Chapter 9

Everything’s confusing and in a jumble as I feel like I’m moving. There’s people yelling at me again and I feel pinches in places. My chest feels so heavy, it’s hard to breathe. Is someone sitting on my chest? Taylor…?, I hear Taylor? He’s alive?…Yeah, It’s him…I hear him closer now, closer…

“I love you, I love you and don’t you dare die on me!”

I force my eyes open, I know I’m hurt. The more I push myself to the surface the more of the accident I sort of remember. I look at him and smile, I’d stroke his hair if I wasn’t tied down. There’s a lot of stuff I could say but I…I tried to…but everything was a jumble.

“Ditto.” was all I got out. And it was like someone suddenly dropped a car on my chest.

The last words to the guy I love and it’s Ditto? God I’m so lame.

***
Taylor-

I wanted more than anything to go with them, to go after her as they rushed her into the trauma unit. I even fought and argued at first until two very big security guys a paramedic and a police officer made me calm down.

I’m in a daze after a nurse gave me a shot of something and that helps…probably valium. I feel slightly dopey but really loose in my body. That’s a muscle relaxant.

They clean me up and the cops start asking me questions. There’s the ones about what happened and then there’s the ones about James Morgan.

“Who?”

“James Morgan, your boyfriend.”

“Her name is Jenna asswipe not James. And She’s the woman I love.”

“She ain’t a she at all, so spill.”

“Nurse!”

“Now what?” That’s the cop.

“Yes?” That’s the nurse.

“Can I get something to write with?”

She digs through a drawer and passes me a yellow paper notepad and a pen. “Here you go, can I get you anything else?”

I stare at the cop intently then start jotting down his name, rank and badge number. “Yes can you tell security to get this police officer out of here? He’s already shown that he’s prejudiced against my girlfriend and her medical issues.”

“He ain’t any medical issues other than the injuries from the accident. He’s just another homo and this is just another bunch of fag drama.” the cop.

I see the nurses eyes widen then narrow to slits. Angry woman slits. “Officer if you don’t get the fuck out of here right now there’s going to be a problem.”

“Listen missy, you can’t tell me shit so be a good girl and…Arrgh!” He was mouthing and she just reached over and moved twisting his arm behind his back in a martial art hold and pushes him outside.

“Mark!, Hank! Get this officer out of here he’s accosting a patient and he’s been saying prejudicial things about our girl in trauma.”

The cop is struggling and the two big guys take him by the arms.

“You fucking let go of me!, You’re all assaulting a police officer! I can’t believe you’re all standing up for some tranny faggot!”

You could’ve heard a pin drop in that ER.

Some doctor there with graying hair stared at the cop and told the security guys. “Get that Man (Not police officer.) out of here. Put him in the safe room and somebody call the police and the RCMP please.”

I really wish I had this on video for her.

They don’t tell me much other than they’re working on her. They lend me get a phone and I call the diner. It takes awhile to calm Holly down and get her to close up the diner until further notice. I tell her she might have her personal information somewhere upstairs. After that I’m not her family even if I’m the only thing she’s got so they let me sit in the closest waiting room they have to the ER. The tough little nurse comes by with a coffee.

“Taylor?”

“Yes?” I look up. She gives me a bit of a smile.

“Look, I can’t tell you much but they’ve got her breathing again okay?”

I nod. “Thanks, I’m sorry you’ve got to go through this much stuff since I’ve been here.”

“Hey don’t worry about it, that cop had it coming. Don’t worry you’ve got lots of witnesses about him. Besides he was lucky I didn’t kick his butt just for the stuff he was saying.”

“Jenna would’ve loved to have seen that.”

“I had to, If I let him keep spouting off like that then I couldn’t go home and look my own daughter in the eyes.”

“Your daughter?”

“Hunter, she’s the same kind of girl Jenna is but she’s only twelve.”

“Isn’t that young to transition?”

“Yeah, but they’re diagnosing things earlier and earlier now and Hunter’s starting when she’d be starting to grow as a girl anyway so it’s better for her although there’s a lot of controversy about it.”

I see Holly and Tim and the kids along with Njinda and Davey. She gives some papers in a brown manila envelope to the ward clerk and get’s things sorted. She’s got a couple of bags of stuff with her including a change of clothes for me and for Jenna.

We settle in for the long, long wait.

***
Holly-

The day started out really good. I had a nice cup of coffee to myself as Tim got the kids out of my hair as they lugged some of his tools from the garage to the truck to help daddy. He’s awesome with the kids.

I kissed him goodbye and he left with the kids to drop them off at his mom’s place. His bitch of a sister had it out with his mom years ago and moved to Ontario and has pretty much cut off contact. She doesn’t get to see those grandkids, it hurts her a lot so When she practically begged to watch the kids for free I couldn’t say no. I’m really careful not to abuse the privilege. She’s also like a mom to me. My own mom’s an alcoholic and used to hit us and all sorts of stuff that drove me into a lot of trouble when I was younger. I’ve been lucky really.

Last night, I had a surprise in finding out about Jenna. She passes really well, I mean once you know you can see it but when I first knew her with the small perky breasts and the strong shoulders and her height and skinniness I thought she was one of those really athletic girls. You know like some of those anorexic looking runner types. It didn’t matter what she was. Jenna’s a sweet girl and a friend, a good friend and she makes Taylor give a shit again.

Don’t get me wrong, He’s a great guy. He’s one of those guys who cares about everyone but himself. Jenna brought him back to life.

Then they had this fight. Jenna had made appointments this morning for herself to get herself sorted out and back on track for her becoming a woman. She also set up new appointments for Taylor to go to the cancer clinics to get some updated reports and look at his cancer. He wasn’t happy when she told him she had the appointments made. He turned into the typical scared guy and mutated into an asshole. Taylor’s one of the nicest and most stable guys I know. For him to get that scared.

I look over at him. He looks like shit.

Jenna took off and Taylor did get a clue as he stopped hitting the pig in the cooler and swore and took off after her to stop her. You know I didn’t really believe Jen when she was telling Nin and me about her once being a star football player. She got passed Taylor in what really looked like the way a football player might move then she was gone out the back.

Nin and I were rushed off our feet trying to keep up with things and it got to be hours that they were gone and I was getting pissed at the pair of them. I mean if they were sorting things out they were sorting things out, but dammit couldn’t they do it here?

I was mad until about quarter to three when the police pulled up. They informed me and Nin by the police about the accident and where Jenna and Taylor was. And asked some questions about things that happened and if this was where Jenna was living.

It was another hour when Taylor called.

“Maverick’s, how can I help you?” Mavericks is the name of the diner.

“Holly; It’s me Taylor…”

“How’s Jenna?”

“How’d..?”

“The cops were by and told us, they also wanted our take on the fight and what happened.”

“’Kay, uhm look I think she’s got some of her personal papers and stuff upstairs in those green plastic milk crates, could you look through them and try to find the stuff the hospital’s going to need.”

“Yeah sure no problem, uhm what about the diner?”

“Close it up until further notice, okay? I’ll cover you’re and Nin’s wages okay?”

“Yeah sure, we’ll be there as soon as we can.”

It took me and Nin an hour or so to stop everything and Davey shows up when I call him and Tim. They tell their bosses it’s a family emergency and take off from work early. Tim dropped Davey off at his ride and he came over here while Tim went to fetch the kids.

I found the papers Taylor was talking about and a bit more. I had to make a decision and after a coffee and a smoke out on the fire escape I had to. It was only right in a way I just hoped that Jenna would forgive me. I was nervous when I dialed up the number.

It rang about seven times and I was getting ready for the machine.

“Yellow!, Powerhouse?”

“Uhm, excuse me?”

“Powerhouse gallery how can I do for you?” This guy talks weird.

“I’m looking for John Powers, I think I got the wrong number though sorry.”

“Hey…You got him, how can I help you?”

“John Powers, formerly married to Natalie LeBlanc?”

“Yes, look if you’re one of her lawyers we settled things a long time ago.”

“No sir, it’s really little to do with that Scunt.”

He cough, chokes a bit over the phone. “You’re not a lawyer then I take it.”

“No I’m a friend of your daughters.”

“Uhm, I’m sorry miss I don’t have a daughter, I’ve a…”

“You had a son by the name of J’aime Christian Morgan, you’ve got a daughter now by the name of Jenna, and she’s a transgendered girl who’s like a baby sister to me.”

“…..Uhm….Transgendered you say?”

“Yes, that’s right and she’s an awesome girl that’s been through hell.”

“Tell me, please…Natalie took her away once she found out I wasn’t going to drape her in the finer things in life. I saw my child twice, just twice before she had me charged for being an abusive husband and setting me up…”

I talk with him about an hour and tell him everything that Jenna told me and the stuff that I’ve found out here with the newspaper and court clippings that Jenna had there in her things. There were charges pressed against her mother for attempted murder and as an assesory to assault with intent to cause great bodily harm and rape. Her lawyers are still appealing the whole thing on the basis that finding out about her son driving her temporarily insane. There’s even some priest of hers saying that she was so distressed from the magnitude of her sons sin that she was driven mad.

Stephen Morgan the step-dad was charged with rape and was fighting accusations from her as well as she’s testifying against him to try to get her own charges reduced.

It looks like Jenna’s been following the whole thing and then there’s “Vs Jason Morgan.com” I hate the damned thing, I looked it up as I talked with her dad over the phone. There were lots of pictures of Jenna when she was still hiding as James. They were clearly the worst of the shot’s but there were others, ones of her working in s strip bar. A tranny strip bar. Shots that made it look like she was hooking and lap dancing…and the comments and letters written there…I was nearly sick to my stomach. I was crying when I was on the phone with him.

“Holly, I’ll be up there as soon as I can…Here’s my cell number if you hear any changes.”

“Okay Johnny.” Yeah he’s that much like his daughter in that short a time I’m calling him Johnny.

We sit together and wait, and wait , and wait with none of us being family legally to her we’re not allowed to know much of anything. Without Jenna’s permission they’d be violating her privacy.

It’s three in the morning Tim’s come and gone with the kids and they’re with his mom right now. Sweetie that she is, she sent a big thermos of soup and a big Tupperware dish of sandwiches, she’s never even met Jenna or Taylor yet. I’m sipping a coffee and I see this big handsome guy show up with a travel bag over his shoulder. He’s six foot plus close to six and a half feet tall and has a great athletic build, not hulking but the kid of build of a guy who’s outside a lot and works with his hands a lot. Dark brown hair nearly black but shot with some grays just enough to make him sexy. Clean shaven but with that scruff on him like he’s been too busy to shave recently. He stops at the nurses station and talks to them even taking out his ID and papers. She reads them and calls on the phone for a few minutes and then she leads him over to us.

I reach over and shake Taylor who wasn’t really asleep just tucked sideways into a love seat staring out the window into the darkness. Kind of curled up like he’s a wounded animal. “Taylor, Jenna’s dad’s here.”

“What?!” He shoots to his feet. “Where, I fucking kill him!” he’s nearly growling.

“No, Taylor, not the step-dad her birth father.”

“Huh?, I…Jen, …Jen never mentioned him.”

“No, she was still trying to work up the courage to contact him. I found his number in her things.”

“She might not have been ready for this Holly, she isn’t the kid he knew.”

“He never had a chance to know her. The Scunt took off with her after saying that Johnny was abusive and hit her and cheated on her. He was living in Montreal going to university there and she knew people. He wasn’t going to be some big money lawyer so she framed him for a divorce he couldn’t contest and has been sucking him dry from the judges ruling since. He wasn’t even allowed supervised visits because he was a danger to them.”

“Jesus, she was a real piece of work wasn’t she?”

“Still is she’s trying to wriggle out of the charges for trying to burn Jen alive.”

“…Bitch…” He looks at the guy as he’s walking to us. “So Johnny huh, what’s he like?”

“He’s like his daughter Tay, he’s here isn’t he? He’s probably never stopped since I got off the phone with him.”

He walks to us and I move to give him a hug.

“Hey Johnny…”

“Hey Holly…” he hugs me back and lets me guide him and introduce him to Taylor.

“Taylor Winter’s, John Powers, John Powers meet Taylor Winters.”

I watch then shake hands doing that dog/guy like checking each other out sniffing thing they seem to do.

They talk for a few minutes each giving the other what they knew. Taylor talking about him getting together with Jenna. Johnny telling us about how he was never allowed to even see Jenna so he had no idea of what had happened in her life. He wrote but he’s pretty sure Jenna never got any of the letters he had sent them or the birthday and Christmas presents.

Taylor gets really upset as they talk. He get to the guy frustrated I’ve got to hit something fit and punches a fist into the drywall in the family room. Johnny takes him to the stairwell saying to the security guy who came running that he’d pay for the damages. The guy almost says something and gives this guy this quiet intense staring that was…I’m a father and you’re fucking with my family. He rasps out to the guy. “My daughter is lying over there (Points) in a coma and you’re here giving me shit about us being upset? Get the fuck out of here. I’ll talk to the chief of staff about it tomorrow if I have to.”

He was awesome but it’s kind of overshadowed by what he said. Jenna’s in a coma.

***
Jenna-

It’s dark at first then I guess is me kind of realizing that I’ve been in a really bad accident. I think I might be dead…I find the one person I was made for, the man that I love and that loves me back and Instead of him dying from his brain tumor, I get killed in a car accident over me being way too messed up and EMO to take it when him and I hit a rough patch.

He was so angry at going back there, so scared he lashed out at me. He wanted me to leave him. If I left him then he wouldn’t have to go back there and face the hospital again.

I wonder how many of these girls that left him he’s done that to. I miss him, I already miss him and I hope I’ll meet him again. God Taylor I love you. I don’t want to lose you. I love you even when you’re being and ass. You didn’t have to be so scared, I would’ve been there. I loved you. You were the other half of my soul.

God?, God? Can you hear me? It’s Jenna, I think I need your help.

***

John Powers-

I’m still reeling over the last few days. Yeah few days. Jenna my daughter once my baby boy J’aime is lying in a coma from a combination of swelling on her brain from head trauma and lack of oxygen to her brain when she collapsed a lung and stopped breathing. She had a lot of bashes and bruises and scrapes along with a gash that cut deeply into the muscle of her right shoulder where she hit the woman’s windshield.

When they let me in to see her she doesn’t look like she ever was my little boy. The few times I seen them as a boy was in games that I seen put online through his schools website and in a few interviews on TV.

Jenna looks like hell and just seeing her hits me hard. I had a little sister that was two years younger than me who died in a car accident with a drunk driver when I was just about Jenna’s age now. She’s such a dead ringer for Katie right now it hurts, and takes my breath away.

I cry, I hold her hand and I cry for her. I’m right back there and reliving losing Katie all over again through my daughter. She’s beautiful even with her head shaves and all the bruising. I call mom and dad back home in a tearful explanation of everything that’s gone on and everything they and I had missed out on. They never got to meet her either. Natalie fought them off with her bullshit back then too. Being not a rich family they really didn’t have the funds for a proper legal defense. After all Natalie was defending herself and I must have learned my abusive ways from someone right.

Yeah, my mom taught school and my dad fished lobsters as a hired hand when he wasn’t delivering the mail. I grew up in a decent house but without a lot of the fancy stuff the money kids had. They were as crushed as I was over her taking J’aime from us. I knew Natalie and I were done after I took her home and she hated PEI and Charlottetown and told me that we were never going back there.

She was really less than happy when I was going to be a lawyer for legal aid. I fucked up her first plan then I guess.

I send mom and dad the tickets to fly out here and Holly and Tim are like real family as they drive out to the airport to pick them up then run around to get us rooms at a really decent motel close to the diner and her and Nin cook our meals there and do our laundry there too. I see my mom’s heart break when Holly’s kids Molly age five and Alex age three went over to her one night and tugged on her dress.

“HiJ” Molly said all kind of shy and dimpling.

“Hello sweetheart how are you.” My mom’s got a huge smile on her face, she loves kids.

“Good…You Aunt Jenna’s Baba?”

Mom looks at me. I shrug. Tim looks over at me. “It’s Ukrainian after my mom, it means grandma.” Mom nods and smiles at Molly. “Yes honey I’m Jenna’s grandmother.”

“’Kay…If Aunt Jenna’s my Aunt like mummy says does that mean you’re like another Baba?”

Mom looked flummoxed and looked around and Holly gestured Molly and Alex over. “You remember what I said about how sometimes if you’re really lucky you can meet someone you love so much they become your family because you wanted them to?”

They nod like a couple of bobble heads.

“Then you remember that it’s still up to both people if you want to make each other family.”

More bobble heading.

“So…?”

Molly leans up and whispers in her mother’s ear. Holly nods and smiles. “It’s cool with me, but you better ask her yourself.”

Both kids rush my mom and hug her around the knees. “Please, please, please can you be our other grandma?”

I cried seeing my mom cry.

And dad?, forget about it. Molly had him wrapped around her little finger the first night they got here when she crawled into his lap and fell asleep. An Alex…as I understand Tim and Holly don’t have any dad’s around. Holly never knew hers and Tim’s was killed in a logging accident when a pile rolled. Dad’s the grampy by default.

I could be really pissed about a lot of these things. I am really pissed with Natalie. My first calls were to the family court judge that presided over my case. It turns out he’s in prison for taking bribes. I call around until I get the right people to discuss my case, my rights and then send him everything that Jenna had in her folders about her mother and step-father.

I hate that son of a bitch. But I hate Natalie too so I send his lawyer copies of how she set me up and the corrupt judge. It won’t get him off but it’ll give his lawyer something to keep her from pinning the blame on him.

I get the money that I’d been paying out reversed, with her owing me but with her unable to pay and her house in a lien from her own court costs. I file remuneration from the Quebec family and provincial courts. I paid child support and damages to her that in an untainted trial I might never have had to. I file a charge at her law firm that she owes me monies and that their client was potentially involved in a judicial scandal and possibly even kidnapping charges in regards to my child and that they are being warned that I’m contesting the lien on her house as it was partially paid for by criminal gains in the fraudulent amount of money she had taken from me. Yeah I’m an asshole but she took Jenna from me for seventeen, nearly eighteen years and tried to light her on fire.

I know she was pissed. J’aime was going to be a great football star, he was being scouted by US colleges. He was going to be rich and famous and make millions in endorsements and contract money and she’d ride his coat-tails the entire way. When Jenna became a reality it all slipped through her clutches, she flipped out and revealed her true face. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to save them from her. I should’ve kept trying…

Day five and I get word I won and the I get the Quebec government to pay up. I get them to re-issue Jenna a new birth certificate as a girl, in her name. There’s some resistance but I rattle my lawsuit and class action threats with the other people that judge might have screwed over. It’s not long before they agree with me and with the right papers I get signed with the doctor that she had her appointments with and the other doctor and therapist who had seen her before she’d been put into the group home. I’ve gotten my baby girl her birth certificate and that lets me get the ball rolling on the conversion of the rest of her Id’s. My daughter, Jenna Powers.

I even get the money they say I’m owed put in her name in cheques for her. They even found that I had grounds to own at least part of Natalie’s house. It goes up for auction to split the monies, and the asshole is taking his share which is bigger since it’s in his name and her share won’t cover her legal fees from the law firm she’s been using. They dropped her and she’s left with a public defender unless her priest friend is going to pay for her defense.

Jenna’s my baby girl and there’s nothing I’m not going to do for her. I very, very nearly lost her. I never got to know J’aime at all. I’m not going to fail my daughter too.

***

Taylor-

It’s been days with Jenna in her coma. John hasn’t blamed me for what’s happened I’ve been doing enough of that myself. Blaming myself and wasting time. Getting drunk and wasting time.

John didn’t take that. Neither did Tim or Davey but you get to the point you try to find something as a release. Tim was really pissed but not as much as Holly. Her mom was a boozer so she was less than impressed with me. I lost some of whatever respect Jenna’s dad was showing me. I really felt like a failure. Even Njinda was pissed off at me. It took me a visit to my parents graves and my uncle Charlie’s to talk things out. To get things right in my head, to whine and bitch and scream. I remember I fell asleep on my parents grave all night. I had a dream, I left knowing what I had to do.

It took awhile to find it, I got it cleaned and altered.

I found John and asked him. Hell I begged him. I even asked his parents.

I went to the doctor…

I went to that damned place and hated every second of it as they set my appointments.

Blood work on top of blood work.

X-ray’s.

Cat-scans.

MRI’s.

Each time I get through it.

I get through the needles and drinking that make you sick radioactive so we can see inside you crap. The let’s put an IV of something like it so we can light up the blood vessels in your brain stuff. “This might feel a little like it’s burning Mr. Winters.” Like a little?

I nearly gave him an enema with it.

Sorry, wrong cancer.

I go back to her after it each time. I hold her hands. I tell her sometimes in tears about my recent bout of torture. I sit until I’m nearly falling out of the chair. I don’t leave the hospital. Due to my condition and John’s legal mouth I’m put in a room. I could’ve been in the hospice but like I tell them. “This is because I’m not leaving her, I’m not dying.”

I play my guitar to her sometimes. I haven’t played it for years. It’s and old acoustic but It works and I’m used to it.

***

Jenna-

Okay I never thought being dead would come with a soundtrack. I’d been in and out of awareness. I mean not even dreams. When I’m there, or awake I’m praying, and I’m confused. I mean shouldn’t I have like moved on by now?

Shouldn’t I be walking into the light or be burning in hell?

Where’s Jennifer Love Hewitt when you need her?

Oh all the things I never though I’d start hearing “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.” and not the Guns and roses version not Bob Dylan’s either. Death is weird.

Other times I see visions? Blurry windows of Images, lots and lots of images.

Me chopping all sorts of stuff with a chef’s knife?

Me covered in grainy grey muck?

Me dancing in my wedding dress?

Me getting hit by my airbag after hitting someone backing up?

Me older but not me Jaime, James all big and strapping and manly…was it all just a dream? Me, being Jenna?

I smell things too sometimes too, Taylor…I swear I smell him sometimes.

Old spice aftershave?

Perfume?

Cookies?

I guess the music is the weirdest thing though. I mean I was sure that angels didn’t sing of play classic rock or even Metallica…I swear I heard “Nothing else matters.” I heard all kinds of strange things too. Pumping sounds, gurgling, beeping sounds and I hear Taylor…I hear Taylor and an acoustic guitar! I’m alive!, I’m…I fight, I fight that darkness that seem like the higher I climb out of this black pit of wherever the heavier I get.

It nearly wins, It nearly wins a few times…I felt something there at the end of it…I felt something hit the darkness? I felt something push me, like giving me a boost up and out of there….

My eyes are crusty (Eeww) My mouth’s dry, and there’s something in my nose. It’s dark in here I see 11:43 on a clock and Tay’s playing the guitars barely strumming it but the tune is familiar.

He sings to me. “Lying beside you, here in the dark.”
“Feeling your heart beat with mine.”
“Softly you whisper, you’re so sincere.”
“How can our love be so blind?”
“We sailed on together.”
“We drifted apart.”
“And here you are by my side…”

I can’t help but the tears flow out of me and sting with the salt and stuff that’s there and I close my eyes letting them try to wash my eyes clean. I can’t help it and I am so not a singer but I sing back to him. My voice is weak but I try my best…
“So now I come to you with open arms.”
“Nothing to hide, believe what I say.”
“So here I am, with open arms.”
“I’m hoping you’ll see what you love means to me…

He turns and stares at me the sound of my voice, and drops the guitar with a noise.

“Jen…Jenna?”

He’s over me, leaning to stare at me I can smell him, I inhale deeply and smile a bit. And open my eyes. God…?, Thank you god if that was you then?, Thank you for this…I stare at him and he’s crying and smiling at me and crying again I think he’s in shock. But he’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I drink in the sight of him right up until he kisses me. It’s like a flower getting sun after the winter. I hear and kind of see the door open and a nurse.

Tay turns to her so happy he’s nearly shining. “She’s awake, she just woke up.”

He turns back to kissing me as the nurse runs out.

I feel his hands touch my head and I feel the stubble…there. I must have reacted he breaks the kiss. “Sorry hon, they had to go in and had to shave it.”

“Mmmn, don’t care. Kiss me.”

He does.