---End---
.

.

-------Story - time----------

=

As they left for the mall in Katrine's small escort Adam thought about what had happened, wondering what he would have done if she hadn't started to cry. Him unknowingly both Anna and Katrine were thinking about the same, but where Katrine and Adam were unsure Anna knew.

She remembered all to well the way he had lost himself the day before. She hadn't let him out of her sight since their talk with Katrine, she was too afraid now. Adam, while feeling her anguish didn't know what he could do to reassure her.

He laid his head at her breast, listening to her heart beat. Listening he got that mad feeling that it beat to fast, much faster than it should, he suddenly started to feel worried. 'What's wrong with her? Is she's dying?'

Katrine, peeking at them in the rear-view mirror, saw his worry and guessing she asked.

"You know that girls have a faster heartbeat than boys, don't you?"

He mutely shook his head, looking a little relieved.

"Well, they do Amanda. Don't worry, she won't wear out on you, happiness is measured in love, not in time."

He put his head back where it belonged, slowly relaxing again. Anna smiled, her mom was so right, whispering in his ear. "My grandmas mom Amanda, she lived to be a hundred." caressing his face.

Adam closed his eyes, slowly rocked to sleep by the cars motion and Anna’s caresses.

As her mother saw them cuddling she decided to keep on driving, after all, there was always a mall more somewhere. And as she drove she watched how her daughter slowly felt asleep too, her hair sweeping them both into its sweet golden embrace as Anna glided down the backseat leaning on her Adam.

Seeing them sleeping so restfully Katrine decided to drive to the same lake she used to take Anna to when she was small, she had so many good memories of the time with Jake visiting it.

Leaving them to their sleep she stepped out to walk down to the waters edge, again wondering why life had to be so difficult. She found no answers to that question, but looking out over the pale blue stillness she still felt a certain kind of peace. She had her Anna, and now she somehow had begotten Amanda, or Adam, too.
==

She tried to think over what they needed to do. One thing she was sure of was that this orphanage Adam had described should be closed. She hadn't thought that any of those older and sicker kind of 'correction facilities' had survived the sixties, especially not in her own hometown.

If she could, she would have collected all the kids and then made a big bonfire out of the whole orphanage, but she knew that the bureaucracy didn't work that way. But at least she thought that she had the contacts and competence to force a change.

After a while she started to freeze, she wasn't really dressed for the outdoors. As she went back to the warmth of the car she saw Anna wake up, her arm still protectively wrapped around Amanda.

"Mom, weren't we going to the mall?"

"Yes, I just needed some time to think. You remember the lake?"

Anna smiled. "I still love it mom. Yeah, I feel better now."

She looked down on Adam, still collecting on his sleep of the righteous.

"We should get him his on clothes mom. It's not right to make him wear those, not if there's no reason for it."

"But he looks very nice in them, don't he Anna?"

Anna nodded, reddening a little. She couldn't explain it but having him like this made her feel as if she had it all, a girl and a boy and in love with both, unable to choose. But under it all she knew that Adam was Adam, and she would love him, no matter what clothes he used.

Katrine knew her daughter quite well. She could guess what moved inside that sweet face of her with a surprising accuracy most of the times, and remembering Jake it wasn't too hard.

"Did you know that your dad loved cross dressing?" she asked gently.

Katrine looked up surprised. "He did?"

"Oh yes, he was very shy about it though. He felt that it was somehow wrong to have such a fascination for something so unmanly."

She laughed, a laugh filled with happy memories.

"That's how I got interested in him. I saw him at the mall all dressed up, and I somehow recognized him, without being able to say who he was. He looked just as a young lady but there were subtle differences in the way he moved and looked. Nothing you could point on directly and say. 'That's wrong.' But they were there all the same."

"It took me a moth but when I got him in the same class I suddenly knew, like a flash of lightening, and I found myself drawn to him. I thought him to be brave and exciting, daring to live out his dreams. But it wasn't before we had been together for most of the next term that I dared to breach the subject."

She shook her head wonderingly remembering. "He was so scared Anna, he thought I was going to 'out' him, throw him to the wolves. And that's why I knew about the razor. He locked himself in the toilet just as Adam, and I was scared too. But he came out again looking at me."

She shook her head again. "He looked at me as if he was putting his heart in my hands Anna, saying. " ‘Where am I without trust? I love you Katrine.’ And after that our real life started."

Anna tried to assimilate what she remembered of her dad with what Katrine had told her. She stared at her mother. Her father had died when she still was just a little child.

"Why haven’t you told me this before?"

"It was private Anna, and we also wanted you to make your own choices. And deeming of what I see now, it seems you already have?" Nodding at Adam.

Looking at each other they started to laugh. 'Life is just to strange sometimes' thought Katrine. 'Here we tried to let her free from our prejudices, and she picks just the same, amazing.'

But then again, Adam wasn't crossdressing because he wanted too, it would be more correct to say that it was the best choice he could find at the time. 'Still, it's so easy to see that he enjoys it' she though. 'And he makes such a sweet looking girl.'

She shook her head feeling confused.

“Everyone has to make their own choices, don’t they?” she mused, looking thoughtfully at her daughter.

“Yeah mom.” Answered Anna, looking down at her Adam resting his head in her lap, or Amanda as it was for the moment.

After a while Katrine had pulled herself together again and thinking of the mall she decided to drive up to the next town instead, after all, they had an excellent mall there too. As she drove she found herself asking some pointed questions. What should they do with Amanda, or Adam?

Shocked she realized that she already had trouble separating the two? To have her live like she did now but still being on the run, and underage? Against her reporting him immediately to the police was the fact that he was happy, and she had this feeling that it had been a long time since last for him.

And her Anna was happy too, and yes, even herself felt comfortable about him. And there was also this strangeness about that orphanage, she couldn't understand how it had operated like it did, without anyone reacting?

And there was also this new problem. Katrine realized suddenly that she wasn't immune to the allure of Adam either, he reminded her to much of her own Jake, the time when they had first meet.

And dressed up like he was now Amanda seemed so much older too, at least eighteen, and quite sophisticated. Fleetingly she worried that her interest might grow to become more than entirely motherly.

"I must need it bad?" She muttered, cringing a little at her sudden turn of thought, feeling slightly depressed. Maybe it was just those teenage cootie hormones flying around? Maybe she just had to learn how to wean herself?

Cold showers?
==