Chapter 3

Glenn sat behind the wheel cruising for a parking space near Sierra’s coffee shop. Finding none he parked in a municipal lot and used his credit card to put an hour on the parking meter. Hiking the two blocks to her shop he stepped inside and to the counter.

An older woman approached him. “Hi, Glenn,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you here on a Tuesday.”

“Wilma — I need a word with Sierra,” he replied. If she’ll speak with me, he thought.

“I’ll tell her you’re here.”

Sierra approached in her apron. “Glenn...”

“You didn’t call yesterday and I was worried...”

“I was going to call you today,” she replied. “I wanted to wait until I could talk to Jackson, and the first opportunity for that was last night after dinner. I’m glad you came in because this sort of discussion is better done face-to-face.”

Uh-oh, he thought. “Can we speak in private?”

Sierra turned her face toward a door with a frosted pane and a brass plate that read “Office”. Glenn followed her inside. He saw a desk with a computer display, filing cabinets and stacks of papers. She closed the door and they faced each other.

“Sierra, I’m...”

She pressed her finger across his lips. “Let me say my piece first.”

He nodded, his heart pounding. “Ladies first.”

“You’re a gentleman. I mean that sincerely, Glenn. You are a gentleman.” She closed her eyes and drew in a breath. “First of all, I want to apologize profusely for kicking you out of bed the other night. Your comments about him being trans caught me off-guard. I reacted badly and I’m both ashamed and sorry for my behavior.” She looked him in the eye. “I want you in my life, Glenn, and in Jackson’s — but if, after seeing my irrational outburst you don’t want anything more to do with me, I’ll understand.”

“Sierra, I forgive you. I want you and Jackson in my life, too. I understand this is a lot to comprehend. That was the wrong time and place and I should’ve picked a better time.”

“No. I needed to hear it. I’ll tell you about the conversation I had with Jackson, but first I wanted to clear the air about us.” Her lip began to tremble. “I was so afraid I had lost you.”

“I was afraid I had lost you,” he replied and opened his arms to her. She fell into them and they embraced. “It’s okay,” he said as he stroked her back and she rested her face against his shoulder and sniffled. “I love you and I love Jackson. I’m just glad we cleared this up.” She continued holding him tightly. “Take as much time as you need.”

“I am so relieved,” she finally said and kissed his lips.

He stroked a tear from her cheek. “One good thing about not wearing makeup is you don’t have any mascara to run.”

“Good thing,” she replied. Sierra took a box of facial tissues from her desk and removed one. She held the box to him. “You might need one.” Glenn pulled one from the box. “It was the most gut-wrenching experience I’ve had since becoming a parent ... and, the most bonding. You were right, Glenn. You hit the nail on the head. Jackson does believe he’s a girl trapped in a boy’s body. He told me he hated being called Jack and I promised I’d only call him Jackson from now on. He ... she ... I don’t know what pronoun to use ... said the only time he feels free and comfortable is when he wears girl’s clothes ... that when he wears boy’s clothes he feels as uncomfortable and unnatural as a normal boy would feel when forced to wear a dress. He also said there were times he wished he had been born differently — born a girl ... times he wished he hadn’t been born at all, that he could just be a spirit ... times he wished he could die.”

Sierra daubed her eyes with the tissue and Glenn felt his own filling. “Oh, God, Sierra.”

“I felt like such a rotten parent for not seeing or understanding this. It took you to open my eyes. Jackson said he loves you because you accept him at face value. He said Sunday was the happiest day of his life because he felt truly free and able to express himself.”

“You’re not a rotten parent — you’re a good one. You at least let him indulge himself.”

“In private — not in public. Sunday was an exception. He wanted to wear that cropped top and culottes and I told him, absolutely not. Anything but that and he picked the skort and blouse.”

“He does make a nice-looking girl,” Glenn replied.

“As an eleven-year-old there still aren’t that many differences between a girl’s body and a boy’s. I was pretty gawky at that age and a late bloomer. Glenn — I want to help him, but I don’t know how. I don’t even know where to start. You told me your cousin is a trans woman.”

“Yes, Carla.”

“Tell me about her.”

“Well ... Her father is my mom’s older brother. She was born a boy and they named him Charles. I was about nine when Charles came into the world. By the time he was Jackson’s age, Charles was behaving more like a girl. He wasn’t cross-dressing but he was playing with dolls. I remember my folks and my aunt and uncle talking about it. At that time I was in college, attending the state school here and living at home. Charles’s behavior disturbed his parents so they had him live with us. My parents were more tolerant of him.”

“You said Carla didn’t get treatment.”

“Not ‘til later. As he underwent puberty, he became less and less able to cope with the discrepancy between his more and more manly body and his identity as female. His school work suffered and at sixteen he dropped out of high school. He found work as a dishwasher in a restaurant ... turned to drugs. Carla told me years later that heroin was her drug of choice, not because it made your troubles go away, but it made you simply not care about them. A golden glow of apathy is how she described it.”

Sierra looked at him agape and shaking her head. “I’ll do anything to keep Jackson from going down that route,” she said.

“My parents found Charles injecting heroin and told him the drugs had to go or he had to go. He left and we didn’t hear from him. I graduated, married Darlene and we set up a household in a two-bedroom apartment. One day Charles knocked on our door. He was homeless and strung out and he needed a place to stay. Over Darlene’s objections I said he could stay with us but no drugs. He was on Suboxone therapy, he told us, so no drugs. He lied. I caught him shooting heroin and told him he had a week to find another place. I had no idea the inner turmoil he suffered. I just didn’t want drugs in the house.”

“You’re suffering the same kind of guilt I am,” she said.

“I am.” He daubed tears from his own face. “Two days later, Darlene called him to dinner and he didn’t respond. She went into his room and let out a shriek. I came in and saw him. He was lying on his bed with a syringe in his hand and a suicide note taped to his chest with big letters D N R at the top.”

“Do not resuscitate,” Sierra remarked.

“He was a hair’s breadth from being gone — his breathing was deeply depressed. His lips were blue and his skin was pallid. I began mouth-to-mouth while Darlene called 911. The paramedics gave him several doses of Narcan and that brought him back from the brink. When he came to, he was furious with us and started a scene. The paramedics subdued him and took him to the mental hospital on a seventy-two hour hold. In the meantime the cops found enough heroin to charge him with possession.”

“Oh, God,” Sierra said.

“We all pitched in and hired an attorney, who persuaded the judge to put him in a first-time offenders program and if he got clean, they’d expunge the charge. At the same time at the mental hospital they convinced him to commit himself due to the clinical depression and suicide attempt. His psychologist diagnosed him with gender dysphoria and he started reassignment therapy. Charles became Carla. As Carla she was finally happy with herself — the depression and self-loathing were gone. She’s been sober and clean ever since. Carla reconciled with her folks, got her GED and her dad found her work at his company in the art department as an illustrator. She has always been a talented artist and she worked on training material and so on.”

“It sounds like a happy ending,” she remarked.

“It gets even happier. In her spare time she started creating what she called alternative cover art for rock bands she enjoyed. She set up a website and a Facebook page to display these and eventually the female vocalist for Melonheads spotted her work and asked her to submit a design for their breakthrough CD ‘Area Fifty-One’. She has done cover art for all their subsequent CDs plus concert posters and she even designed the logo they have on their bass drum. Through word of mouth other bands have used her art. She’s doing so well as a free-lancer that she quit her job.”

“Wow ... To come back from the brink like that. You said you were nine when she was born. That would make Carla about my age.”

“A couple years younger,” Glenn replied.

“You said she had reassignment therapy. Has she had surgery?”

“No. By the way, that’s something you should never ask a trans person unless you know them really well. It would be like me on a first date asking you if you had a labiaplasty. Carla is living in a nice house with her lesbian partner Wendy.”

“Glenn, my head just exploded. You said Carla hasn’t had reassignment surgery.”

“Not to my knowledge and it’s something I would probably know.”

“How can she have a lesbian partner?”

“Sierra, sexual identity and sexual orientation are completely separate characteristics. This was a hard concept for me to wrap my head around initially but I have come to embrace it. You identify as a woman.”

“I am a woman,” she replied.

“So is Carla. A trans woman IS a woman,. Does your pussy define you as a woman? Or is it your thought processes, your world view, your character, your personality? Is your pussy the only thing that makes you feminine?”

“When you put it that way...”

“If you were a trans woman whose only difference was a dick instead of a pussy, my feelings for you would be the same. My love would be as deep and I would want you just as much. How we expressed our love physically would be different, but our love would be the same.”

“It’s sinking in,” she said.

“I think it’s liberating,” he replied. “I know that Carla and Wendy are deeply in love. They’re soulmates. You can see it whenever they’re together. How they celebrate their love physically is no one’s business but theirs — just as what we did Sunday night is no one’s business but ours.”

“I understand. Carla sounds like a remarkable woman. I’d really like to meet her.”

“She is, and I’m glad you said that. I became more and more worried yesterday, having not heard from you, so I called Carla and we had a long talk. I described Jackson’s situation to her and she would like to meet you. She’d like to meet Jackson at some point, too. Carla suggested we have dinner together tonight at Farley’s Pub and Grille at six. Can you make that?”