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Parsippany, 1966...

The cat stared at me as if to ask what the fuck are you doing? Chloe is about as profane a cat as any, since I sort of speak for her. Still, it was pretty much an appropriate question. Just what the fuck did I think I was doing?

“Meow….row?”

“No, Mommy doesn’t know.”

I shook my head, hoping that Mommy really didn’t know. How could I live with myself knowing that she knew.? I reached into the hamper and pulled out the whole load of clothes. No one in the house bothered with it, since everyone seemed to drop their laundry at her feet on Saturday.

“Nope. Nope, yep…” I felt like the guy on Mission Impossible looking through the pictures of spies. Except instead of spies it was slightly disheveled and mostly clean lingerie. My mom wasn’t a big woman, but her bras stretched and my recently retrieved longline girdle from my aunt’s discards left me with a starter ensemble. Some barely laddered stockings and some elasticized black slippers added the needed footwear and her never-again-too-embarrassed-to-return oversized dress completed the look.

“Gee, Danny. You look rather lovely,” Chloe purred. I nodded at her and she rubbed up against my nylon covered shin, causing a spark that sent her running out of the bathroom. I stepped closer and looked down, still wondering how I could see the reflection of my prettified legs in the eye level mirror over the sink.

“Not bad,” I said as she walked back into the room. I sighed at the homely girl staring back at me and sort of missed that the cat wasn’t there, but my Mother was.

“Mommy….I…” was all I could get out. It was never going to be a magical moment, but I still began to cry as she frowned before walking out of the bathroom. I expected the words to shout back at me as she walked downstairs,

“Wait ‘til your father gets home.” I learned years later that she often seemed to take pleasure in reporting us to Daddy, but we all realized that he was at least neglectful and even numb toward her when given a chance to be abusive to any or all of the kids.

I stood silently for what seemed like forever before peeling off the transporting garb.

And that’s how it happened. Except for the fact that I only dressed a couple of times when I was in high school, and while she never caught me, the fear kept me from looking at Andrea beyond just pilfered nylons and castaway lingerie. As shamed as I might have felt had she discovered me, the life-smothering fear of my father’s rage left Andrea confused, frightened, and mostly dead for decades.

Painful Epiphanies R Us?

Years later….

“Mommy?” The hardest words I would ever speak followed.

“I…when I was in High School I…” The words were only briefly interrupted by quick short sobs. I finished, as ashamed in my life as I would ever be.

“I wore your clothing.” She looked at me, her face a rapid change of emotion from sadness to amused to sadness once again as she smiled through tears I had never ever seen shed before.

“I always knew,” she sighed, shaking her head. I went to turn away, wanting to flee to anywhere the shame did not exist. She gently grabbed my arm and I turned to see a smile I can only imagine was her own shame?

“I’m so sorry…” She didn’t sob. I never saw my mother weeping in the most painful sense of the word. Her tears were those of regret for so many reasons. But in that one brief moment I gained a relief from shame and a tragic sense of loss, since she wanted me to know that had she said something, my lifetime of hiding would never have come to pass.

But as sad as the regrets were, I cannot describe how freeing and almost joyful it was to know that she loved me, even if she never knew my real name was Andrea.