Lily and Dunkin

Reluctantly, I drag my body from bed, go into Mom and Dad’s room and put Mom’s dress and sandals back into her closet. On my way out, I touch some of her business suits and remember when Mom used to work as a lawyer. She’d come home late every night and flop into a chair, exhausted. We had a family meeting when Mom decided to give up the law practice and open her own yoga studio—Peaceful Poses.

Mom looked very serious when she told Sarah and me that her parents pushed her into becoming a lawyer, but opening a yoga studio is what she’s always really wanted to do.

We were behind her one hundred percent.

It’s been nice having Mom home more…relaxed and energetic.

I change into the baggy cargo shorts Dad bought me and one of his T-shirt company rejects I like: Congratulations, Beckford Palms Baseball Camps!

Practice is over for today. I wish it felt like a relief to change back into boy clothes. I prefer wearing girl clothes, but the rest of the world doesn’t. Dad doesn’t. I wish he were more accepting of me, like Mom and Sarah. Like Dare. If it’s so hard to be myself at home with Dad’s critical eye, how will I ever be able to do it at school this year?

Downstairs, Dad’s sipping a beer and watching TV.

It’s way too early for a beer…and TV. He’s usually at the T-shirt shop this time of day.

“Dad?” I say tentatively.

“What’s up?” He takes an extra-long swig and doesn’t turn his gaze from the screen.

I wish Sarah were here with me instead of up in her room, probably working on one of her cool knitting projects and chatting with her friends online. If Sarah were here, she’d know the right things to say. But I have to figure it out myself. “Can I sit with you?”

Dad moves some newspapers out of the way, but still doesn’t look at me. I want to run back upstairs, hide under my ugly brown comforter. But instead, I sit. “So…”

Dad jams his thumb on the mute button, silencing the TV, and turns toward me. “I have to go into the shop soon,” he says, as though he can’t wait to get away from me, like when the kids at school used to play keep-away from the kid who they labeled with cooties. When it comes to Dad, I feel like I’m always that kid with cooties. The more I try to be who I really am, the more he pushes away. And it feels like it’s been getting worse the past couple of years, especially since Grandpop Bob died.

Dad notices my T-shirt and his face relaxes. “How ya doin’, Camp?” He playfully punches my shoulder.

I rub it, like he hurt me.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Seriously, Dad? You think that would hurt me?”

He shrugs.

I drop my hands into my lap and shake my head. “You didn’t hurt me.” At least, not in the way you think.

“Good,” Dad says, and reaches for the remote, as though our conversation—brief as it was—is over.

“Dad?”

He drops his hand and looks toward his lap. “Hmm?”

I wish I could talk fast, blurt the whole thing out. Make him understand. I have a thousand words roiling in my head, but can’t seem to pick the right ones, the ones I need him to hear. “I want to talk about the dress. And…something else.”

He inhales sharply.

I exhale slowly, the way Mom taught me. It’s all in the breath. You can get through almost anything with the breath. “I’d like to buy new clothes for when school starts, maybe some dresses and—”

Dad springs up, knocking the newspapers and remote control to the floor. “I don’t want to talk about this now, Tim. I’ve got to get to the shop. Can’t leave Grandma alone there too long.”

The word “Tim” hurts. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, after hearing it for thirteen years, but I will never get used to that name. “But Dad.” I stand. My heart hammers so hard, it feels like all the slow exhales in the world won’t be able to calm it. “I need to talk about this and—”

“Can’t this wait till your mom gets home?” Dad runs his fingers through his wiry red hair.

Very gently, I say, “I need to talk to you, Dad.”

He sits again, so I do, too, but he’s farther away.

“Okay,” Dad says, holding out his palms, then clenching them into fists. Open, clench. Open, clench.

It feels like he’ll bolt if I say one wrong word. I move a millimeter closer to him. I always feel like I’m trying to get closer, and he keeps moving away. What words can I use to keep him here and say what I need to? I’ve had this conversation in my head so many times, but now, when I need the words to come, they’re bunched together like bumper cars in a massive pileup in my brain. And I can’t seem to pull the right ones loose.

“Dad,” I say softly, willing the words to find their way to my mouth in time.

His knee bounces like he’s waiting for the starting pistol so he can take off.

“I’ve dressed like a boy all the way through seventh grade.”

Dad nods. “That’s right.”

I test the water. “For you.”

“For me?” He shakes his head. “You mean for you, Tim.”

I hold my collision of words back and let Dad talk.

“Did you get beaten up? Attacked?”

I don’t tell Dad how much I’m made fun of, teased, bullied. I don’t tell him it’s a small torture every time I have to dress and act like someone I’m not, like playing a role in a movie I don’t want to be in. A role I wasn’t born to fill. I simply shake my head side to side.

“See,” Dad says. “Then you did it for yourself, Timothy, to keep yourself safe.” Dad’s words are tight and thin. Dad’s words are the wrong ones. They are full of untruths.

“Look,” I say. “I know I was born with boy parts. I get that. And it makes people comfortable if I dress and act like a boy. It’s what they’ve learned to expect. But remember when I was little and wore Sarah’s dresses?”

Dad nods. “But you outgrew that phase, Tim.”

“No,” I say quietly, my fingernails digging into the flesh of my palms. It was never a phase. You only choose to believe that, even when the truth is staring you in the face.

Dad lowers his head and runs a hand through his hair again. “You can’t do that, Tim. You can’t go out of this house like that. It’s not right. You’ll get…”

I’m silent and give Dad a chance to finish, but he doesn’t. “I’ll get what?” I can’t imagine anything harder than going out every day as someone I’m not.

Dad presses his palms on his thighs and looks straight ahead. “You’ll just have to try harder, son.”

His words crush me. I’m not your son! I want to shout. Try harder for what? For whom? “I have tried,” I say, my throat constricting, voice sounding pinched. “I have and I have and I have.” For you. “But it’s not who I am. Every day, every single minute of every single day, I know that I…am…a…girl.”

He turns so I can see only the back of his head. “I’ve, um, got to—”

“Dad.” I reach out and gently touch his shoulder.

He flinches.

“I need to talk to you about something else.” I gulp down the lump in my throat. “The hormone blockers. Remember I told you about them? I have to get started on them now or else—”

“Goddamn it, Timothy!” Dad turns, his face filled with fury and something else. Pain? “Your mother gave birth to a boy. We had a boy. What am I supposed to do? Just let go of that? Am I supposed to let him die?”

The last word lingers in the air between us as the front door opens and Mom walks in, oblivious to the disaster she’s entering into.

“How’s my happy family?” she asks, her yoga mat carrier slung over one shoulder, flip-flops hitting the tile floor as she approaches. Whap. Whap. Whap.

Neither of us answers.

Dad rockets up and kisses Mom on the cheek, talking directly to her, as though I’ve left the room. “I’ve got to get to work, honey.”

“But, Dad…”

He’s already gone. The front door slams, and Mom turns to face me. One look at me is all she needs to understand.

Mom plops down on the couch next to me and puts her bare arm around my shoulders. She leans her head into mine. And without knowing what was said, somehow she knows. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” I ask, leaning my head against hers. “Why won’t he let me be…me? Am I so bad? He wouldn’t even let me talk about the hormone blockers. I need them, Mom!”

“Shhh.” She strokes my hair. “It’s hard for your dad, sweetheart. His mom is so…so…”

“It’s hard for me.” Dad doesn’t have to deal with the Neanderthals at my school.

Mom kisses the top of my head. “I know. Your dad’s worried about you. That’s all.” I hear Mom’s slow exhale, and I want to tell her it doesn’t work. When dealing with Dad, the slow breathing thing is totally ineffective.

“He’s making it impossible for me,” I say. “I can’t go on like this. I can’t turn into—”

“Shhh.” Mom presses her head even closer to mine.

I want to cry, because it feels like Mom really does understand. I don’t know what I’d do without her and Sarah on my side. And of course, Dare, who’s ready to fight the whole world on my behalf, or at least the kids at school. I’m lucky to have each of them.

But I need Dad, too.

“He’ll come around,” Mom says. “It’ll just take some more time for him to get used to it.”

“I don’t have more time.” I pull away from Mom. “I’m beginning to change. And it’s making me crazy. I need to start hormone blockers right now or things are going to happen that can’t be reversed. I can’t wait any more, and I need one of you to sign the form so I can get them.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Mom says. “Again. Please be patient a little longer. I want your dad to be on board before we take this next step.”

I stand, feeling light-headed. “It’s so unfair.”

As I walk away on wobbly legs, trying not to think about what will happen to my body without hormone blockers—the deeper voice, bulging Adam’s apple, facial hair and hair down there—what’s already beginning to happen—Mom says one word that cracks through the hurt. One word that manages to make the muscles of my mouth form into a weak smile.

One word that matters.

I drag my traitorous body up to my room and lie on the ugly brown comforter. Tears trickle out, but I know I’d completely lose it if Mom’s tiny, two-syllable word weren’t ping-ponging through my brain, releasing bits of hope each time, reassuring me of who I am.

Lily.

She called me Lily—my chosen name—for the first time. Why now? Does she understand how much I need her to? Does she realize how much her complete acceptance of me matters? Maybe she’ll keep calling me Lily. I hope so. Now maybe Sarah will call me Lily, too. And someday, Dad might even…

Lily.

Lily.

Lily.

Me.

Lily.

Hope.

Meatball charges into my room—tags jangling—and leaps onto my bed. He nuzzles close and licks my cheeks again and again with his tiny pink tongue. He must like the taste of salt.

Lily.