Be a girl

I opened dad’s bedroom door to find him lying on his back, fast asleep. Well, I assumed he was asleep. I hoped he was.

I shook him in an attempt to wake him up, but was unsuccessful. Shit. He wasn’t actually dead, was he? I picked up his arm to check for his pulse, but before I could place my index and middle fingers on his wrist, he tried to swat me away. Ok. No need to check the pulse.

I slapped him lightly on the face until he began to groan and roll over. He dragged his pillow with him, wrapping it around his head. Why was he being so difficult?

“Dad, please just wake up,” I said, starting to become rather annoyed at his uncooperative behaviour. I realised he was probably hungover, but I didn’t consider that a good enough excuse.

“Go away,” he demanded from underneath his pillow shelter, his voice somewhat muffled through the material.

“Dad, we need to talk.”

He swatted his arm around aimlessly, still keeping his head beneath the protection of the pillow. “Later.”

“Don’t you have work soon?”

“Not going today. Sick.”

“I hardly think a hangover is a good enough excuse to call in sick.”

Dad withdrew himself from the pillow fortress surrounding his head and stared at me. “It’s not that,” he said dejectedly. “I’m not sure how to really say this but… I’m bleeding out of an orifice I didn’t have a month ago.”

My face became very hot all of a sudden. I was not expecting that. My embarrassment was immeasurable, and I could only imagine how bad it must have been for my dad. Why did he have to announce it in such a manner? The thought that my dad would experience… that, had completely slipped my mind. But it made total sense, it just wasn’t something I ever really thought about. And it had been about a month since I’d transformed him and James, so the timing added up.

“I um… uh…” I stammered, my words beginning to escape me. “Let’s just talk in an hour,” I somehow managed to sputter right before immediately exiting the room. That was… extremely awkward. Mortifying for me and no doubt more so for him. I was definitely not expecting that, and I would rather not have a repeat of that moment.

I decided that I might as well use the hour I had wisely and prepare myself for the day, not that I had much planned. I started with a shower that dad would have normally complained about being far too long, but I didn’t think he was in the mood to care today. The mood around here was generally very glum, for a multitude of reasons.

Finishing up my shower, I got myself some breakfast. Nothing fancy, just a bowl of cereal. With that all done I sat on the couch and waited. I didn’t do anything but stare at the wall. It was a rather plain wall. Cream coloured. Not much going on. Just. There. It sure was a wall. Keeping the house from tumbling over. Maybe. I didn’t know if it was a load bearing wall or not. It may have been. But maybe not. Who knew. Someone. Hopefully. But that someone was not me.

Dad plopped himself down onto the lounge beside me after some time. I didn’t know how long. I continued staring at the wall.

“So,” he said.

“So,” I said back, still not turning to look at him.

“You wanted to talk.”

“Yes.”

“Go on then.”

I sighed. Perhaps I should have spent that time staring at the wall scripting this conversation. Very poor decision on my part to enter into a talk like this without preparing beforehand. “How are you feeling?” I said after a moment’s hesitation.

Dad groaned and sunk into the lounge, looking rather defeated. “Terrible.” And he sure looked it too. The bags under his eyes indicated poor sleep. He was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday. His short hair looked like it had been passed through a wind tunnel.

“Is this about the… you know?” I asked, purposely avoiding the sensitive word. I didn’t want to say it, it didn’t need to be said, so I didn’t say it, simple as that.

Dad looked away from me. He rested his elbow on the lounge’s armrest, and his chin in his hand. “Yes.” There was a moment of silence before he spoke again. “I just… I kept telling myself that I could get used to this. This body.” He gestured at himself. “But it started yesterday, and I felt like all my progress had vanished.” He sighed and hung his head, looking down at his lap. “I don’t know if I will ever get used to this.” The beginnings of tears began forming in dad’s eyes, but he looked away again in an effort to stop me seeing him cry.

A simple “oh” was all I could manage in response. Seemed like dad was far worse off than my little brother. Which wasn’t too surprising. He had to deal with an unfamiliar body, his wife leaving him, and a bodily function he’d never had to experience before in all his forty two years.

We sat in silence for a while. Dad trying (and failing) to not let on that he was crying, and I trying to process my next words. “You’re not going to –” I took a deep breath before finishing the sentence. It was difficult to think, let alone say.  “– end it all, are you?”

He looked towards me, his eyes blood red, and his cheeks puffy, a half-hearted smile on his face. “Of course not. I made a promise, remember? I couldn’t do that to you, or James, or even your mother.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” he asked.

“This.”

Dad sunk back into the lounge and groaned. “Ben. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. Don’t forget your promise.”

I leant back into the lounge as well and let out a deep sigh. I didn’t say anything in return. What could I say? I could apologise again, but he’d probably politely chastise me for it again. So, I simply said nothing.

“Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?” dad asked after several moments of silence.

“Yes. Actually. It’s about James,” I said.

Dad raised his eyebrow at me. “Speaking of, do you know where he is? I didn’t see him this morning. Or last night either? My memory is a little fuzzy though.”

“Mum took him to school. She, uhh, refused to let him stay here last after seeing the state you were in. She dropped by earlier while you were in bed to grab his uniform then left.”

“Oh, ok. I guess that makes sense.” Dad rubbed his eyes and groaned. “How bad was I last night?”

“Bad,” I replied, not wanting to sugar-coat it.

He sighed. He looked rather defeated. He was regretting his poor decision last night, though I figured he had his reasons for drinking so much. Not that they justified it, but they would at the very least explain his chosen course of action.

“But wait,” he said, “Where was James last night? I vaguely remember you and Beth showing up with a little girl in a yellow dress, but I don’t remember seeing James.”

“That was James,” I said bluntly.

“Wh- Oh.”

Being honest, I expected more of a reaction from him. He was barely surprised with the information I’d provided. I expected him to be shocked. In disbelief. But no, just “oh” and that was it. Something was up. He knew more than he initially let on.

“You’re not surprised?” I inquired.

He sighed. “Your mother and I… disagreed on what to do with James,” dad began, “I wanted everything to remain normal. We let James continue living as a boy and pretend like nothing happened. Your mother believes that now that James is a girl, then we should raise him as such. I was worried about how the other kids would react to James suddenly being a girl, which is why I felt like we should pretend nothing happened. But she was worried about what would happen when James hit puberty, so she insisted that we start raising James as a girl as soon as possible. I told her it was possible to delay puberty, but she wouldn’t listen. And then she left.”

That was… a lot. A lot a lot. He knew. I didn’t even need to say anything. They’d already argued about this and come to a disagreement. This was bad. Awful. Terrible. What should we even do? I was planning on asking dad to speak to mum, but they’d already done that before I’d even realised. I just, didn’t want my little brother to be a miserable mess, and my only plan, my only option, had been exhausted before I’d even attempted it. What was I to do?

I rested my elbows on my knees and cupped my face in my hands. “Dad,” I said, “James is miserable.”

My father hung his head. “I… hoped that wouldn’t be the case, although I suspected it would be.”

“So, what do we do?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

That was not the answer I wanted to hear. There had to be something we could do, right? But if mum wasn’t listening to dad, then why would she listen to me? After all, I was still a child to her. What would I know? She was the parent. So clearly her judgement was simply better.

I could at least try talking to her though. Dad wasn’t going to. He’d already tried, and failed, and had given up at this point. Both my parents wanted what they thought was best for my little brother, but their ideas on how to achieve that were simply incompatible. And mum ended up on top, despite the rest of the family disagreeing with her decision. It didn’t seem reasonable nor fair.

Forcing James to assume a role he was uncomfortable with was severely detrimental to his mental health, and it didn’t take a trained professional to notice that. So, to me, it was obvious that pretending like nothing had happened was the best approach. It was what made James happy after all, and as far as I was concerned, that was the important thing here.

It did irk me that mum never actually consulted James on what he wanted. I was no parent, but it felt like a no brainer to me that doing what was best for a child should include the child’s input. They know themselves better than anyone else. Obviously, I wouldn’t trust a child to make all their own life decisions, but they should at least get some say.

And mum was doing the exact opposite of that. She’d ignored James’ protests, ignored his misery. I wanted to believe that I could convince her to go along with dad’s idea. But I doubted it. I didn’t know if explaining James’ feelings would persuade her that maybe what she was doing wasn’t what was best for my little brother. But, what other option did I have? I had to at least try, even knowing the miniscule chance of success.

***

Since dad was taking the day off from work, I managed to cajole him into driving the two of us over to James’ school around home time. Sure, the school was within walking distance of the house, but it was still a good twenty minutes away. The car cut that time down significantly, unsurprisingly. I didn’t want to walk that far if I could avoid it.

I knew that James would be looking for me specifically, so I hopped out of the car upon arrival. I kept my hands tucked away in my pockets as I didn’t want to have to wear gloves on such a short trip. So long as no one pulled my arms out, then nothing bad would happen, and who would try such a thing?

My little brother rushed over to me excitedly as soon as he saw me, a stark contrast to only one day earlier. Like a switch had been flipped. It was quite astonishing just how much of an effect a different set of clothing had had on his emotional state. He briefly wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug then jumped into the car.

“How was your day, James?” dad asked as he pulled out onto the road.

“Good,” James replied cheerfully. That was nice to hear.

“That’s good. What did you get up to today?”

“Well, we started with English which was really boring,” James began, “Then we did maths which was super easy.” No surprises there. Dad was an engineer, and it was obvious that both James and I had inherited our mathematical abilities from him. Not that year four maths was in any way difficult, but I was sure he’d remain at the top of his maths classes for his entire schooling career, just like I had. “And then we had recess and that was fun cause we all played chasey¹Australian word for "tag". Then at lunch I built a mega sandcastle in the sand pit and then we all kicked it down at the end of lunch.”

“Sounds like you had a fun day,” dad said.”

“Yep!”

I smiled. It warmed my heart to hear that James had a good day today. He definitely deserved it after the dismal weekend he’d had. Though I worried that next weekend would be a similar affair. Perhaps there was something I could do to help keep his mood from dipping too low. Good thing I had the whole week to work that out.

“James, buddy, can you be honest with me for a tick?” dad asked.

“Ok.”

“If you could choose to be a boy or a girl, which would you choose?”

“A boy!” my little brother exclaimed, “I hate being a girl.” As he said the word ‘girl’, he crossed his arms over his chest and pouted.

“That’s what I thought,” dad nodded. After a brief pause, he continued, much more dejectedly, “I know what your mother did over the weekend, and that from now on, she’ll expect you to be a girl. I wish I could do more, to convince her that she’s wrong, but I can’t control her. I promise, James, that as long as you’re staying with me, I will always let you be a boy.”