Edited by Amanda Lynn

I was eleven when my Mom died. One moment she was here happy and laughing and a moment later she was dead on the floor. Aneurysm, they said. But you’re a boy, you should man up and go forward. I didn’t want to, I mean I didn’t want to be a boy and even more, I didn’t want to man up.

Mom was my last hope for me to help cope with what and who I was. I was now alone with Dad. Dad was in the army. He was a Master Sergeant and worked at the nearby base, the training center they called it. I’d seen him a few times at work while Mom and I were in the base. Mom said Dad was a drill sergeant. Because he was ‘drill’ he was un-human with others. I dreaded my Dad. He couldn’t be different at home than at work. Or could he? I was avoiding him. He was what I was afraid of becoming, not that Dad was bad to me. Or Mom. But he was different.

One morning I was embarrassed and scared to death. My thing, I hated it the most, it was enormous big and hard. I knew from other boys in the gym lockers it was named ‘woody’. It meant I was entering puberty and shortly I will be hairy all over and I'll sound the same as my Dad.

Before this happened I prayed everyday that it wouldn’t, how wrong I was!

I’d lost my appetite, I’d lost an interest to do anything, I couldn’t eat and I couldn’t concentrate during classes or do my homework. At home, I managed to avoid meals with Dad but I think some teachers at school noticed and they called my Dad.

Dad made dumplings for dinner, they were my favorite meal. We sat at the table and I forced myself to take two of them but then immediately I felt sick and ran to the bathroom. When I was back table was already clean.

“It’s about Mom?” Dad asked.

“Her too…”

“I feel the same,” Dad started, “maybe not exactly, but anyway. Son, you…”

I couldn’t hear that word ‘son’! How I hated it and myself ‘cause I was actually IT to be addressed this way. I was about to say something but I started sobbing instead and then burst in tears.

Dad embraced me in a hug and rocked slightly. It wasn’t like Mom’s hug but felt kind of soothing too.

“Is there something I don’t know?” Dad asked after I calmed a little.

“I… I…” but there I had to use those words I hated or say something that caused me to dread my Dad. I couldn’t force myself to continue and started sobbing again.

“Let’s go to bed,” Dad offered. “And no more questions. Deal?”

I nodded my head yes.

“Do you need help to lie down?”

“NO!” my rebuff was probably too loud but Dad said nothing.

The next day I was like in a daze. I didn’t go to school. In the afternoon Dad brought me to some kind of doctor. She wasn’t dressed in scrubs like doctors usually were but in casual business suit. Dad left and I was with her alone. She asked me a lot of questions about nothing in particular albeit about everything. She was making notes about my answers on the clipboard.

“Well, I’m pretty sure you ain’t a boy,” she stated suddenly instead of asking another question.

I was speechless. I could neither confirm nor deny. It was true but I couldn’t say it. I was terrorized by an idea my Dad would know I wasn’t a boy.

I was sitting in her office on the chair trembling in fear. My Dad was the one who insisted on others living by the rule to live and to act strictly according to the regulations. And there was no place for me in those regulations.

The law is the law as they say and if you are a girl you are a girl and if not you are a boy. I wasn’t. I wasn’t a girl I mean. Or rather I couldn’t prove I was. But I wasn’t a boy too. I didn’t feel like one. So who was I? A waste of a place. And the Doc confirmed I wasn’t a boy. What will be next? Disposal or recycling of that waste into something useful?

“Huh…” I could manage the only possible answer.

“You don’t have to answer,” Doc said. “Not today. Next time we’ll talk more. OK?”

Dad took me home and the rest of the day passed without events. The next morning was Thursday. I still didn’t attend school. I guess Dad had arranged something.

“We’ll go to Aunt Melanie today,” Dad said during breakfast. Aunt Melanie was probably my only relative. Mom was orphan and Dad’s parents were killed in a car crash when Dad was in high school. Aunt Melanie was his cousin, the only cousin. She lived in New York though not in New York City itself, but in Gloversville. The city was some five-hour ride from where we lived in Kittery Point near Portsmouth.

The ride wasn’t eventful, a couple of stops for gas and bathroom and snacks.

When we arrived in Gloversville it was already an afternoon and time for dinner. It wasn’t ready yet and Dad and I helped Melanie. Melanie’s house was an old one like in the movies with a lot of old photographs all over the walls in the dining room. There was a fireplace with those fancy instruments to manage burning wood. The fireplace had a mantle. On it, there were various things: an ancient clock, some glass figurines, a trophy of some kind and candles in silver stands.

For dinner, we had a baked cauliflower. My Mom used to say Aunt Melanie knew some trick to make it right. It wasn’t over baked and it wasn’t raw. It was exactly what it meant to be – soft and crisp covered with brownish crumbled bread crust.

After dinner, Dad left. He had to be at work the next morning. I helped Melanie to clean the table and then we went to the local park for a walk. After we returned home we watched TV and then I had a cup of hot chocolate and went to bed.

The next day after breakfast we went to the graveyard. At the graveyard gate, we bought a couple of candles and flowers. The first grave we visited was of Melanie’s Father. Another grave nearby was of Dad’s parents. We lit candles on the graves and made kind of flower compositions.

Then we went to the nearby town of Mayfield to visit Melanie’s Mom in the nursery home. She was healing after some nasty disease in her belly. She needed some procedures every day so she couldn’t stay at home Melanie said.

We found her seated in a wheelchair in the orchard. She was like Melanie only the older version.

“At last you’ve brought Sammie’s kid to me,” she said. Sam was my Dad’s name though I’d never heard someone call him Sammie, not even Mom.

We spent a couple of hours there. Mostly Melanie was talking with her mother, or she was asking me this or that a few times. All this time we were pushing a wheelchair. First, we were in orchard then on some path in the forest which looked more like a park. Then we spent a little time at the pond watching ducks. We returned Melanie’s Mom to her temporary home then we went to Melanie’s home afterward.

At home, Melanie made a potato cake. It was a real cake baked in the oven, not a pancake. It was served with mushroom and butter sauce and it tasted heavenly.

After dinner, we sat on the couch to look through photograph albums. At home, we had only a few photographs with Mom, Dad and me as well as some pics in Mom’s, now Dad’s laptop. Here we had three albums full of photographs. Some of them were so old that they were still black and white like from the time when Dad’s parents were still young. Then they got older and there was a little boy with them. That boy was my Dad and he looked very similar to me. My first impression was “Oh, how they managed to photoshop me into so old pics?”

The last photos were when my Dad was fourteen and then it ended abruptly.

We get Melanie’s albums next. The same as in Dad’s albums the first photos were of her parents, then her parents with a little girl Melanie. Further, that girl was growing and there were photographs of her with her friends. One girl dominated in most of those images. She looked something familiar to me. In the last picture, Melanie and that girl were in short dresses with big flowers on them. Their hair was long and loose and they both were happy and smiling. The next photographs were from Dad’s parents’ funeral. My Dad was there too like still a young boy but already in uniform.

“Who’s that girl?” I asked. “She looks as if I know her.”

“Oh, you know her,” Melanie replied. “Her name’s Sammie.”

“Your Mom had called my Dad Sammie…”

“Yes.”

“But my Dad can’t be Sammie, he’s a man…”

“Are you sure? Look at those photos again.”

I flipped pages back and forth. Melanie was right but it couldn’t be true.

“How…”

“Years ago your Dad was like you. But it was many years ago and those things were not as common as they are now. Anyway, his parents were open-minded. They were about to arrange the all necessary steps for your Dad’s Sammie’s transition. She was fourteen and she spent her summer vacation here with me and my parents. Sammie’s parents were about to move here too and let Sammie attend the High School here with me as a girl.”

“I don’t know what happened. Maybe they panicked or maybe their doctor had convinced them otherwise. When Sammie came home her parents had already arranged and paid Military school. Next four years he had to be Samuel and live in the dorms. The hair was shaven and the dress was changed into uniform and Sam was brought to Philadelphia.”

“Then was Thanksgiving when all students were allowed to come home but Sam didn’t come. He didn’t answer their letters and refused to answer their calls when they had called the dorm. Students could go home for Christmas but Sam left at the dorm together with few others who hadn’t where to go. Sam’s parents went to Philadelphia instead. They were allowed into the office. But Sam refused to leave the dorm. Since the dorms were closed for visitors his parents went home without seeing him.”

“On their way home, they got into some car accident on the bridge with several cars involved. Their car was first crushed by a semi and then pushed into the river. They had no chance.”

“Sam was still a minor and since his tuition and stay was paid already he continued at Military school till graduation. Afterward, he stayed in the Army because he had no money for college. What he hated the most became his home. You know the rest.”

Years passed by. Everything what was important in my life I dedicated to my soul mate – my Dad. And he did everything for me even when I wasn’t expecting him to do something. Like that trip to his cousin Melanie. Then after many hours spent with my therapist, some legal actions were taken and I graduated Junior High as Samantha. I’d been here a girl for a week only but I had pure girl’s school records for my transfer to Gloversville High School. Dad retired after we get back from Melanie to be with me and to help me and then to help me move forward.