Sophie

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1

I discovered this place three years ago, an abandoned road that was currently used by local farmers and me with a parking area and nature path just eighteen miles from the town. A wonderful piece of wild nature with a possibility to walk a well arranged path, one and a half miles to the bridge over the stream, two hundred yards and another bridge back and again one mile through the woods back to where I had parked the car. And the most important part of it...there were no people. During the last three years that I had been coming here every week, I’d met other visitors just four times, exchanging nods with them in passing.

It was a remarkably sunny day of spring, the Wednesday before Easter. Birds flitted among the trees and bushes announcing new birth. The snow had withdrawn almost completely, just on some northern scarps and slopes were left the last reminders of departed winter. I walked up a light incline on a trail enjoying every sound, every shaft of sun light and every breath of clean fresh air. The path then sloped down to the quite decayed wooden bridge. And there it was – a wonderful glade with some benches on the southern side of the stream, the place to relax and enjoy the sun, the birds and stream’s babble. Weather was warm, maybe seventy or such, and sitting on the bench facing the sun it became even hot, causing me to take my jacket off.

The flow of the stream was slow there and it seemed like a good place for bathing and swimming. I myself was fooled by it few years ago when I’d decided to bathe one hot summer day. The bottom of the stream appeared to be sand but it was really sludge almost three feet deep. When I tried to rebound from the bottom, my feet were bogged down in the sludge and every movement caused me to sink into it deeper and deeper. I was able to save myself only by using my arms to let me swim forty feet downstream till I reached the gravel bottom. In any case, the water was still too cold; I guessed no more than forty-five degrees, for swimming.

I noticed something unusual, unusual at least for this place, a spot of bright colors. It was a girl in a blue shirt and yellow skirt cycling down the path in my direction. Then everything happened very quickly but I saw it like in a slow motion movie. The bike’s front wheel stuck between the planks of the wooden bridge and the girl somersaulted into the water. I jumped to my feet the moment the girl sank into the water and I jumped into the stream.

“Don’t stand on the bottom!” I shouted to her.

“Put your arms around my neck!” Once she was attached to me, I turned over on my back, keeping her head over the water and just let the stream to bring us to the place where the bottom was good to stand. We scrambled up the stream’s bank and rushed to the bench near the bridge where I had left my jacket.

“Thank you,” she mumbled quietly.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

She appeared to be about fifteen years old, slender and about average in height. I couldn’t get a clear view of her face because it was shrouded by the hair that had been turned to tangles by the water. From what I could see under her brown hair, she had a round face and a bit of a pronounced nose. She seemed to be avoiding looking up at me.

I knew that the cold water would be chilling her and that she needed to get dry quickly. “Turn around and raise your hands.”

She did as I directed and turned her back to me. When I went to pull her sopping shirt off and then unbuttoned her skirt, she pulled away from me and covered herself. I realized that I was just acting without thinking of how she would react.

“It’s alright, child,” I said. “We need to get you dry before you are too chilled. You could become ill. I’m not here to hurt you.”

She hesitated, but she shivered almost immediately and nodded jerkily.

I finished the process of pulling off her skirt and helping her to remove her shirt. When I pulled her panties down, she shied away again until I told her to step out carefully. I kept my eyes averted to respect her modesty, but I knew that I needed to at least get her dry.

I found an unopened packet of paper handkerchiefs in the pocket of my jacket and handed her a couple of them. I used a couple more to dry her back and saw some bruises across her shoulders that could have been caused by falling off the bike, but they also did not seem to be new.

I wrung her clothes out and then put one handkerchief together with her panties to make them dry and gave them back to her to put on. I helped her to put my jacket on and sat her on the bench facing the sun.

I needed to wring out my clothes a bit as I was starting to get chilled myself.

“Don’t button it up,” I told her, “let the sunshine warm you. And please don’t turn around while I wring my clothes”.

I undressed, wrung my clothes out as tight as possible and put everything on again. I could put on just my pants, but I can’t be outside my home without a clerical collar.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“Werner’s farm,” she said. I knew the place she referred to. It was a flower farm almost two miles from where my car was parked. The farm was owned by a widow named Hanna Lora Werner. She supplied our Lutheran church as well as another smaller catholic church with flowers every week.

“But Hanna Lora has no children,” I said.

“She’s my Aunt; she’s my dad’s sister.”

I knew Hanna Lora had an unfortunate brother but I hadn’t met him. I knew that his wife left him ten years ago but I did not have a clue that he had a daughter. It was rumored that he was drinking some.

“What’s your name?” I asked because a name made someone less of a faceless entity. I also had the sense that this young lady was afraid of people and it would help to establish a sort of friendship between us.

“David,” she whispered.

“A very strange name for a girl,” I said.

“I am… I was… I was born a boy,” she said quietly. I could see now why she was so quiet. It was as if she expected me to scorn her.

“I see just a girl,” I said, “and I don’t care what you were when you were born.”

“My dad says I’m a pervert. He says God hates me. He doesn’t allow me to be a girl at home.” Her voice was toneless, almost lifeless.

“Nonsense,” I replied, “God is all love while hate is evil. OK, let’s this discuss later. Can you walk?”

“Yes, sure, I can.”

“I still don’t know your name. By the way, I’m Lucas Goss. So what’s your name?”

“Sophie.”

“Sophie… It’s a lovely name. Have you chosen it by yourself?”

“Aha…”

“Well then… Put your skirt on and let’s go.” We went back to the bridge and I pulled out her bike. The front wheel was crooked so I needed to hold the bike’s front up to let it travel on the rear wheel. It took us a half an hour to reach my car. I managed to get the bike into the trunk and we drove to Werner’s farm.

The farm wasn’t a big one compared to other farms. Thirty acres wasn’t a lot if corn was grown, but it was a flower farm and this was time of year tulips and jacinths were blooming. The view of equal sectors of a half an acre of bright clear color ranging from light blue through yellow to deep purple each was really stunning. The farmhouse was on the distant edge of the plot, it was a traditional double-decker similar to most of other farmhouses in this parish.

I stopped my car beside a group of other cars in the courtyard and we got out. Hanna Lora looked a bit surprised to see me, but she looked frightened when she saw our clothes were wet.

“What happened to you … both?” It was obvious to me that she was concerned about what I might feel and what I had to say about Sophie.

“It was a God’s will for me to meet your niece by this special way,” I replied. My friendly smile and words let her know that she had nothing to be concerned about. “We both are alive and I hope we’ll be healthy. You should let Sophie change her clothes or she might catch cold though.”

“Oh! I’m sorry! Sophie, run upstairs and get a hot shower. Lucas, there is another shower on the ground floor so why not to get it.”

Wednesday was my day off, I was chilly and I wanted to talk with Hanna Lora and Sophie. “Thanks. It’s very kind of you,” I said.

She led me inside. “Put your wet clothes on the floor and I’ll take them to the dryer,” she said.

I took my clothes off and stepped into the shower letting the stream of hot water to wash the chill out of me. It was very odd to take a shower away from home, especially in the house of a single woman. I was odd myself. For the last three years I was a second pastor in the Lutheran church in the town where I lived now.

As a pastor, I was supposed to have a family. It wasn’t a crime to be single though. The pastor himself and his wife were arranging some special parties at their home to find me a match. So far, I wasn’t ready or there was no real match. Sorry. There had not been a party that Hanna Lora had attended. It made me wonder why not? She was single. She was thirty-five while I was forty-two. She was attractive and intelligent. And now I had an opportunity to have a talk with her. I turned the water off and stepped out of the shower. There was a navy plush terry robe and plushy slippers left for me.

Hanna Lora and Sophie were already waiting for me in a sitting-room with a table set and a fireplace lighted up.

“Your clothes smelt bad so I put them first into a washer. They will be clean and dry in three or four hours. Is that OK?” Hanna Lora asked.

“I’m thinking that it is or what I should do if it’s not OK?” I replied with a grin and I noticed Sophie giggling.

“Sophie’s told me everything about how you’ve saved her life and what you’ve said to her.”

“To tell you the truth, it’s not me. I’m just His implement,” I said.

I didn’t want to represent myself as excessively humble though I really did feel I was being led by the fate. I’ve seen more than once in the past that what seemed as a coincidence appeared to be a part of my edification and always for my own good.

When I was a kid living at foster home, no one wanted me for adoption so I grew up in a Lutheran foster home. That led me to decide to attend a Lutheran college. As a student at college, followed by doctoral studies at the same college, I got to know Mark Lorentz. We were roommates in the college dorm. The next time I met Mark, it was twelve years later at a conference and he was seeing me as a wreck. A diocese office pastor without a parish, he remembered me three years later when his parish was approved for a second pastor and he called me to join him.

I’d gotten to know Hanna Lora in the time I had been here. She had been in a car crash in her first year of marriage. Her husband was killed and she lost the baby she had been pregnant with. Her injuries also meant that she lost the ability to become pregnant again.

Her brother Walt was a boor and he had married the same year as she. Two years after David’s birth, his wife left him for a drug dealer and as police had reported that she was killed a year later. David was spending all of his vacations at his aunt. When he was eight, it had become clear that he was dressing as a girl. His father accused him of pretending. Sophie was accepted only by Hanna Lora and some her neighbors. Walt had refused to accept this. Apparently, the bruises over Sophie’s back were left not by the accident with her bike today but by her dad’s belt. Sophie had never ridden her bike so far from the farm before, as she said that she had been lost in thought and only came back to herself only as she was speeding downhill to the bridge.

What I’d put into a few sentences had taken us more than four hours, so I was allowed at least to put my clothes on and could head home to my one bedroom flat in the loft of the parish house.

2

What was life in like in a town of ten thousand people? Everyone knew everyone else by reference to someone one did know personally. Sometimes it was good and even perfect. On the other hand, being in the minority in that town despite the twenty-first century wasn’t a pleasure. It was rather a constant struggle with rebuke. Someone in the big city could attend the LGBT support group anonymously. Anonymity in a small town wasn’t possible. So most of gays and lesbians were staying in their closets without knowing the others.

I’d met a gay who came to me for help since he was sure that being a gay was more than deadly sin. I was talking in my homilies about acceptance of sexual minorities almost every month and this man; he was the first one, turned to me almost a year later. That was the reality of the tight knit community. This way I’d got a friend in the Sheriff’s office while George had got a supporter.

But anyway he remained in his closet. Gays and lesbians could stay in their closets and no one would recognize them. What about transgendered? They couldn’t stay in their closets while the gist of being transgendered was to be social. What kind of life did they have to live? What kind life did Sophie have to look forward to? I’d met her as a girl and she was happy. I hadn’t seen her before and I didn’t know what she was born a boy. I could assume her life wasn’t happy because of her homophobic father. I had learned that she suffered indignity and violence though I couldn’t do anything to change this. Or could I?

I had to confess that my thoughts were returning not to Sophie but to Hanna Lora again and again. I didn’t know it was love or something else because it was the first time I had such feelings. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was a sort of delusion. I had to talk to someone. I found Mark alone in his office.

“Mark, I need your advice.”

“Spill it,” Mark wasn’t formal with me, just as he wasn’t formal with the most of the parish.

I took a seat across from his desk, but Mark came around and sat down in the other chair. That was one of the great things about Mark; he didn’t put barriers like a desk between himself and others.

“It’s about love. But not about God’s love.”

“What’s her name?” there was a sparkle in his eyes. Mark was glad to hear that his long-time friend might have finally found love.

“Why do you think there is someone?” I frowned a bit. I didn’t think that I had been that obvious to Mark.

Mark smiled and said, “I’ve had the same questions when I fell in love with my wife. So who is she?”

“Hanna Lora Werner.”

“Yeah… She’s a special woman,” he said. “Do you know her story?”

“Yes, I do. She’s told me.”

“It’s strange, very strange. She’s extremely reticent about herself. Is there something you want to share with me?”

I’d told him a story how I’d met Sophie and about my visit to Werner’s farm.

“And what do you think?” Mark asked.

“About what?”

“Hanna Lora. Does she know?”

“What?”

“Don’t be so stupid. That you have lost your heart to her.”

“Sure she doesn’t. I don’t even know how to tell her.” That was one of the reasons I was here with Mark. How do you tell someone you really like them?

“Pick up the phone and call her. What are you waiting for?” Mark urged me. “She’s a woman, she can’t call you first. You’re very special to her if she’s told you her story.”

“You know her story too.”

“Rumors, rumors, only rumors…” Mark replied. “Hanna Lora has never talked with me about her past.”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. I’ll call her. Maybe a bit later.”

“What about Sophie?” Mark asked.

“She’s a happy girl when she’s at her aunt’s,” I said. “I guess she deserves better parents than Walter Keitel.”

“I share your opinion,” Mark said. “The problem is that Sophie can’t be adopted by her aunt even in case her father abandons his parenthood because Hanna Lora is single. On the other hand, I don’t think involving Children’s Services is a good idea. They would take Sophie away from her father but they wouldn’t give her to Hanna Lora for the same reason and most probably Sophie’s future would be in a state orphanage because of her special needs. I have talked with some people at Children’s Services and they have confirmed they don’t know any foster family for a transgendered girl. At an orphanage, she would be a boy bullied by other boys and who knows how it would end.”

“Sophie’s situation appears rather hopeless, doesn’t it?” Mark’s words just seemed to cause a heavy feeling in my gut.

Mark leaned forward in his chair. “There are no hopeless situations. We both know this. Just some ifs and buts.”

“What ifs?” The heavy feeling didn’t seem to be that bad now.

“IF Hanna Lora were to be married and IF her spouse would accept Sophie,” Mark said. There was a hint of a smile on Mark’s face as he looked me in the eye.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Probably. Call Hanna Lora. Pay her a visit. Do something… if you’re serious about her.”

“You’re right. You’re hundred times right, Mark. I’ll call her.” If she felt the same as I did, everything might be arranged after Easter. Yes. I’d call her.

3

It was not just very complicated, but extremely complicated to date for the first time in my life. I never had a girlfriend and I didn’t know what I was expected to do and say. Thanks to God, everything went well. I had needed just to call her and everything was arranged by Hanna Lora. She’d invited me for Easter dinner after the Divine Service. That wasn’t a date actually because Sophie as well as Hanna Lora’s neighbor were present at dinner.

My next visit was on Quasimodo Sunday so I had a present for Sophie, a pendant in form of anchor as a symbol of hope. Later were some more visits and not just on Sundays. Our relations were developing very fast, some could say even too fast, but our wedding was arranged a week after Pentecost. The service was a quiet one, just the two of us and official witnesses, and Mark of course. It wasn’t a secret anyway and some people were waiting for us outside the church with Sophie in ‘boy mode’ among them.

A very human quality is to err. Sometimes this statement is the only thing in our defense. Let’s go back to the crux of the matter.

Hanna Lora and I were a family now and I was stupid enough to discuss almost all questions of our family in the presence of Sophie for whom I was an authority figure. Thus I’d said Sophie needed to pay a visit to a counselor. I was sure she’d never go alone or without telling us about this. I’d planned to drive Sophie to the city to one of counselors I’d got to know personally.

But that was my plan not Sophie’s. She went to the school’s counselor and then and appointment with a psychiatrist was made. Neither Hanna Lora nor I were informed about this because we weren’t Sophie’s family. Walter Keitel instead had gotten the call from the psychiatrist’s office about Sophie’s upcoming visit despite what Sophie had said about her abusive homophobic father.

There are some people called homophobes. Most are passive in their hate of people with gender issues. Some of them picket homophobes and an even smaller group of them are violent activists. Sophie’s father, Walter Keitel, fell into the latter group. He knew about Sophie, i.e. about his son David pretending to be a girl. And he hated his kid for it and had used his belt to show his hatred. But this was while he’d been sure only he and Hanna Lora knew about Sophie. But everything went differently now after the call from psychiatrist office. Sophie had gone public. His odium now was in no comparison to hatred previously.

My cell phone buzzed in the pocket of my jacket one afternoon when I was doing paperwork in the church’s office. “Pastor Goss,” I answered the call.

“Something awful happening at Keitel’s trailer,” a female voice that was only vaguely familiar said, “I’ve heard David’s screams.”

“Have you called the police?” There was no answer just a beep as my caller hung up, some people never call police.

I dialed the emergency number as fast as I could. “Can you send a car to check Mr. Keitel’s trailer at the far end of Dryfield? I’ve got a call about screams there. It’s pastor Lucas Goss calling.”

“Have you personally witnessed it?” an operator asked.

“No, I’ve not.”

“We don’t accept calls based on rumors, sir,” and again the same tell-tale beep of a terminated call.

By that time, I was already in my car when I tried my emergency call another way. “George? It’s Lucas Goss. I’m driving to Dryfield. I’ve got a call something happening at Keitel’s. Can you drive in?”

“Sure. Fifteen minutes guess.”

I was faster than George. I’d stopped my car by the Keitel’s trailer and run inside but the trailer was empty so I stepped outside and walked it round. In the back where no one could see, I saw a nude body with hands raised up and tied to the hook high on the top of the trailer. The sun was setting and everything was in a dimmed bronze shine.

I couldn’t see the welts on the back turned to me and neither could I say the body was alive. I raised my hands to unhook the body.

“Leave it! Now!” I turned my head and saw Sophie’s father behind me.

“Don’t be stupid. She needs a doctor,” I said attempting to untie her hands and get her down.

“Doctor won’t help. Satan has got into my son and he is she now and you are Satan’s priest freak …”

I succeeded in get Sophie’s hands unhooked and was turning around with her in my hands holding her between me and the trailer. At the same moment I noticed a flash of movement and turned my head toward it. I saw the glossy tool raised high above my head and tried to avoid the impact but, with Sophie in my hands, I wasn’t able to move quickly and I was struck over my right shoulder. I saw the tool raised again but I was unable to move. There was a shot and I passed out the next moment.

I didn’t remember much of what happened next by Keitel’s trailer. I saw ambulance and police lights and heard sirens. Next, there was a darkness and the silence and later some whispers and silence in the darkness again. The next thing I remember was white checked ceiling. I could guess I was in the hospital. Hospital was much better than morgue. The only strange thing at the moment was that there was no nurse in the room with me. Or I couldn’t see any. I started to inspect myself. I moved my feet and I felt they were moving. That was a good sign that my spine was ok. Then I tried to move my hands and the right hand didn’t respond. That’s not good. Next I tried to move my jaw and found no tubes in my mouth. That was perfect. I was ok, but how was Sophie? I tried to raise my head unsuccessfully and second later I saw a girl’s face above me.

“Welcome back! I’m Linda. The doc will be shortly here,” she said and disappeared. Why do nurses in the movies smile and ask stupid questions like ‘How are you?’ This was definitely not a movie, but the nurse was still too cheerful.

“Hi, I’m Gordon, your surgeon. How do you feel?” The male face that appeared asked.

“I can’t feel my right hand,” I said.

“You’ll need few months to regain the use it,” doctor said.

“I can’t drive and bless with a left hand only.” But it was good to hear that my hand would be useable again.

“But you are alive otherwise you’d talk not with me but to St. Peter,” he replied. His logic was sound, but it did not do me much good at the moment.

“Is it that serious?”

“Luckily for you, you were struck with a mattock over the right shoulder so your collarbone and three ribs were cut and your right lung was torn. If it had been your left shoulder your heart could have been injured. Or if the hit had come more to the right your right hand would be simply cut off.”

“Sophie?” I wasn’t sure how to ask about her.

“She’s ok. She’s in another room with your wife now.”

“Tell her I’m ok,” I asked.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Nurse will give you a shot, I want you to sleep. See you later.”

I didn’t notice Linda giving me the shot but I felt asleep shortly.

I saw Hanna Lora’s face the next morning when I woke up.

“How do you feel, honey?” she asked.

“I’m ok. How is Sophie? Shouldn’t you be with her?”

“She’s asleep now.”

“Doc didn’t correct me yesterday she’s a boy. What happened?”

“Walter got a call from the psychiatrist’s office and got furious. He tied Sophie’s hands to the hook and started to beat her privates with a cane till the balls were smashed. What his plans were later nobody knows because you came onto the scene. Here in the hospital, the doctors found that not only were Sophie’s testicles smashed but her penis was practically cut off. The SRS was the only option and, after a judge’s verdict, David became Sophia.”

“What about Walter?”

“George shot him when Walter tried to hit you again. He saved your life.” Hanna Lora’s eyes were filled with tears at the thought that she had almost lost another husband and child.

I tried to see the positive moment in the whole story but I couldn’t at that time.

Months and years of transition and bureaucracy were resolved in one day for Sophie. But at what price! There was not only the physical pain. There was the rape by her father. And that was not a simple momentary rape but a torture of unbearable pain.

Sophie was young and her wounds were healing quickly and along with hormone therapy she was developing into a teenage girl showing everything girls her age have. Mentally she was a wretch and she needed a whole year to recover. Another year was needed to regain her smile.

I needed some help myself and both Hanna Lora and Mark were great in that respect. I believed in loving and forgiving people, seeing the good in everyone. I had confronted by the violence brought of hate and intolerance and I had been shaken as a result. But I finally realized that this was another occasion that had been sent to me for my edification. If I had not been there, my daughter would not be here now. My friendship and counseling of George had saved us both.
Now it was the time to turn to Walter. Love and forgiveness in general was nothing or rather hypocrisy if there was a single man causing me to feel a hate and a fear. My worship and His grace succeeded and I could see miserable lost man who took hate for love. I succeeded to see His own image in this man. Now I had to help Sophie and Hanna Lora forgive Walter too.

We lived a family life all three of us, the parents and the daughter. Hanna Lora was working at her farm while Sophie was attending a High School in the town. I have to confess that not every day of our life was filled with love and mutual understanding. There were days of resentment and insult too but we were family and we loved each other. I tried to show Sophie my respect and trust. She was still a child and most importantly the girl. She needed money for her own, for dresses and make-up and such. I couldn’t afford give her much but I never asked her to report for money she’d spent.

The day of High school graduation was always the great event in the town and most officials were present. This one was very special while it was Sophie’s graduation day. She graduated at the top of her class and she was probably the most popular girl in the school judging by the cheers she got while collecting her diploma. After the official part was over I was driving the car with all three of us home to the farm but Sophie asked to stop at town cemetery. Hanna Lora and I followed Sophie to someone’s grave. I felt I knew what unnamed grave we were approaching. There was a gravestone not sumptuous but black marble one with an inscription on it: Walter Keitel R†P. Sophie put her flowers on the grave and we went back to the car in silence.

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Comments

Too Close to the Truth

littlerocksilver's picture

Tough read with a lot of hope.

Portia

that was good, but it was

licorice's picture

that was good, but it was difficult to read. Sadly it was also very realistic

Great Story

This is a great story ,as said before me to close to the truth as what happens to these kids and we don't know the outcome .
I hope this is not your only story but the beginning .
WELCOME to BCTS author's page
Hugs Richie2

Lightly done

BarbieLee's picture

Good authors put themselves inside their stories and tell them from the inside. You accomplished that. How one tells a story also tells me a whole lot about the author. The kindness and love spread through the story, the hate and cruelty quickly told to complete the tale.

Well done.

Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl

Thanks a lot

for reading, commenting and cudos.

A very special gratitude to Monica Rose who made this story appear.

Emotionally gripping

Violence against transgender people is still all to real, and it was even worse in the past. You told a story of love and acceptance. Fiction like yours is needed to help the community deal with evil. Thank you.

Hiker_JPG_1.jpg

Tears

This brought Me to tears. Thank You for a hard read with a wonderful end.

Good one

Alice-s's picture

Yep, small towns can suck.