A FALLING APPLE

By Rhayna Tera, copyright 2020

Warning: If you don't like reading transgender or related fiction, then stop reading now.

Author's Note: None.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

RT

HER DOCTOR'S OFFICE

"I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. You need a tight genetic match and an appropriate blood group. Your daughter's body chemistry and genes are unique. We've examined the ABOs and HLAs and considered the full spectrum of immunosuppressant drugs. There is no escaping the facts; subject to compatibility testing, one of you two must donate a kidney to your daughter."

Alan Jones and Leanne Jones stared at each other. Their jaws dropped.

"If neither of you does," the doctor added, "then Marie's prospects are reduced to zero. I'm sorry, but there is no other way to say that. This condition," the doctor turned to look at Marie, "in all cases without a transplant, is fatal." The doctor was not enjoying this talk; she never did with any of her patients. Yet science was science and controlled the case here.

The shadow of death filled the room. Silence prevailed for a moment.

"When can I take the tests?" Leanne quickly asked.

"We can screen both of you tomorrow."

Leanne glanced at Alan, who started muttering to himself and scanning the ceiling for an escape route.

"What time tomorrow?" Leanne asked.

The doctor flipped through her calendar and typed something into the computer. "Is ten o'clock okay for you?" Leanne nodded. "And eleven for you?"

After a pause, Alan replied, "I can't."

"A different time?"

Forlorn, Alan looked at Leanne. Leanne's body sagged.

Marie noticed their reactions. "What's wrong, daddy?" asked Marie.

Leanne turned to her 16-year-old eldest daughter. "Marie, your father has raised you since you were a baby. He loves you more than life itself. However," she took a deep breath, "he is not your biological father." She exhaled.

Alan stared at the floor. The doctor stared at Leanne.

Marie stared at her mother, "Pardon?"

-----000-----

A week later, the three of them attended the doctor's office again. Despite Marie's best efforts, she had failed to persuade her parents to discuss her biological father with her. "Wait for the test results, dear," they patronized her.

The doctor's face was grim. "The results came back. In scientific terms, the HLA epitope-mismatch here will be, to quote a medical journal on the matter, 'associated with the development of anti-DQ donor-specific antibodies and adverse graft outcomes'."

Alan and Leanne quickly exchanged glances.

She sighed and compassionately looked at Marie. "In simple terms, your mother's results came back negative. This means that she cannot donate a kidney to you because her kidney will die inside you and cause fatal infections. You would die." Marie swiveled her head to face her mother.

Alan swore various obscenities under his breath. Leanne started to quietly sob.

Marie glanced at them, fearful now. What 16-year-old is ready to face the prospect of imminent death? What would she do? This was so unfair, she thought. My life! My entire fucking life!

"Mom, who and where is my biological father?" Marie's question sounded part accusation and part desperation. The past week's frustration boiled over; they hadn't told her anything --- but it was her life at stake!

Leanne hung her head. Her hands covered her face.

Alan got up, left the room, and slammed the door.

"Mom, where is he!!!???"

HER LAWYER'S OFFICE

"That was all neatly tidied up 15 years ago, Mrs. Jones." The lawyer shook her head. "To re-open the litigation now would not be looked upon favourably by any court. And, moreover, on what basis could we submit a petition?

"I see here," she perused two pieces of paper, "you were awarded all the assets of the marriage: the house, the investments, the bank accounts, the cars --- everything. It seems to me at first blush that you would face steep challenges to re-open any division of property.

"The records also inform me that," she turned a page, "you were awarded 100% custody and successfully denied him all visitation rights. The judge's order in particular states, 'In light of the foregoing, the respondent is determined to be an immoral and corrupting influence and, therefore, shall be denied all access and custody in respect of the child of the marriage, Marie Claire Hawthorne.

"Ah! And here it is: the restraining order. It's been a long time since I saw this one." The lawyer reviewed it and opined, "It is indeterminate and therefore likely still in effect." She put the various papers down on the table and looked at her former and now once again client.

Leanne and Alan sat across the fine birch table. The meeting room's walls were beige. The artwork on them was mass-produced faux-Impressionist. The carpet was slightly dated. The chairs were comfortable though.

The lawyer put the papers back in the file and flipped to a different coloured tab. She found several pages of yellow 8.5 x 14 legal paper: her notes from a decade and a half ago. She skimmed them.

She chuckled. "It's all coming back to me now. Gawd! Sorry, but in family law, not many cases are amusing. Yours was, and you had a great laugh about it! We took him to the cleaners." She beamed.

Alan and Leanne glanced nervously at each other.

The lawyer sensed their fragility. "What?"

Leanne slowly explained the problem.

-----000-----

The lawyer sank back in her chair. Her smirk had vanished. Her countenance was deathly white.

"After what you did to him," she began shedding responsibility, "what makes you think that he'd ever talk to you again, let alone help now?" She dropped her pencil on the table. "Does Marie know?"

Both Alan and Leanne shook their heads.

The lawyer stood and moved to the window. It was a bitterly cold winter's day. The snow raced horizontally across the sky. The clouds were the darkest grey. She cupped her mouth with both hands.

"What do you advise?" Leanne asked her. Her lawyer's face was reflected in the window. Leanne saw it was saturated in gloom. She waited. Alan stared at his hands.

The lawyer reflected. Actions have consequences. Fifteen years ago, she had been more aggressive, more pugnacious, more adversarial, more this, and more that. It had worked in the moment. Leanne (and Alan for that matter) had been thrilled at the results. Nearly every case composing her record had been built on the ruination of her clients' former partners: rarely female, most often male. Leanne's case and then husband were proof thereof. Her victories --- including Leanne's --- had been almost universally so crushing that there was no need for additional litigation.

Bingo! An escape hatch!

She turned to Alan and Leanne, smiled cleverly at them, and sat down.

"This," she began to protect herself, "is not a litigation matter. He, wherever he is, is entitled under our constitution to respect for and protection of his bodily integrity. The law," she waved her hands apologetically, "doesn't provide any means to compel him to donate a kidney." She put her fingers through her hair and tucked it behind her ears.

"This is a circumstance requiring moral suasion. Appeal to his sense of fairness. Show him how wonderful Marie has grown to be, how mature she is, and how bright her future can be --- if this medical problem is solved. Get him to say 'yes' and then rope him in through a contract."

She paused. She didn't want to say what she was about to say. However, she knew it would offer the best chance of success:

"Consider carefully the merits of apologizing to bring him onboard."

Alan snorted at that. Leanne rolled her eyes and groaned.

HER DETECTIVE'S OFFICE

"Money."

Hank Bullnose was not one to quibble or equivocate. He liked things fast and clear, black and white, left or right. Grey was not on his colour spectrum. Nor was penny-pinching from clients. These two blasé people had asked him to find one Jeremy Kelly Hawthorne using identification that was at least 15 years old. He had succeeded.

And now he wanted his money.

They passed him a personal check for $20,000 and smiled.

"Fuck that," he said throwing it back at them. "I told you quite clearly: a fucking e-transfer or fuck all. Get out. I'll call you after I get the money."

-----000-----

The next day, a chastened Alan and much humbler Leanne sat by Hank's desk. Hank opened a drawer, extracted a piece of paper, put it on the desk, and pushed it over toward them. They picked it up and read it.

"It's only got an address!" Alan complained.

Hank grumped and replied, "That's what you asked for."

Leanne urged Hank to describe her ex-husband and whatever else he had discovered about him.

"Another twenty K."

Alan tilted his head to examine the ceiling. Leanne sighed, exasperated; she wanted to cry.

-----000-----

The third day, the additional money deposited, they met again. Hank briefed them on his findings.

Leanne's ex and her ex's spouse were living at 1234 Pleasant Street in the next state. They had three children. Both worked, one in a grocery store and the other as a mechanic in an auto dealership: very working-class. Their house was too: a modest three-bedroom, 1300 square foot bungalow. They owned a seven-year old Toyota and an 11-year old mini-van. The kids went to public school. They had a Golden Retriever named Rambo.

"Do they look healthy?" Alan asked.

Hank looked at him askance. "Yep. And happy."

He didn't like his clients. He thought the two of them to be despicable. Now that he had their money, he could convey that to them:

"Now, get the fuck out of here."

HER FAVOURITE RESTAURANT

Alan and Leanne impatiently waited, he in his three-piece finest, and she in her best wrap. They looked like the wealthy and pretentious people they were.

They had bickered more regarding the preferable manner to contact her ex and raise the topic of Marie's kidney. They had bickered a bit back-andforth regarding the best location to meet her ex. Show up uninvited at her ex's house. Invite her ex to their house. And so on. Eventually, they settled on a phone call (it took three) and Café Henri Lourger; Alan and Leanne had so many fond memories there, and the food was second to none. It would impress her ex and spouse. Alan and Leanne had not bickered on what to wear; they knew what to wear there.

Henri the maître d' had sat them 20 minutes ago, 15 minutes before her ex and spouse were supposed to arrive. Her ex was 5 minutes late. "Typical," said Alan snidely.

"Stop it," Leanne retorted. "We need them. It's Marie's life at stake, not your ego or pride."

Henri came toward them from the entrance. He led a man and a woman. Alan and Leanne scrutinized them as they approached.

Alan assessed the man. He looked 40'ish. He wore a Carhartt jacket with dark stains in a few places, a blue button-down shirt, and Dockers. His shoes were cheap dress shoes, ones worn at weddings and funerals and never again. His wristwatch was as black as the rubber from which it was made. He was large sized. His hands were beefy and cut, scratched, hardened. So this is what manual labor looks like, Alan thought.

Leanne assessed the woman. She looked 40'ish. She wore a simple winter coat, a boring blouse, and low-end retail pants. Some low-grade nylon boots still partly covered in the remnants of snow were on her feet. Her makeup was unremarkable. Her features were pretty though, and her hair was done nicely in a French braid. So this is what my ex looks like, Leanne thought.

-----000-----

"Leanne."

"Jerri."

"It's 'Kelli' now, Leanne. Kelli Newsome."

"Oh."

-----000-----

"Wait a fucking second," Mark Newsome said in a low voice. "You want my Kelli to walk into a hospital, get cut up, and give away a kidney to someone---"

"His daughter," Alan interjected.

"---shut the fuck up, Al." Mark's tone was not conveying co-operation. "Give a kidney to some girl that she's never seen since the kid was six months old? You want my wife to lose a kidney for someone you said would never be in her life? Never be able to see? And you laughed about it all when you fucked her over? Get fucking real." Mark put his hands down on the table forcefully.

"It's not like that," Leanne urgently said.

"Yes, it is," Mark replied.

"No, it isn't," Alan countered. "Marie is a beautiful young girl. She's an honors student. She plays varsity soccer and volleyball." He leaned on the table. "She's got dreams just like any other girl her age. How could you not consider her misfortune here?"

Mark looked as shocked as he felt. "Her misfortune? Her misfortune?" He gripped his head with both his massive hands, incredulous. "Nice home; sorry; nice mansion. Nice school; sorry; nice private school. Nice clothes and all that. Nice cars and that fucking shit. What fucking misfortune?" he hissed across the table.

"Mark!" Kelli snapped. Both Alan and Mark sat back.

Leanne sensed her last chance slipping away.

"Alan, perhaps you and Mark might take some time and wander around the block for a few minutes. Or hours. Better yet, until I call you back."

Alan looked at his wife and hated that she'd just belittled him. Her tone was patronizing. He looked at Mark who glared at him. Mark did not look like a man prone to reason. It might be best to calm his obvious temper (by avoiding him).

"Fine, dear. A walk it is."

-----000-----

"Well, how's my parents' old house doing? Still enjoying it?" Kelli snipped as she sipped her Merlot.

"Kelli, it's still there." Leanne guiltily said, wanting to avoid such a discussion.

"And my investments? I see that the ones I got at $5.00 are now over $300. Did you sell them off to pay for a new Merc? Some fancy vacation? Mark and I and the kids went to Lake Placid State Campground last summer." Resentment flowed off her tongue.

"Kelli, please," Leanne begged.

She knew this was a discussion that she would lose. She knew that she had legally but immorally swindled Jeremy, Jerri, or Kelli today, out of his half of their marital property. At the time, it had seemed like the right thing to do. She sipped her Chardonnay. Today, with her daughter's life -- - their daughter's life --- at stake, she realized that legality is not always the best measurement.

Indeed, the law was useless to her case now.

"Kelli, I cannot undo the past. Marie is going to die. Soon. She is your flesh and blood."

"You took her away from me! You never let me into her life!" Kelli wept. "The only child I ever had. The only one I ever fathered, I'm sorry, could ever father because of you and that fucker. Yeah, she's my daughter; in blood only though."

Leanne remained silent. She felt that Kelli deserved to give at this this moment, and that she, Leanne, deserved to receive at this this moment.

Leanne saw Kelli gradually calm.

"I forgave you a long time ago, Leanne. I had to forgive you in order to move forward. I even almost forgot. Your phone call the other day made me remember. Everything."

Both women sipped their drinks.

"I'll think about your request and I'll---"

"It has to be soon, Jeremy!" Leanne interrupted, commandingly.

Kelli gasped at her ex in astonishment. She took another sip. She told Leanne that she'd be in contact within three days. Kelli signaled Henri, pointed at Leanne, and said to Henri, "One bill, please."

Kelli left.

HER LAWYER'S OFFICE --- AGAIN

"I remember this room," Kelli said. "It's where you gutted me."

"Please, Kelli, please," pleaded Leanne. "I've agreed to your preconditions."

Mark and Alan sat next to their respective spouses. Each had been invited to attend on the condition that each remain silent throughout the meeting. Alan fidgeted nervously. Mark smiled at his wife from time to time but otherwise alternated staring at Leanne across the table and her lawyer at the end of it.

"Are we all ready?" the lawyer asked. The meeting room was wired for audio and video; the meeting would be recorded and, the lawyer had undertaken, copies would be sent to both Leanne and Kelli. Leanne would pay the bill for both copies.

Leanne and Kelli nodded.

The lawyer picked up the phone and requested her paralegal to escort Marie Claire Jones (formerly Hawthorne) to the room and to sit her at the far end of the table, opposite the lawyer.

-----000-----

"Marie, before I introduce you to your father," Leanne began, "I must tell you the story of my life with him." She reached for her papers.

"Your father --- sorry; your biological father --- has reviewed the story. I wrote it. Your father approved it. As a condition for your father's assistance, I must tell you this story. Your father insists upon it. Your father wants you to know exactly what happened between us when you were a baby. Once you are fully informed of our marital history, and the early part of yours," Leanne wanted to run away, "we can discuss the possibility of screening and then a kidney transplant."

Marie stared at Mark who stared at the table.

Leanne began her confession:

-----000-----

"Twenty years ago, I met Jeremy at a pub. He was funny and made me laugh. His friends were friends of my friends. We started to go out together immediately. We fell in love and married two years later. He was a young, successful software writer. I worked in retail at the time, as a salesclerk, a part-time sales-clerk.

"His parents were well off. The house we live in today was theirs. Most of the money we have today was... he inherited it upon their deaths. He placed it into our joint bank accounts. He invested some of it in dot.coms and his investments grew.

"I attest that he loved me. I knew it and felt it. I loved him too, in the beginning." Leanne's eyes started to mist.

"He treated me kindly and lovingly. We had our fights as many young couples do, but we always seemed to recover and strengthen our ties. I had every reason to be grateful for our life. He was a nice man.

"One day, however, I discovered that he liked to dress up in women's clothing. He was a crossdresser."

Marie stared at Mark who stared at the table.

"I confess that this knowledge altered my love for him. I ceased to regard him as the man I had married; rather, I commenced to regard him as a pathetic, unmanly sort of male. Despite his protests of undying love for me, I fell out of love with him.

"I could not remove from my memory the picture of my husband in a dress. I began to treat him differently, harshly, disparagingly. I proceeded to take advantage of him.

"I destroyed his relationship with his friends by outing him without notice at a birthday party. I showed them pictures of him in various female attire. They heaped scorn on him. They extended their sympathy to me."

Leanne looked remorsefully at her daughter, "Some of his close friends extended more than sympathy. Alan, for instance, offered me respite from the humiliation."

Marie's jaw dropped as she looked at the only father she had ever known.

Leanne continued. In a whisper. With shame in her voice.

"Alan and I tricked your father into taking estrogen. We tricked him into cosmetic surgery. We tricked him into submission. Your father, I mean, your biological father and I have agreed not to give you too many details of my mistreatment of him. Suffice it to say, I spared no effort to humiliate him, to abuse him, and to emasculate him.

"Against his will, we had him castrated and undergo implant surgery. We also---"

Marie interrupted, "Mom, he looks completely manly now!"

Leanne sobbed. Alan twiddled his thumbs and stared at the table.

Mark looked up at Marie. He shook his head, put his arm around Kelli's shoulders, and gently said to Marie, "Your father. My wife. My beloved wife."

-----000-----

Kelli and Marie looked at each other.

"A tranny? My bio-dad's a fucking tranny? How the fuck could you do this to me?" Marie's screaming seized the room. "You want me to get a kidney from that thing? That fucking sick thing? Are you out of your fucking mind?"

All of the adults stared at Marie.

Leanne scrambled to save her daughter's life. Her desperation rang clear. "Marie! I was wrong! It was my mistake! I mistreated him! He did nothing wrong ever! I couldn't tolerate his hobby! I was younger and not ready for it! Don't blame him, Marie! Blame me!" Leanne's tears soaked the table in front of her.

Alan lowered his head. "No, no, no," was all he could muster.

Kelli was dumbfounded, stunned.

-----000-----

Mark's eyes narrowed and focused on Marie.

"This tranny," he started, "this 'fucking tranny', as you put it, is my wife. All female from head-to-toe. No one talks to her that way." The menace in his voice was mirrored in his eyes.

"She is the love of my life, the best loving mother to my three children, who needed a mother after theirs died in a car accident. Kelli never had the opportunity to be there for you because these two bastards fucked her over. They took everything she had and laughed about it.

"You were here too, weren't you, Miss Fucking Snotty Counsellor? Isn't this the room in which you made Kelli sign it all away? Did you give him the tranquilizers too?" The lawyer did not move.

Mark swiftly stood up, startling everyone at the table.

Alan cowered in his chair. "Coward," Mark ordained.

He turned to look at the lawyer, "Bitch."

Mark gave Leanne a quizzical look. "Where I come from," he said, "shit like this doesn't happen." He rubbed his chin. "I'll go along with whatever Kelli decides, but you are a fucking cunt. And a fucking thief."

"And as for you, little sweet Marie, I don't care whether you die or not," --- Leanne wailed as he uttered the words --- "because you're just like your fucking scumbag parents.

"Kelli, I'm with you. Whatever you decide, I'm with you."

-----000-----

And Kelli promptly walked out.

And Marie later died.

END

By Rhayna Tera, copyright 2020