or proper, and probably more interesting. We’ll start with the very end of the novel, with Lisa describing her date.
“Well, when I got there, we went to her room. She said she hadn’t had a shower yet, so I told her I would wait. She called out from the bathroom ‘come in here a minute!’ I went into the bathroom and she asked, ‘Would you like a shower?’”
“It told her I would take a shower when she finished. You will never guess what she said!”
“She probably ….”
“She said, ‘Come on, there’s plenty of room in here!’”
“So, did you go into the shower with her?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want to be rude, so ….”
“Didn’t want to be rude … yeah, that’s the reason!”
“Well, I stripped and went into the shower with her. We washed each other’s backs and got really clean.”
Dear Reader: This is the point at which the novel ended. I thought it best to stop before Lisa changes her story and tells the truth. I wanted to keep the novel up on a little higher moral level, and Lisa's antics sometimes drift downward into areas that some readers find offensive. So, the novel ends and the update begins.
“Yeah, Lisa, that’s always fun when you have a friend to wash your back and it turns out that they need a back washing, too.”
“Sarah, you sound like you don’t believe me!”
“I wish I could believe you, Lisa, but sometimes I think you lie for the fun of it. Why don’t you tell me the truth?”
“You can’t handle the truth!!! Thanks, Sarah! You gave me a perfect opening!”
“You’re welcome, Lisa. Using a line from a movie is always fun.”
“Yeah, and that movie has someone in it who is too fine for words!”
“I know you’re not talking about Tom Cruise or Jack Nicholson.”
“You got that right. Demi Moore rocks. I love a girl in uniform. I’d love her in or out of uniform.”
“But you have a new girlfriend, right?”
“Yeah, but I’ve never seen her in uniform. She has clothes on most of the time, though.”
“You were telling me about your date. If you don’t want to tell me the details that’s fine ….”
“I want to tell you!”
“Tell the readers.”
Readers, Lisa here. I’m taking over so I can tell the truth about my first date with my new girlfriend.
Beauty is only skin deep, but that’s plenty. I didn’t want to fondle her mind or analyze her personality. We really did wash each other’s backs, and lots of other parts. Then, we dried off and she got in the bed and patted the covers, inviting me to join her. I lay down next to her and, as she lay on her back, her beautiful breasts were standing high, and her nipples topped them off beautifully. I touched one breast and caught the nipple between two fingers. “You’re beautiful.”
“Yeah, and they’re real; inherited from my father.”
“What?!”
“Yeah, heredity is a strange thing. Men inherit male pattern baldness from their mothers. I inherited big boobs from my father’s side of the family. My mom’s boobs were not all that great, but my dad’s mom and his sisters were all very well endowed.”
“Cool.”
“You’re running me a pretty good race, though. If you have a baby, she will be well fed.”
“I’ll have to investigate my dad’s family.”
“This is interesting, Lisa, but let’s continue what we really want to continue. Kiss me.”
I put my lips to hers and felt her tongue pushing, so I opened my mouth and we began kissing in earnest. She rolled over on top of me … then switched ends and the real passion began. I felt her head between my legs and the room darkened as her legs came down on each side of my face. I felt her kissing my clitoris, so I did the same to her. She then began to suck as if she were trying to grow my clitoris into a penis. I copied her every move so she could show me what she liked. She began tickling my clitoris with her tongue. This was the ticket! We continued the tickling and my heart began pounding. My mind usually tends to wander, but not now! I concentrated on pleasing my lover … and was rewarded with a sweet nectar so rare that it can only be found in the Promised Land of my lover, and only after expressing my love in a certain way to cause that nectar to flow. I drank all I could get and could feel myself providing her with sweetness too. After a bit of this, I felt her pushing to one side and we turned over so I was on top. We continued the stimulus and were rewarded with more sweet liquid. Now, gravity pulled my nectar down for her to have a better drink. My heart was pounding almost out of my chest and I wanted to scream, but I just moaned. “Oh, Amy. Drink, sweetie!”
She couldn’t talk with her mouth full, but she drank her fill. When our gushing stopped, she turned back around in the bed and began kissing me again. “Lisa, you’re wonderful!”
I was exhausted. “Amy, it’s my first time!”
“No! You’re full of shit!”
“Honestly!”
“Lisa, I think I love you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, at least, right now.”
“Good enough! I’ll expect a ring later!”
“Don’t be surprised!”
“I didn’t mean a telephone call.”
“I know. You used to wear an engagement ring. What happened?”
“You remember that? My cousin and I wore engagement rings to ward off pesky boys.”
“I know what you mean. They can’t believe you don’t want to have anything to do with them.”
“Well, our imaginary boyfriends kept them away.”
“I know they must have been a problem … you’re beautiful, honey!”
“Honey?”
No reply, she just kissed me. “What if I asked you to marry me?”
I thought. “I don’t know. I have to finish school.”
“I do too. I promise I won’t get you pregnant.”
“Yeah, we’ll be careful!” We giggled about that.
“Lawyers in love. Wasn’t there a movie or a song?”
“I think so. We’ll be unbeatable … in court or in bed.”
We talked and we kissed. Finally, we decided we had “studied” enough. I reluctantly got dressed and went home. “A ring: What would I do?” Now, I realized I didn’t know the etiquette of lesbian marriage. I was the one who suggested that she be the ring giver and I the recipient. She accepted the roles in that way, so I guess I got it right. I liked it that way … or did I? Would being the ring recipient mean I would be the child-bearer? I had never thought pregnancy was an attractive idea, but suddenly I saw things in a different light. I wanted a child that had my family’s genes. The thought of a baby at my breast awakened feelings I had never known. These feelings were new, but they were strong. I wasn’t even sure where we would get the seed to sow in one of our fertile fields. I decided to stop worrying unless I actually got a ring, then I would discuss it with my bride-to-be. When I thought of that bride, I pictured Amy in a wedding dress. A thought came to me, “We’ll both be brides.” I smiled to myself about that. I could picture a wedding with white everywhere. We would both wear white because we were both virgins … physically.
As I drove, I thought about starting a family. I imagined a family picture. Amy standing behind me with her hands on my shoulders, and me seated holding our baby girl. Tears came to my eyes as I felt overwhelmed with love for this imaginary baby. My body was ready, willing, and able. No! I have to finish school.
Law school was going to be a breeze, but having my body begging for a baby was going to be a complication. It’s not like I could just drop a baby, leave her with my mom, and continue school. I could picture myself trying to study “torts” while my sweet little girl was at home. My once clear future was now out of focus. I was stuck with two very attractive options.
OK, I said I was going to stop worrying unless I got a ring. It would actually be better for me in the long run if Amy dumped me, but I knew that was unlikely. I certainly wouldn’t mention a ring again. Whatever will be, will be.
Update 02
My struggle
I woke up the next morning thinking about my date with Laura. I realized that when I talked with my mom, she seemed happy about my dating Laura, but it seemed like there was a hint of some problem she wasn’t telling me. It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on and it was probably my imagination. I put on some jeans and a top and went to the front yard where a rope swing had been run to a limb that must have been about 100 feet up, so the swing would go in a very wide arc. I started to swing a little as I thought. I wanted to see Laura … now! . Was I in love? I think I’m a pretty smart person, but I am clueless when it comes to love. Oh, family love is easy; I know I love my family completely. Romantic love is a completely different concept with a completely different set of rules and characteristics. Love of family, for instance, is not based on physical attraction at all, but the sharing of hereditary and the bonding that can only come with time and association. Physical attraction, however, plays a big part in romantic love. This attraction is often confused with love, and is part of what causes marriages to fray at the edges as one or both of the partners hangs on the desire for an attractive partner as the years pass and the physical attraction that was once mistaken for love gradually fades.
Would I love Laura if she were not so attractive? The answer to that is made very difficult by my inability to imagine an “ugly” Laura. Her awesome beauty was an inseparable part of the person she was. The fact that she honestly didn’t see herself as beautiful made her even more attractive to me. As I thought, I began to wonder if my concern with looks meant I was actually a “shallow” person.
As I sat in the swing and mulled this over, a man was walking by my house. He was meagerly dressed and barefoot. I caught his eye and he turned and walked into our yard and approached me. He was obviously someone that young women would be advised to avoid, but something about him exuded calm, so instead of making a quick exit I smiled and greeted him. “Hello!”
“Hello there, little girl!”
I ignored his ‘little girl’ reference. “Can I help you?”
“No, I was just admiring your house. It’s really nice.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You must be rich people.”
I remembered the mistake I had made with Brian; bragging about the superiority of my family. “I don’t like the term ‘rich people’. I would rather say we’re ‘blessed’.”
“You sound like a very wise young girl.”
“Thank you, sir. I wasn’t always so wise, but I found that bragging about my family only brought me distress and regret. Our blessings are mostly the result of my father. He’s a very wise and good man.”
“Well, that’s good. He’s probably happy to have such a wise and beautiful daughter. I’m sure you’re a very loving person, too.”
“I was just sitting here thinking about love.”
“Did you come to any conclusions?”
“Actually, I think I’m more confused ever.”
“You’re struggling with a question. That question is, “Do I love this person?”
“Exactly! How do I know?”
“The’ gold standard’ of love is this: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ How does that fit into the context of the person you’re considering?"
“Well, that’s a tough one, and I don’t think there are many people I could say that about.”
“A wise person realizes what he doesn’t know, and is not reluctant to seek advice from someone wiser.”
“I guess I should do that.”
“The Bible speaks much about love. When Jesus was asked which of the commandments was the most important, He said ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ So, according to Jesus, love is the most important thing.”
“But I think I’m in love with another woman! Is that wrong? It feels so right! It feels … pure and wholesome! Some people say it’s a sin. How can it be wrong?” Still sitting in the swing, I looked down at my toes and began drawing circles in the dust.
“You are a very loving person. That’s a very good start. Find someone to share your love, and share your love when you go out into the world to heal the sick. Love goes a long way toward healing.”
I looked up. “How did you know I was …?” But he was gone. I looked behind trees and up and down the road. I didn’t really expect to find him. I looked at the dirt under the swing and the circles I drew were still there, so I hadn’t been dreaming.
I needed to talk to my dad.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Just then, my dad came out of the front door, hurrying to his car.
“Dad!”
“Hi, Sarah. Got an important meeting!”
“Dad, I need to talk to you …”
“OK, can we talk after ….”
“ … about God!”
He pulled out his cell phone and punched a button. “Fran, postpone Freeport until I get back with you. Something’s come up.” He turned to me. “Come on, Honey.”
We went into his home office and I told him about my strange visitor.
“Sarah, this was undoubtedly an angel. Angels are messengers and you must not ignore the message.”
I was near tears. “But Dad, I think I’m in love!”
“Well, Honey, take your time. What is his name?”
I buried my face in my hands and said, “Laura.”
I put my hands down and saw disappointment and dread in my father’s face.
“Oh, Sarah. Please tell me his parents just gave him a girl’s name!”
I had to laugh briefly about that. “I’m so sorry, Dad. It’s a woman.”
“Oh, Honey. I won’t tell you that there’s anything wrong with what you’re considering, but there are some Bible scriptures you should read before you make any decisions. I’ve never faced a situation like this, so I’ve never researched it or prayed about it a whole lot. Believe me, I will now! I know you believe in God, and you believe that the Bible is His Word. Since I know so little about the morals of this, I’m certainly not in a position to preach to you, so let me give you some scriptures to read. Then, you can pray and get an answer from God.”
“OK, Daddy,”
“Do you want me to stay with you today and pray?”
“No, Dad, your meeting is important, I’m sure.”
“Meeting? My meeting just sunk to the bottom of the ocean in relation to my daughter and this issue. Take my hand and let’s pray a little before I go.”
He prayed with me, then wrote down some scriptures references for me to read. He left for work, and I looked at the paper: “Romans 1:18-32 and Genesis 19:1-29”
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1%3A18-3...
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+19%3A1-...
I went to my room and read the scriptures, then put my head down and cried. “Oh, Laura, I love you. God, please help me. What am I gonna do?”
I went to the kitchen and found my mom. She took one look at me and said, “Sarah, my goodness. What’s the matter?”
“Mom, I’m in love with Laura, but I can’t be in love with Laura!”
She put her arms around me. “Oh, no. Honey, who told you this?”
“Well, nobody told me, but Dad gave me some scriptures to read, and they make it pretty clear that God doesn’t like it.”
“Sarah, I should have talked with you about this, but I was waiting for us to get together with your dad. You’re an adult, you know, but you also know what the Bible says. It’s up to you to decide what you honestly believe is right.”
“Mom, I love her. I love her so much ….” I could say any more. I just lay my head on my mom’s shoulder and sobbed.
“Honey, you’re going to have to pray more than you’ve ever prayed. You have to get an answer from God!”
“That’s what Daddy said.”
I thought about this issue all day. When it got late in the afternoon, I went to my room and lay across my bed to think. If I decided to marry Laura (if she asked me, that is), I could picture the hurt and disappointment in the eyes of my parents. Could I live with that? If I decided I couldn’t have a relationship with Laura, I knew she would be disappointed, but I didn’t know how she would react. She had experienced a lot of pain from losing her parents. Could I put more pain on top of what she had already experienced? It broke my heart to think about bringing such pain to someone I loved so much. I wanted God to come to my room and tell me what to do. Was that what the visit from the angel was about?
My heart was telling me to “go for it”. My heart was telling me that I was deeply in love with Laura. I thought of a scripture I had once read about what the heart desires. After a bit of research, I found the scripture, Psalms 37:4 “Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” I know the desires of my heart, now, how do I delight myself in the Lord? Was this scripture my license to go ahead despite the other scriptures that said I would be committing “unnatural acts”?
Until now, I had lived a pretty comfortable life with not a lot of controversy. Now, I had to make a decision. If I went one way, some people I love would be happy, others unhappy. If I chose another route, the happy vs. unhappy feelings would be for opposite groups. I knew what I wanted. I wanted Laura with all my heart. I was very deeply in love. I prayed, considered the options, and fought with myself until I went to a deep, restful sleep. In that sleep, God Himself came to me and told me what to do. I’ve had many dreams, so I know when I’ve had a dream. This was not a dream, but a Divine Revelation.
I woke up to a bright, sunny day. I knew what to do. Despite who would be happy and who unhappy, it was wonderful to have all the doubt removed. I’m sure I will have other major decisions to make in my life, but I doubt that any of them will affect my path as much as this one. I got out of bed and got ready to start my day … and the rest of my life.
The End … REALLY. The Brooks and Rivers families will continue living their lives without documentation by this author. Thank you to everyone who read what’s been written. I hope you have enjoyed their story and will always remember the families and the other characters with whom they interacted. For me, this is like saying “goodbye” to old friends, and I will never forget them.