After being away from home for more than a week, I flew to Canada and finally arrived home.

As we arrived at the Flannagan Mansion, I showed Louise the room where she would be staying. It was one of the numerous guestrooms, John and I had renovated before his death. We were planning on perhaps turning the mansion in some kind of inn because he was starting to have enough of his company and the stress it brought to him. I on the other hand needed to do something more than just playing with stocks all day seeing as it wasn’t as fulfilling as I thought it would be.
Louise’s room was large, with royal purple walls and with a king size for sleeping accommodations. It was richly decorated with some Indian pieces my husband had bought on the recommendation of the family anthropologists.

“Are you sure about this? “Asked Louise.

“Quite, there’s only three other rooms done and one is for Céleste and the others are as lavish as this one.”

“Very different from where I lived overseas.”

“I can imagine,” I answered back

I let her place her things on her room and then asked her to help me get Céleste in her room.

It was girly, extremely girly in fact, but I was expecting a very stereotypical little girl, not one that had repressed her true self for years. Céleste was clearly uncomfortable with her room.

“Do you want to stay in another room?” I asked her.

She signed no with her head.

“It’s going to be alright Mira.” She said smiling.

I was slightly sad that she wasn’t calling me mommy like before we took the plane. But hey she wasn’t calling me Mrs. Flannagan like before so at least it was progress…

We should have unpacked our things but we were all very tired, so we called it a day. I showed the bath to both girls and then presented a new pyjama set to Céleste. It was very pink but she didn’t say anything this time either.

I brushed my teeth and with Louise’s help I prepped myself to go to sleep, I hadn’t slept at all during the flight and neither did my flight companions. We hadn’t talked much, we all just sat there, monologuing to ourselves, thinking about our lives. Personally, everything between taking the plane and arriving home was a blur, I was too preoccupied by the turn my life had taken in the last few months. I was now handicapped, a widow and if my intuition was right the daughter of divorced parents. On the positive side I was now a mother but I didn’t know if I would be able to handle everything the future would throw at me.

I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t … I sat on my bed and I decided to check my emails.

I had received a message from my mom telling me that she had found a maid from me and that hopefully I could interview her myself tomorrow afternoon. I sent an email back thanking her and then just browsed the Internet until I fell asleep.

I woke up at about 5:30 am, I had managed to sleep about 5 hours which wasn’t that bad. I took my crutches and with difficulty I took the stairs to go to the ground floor where the kitchen was in order to have breakfast. As arrived to the kitchen, I met Louise with her long black hair down sipping on coffee.

“Early riser?” I asked.

“Jet lagged, I have been on the same time zone for ten years so you can imagine how hard it is.”

I was shocked by what she had just said… How old was Louise? We didn’t talk much right but from her looks she seemed to be in her mid-twenties. She acted mature but I didn’t think anything about it.

Louise probably saw the surprise in my face, so she questioned me. “Are you surprised by the amount of time I spent overseas?”

“Yes, you don’t seem to be old enough for that to be possible.”

She pouted and then we both laughed. “I am in my early thirties so you shouldn’t be that surprised by it.”

“Well, you don’t look nowhere near that age.”

“Thanks for the compliment,” She said smiling.

She helped me take whatever was edible in my pantry and I then she helped me sit on my couch in the living room where I turned on the T.V.

“How long do you think that Céleste and I would need your help?” I asked while she went back to the kitchen.

“You already want to get rid of me?” Louise asked jokingly as she sat at the dining table.

“No, not really but I want to know how long before I get some of my autonomy me back,” I said honestly. Louise had been a good friend to me a complete stranger even willing to separate herself from what seemed to be an object with emotional value.

She seemed to think. “First, I should be done with my nursing duties in two weeks, hopefully. Second, I am not a doctor… I never managed to finish med school … So I can’t really tell when you are going to be completely healed… but from my experience as physiotherapist I can tell you that if we started restarted re-education tomorrow you and your daughter should be able to use your new limbs at full potential by the start of August.”

“We are what? May 29? So about two months?” I asked

“Yes and I hope that I can find a place to stay by then.”

“Don’t worry about that, you have done enough in the last few days to guarantee a long stay in my little home.”

She gave me a look. “There’s about twenty rooms in here I wouldn’t call it small.”

I giggled. “Ok, then my not so small little home.”

Louise chuckled.

“Say, Louise, do you have any experience with intersex kids? I don’t really know how I’m going to handle Céleste’s case. ”

“Well, I don’t have experience dealing with intersex kids, but transgender kids kind of…”

“Kind of?”

“I didn’t take care of the kid, the kid was me…”

I was surprised I didn’t expect that… I mean there wasn’t anything mannish about her she was thin slightly curvy and she a very round face. Nothing that presumed that she was born anything but a woman. I didn’t believe her.

“You are…” I couldn’t finish my sentence because she stopped me before I was done.

“Transgender? Yes, but I don’t really let that define me… I couldn’t have survived the last ten years were if I defined myself by my status anyway. As kind as people were overseas they still have this very bigoted opinion about LGBT rights. Are you bothered by my status? ”

“Surprised, but no that bothered by it. You are a real woman by my books seeing how you handle my situation with Céleste. ”

“Thanks … I don’t want to break any boundaries, but can I hug you? What you just said really touched me.” Said Louise.

I think that we both deserved it, so I accepted her proposition. She stood up, sat beside me on the couch and hugged me.

“I don’t want to ask too many personal questions, but is your status why you decided to move to another continent and is it the reason why no one wants to take you-in?”

She nodded.

“Some people really are awful.”

She nodded again.

“Do you have anyone to take care of the house while you are in this state?” Asked Louise.

“Well, I am supposed to interview a maid later today.” I said.

“Well, if you don’t find her appropriate I might as well do the job, seeing as you want to overpay me.”

“Overpay? I think that your salary is well deserved for an in-house nurse and a physiotherapist.”

“You want to pay me the double of the normal rate and you are letting me live in one of the guest rooms of your mansion like it was my home, you are overpaying me.”

“Hum... Perhaps but if you keep counselling me and Céleste like you did before you are totally going to deserve your salary. ”

Afterwards we just sat there chitchatting and watching the morning news until sleep finally came back to us.