“Live … That’s the message … Come poor child … Life’s a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death… Come on now child, live ... live … live ...” — famous scene in movie, “Auntie Mame”

It was the cold late autumn of 1941, and I was totally sad. I found no joy in life, no joy in being a 12-year-old boy.

There were good reasons for that: Mom had been taken from me in a cruel death, a freak hit-and-run accident when she was hit while extracting mail from our rural mail box. A truck skidded on an icy two-lane road in front of our decrepit farm house and hit her cruelly and bringing an instant death. And I had no dad, at least as far as I knew. Of course, there was a dad once, or else I wouldn’t be here; but who or where he was, no one ever told me.

I loved my mom; she had held me often in the cold nights of winter, as we both tried to stay warm and cozy as the wind whipped through the leaky windows on the 80 year old farmhouse in which we lived. Our source of heat was an aged oil space heater, no doubt one that would be condemned had any fire inspector come by.

Mom would say her favorite cuss word (“fiddle sticks”) whenever the flame on the stove would flicker out. She would hug me tightly as we huddled against the cold and then say, almost apologetically, “Terrence, honey, would you prime the oil pump and get that flame relit?”

Mom, well her name was Ellen, was very prim and proper; maybe that’s why my dad, whoever he was, decided to desert her. Maybe he liked to cuss, I don’t know. She could be very demanding, and always insisted that I use proper words and always be neat and polite. I tried, really I did, but mom always found something I fell short on. Maybe she just didn’t understand that 12-year-old boys sometimes can be a bit disorganized.

Except that I wasn’t really disorganized, at least by 12-year-old boy standards. I was always the neatest boy in the two-room school (Tippecanoe District No. 4) I attended. For being so neat and maybe even a bit prissy, I was teased. It didn’t help that I was a bit lousy at sports, and really not very strong, in spite of helping gramps work on the family’s hardscrabble 40-acre farm. We had lots of chickens, and a few milk cows; gramps raised corn and soybeans, alternating the fields each year, just as the Extension office suggested.

I loved my mom. Oh, did I say that? Well, it’s worth repeating. I loved my mom; she appreciated me and she had been really my only friend. The adjoining farms were childless, and I had no cousins. There was only gramps and grandma, and they were all right, I guess, but they had found Christ somewhere along the line and just prayed and prayed and then spent hours and hours at the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, a strict Wisconsin synod place, in the Tippecanoe village, located in a valley among the rock-infested soil of the hills of western Wisconsin.

I went a few times with them, but I hated it. There was a strange odor in the place; maybe it was because so many in the congregation still had manure on their boots when they entered the church. I don’t know. It was strange. And, I didn’t like the God they talked about. Mom never went to that church; she said that if a person followed the Golden Rule, God would know it and he’d open the gates of heaven to them.

That’s what mom always told me: “Terrence, follow the Golden Rule and you can’t go wrong.”

“Even when they tease me, Mom?” I asked her in the week before her death.

I had told her I wanted to get even with Billy Gustafson who pushed me in the snow; some 12 inches had fallen on the week before Thanksgiving, and the plows had left a huge pile right in front of Tippecanoe District No. 4 School. And he used only one hand to push me down, right into the biggest drift. And then he pushed snow in my face. And I cried. That only made it worse.

“If I had a BB gun, I’d shoot him, right in the hinder,” I said angrily that day, upon returning home from school.

“Hinder’s a naughty word, Terrence,” she scolded. “And I never want to hear you want to shoot anyone. How would you like it if they wanted to shoot you?”

I hung my head at that. Of course, mom was right. Besides I wouldn’t have had the courage anyway to shoot Billy. But, I thought, he deserved it for calling me “Miss Prissy Sissy.” Right in front of Sally Hansen, too, who I liked, but was afraid to tell her that.

Well, you get the picture. I really wasn’t much of a boy, was I? Really not. I was afraid of my own shadow, I guess you could say. Pretty pathetic, right?

That’s when mom would hug me. I loved how she would run her hands through my long, blonde hair, running its fine texture through her fingers, kissing me on the forehead, caressing me, holding me tight against her bosom.

Then she’d suggest: “Help your mother make a batch of cookies, dear.”

“Yes mom,” I’d say eagerly. This was truly the sweetest time of the day for me. How I loved baking cookies, and I could make the best oatmeal raisin cookies ever. Really. I won first prize at the 4-H Club challenge at the Harrison County Fair, the first boy ever to win such a cooking prize. I stood so proud in my dark pants, white shirt and tie holding the blue ribbon amidst six girls about my same age, each one dressed in light summer dresses, white stockings and black sandals. They looked so lovely.

I was so proud of that blue ribbon. It was the first time I ever won anything. My pride was soon shattered when Billy Gustafson (yes, that Billy) saw me near the Merry-Go-Round and said, “Hi girly. Is that all you can do is cook, like a girl?”

At first I didn’t understand. Why couldn’t a boy cook? Then I realized that most little boys don’t work in the kitchen. That’s girl’s work. But I was so proud of my oatmeal raisin cookies. What was wrong with that?

“Girly girl,” he taunted.

I had been waiting at the Merry-Go-Round for mom, who was off to buy some cream puffs when I saw Billy; and now I felt sad. Of course, I began to cry. That was a mistake, for Billy got even more abusive, until he saw my mom come. He scooted away.

Again, a hug from mom soon helped to make me feel better. And now she was gone from me forever.

*****
On the night of her death, I was moved from the ancient old farmhouse to stay with gramps and grandma. I guess they loved me, but it was hard to tell; they were both taciturn, reluctant to smile, ever. It was hard after the warmth and hugs I got from mom.

I had spent my whole life in that old farmhouse, across the road. It was not much of a place, just two tiny bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room, and had been built by the farmer carpenters too many years ago. It was built for the hired man’s family, and thus there wasn’t much care put into building the place. But it was my home. Soon, I suspected, it would be lying in ruin, collapsing from heavy snows that landed on its weakened roof.

They put me in a small room on the second floor, a room that was even more confining due to the slanted roof that cut into its space. A small window, located at about thigh level, offered the only view of the outside; no doubt the room would be freezing in winter and stifling in summer. Gramps and grandma slept in one of the two bedrooms downstairs, with the other room being used for an office for gramps who was chairman of the township Board of Commissioners. I guess my room had been carved out of the attic.

I couldn’t get mom out of my mind on those nights at gramps’ place. Imagining her horror as the Simonson’s Milk Truck careened toward her, I cried and cried. She was so sweet to me; why did she have to die? Is it a crime for a boy to cry over that horror?

The sound from the kitchen filtered up through the stairwell, and I could hear gramps and grandma talking each night as I lay in bed. Usually, it would be either one reading parts of the Bible to the other, but sometimes they talked about money, or rather the lack of it.

Our farm family was like so many others in 1939, still reeling from the impact of the Great Depression, which caused the farms to fail and had sent many men into Milwaukee or Minneapolis for work, leaving the wife and kids behind. But, gramps was already too old to move, and they struggled by mainly raising their own food, with a vegetable garden that constantly needed weeding and the chickens.

In the first week of December, a week after we laid mom into the ground at St. Paul’s Lutheran Cemetery, I heard my name come up in the conversation, as a tried to get to sleep.

“What should we do about Terrence?” I heard grandma say. “This is no place for a boy. He seems so sad and lonesome.”

“I don’t know, Em,” grandpa said, using the short version of Emma. “He’s not much help around here.”

“I know Cletus, but he’s just a boy.”

“You’d think he could help out more, Em. He’s just not very strong. He may as well be a girl for how he works.”

“Oh, posh, Cletus. He’s just 12.”

“Posh nothing,” gramps said, his voice rising a bit. “Sometimes I think Ellen raised him as a daughter. Can you imagine winning a cookie baking contest at the 4-H fair? He’s supposed to be a boy.”

“He helps out feeding and cleaning up after the chickens, Cletus, and he’ll get stronger as he grows,” grandma said.

“Let’s see if Adele could take him,” I heard gramps say. “She’s got that big old house with all that room.”

“Oh I don’t know, Cletus,” grandma said. “She’s so flighty. I’m not sure it’d be good for Terrence to be with her.”

“Well, it hard for us to feed another mouth, Em,” gramps said.

Aunt Adele, my mom’s sister, was a widow who lived in Milwaukee. She lost her husband early in the Depression. His death, too, had been tragic. He took a shotgun to his head in the family garage after his bank went belly-up in 1933. Nonetheless, he left Aunt Adele with a big house, no children and enough money to keep her comfortable for perhaps another ten years. But she was only 30 years old when he committed suicide and she knew she had to eventually work to maintain a living. So she decided to convert the first floor of the large house into a dance studio. We knew Aunt Adele had worked for a while as one of the “Dime-a-dance” girls at the big ballroom in Milwaukee, and that she also danced with an amateur troupe. She could be quite a beauty, mom said.

We saw Aunt Adele only once a year, when she’d spend a week in the summer visiting gramps and grandma. She always drove up from Milwaukee in the latest model Buick, usually a shiny grey; I loved her cars and really admired how elegant Aunt Adele was. Her hair was always perfectly groomed in the tight, curly style of the 1930s, and even in summer she wore stylish dresses. During the visits on the farm, she still wore skirts and blouses and heels. I watched her with envy, sometimes even mimicking how she smoked cigarettes or drank her iced tea or lemonade. I even wondered what it would be like to be a gorgeous woman like she was.

“She’s always putting on airs,” gramps would grumble when talking about his eldest daughter.

I liked how Aunt Adele put on “airs.” Besides she always was nice to me, and often showed me how she put on makeup. “A woman’s got to take care of herself,” she’d say, glancing toward mom who rarely put on lipstick or wore nice clothes. I guessed she was taking a dig at mom, but the two seemed to enjoy each other. Mom was the younger sister.

A year ago, Aunt Adele brought a man friend up for the week, an older man with graying hair and wearing a brown suit and fedora. His name was Mr. Simpson, I think, and he took me a couple of times into town for ice cream. I liked him, but mom tells me that he and Aunt Adele are no longer friends.

I don’t ever remember mom having a man friend, but maybe she did and I didn’t know about it. She worked weekends at the Tippey Café in town to pick up some money, and, until I was 11, Mildred Hampton, from down the road, would babysit for me. Now, she left me alone, and gramps or grandma would stop by to check on me.

Aunt Adele was skinny, and not at all like mom, who was chubbier. But then, Aunt Adele used to be a dancer; that was why she went to the big city at age 18, just as World War I was beginning. She got a job at the Harley-Davidson factory, doing assembly work, filling in for the men who had been drafted. That’s when she met her husband; they were at a dance hall on the roof of an office building in downtown Milwaukee dancing to the music of Bill Carley and his Badger Times Dance Band. It was a happy marriage, and Aunt Adele’s husband, mom told me, was nice to her, but apparently the pressure of his bank going bankrupt caused him to take his life.

*****
Well, three days before Christmas, and on the Saturday after school ended for vacation, I was put on the Northwestern 400 train in Elcho Junction for Milwaukee. Aunt Adele picked me up as the train stopped at the Northwestern Station along Milwaukee’s lakefront. Aunt Adele hugged me, just like mom did. I liked that, and I loved her smell; it was a mixture of perfume and rouge and other makeup materials.

I marveled at the tiled floors and vaulted ceilings of the old train depot as I followed my elegant Aunt Adele through the station. We drove off from the magnificent station, its turrets towering over the lakefront landscape, and I really had my breath taken away at the tall buildings and all the people on the streets, accompanied by the clanging of streetcars and honking of horns. I had never seen such things. It was amazing!

Aunt Adele’s house was a mansion. Well, at least I thought it was, considering the cramped spaces we had on the old farm. Really it was elegant, built maybe in the 1800s sometime in what must have been the outskirts of the city, but now was smack dab in the midst of the bustle of Milwaukee. It was a giant stone place, with a full porch with white columns surrounding it. The porch was a little in need of paint; yet, it made the whole house look commodious and welcoming.

“Here’s your room, honey,” she said after leading me up the ornate center staircase to the second floor.

It took my breath away; I’ll admit that. It was huge, with a four-poster bed, topped off by a lace trimmed canopy. There was scent of perfume in the room, and everything was in either pink of light blue.

“This has been our guest room, Terrence,” she said. “I’m sorry it’s not what a boy might like, but your stay here came up so fast, I was unable to change it and get rid of some of the girl atmosphere.”

I didn’t know what to say, ‘cause the truth was I loved the room. It even had a vanity. I was just sorry I didn’t have many clothes to fill the monstrous closet.

“You think you’ll be OK here, honey?” she asked.

“Oh yes, auntie,” I told her.

“If you stay I’ll change it for you, Terrence.”

“You don’t have to, auntie,” I said then, hoping against hope I could continue to have a room with such feminine touches. I really felt right at home, just like the room was made for me. But, I could hardly tell her that.

Once I began living with her, Aunt Adele hugged me a lot. I loved it. Best of all, I carried her smell with me to bed at night. It was funny, but I kept thinking I was a pretty girl, maybe even a dancer like Aunt Adele. What a crazy thought!

*****
Later that day, Aunt Adele showed me the dance studio; it occupied what had been the huge living room of the house; there was no furniture in the room and the rugs were gone, leaving a burnished oak floor, almost slippery in its sheen. There was a balance rod mounted on one wall, with floor length mirrors space about the sides.

She had turned the library into changing room for the dancers, complete with a row of floor length spaces for hanging street clothes. Along one wall were three portable clothes racks, all containing what I imagined were dance outfits. I could only see dresses; there appeared to be no boys’ outfits hanging.

As Aunt Adele told me about her students, I soon learned they were from 8 to 14 years of age, and all were girls.

“I teach them basic ballet steps to start,” she said. “But we do all sorts of dances here, including ballet and Latin and some ballroom steps.”

“No boys in the class?” I asked her.

“Not yet, just girls. You can meet my students if you’d like,” she told me.

As she spoke, I wandered to the clothes racks, looking at the gauzy, flowing outfits. I fingered a pink one, looking at it closely, seeing its soft material.

“They are pretty, aren’t they dear?” auntie said, having watched me examine the dresses.

I nodded, turning red, knowing I got caught admiring the dresses. I feared she might have even read my thoughts. And, dear reader, I’m sure you know exactly what I was thinking.

“I’ll tell you what, Terrence,” she began.

She told me that on Sunday — the next day — her studio was holding a holiday dance program at a room in the Eagles Club. That was a big building several blocks away, and they had lots of rooms for events, I guess.

“Maybe you’d like to help me set it up, and then you can see the girls dance,” she suggested. “Would you like that?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “I don’t have nothing better to do.”

Actually, I loved the idea, but I tried not to show it.

It seems Aunt Adele was like my mom in lots of ways; she caught my bad grammar and corrected me, “It’s ‘I don’t have anything better to do,’ Terrence. Your mom would be shocked if she heard you say that.”

The idea of my mom still being alive, and correcting my language, as she did so often, caused me to grow sad, and tears flowed to my face. I could tell auntie was mad at herself for causing me to cry. She was so nice. She came and hugged me again, and I loved her sweet scent.

“Really Terrence, would you like to help me tomorrow at the program?” she asked again.

“Oh yes, auntie,” I told her, having held back more crying and tears.

She told me I could help her pack the outfits we were going to bring for the show, and help distribute them to the girls as they came to the Eagles Club. And I could run the phonograph machine for the music; she’d help me set it up and then I merely had to watch her for a cue for each song. It sounded like an OK job for me. Besides, it’d be nice to see all those girls dance.

*****
I inspected my new room after supper that night. It was so luxurious, and really very much for a girl, I thought. I wondered why Auntie Adele had put me in it since there was another bedroom. But she told me this was nicer and bigger. She said we could change it later, if I wanted to, but, you know, I was beginning to like this room. What’s wrong with me?

Looking into the big walk-in closet, I noticed there were already some clothes hanging. There was even a light inside the closet. Can you imagine having a light inside a closet? But there it was, so strange to see, since we didn’t get electricity in our old farm house until I was six years old, and then we had only a few make-shift places into which we could put in electric plugs. And, actually , we didn’t have much to plug in, but one small radio, an old toaster and a few lamps.

I turned the light switch on. My, oh my, there were girls’ clothes here. Pink dresses and light blue dresses and even all-white dresses, and lots of gauzy lace. The sweet scent of lingering perfume on the dresses was stronger inside the closet. That must have been why the room itself smelled so nice. This was so exciting!

Gingerly, I touched one of the dresses, running its cloth through my fingers, feeling the lightness of the texture. I began wondering: what does it feel like to wear such a lovely dress? No, what was I thinking? Why do I care how it feels to wear a dress? I’m a boy.

Oh what the heck! I took one of the pink dresses down from the hanger, and held it before me. It looks like it’ll fit.

So I carried it out into the bedroom, holding it up before my body and looking into a full length mirror mounted on the closet door. It looked like it was just my size. So, why not? I was ready to change into my jammies anyway.

I took everything off, except my underpants, examining my slender body in the mirror, as I did so. Noticing how terribly lacking in muscle I was, I thought for an instant how nice I might even look in this dress.

Then, I wondered: Do I step into the dress? Or, do I bring it down over my head? I’d seen mom do that both ways. I didn’t think it made a difference, and decided to bring it down over my head; after some jiggling of my body I was able to get it down over my body.

This dress went all the way down to just below my knees; the dress was full with seeming layers of cloth which made it flare out from my hips. It had short sleeves, of the puffed-up kind and a very high neckline. It was almost like a dress I’d seen in the movies about the old time South. But, the buttons were on the back. No way was I going to be able to button it up. What the heck?

“Aaarrrggghhh!” I exclaimed loudly, looking in the mirror. I realized I had let out a loud scream, but when I looked into the mirror it was obvious I looked like a girl. It shocked me; really, just like a girl. My longish hair helped in the apparition.

I began to twirl a bit, just like a fashion model might do when showing off a dress, when the door to the bedroom burst open and I heard Aunt Adele yell, “What’s wrong honey?”

“Nothing . . .”

“Oh my Lord Jesus Christ in Heaven,” she said not even catching her breath. That was about as blasphemous as Auntie could be, so I knew she was shocked.

“I heard you scream and thought you were hurt,” she said quickly.

I didn’t know what to do. So, I quickly said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I knew she’d be mad at me for putting on the dresses, since I suspected they were for use in the dance class.

“Terrence, Terrence, Terrence,” she said. “That’s OK, but you should have asked me first. I’d have helped you.”

It was too much, and, of course, I began crying. It just seemed all I had done since mom’s death had been to cry. I had developed a natural tendency to burst into tears. Was that a girl thing?

“Come, come, come,” auntie said, sitting on the side the bed, and drawing me into her arms, pulling me toward her slender, almost bosom-less chest. She was so much harder than mom was, but her hugs and caresses seemed just as warm and comforting.

Finally, she released me, and had me sit on the side of the bed, while she drew the vanity bench over, and sat on it, right in front of me.

“First of all, honey,” she said, her voice low and serious. “You must never use other people’s things without the permission. You should know that.”

“I do, auntie,” I said, drying the tears off my face with a lace hankie that auntie gave me. “Mommie always told me to respect other people’s property. It’s just that . . . ah . . . the dresses looked so pretty. I never had a dress on. I just wondered.”

“You wondered?”

“Well, yes, wondered how it felt to wear a dress.”

“You were curious?”

“I guess so.”

“How did it feel?”

“Oh auntie,” I said, at a loss for words, and not willing to admit I liked the feeling, the smoothness of the dress, the flow of air up my legs, and how pretty I looked in the mirror.

“You liked it?”

I nodded, as if in agreement. The truth was I liked it a lot.

She had me then get out of the dress and told me to put on my pajamas and then suggested: “How’d you like some cocoa?”

“I’d like that very much, thank you,” I said, politely, just as mom would have told me to do.

“Well, I’ll get you a robe and then you can come down to the kitchen for the cocoa.”

I did just that, the shock of her discovery of me in a dress still resonating. I was actually shaking as I took the dress off and re-hung it on the hanger, making sure it was not mussed in any way. While I was in the closet, I heard my door open and auntie yell, “Terrence, honey. I put the robe on your bed. It’s cold in the hallway so you better wear it. It’s the only one I could find.”

Well, the robe was obviously a woman’s robe; it was bright red shimmering satin, with colorful flowers on the upper left breast area. She had also left a pair of fluffy pink slippers for me to put on my feet. Must I wear those?

It being winter, and I knew auntie kept the heat in the house low, still following the wartime demands to preserve coal as well as money. I decided that staying warm demanded I put aside any shame at wearing a woman’s robe and slippers. I soon decided I liked the feel of the robe, too, as well as the light scent of flowers seeming rising from its material.

*****
“You’re a very sweet child,” auntie told me as I joined her at the kitchen table. She had two steaming cups of cocoa set out.

“I wished I’d have gotten to know you better as you were growing up,” she said. “But I had to be here, and your mom stayed back on the farm. We didn’t talk much, since your mom didn’t have a phone, but she wrote almost every week.”

“I know, auntie. She liked writing letters to you. She told me so.”

“She always wrote about you, darling,” she said, patting my hand. “You were her pride and joy. She said you were a very special boy.”

I blushed, and visions of my mother writing Aunt Adele came into my mind. I could see her even now, sitting at our kitchen table, her writing pad open on the faded oil cloth that covered the old table, writing in the dim light of a single overhead bulb. She never let me see what she wrote, but I could see she wrote in very tiny strokes, but most precise. She had wanted to be an English teacher, she had told me, but marriage and motherhood ended any possible hopes for college or even two-year normal school. I wanted to cry at how mom had lost her future; and it seemed all her hopes were aimed upon me. I represented her “hope.”

“Don’t cry, baby,” auntie said, interrupting my thoughts.

“I won’t. I gotta be strong, auntie.”

“I’m sure you will be, Terrence. Your mother was a very strong and principled woman, and I can see her in you right now. You’ll make her proud, as she looks down upon you from heaven.”

I still wasn’t sure about the “heaven” part, but it was a nice thought. I smiled at Aunt Adele, kind and pretty, Aunt Adele.

“Did you like wearing the dress,” she asked, suddenly.

“I don’t know,” I equivocated.

“I think you did, honey, and you looked so darling in it.”

“Oh?” I was embarrassed. How could a boy look “darling?”

“There’s nothing wrong with looking pretty, Terry. Can I call you Terry?”

“I never was called that, auntie.”

“Terry somehow seems to fit you better.”

“Ok.” I began wondering where this was going.

We both paused, taking sips of cocoa, before she continued.

“I want to make you very happy, Terry. You deserve it and you’ve been through a tough time.”

“Thank you, auntie.”

She proceeded to outline various chores she expected me to do if I continued to live there. They really weren’t much: to help her set up things in her dance studio, to answer the door if she’s not handy to do so, to take out the garbage and, eventually, to learn how to shovel coal in the furnace in the basement, remove clinkers and take out the ashes. “You won’t have to do dishes, dear, but if you want to help dry, I’d love that. We can talk then.”

“I want to help, auntie.” I really did want to feel useful in the house. She was kind and generous, and it meant I wouldn’t have to go back to live with gramps and grandma. They were all right, but they never smiled and all they did was read the Bible.

“Now, answer me this honestly, Terrence,” she said seriously. She took my hand in hers. I noticed how tiny my hand felt while being held.

“Yes ma’am.”

“This is just between you and me,” she began. “I sensed that you really liked wearing that dress.”

I started to protest that, but she put a finger up to my mouth, as if to shut off my words. I stopped talking.

“Let me finish, then you can talk, honey. OK?”

I nodded in agreement.

“You mom wrote me that often she looked at you and wondered if she had birthed a daughter, instead of a boy. She said you always paid so much attention to her dresses and how she used makeup and brushed her hair. Even in your earliest years, she wrote, you seemed to prance about like a little girl.”

I didn’t know whether I wanted to hear any more of this. I couldn’t imagine mom thinking of me in that way.

“But she loved you, honey. And that’s why she said you were so special. Now, I want this Christmas to be so perfect for you, baby. We can’t bring your mom back, but we can help you get through this time in a way to make you happy.

“I think you know what I’m saying. I think you like the idea of wearing girl’s clothes and even doing girl things, like maybe sewing or cooking or even playing with dolls. Tell me the truth, honey. This is just between you and me. No one, not even gramps or grandma, will know of this.”

Oh no! I couldn’t imagine what gramps would say; he already was disgusted with me, ‘cause I proved to be so weak at threshing time, being hardly able to handle the bundles of hay as they were thrust up onto the wagon.

“Just our secret, auntie?”

“Cross my heart,” she smiled.

“Well, I kinda like the girl things, yes,” I began tentatively.

“Would you like to wear dresses and skirts sometimes, maybe even a nightie?”

I nodded slowly, growing flush as I did so. The truth was I wanted to dress like a girl badly. I didn’t realize it until that evening when I tried on my first dress.

“Now, dear. Christmas is three days off. Is there anything you most desire for your gift?”

“Oh no, auntie. Anything would be fine.”

“Really, honey, I know you’ve never had many toys, and I can afford something really nice, if you’d like it.”

I hesitated. Could I dare ask for the item I always wanted? I wanted it since I was about five years old, but never even asked Santa for it.

“Just between you and me?”

“Yes, dear. Our secret. Cross my heart.”

It was so embarrassing. So, I whispered: “Shirley Temple doll.”

Aunt Adele said nothing. She hugged me close, ran her fingers through my long blond hair and kissed my forehead gently. I cried, again.

*****
That night, just as I was about to get into bed, auntie appeared at my door, knocking first. She entered after my “Come in auntie,” which she did, carrying something over her arm.

“Maybe you’ll want to wear this, dear,” she said, handing me what turned out to be a girl’s nightie.

I was still in the red satin robe and fluffy slippers, sitting at the vanity, examining myself in the mirror, wondering if I really could look like a girl. I did have rather full lips, and I practiced puckering them as I made faces at the mirror. Then, too, my neck was skinny and my shoulders kind of narrow, all of which added to the possibility that maybe I could be a pretty girl. My nose wasn’t too long, either.

“Oh auntie, really?”

“Yes, darling. If you like. I had this in my drawer and I don’t think it’s ever been worn.”

I stood up, taking the nightie. It was satin in light beige, with thin straps over the shoulders and lace trim along the top and bottom.

“Try it on, let’s see if it fits,” she said. “It was a little short for me, so this should be right for you.”

She stood there as I took off the robe and my boy pajamas; she helped me step into the nightie and bring it up, slipping my arms through the straps.

“There,” she said. “What do you think?”

I went over to the full length mirror. What I saw sent a shiver down my spine. How could I be a boy and look so much like a girl? Maybe it was my lack of muscle in my arms, or my skinny looking ankles and narrow feet. I don’t know, but I was always one of weaker boys in my class at school, and that had always shamed me.

“Thank you, auntie,” I rushed over to kiss her.

I went to bed that night, feeling good for the first time since mom died. I imagined, as I lay there, that I was a girl in the 7th Grade, thinking of wearing makeup for the first time and wondering about fashions and boys. It was exciting. Auntie Adele had opened up a whole new life for me, as a girl. Of course, it would be a secret life. How marvelous it might be! I slept well.

*****
Auntie introduced me as Terrence, her nephew, at the recital, and I proved to be very helpful in getting the girls into their proper outfits for the performance. She set me up at the right of the stage in one of the rooms at the Eagles Club to run the phonograph. I thought that was really neat, since I had never played a record on a phonograph before. We had no phonograph player at the farm. Auntie helped me practice playing hers at home so I knew what I was doing.

“You picked that up fast, Terry,” she said, now using my nickname, which could of course be either a girl’s name or a boy’s name. I liked the name, even though mom only called me Terrence.

The dancers, there were about 15 of them, looked so pretty in their dresses. I found myself yearning to be up on stage with them, even though I knew I couldn’t dance a lick. It was without shame, though, that I thought I could be as pretty as any of them. Mom never wanted me to be so much of a braggart, so I better not think that. Well, anyway, I’d be no less pretty.

Fortunately, I didn’t miss a cue, and the dance troop went through their routines, some quite good and others a bit shaky.

But the audience, spread about the room on hard folding chairs, cheered everyone as if they were superstars. Of course the audience was all moms, dads, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts and grandparents. It was kind of nice, and the Christmas cookies and punch afterwards were even better.

“Will you dance with us?” asked a girl named Wanda, who was blond and thin, just like me. I had helped her button up her costume earlier, and she said she too was in the 7th grade, attending the Wisconsin Avenue School where I was supposed to go after the vacation period.

“I don’t know,” I told her.

“Yeah, there’s no boys in her dance classes so I guess you won’t,” she said. “That’s a shame. I bet you’d be good.”

I shrugged at that. How could I possibly know? I never danced before; besides gramps and grandma wouldn’t permit it. It was a rule in their church: no dancing. Actually, they were no fun at all, I thought.

“Maybe she’ll have me dance anyway,” I suggested. “I just moved in and will be going to Wisconsin Avenue school.”

“Good, same as me, maybe we’ll be in the same classes.”

Wanda had a very pale complexion, but with the most sparkling blue eyes. Just then, her parents came by and stole her away. It was time to go home.

That night, I again wore the nightie.

*****
Aunt Adele and I had our own private Christmas just after dawn on Christmas day, seated around the tree she had set up on the dance floor of her studio. She had perhaps 15 gifts, wrapped in colorful paper, scattered around the tree, most of which were destined for her guests that would come for a Christmas gathering in the late afternoon. She’d be introducing me to all her friends as her nephew, Terry. Since our family was so small, there would be no other relatives. Gramps and grandma stayed on the farm for the holidays, since they had the chickens and the small herd of milk cows to tend to.

“Open this first,” she said, handing me a gift wrapped in green paper and tied with red ribbon. It was a pair of dark blue boy’s pants, a white shirt and a tie.

I must have scowled when I saw the gift, and auntie saw it.

“That’s so you’ll look like a nice young man when you have to, Terry. I know boys your age don’t want clothes, but you need this.”

“Thank you, auntie,” I said.

“Now open mine,” I suggested.

She had given me $10 to shop for her the previous day, and I had been able to get her a scarf set, since I noticed she had only one scarf she was wearing. I bought it at the small women’s store on 27th Street, just a short walk from her house. I had fun in the store, looking at the fashions, and I say I must have been a very fussy customer, since I pestered the clerk about what best to get for auntie. In luck, she knew Auntie Adele, whom I was learning was known as somewhat of an eccentric in the neighborhood, though a person everyone seemed to like.

“Oh I love it, honey,” she said when she opened the gift.

She kissed me, and I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I had satisfied her. I was so worried she wouldn’t like it.

“You have three more gifts, Terry,” she said, handing him a gift box shaped similarly to the first gift.

I tore the package open, and let out a high girlish squeal, drawing the gift out. It was a plaid skirt, just like I’d seen so many girls were. Underneath was a white, silk finished blouse, with white pearl buttons.

“For me?”

“Yes, for lovely Terry,” auntie said smiling.

“Oh auntie, I love it, really, I do, can I put it on?” My words ran together.

“Just wait dear. You’ll have time.”

She handed me a small, narrow gift, wrapped in paper of sparkling silver and white ribbon. It was almost too pretty to open. But not THAT pretty. I tore it open.

“A necklace, auntie. Of pearls,” I squealed again.

This was too much, I know. Growing up so poor I was not used to getting more than one or two small, cheap presents at Christmas.

“Now for the grand finale,” auntie said, handing me a gift that looked like an out-sized shoe box.

I looked at auntie, hoping against hope that this was what I told her I wanted most.

“Go ahead, open it, my dear girl,” she said, smiling broadly.

This time I was almost hysterical when I opened the gift. It was the newest Shirley Temple doll, something that I knew every girl wanted that Christmas. I pulled the doll out of the box, holding it high and squealing.

“Oh auntie, this is so special.” I leaned over into her arms, almost knocking her off the cushion upon which she was sitting. We both had brought cushions to sit on the floor, since there were no chairs in the studio.

“I’m so happy for you, darling,” she said to me, again hugging me tightly. “I’ve never seen such a happy girl.”

Oh my, it dawned on me. I had been really acting as a girl that morning. Except, I wasn’t acting. I really must be a girl; well, not really, since I had boy parts.

“I wished mom could be here, auntie,” I said finally.

“Your mother is smiling down at you right now, honey. She always said there was something special about you and she loved you so much.”

I moved into Aunt Adele’s arms, still holding my new doll. And, I cried and cried and cried. Tears of joy and tears of sorrow.

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