Happy Families (15 page)

“Two years this May,” Bethany says. “I have a green belt, with a blue stripe.”

“Cool. This is my fourth year in jujitsu,” Connor offers. “I’m testing for green belt in two weeks.”

“Is that like a rule or something? Every kid who’s with TransParent has to do some martial art?” Bethany and Connor laugh, and I shrug. “Well, I just wondered.”

From down the beach, a little kid with a soccer ball waves his arms and hollers, “Marco! Come play with me! Marco!”

“Later, Ruben,” Marco yells, and stretches out on his back.

The little boy comes closer, looking uncertainly at the rest of us from beneath his mop of wavy brown hair. “Marco,” he begins mournfully, “you
promised
.”

Marco groans, shoving a last bite of cookie in his mouth and struggling to his feet. “All right,
mijo
,” he grumbles, then rolls his eyes at me. “When would I have time for martial arts? I spend my whole life babysitting.”

“Now, you boys play nicely,” Connor advises, then ducks Marco’s kick at his head.

I down the last of my chips and crumple the bag, looking across the beach for a garbage can. Marco has managed to collect half the little kids and is organizing them into a soccer tournament. A few adults are gathering to sit in a polite half circle around the stick-fighting kids, who appear to be acting out a play. There’s a lot of gesturing and running around.

Connor follows my glance and smiles. “These trips are so fun for little kids. They get to be the center of attention for a whole day. Sometimes the staff does face painting or brings stuff for a craft. It’s pretty cool, if you’re eight.”

Ysabel asks, “So, how long have you been coming to these?”

“Since I was eight,” Connor says, and laughs. “Maddie and Mom couldn’t make it today, but if they were here, you’d have gotten the whole story—how they met Treva when she was just starting out, how they decided this was a great program for our whole family. They’re big supporters. We go backpacking with a group every summer.”

“We’ve only been coming a couple of years,” Beth says, tucking a tendril of hair behind her ear. “It’s cool.”

I open my mouth to ask Connor about his parents, then hesitate, glancing over at Bethany. It’s obviously not a secret that Mr. Han was once a woman, so I take a chance. “Beth, can I ask you about your mom?”

Bethany stiffens. “What about him?”

Her expression is hostile, letting me know I’ve overstepped. I lean back. “Sorry. Forget it.”

“No, go on.” Bethany raises her eyebrows. “We covered that I still call him Mom. Do you want to hear about his chest-ectomy? Or did you want to ask about the below-the-waist surgeries? Or the hormone shots?” A dull flush climbs her neck.

“Hey.” Connor frowns. “You can say no without being a brat about it, Bethany.”

“Are we not supposed to ask about each other?” Ysabel’s expression is wary. “Is that another TransParent rule we don’t know about?”

“No. You can ask.” Beth licks her lips and shoots me a quick glance. “I just get tired of people asking. When Mom started the transition, he was … open about it. I got a lot of questions at my old school.”

“It’s not so much about your mom,” I reassure her. “I was just going to ask how long it took for things to seem … normal.” I carefully feel my way through the words. “I know it must be different for everyone; it just seems like—”

“It seems like we’re losing Dad, and we’re getting somebody we don’t even know, and it’s all this huge … stress,” Ysabel finishes, and I nod.

“I know what you mean,” Connor says after a little silence, stretching out his legs and leaning back on his hands. “You get used to it. Maddie—my dad—transitioned when I was seven. I was confused for a long time, but I finally understood Dad and Maddie were the same person, and it got better.”

Bethany gives an unhappy laugh. “ ‘Better’ is a matter of opinion. Most of the time, the stuff with my mom doesn’t bother me. He does what he needs to do to be true to himself. But then”—she glances sideways at me—“I think people are looking at me and judging me because of him, and sometimes I can’t deal with it.”

I shake my head defensively. “I wasn’t—”

“I know.” Beth looks embarrassed. “I’m sorry. It’s been six years, and every time I think I’m over it, I’m not.”

“The hardest thing is new people,” Connor says, squinting out over the water. “Everybody at school already knows—and we’ve lived in the same house since I was five. When somebody moves in on our street, though, all it takes is Mom running out to kiss Maddie before she leaves for work, and then they start staring.” Connor gives me a half smile, but his dark eyes are bleak. “It’s kinda funny sometimes, when people find out. You watch them try to figure out how to treat you. We can tell when
they decide we’re some kind of deviants by the time Halloween comes around. There are the parents who make their kids cross the street to avoid our house.”

“That’s really wrong.” I swallow. Is this how it’s going to be from now on for us?

“More candy for you, Connor,” Ysabel says, touching his arm.

Connor snorts, his humor reasserting itself. “Not if Mom has anything to say about it. She hates Halloween. She’s a dentist.”

“Bummer.”

“Entirely.”

Marco jogs toward us, trailed by squealing little kids. “Connor,” he pants. “Come kick the ball around, dude. You know you want to.”

“Not even a little bit,” Connor calls back, and grins.

Just then, Marco’s coaching term comes to an end. Tarie stands by our raft and waves her arms. “Mount ’em up! Move ’em out!”

Marco immediately scoops up the ball and is dog-piled to the ground by his brother’s friends. I dust the sand from my legs and stand, anticipation spreading through me. Tarie said the last runs would be the best.

Bethany, still seated, groans. “I cannot
move
. I am going to be so sore tomorrow.”

“What? You’re in the
middle
,” Connor exclaims. “You hardly have to paddle!”

“Isn’t it great?” Bethany says smugly, and vaults to her feet.

It’s a lot easier getting into the boat and under way this time. I sit in the bow, and Connor takes my place in the stern, next to Ysabel. Marco seems unbothered by the switch and gives me a
quick nod when we finally get in sync. It feels good to get back on the water.

Tarie distracts me, pointing out a raptor riding the thermals far above us. The next moment, I misjudge the depth of my paddle, and it flings water in an arc behind me. Both Beth and Ysabel squeal. “Sorry,” I yell before they can snarl at me.

“Next run is Chili Falls,” Tarie announces. “Everybody ready?”

The answer is no—there’s really no way we could have been ready, since we don’t know the run, but we do our best. The next two hours are a blur of churning water and speed. By the time the river widens again to a lazy flow, the bridge where we got on the bus is in sight. I feel a pang of disappointment that the day is almost over.

All of us come in together: a string of orange and gray rafts bobbing along in the cool gray-green water, everyone sunburned, sweaty, wild-haired, and tired. The rafts lie beached in haphazard lines, and everyone pitches in to collect the paddles into stacks.

Beth looks like she’s sleepwalking. Marco ends up with Ruben draped over his shoulders. The rest of the little kids have finally run out of steam and lean against the adults, whining a little, but mostly drooping. All of us groan at the sight of the steep trail from the river up to the parking lot.

“Come on,” Connor urges, shoving Beth along the trail in front of him. “One foot in front of the other.”

“Easy for you to say,” Marco mutters.

We climb the short, steep trail up from the river slowly, taking our time behind people moving stiffly, their newly worked muscles already protesting the hours of activity. When we reach the top, we struggle out of our life vests and helmets, stacking
them in the large metal containers on the edge of the parking lot. The en|GNDR staff are circulating, making sure everything goes smoothly. I see Treva striding around with her clipboard.

Our group says the polite nice-meeting-you thing. Bethany smiles at Ysabel, and they make tentative plans to get together, since she lives ten minutes from Dad’s house. Connor collects phone numbers and makes suggestions that we stay in touch.

Tarie comes by with a brochure that has the en|GNDR event calendar in it. As Connor said, there is a four-day backpack trip planned for a weekend in August. Part of me wishes we could go.

All of me wishes I knew where our family will be in August.

The car slowing down wakes me. We’ve exited the freeway, and I can see a sign that says Buchannan, 38 Miles. We turn left, toward row upon row of hills, shadows coloring them a dull brownish gray in the early-evening light. The high white clouds have gathered in masses, and it looks like it’s going to rain.

Across from me, Justin is asleep, his head tilted back against the seat, arms crossed, and legs stretched out. Dad has the radio on NPR, a cultured-sounding mumble interspersed with occasional jazz riffs. I stretch without much movement, wanting to
ease the kinks in my neck without letting my father know that I’m awake. I don’t want to talk.

Everyone was really nice today. Treva with her eternal clipboard, Tarie with her whacked-out sense of humor, Marco and his cute little brother, Bethany and Mr. Han, and Connor—especially Connor—were great. It seems like it would be so easy to just walk into a ready-made group of Dad’s friends and be happy in Buchannan.

I feel hopeful.

Other people survive a divorce. Other girls manage that two-weekends-a-month thing with their fathers. Other kids our age have two rooms, two houses, sometimes even two churches. For the first time, this whole Dad/Christine thing looks doable.

I feel great, until I realize the one thing missing from today.

Mom.

Suddenly, I have to rethink everything.

Dad signals and changes lanes. I squeeze my eyes tighter, feeling a headache threatening as I remember what Mom told me at the airport, before we even left.

“Try and have a good week.” She’d fallen into step with me, rubbing her bare arms in the cool morning air, smiling faintly. “Try not to …,” she started, and I’d stiffened, felt my shoulders get tight.

“Not to what?”

She’d stopped and taken a deep breath. I changed my grip on the backpack and waited, shifting uncomfortably as Dad and Justin headed through the automatic doors to the check-in line. The Sunday morning airport crowd pushed around us, voices sounded over the loudspeakers, and she watched me calmly, a
familiar face in a sea of strangers. Mom had run a tired hand through her hair before speaking.

“Just try to remember your father is not the enemy,” she’d finally said, her voice even. “We’re on the same side. We’re fighting what destroys our family. Don’t forget that.”

I hadn’t known what to say. I’d shifted my torch case onto an empty luggage cart and pushed ahead, confused and unhappy. What else is destroying us? Who else decided our family wasn’t good enough the way it was? If Dad’s not the enemy, who is?

“Ys. Pizza.” Justin walks by and kicks the door, the sound a muffled thump. Upstairs I hear the distorted cadence of a news anchor and know my father’s sitting with his feet up on the coffee table, blearily watching TV. He decided on ordering pizza because all of us are wiped, and nobody felt creative enough to come up with something to eat.

I narrow my focus on the blob of glass on my mandrel and move it into the flame and out again. The long orange tongue of flame is hypnotic, and I move my hands quickly, using the heat stored in the stainless steel mandrel to compensate for the cooler flame. The basic bead has formed of orange and white glass, and I concentrate, deciding to extend the bull’s-eye effect. I reach for a rod of magenta glass and heat it, continuing to turn the bead on the mandrel so that gravity won’t pull the bead out of shape.

“Ys.” The smell of onions and basil flows into the room ahead of Justin. I flick a glance at him as he sets down the pizza and closes the door. He sits a more than safe distance away from me. “You not hungry?”

“I’ll eat in a minute.” I lay a thick layer of magenta glass over the white and orange, heating it until the bead is wide and flat. I pick up my steel scissors and check the location of my graphite tool. Perfect.

“—I’ve been thinking about it ever since we got home. I guess—”

I pull the bead from the heat and make a tiny snip with the scissors. The glass cuts cleanly, and I lay the scissors against the graphite, hoping to diffuse the heat. Into the flame goes the bead, out again. Snip. Heat. Snip.

“—I don’t know. Maybe I’m just tired.” Justin’s voice is lifeless.

“Hmm.” I’ve made seven cuts, rotating the end of the mandrel slightly against the graphite pad, keeping the petals of my little flower flat. The scissors only stuck once; the graphite pad has done the trick. I pick up a rod of white glass and heat it, laying down a short stripe at the end of each petal for a framing effect. It’s perfect.

“Screw it.” Justin pushes to his feet. “I hate it when you pretend you’re listening.”

“Sorry. Don’t go, Just.” I turn off the flame and bend to place the bead in the annealing kiln. I hate having everything in weird places, and I miss my setup at home. I finally found my torchwork mojo, but Justin’s gotten me out of my zone. I push my glasses atop my head. “I’m listening. What kind of pizza did we get?”

My brother hesitates, then slides back to the floor with a heavy sigh. “Half was supposed to be veggie, but they goofed. I picked off the chicken.”

I make a face and move the small TV table out of the way. “Thanks.”

Justin pushes the box toward me. I settle on the floor and grab a slice.

“So, what’s wrong?” Justin asks.

I frown, answering through a mouthful. “With me? Nothing.” I swallow. “Why?”

“The only time you work with your music on loud and don’t pay attention to anyone is when you’re upset.”

“I’m not listening to music.” I take another bite, feeling unaccountably angry.