Graphic created by Patricia Marie Allen from photos on Unsplash .
Background by Jorge De Jorge , model by Alex Blăjan ,
coffee and muffin by Nathan Dumlao

Authors note: This story first appeared in the “ One Dozen Roses ” anthology and has been edited to be read as a standalone.
You can read it in the anthology here .

(I was one of twelve ...roses… we all had been asked to share how we came to choose Rose as a name. Anyway, here’s my story… I’ve been sitting listening to the first few stories that help me understand just why I feel like I belong. With that, I finally get around to settling in. I stop looking over to the exit and I remove my coat and drape it over my chair.

Looking down, my self-conscious default takes over. Am I overdressed? Am I underdressed? Seriously, I’m wearing a fairly nondescript waist-length charcoal cardigan over a forest green blouse with black slacks that are a bit more dressy than my usual jeans.)

Je t'aime, je t'aime
Comme un loup, comme un roi
Comme un homme que je ne suis pas
Tu vois, je t'aime comme ça

(I softly sing as I stow my purse under my chair…so ironic… Comme un homme que je ne suis pas…not a man…My voice is almost breaking, echoing the emotion of the song. A few moderately raised eyebrows greet my singing. Almost opposite the anticipation everyone else seemed to display, I wonder if I look rather sad...)

"Oh… Sorry...J’taime… I love …Lara Fabian’s a favorite of Annie and me… Annie’s my wife.”

(I shrug in apology.)

"I’m Rose...jeez, of course I am…I mean I’m Rose McDonough. I… well… singing is sort of self medicating for me…since I was a kid…when I was a little girl."

“You were trans back then, weren’t you?” Rosemary asks.

“Just in here,”

(I pat my heart. )

“Only really been out since I turned sixty. I guess I sort of turned into my cat-lady mom.”

“Your wife…accepts this?” the kind looking Rose to my right uses her hand in a broad gesture to indicate everyone at the table.

“Well, now, yes….I… May I say something?”

“Go ahead,” Rosie urges.

“I… we share that name… It really has special meaning for me. Oh…I’m sorry. I guess it is special to all of you?”

“Yes it is, but please don’t apologize…it’s okay,” Rosemary encourages.

“Annie…My wife? She insisted I come… She said she needed this as much as I… well, here I am.”

(Nods and mmm’s from most of the ladies at the table.)

“Rose was her idea. McDonough came with the marriage. Her maiden name … I...I use it for times like this. I’m a Fontenot….Mommy met Daddy in college…Louisiana…”

(I pause…too much information?)

“But Rose...the name…well not just the name.”

(I take a quick sip of water.)

“After I proposed…When she was praying about if we should get married, her bedroom was filled with the smell of roses. She remembered it when she met this part of me…”

“She called you that from when you came out?” Rose Davis asks.

“It took a bit of time for her…. No, that’s not right…”

(I shake my head no.) /

“It was like she almost knew me before, but I was too afraid to tell her.”

“I know how that feels.

“Me, too.” I still haven’t told my brother…”

(more nods all around.)

“After she found my story on our desktop, she actually laughed. ‘So that’s why you have fashion sense,” she says. Instead of laughing along I actually started to cry. It felt like she was teasing, and I wasn’t even ready for serious, you know?”

(More nods and even an understanding pat on the hands by Rosemary and Rosie.)

“She looks at me sort of apologetically and smiles “I’m sorry” she says and I start to bawl. ‘Why are you crying?” I look around the table even as my eyes tear up at feeling like I’m right back then with her hands gently holding mine.

(Raised eyebrows and nods)

“’I’m so sorry… You must hate me!’ I say. She smiles and hugs me. ‘Babe? I don’t get this at all, but I love you… We’re not going anywhere.’”

“Oh…” comes a sigh to my right.

“But after a while, she’d make a remark or ask a question when we watched a movie or a TV thing… like I had to know? To have an answer? I didn’t. Except when I was brave enough to talk about me.”

You? Isn’t that what she meant?”

“Not at first. More asking my opinion on the subject. As kind as she was, she was also very analytical...everything...everything had to have a reason. It was only after she brought up about reading more of my writing? Which was so hard.”

“Why?”

“Yes… wouldn’t that make things easier?” Rose Greene interjects.

“Oh yes, but not right away. I had to open up my library, sort of, and that left me open for questions about everything in my past.”

“Didn’t you want her to know?”

“I… I needed her to know that me being abused had nothing to do… She was so analytical at first…she needed a ‘real’ reason for me being trans. Like something had to cause it?”

“My sister is still like that.”

“My Mom wondered until she got to know me as her daughter.”

“Well, that’s what she finally realized, too... that my heart had been…like a girl…a woman all along, if that doesn’t sound too stupid? Sorry…force of habit.”

“You’re not stupid. What you said? My Dad made me feel that way.”
I nod in agreement.

“I bet most of us have felt something like that.”

“Anyway? She actually said, ‘Well, I guess what they’re saying…’ we were watching a program on a transwoman who was out and still married… She says. ‘You’re trans…’ Not transgender…’trans.’ The thing that put it over the top?"

I pause, searching for words.

"When Bree is crying on her Psychiatrist’s shoulder…Transamerica? Annie looks at me and she has tears in her eyes. Not long after that we were in bed and she …we were spooning? She turns over and I thought she was just going to pet our cat… She says, ‘promise me that no matter what, I still have my husband?’”

”Wow…she actually said that?”

“Yes… It was like every bit of what she was afraid of?”

(I put my hand to my mouth to stifle a sob.)

“I am so very glad for the girls of today… well all girls, but especially trans kids. They…”

“Uh… I think I know .”

“Yeah… that whoever they meet? Mostly, I hope that they will be able to say something that many of us never got to say… Being a boomer, I climbed out of the closet years after I met the love of my life.”

I stifle another sob.

“I…being here...But earlier...a nice moment? While I was getting dressed this morning? It was like waking up to the smell of Roses...”

“Like what you said about her?”

“That’s so sweet… I bet she really enjoyed that… like old times?”

“It was like she was reminding me that we’re still in love,” I say as more tears fall.

Will she be meeting you here? “Rosie asks eagerly.

“Oh… I’m sorry… Annie died last year. But I like to think that she’s here with me, you know?”

“Oh…” “That’s so sweet.” gasps and a few small sobs from several of the ladies.

“Her last words… That morning she went to a party at her sister’s house… ‘I love you.’ She kissed me…her husband good-bye for the day and she said at last, ‘I’ll see you later….Rose.’”

“Oh!”

“We had just begun to talk about telling our son and his fiancée. And now? They've been married almost a year… I…”

(I try, but the emotion of the moment is just too much, and I dissolve in tears, prompting Rosie to pull me into a hug and kisses me on the cheek. Rosemary leans close and whispers,)

“I know….shuh...shuh...It’s okay…”

Je t'aime
Words and Music by
Lara Fabian and Rick Allison
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVvkcaY5khc