CHAPTER 39
Alice had sat quietly through the discussion up to then. She drew in a long breath.

“That settles it, then. If she is off on that little journey, there is nothing we can do that will change her mind. In which case, I will start thinking about a day to come out.

I thought my life was stuck in pretence, and what you have done for me has changed all that. She is one person, and if I can’t handle one woman I shouldn’t even think about a transition.”

I nodded. She was right, and her courage warmed me. “Just a couple of things, then. Firstly, you speak to your therapist. Secondly, you let all of us know in advance, that’s us, Andy, Suzy, whoever. Thirdly-“

Janet interrupted. “A couple means ‘two’, not three!”

Pat laughed. “I just KNEW she would do that. Nobody expects the Welsh Inquisition”

When I stopped laughing and calling them both bastards, I continued.

“In just over a week I am going to hospital. Please, Alice, please wait until I am well enough again to be there for you, just like you have been for us. Agreed?”

She smiled. “We have one big question left. Which charity is getting all my old clothes? I am NOT leaving anything to cats”

Later that week I sat down with Tony. Alice was at her own home that night, so I had been able to run things past Tony while Jim watched some cartoon or other. Tony had surprised me.

“About bloody time she got on with it. She’s going to have a fight with people at some point, we all knew that, and she–you---can’t expect everyone to be on side. If Anne doesn’t like it, she can fuck off and work somewhere else. Look, love, you are such a soft touch, you care about people so much. They have to take their own lumps sometimes, fight their own battles. You’ve come at this from all angles, you’ve done so well with Suzy and Andy, let’s just face facts and hold her handbag when she has the fight”

Outvoted. We joined Jim, and I started to explain about hospital.

“I am going to be in bed for a while, darling, and that is why we have waited before giving you your last Christmas present. Once I am healing I will need to do some gentle exercise. I won’t be able to ride for a while, so it will be walking. What do you think might make walking more fun?”

His eyes widened, and in a very small voice he said “A puppy?”

“No, a hippopotamus. We are going to buy a hippopotamus to take for walks and he is going to sleep in the bath”

“Can I choose the puppy, then, silly Mummy?”

Kids are just too sharp these days. We agreed that Tony would start looking around for decent pups, and the two of them went off into a discussion of breeds based on a chart in one of Jim’s books. It’s a man thing.

A few days later, as expected, the bell went at the door. Jim was doing some homework at the big table, and actually looked a little put out when I sent him to answer it. I heard his squeal a moment later, and he came running happily back into the room followed by my parents. In true little boy style, they were receiving his news before their coats were off or even the door shut. Dad just picked him straight up.

“Shush, Jim! We have got ages to talk, so why don’t you see if you can fill that kettle for Bamps and Nana”

“Bamps?”

“You said you wanted to learn some Welsh, Jim, and Bamps is what we say in Wales for granddad. “

Off he ran, murmuring ‘bamps’ to himself as if to test it. I heard the tap run. Mam smiled and hugged me.

“You’ll have him cooking, soon, Sar”

She caught something in my face. “Don’t be silly, some of the best cooks are men.”

She paused. “No…you don’t think he’s like you were, do you?”

I laughed out loud at that. “No, Mam, trust me, he is all boy! We’re off to get him a puppy when I get out”

“Then what was it you twitched at just then?”

“It’s just one of my sore points, Mam. I can’t have any of my own, can I?”

Dad leant forward and took my hand. “Think about us, my love. We had a son. We lost him. We found a daughter instead, and so really we never lost anything. You had nothing, but then you gained a son. As I see it, you’re ahead of us on points there”

Mam smiled. “He’s happy as well, now, cause he gets a little boy to watch grow up. He missed that with you. No, that was no complaint. The Lord gives us what we have, we just make the best of it we can. You are the best we could ever wish for, so, no regrets, hey? Soon you will be complete, and we shall celebrate that with you”

“Do you miss that other little boy, Dad?”

“Every day, love, but he was never really there, was he? We have you now, and losing that would be too painful for words. Two pretty daughters, I said, but I was wrong. It’s two strong, generous, caring, beautiful daughters we have.”

I hugged him. “You remember that night well”

“Oh yes, and I remember how stupid I was about it at first. And every time I see you now I am proud that I could see sense back then. Flesh of my flesh, you are, but that makes me no more of a parent than you are. Your little man out there will tell you who you are”

“Mummy, kettle’s boiling”

As if on cue. Dad must have seen him at the door.

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And then it was time, and I had seriously cold feet. Yes, I wanted it. Yes. I really, really needed it. Yes, I was shitting myself at the thought of the pain to come (no illusions there at all). Yes, I was terrified at the thought of something going badly wrong and Jim being left without a mother for the second time.

My priorities had changed so much since I moved in with Tony. I think back to that first time holding Jim’s hand, at the rugby pitch that day, and it is so clear to me what I was born to be. I am a mother, nothing more, because there can be nothing more, no higher calling. Even without that physical connection, he is still mine to love and protect and help to become the best he can be. Let me get through this, and back to him, was all I asked or wanted.

I smiled at that thought. The seriously filthy sex with Tony would still be nice, though. Oh yes indeed.

He kissed me passionately as he left me at the hospital, heading off to the hotel room he had booked for the duration. He told me he was really, really worried.

“What with your parents, and my mother, and Alice, he is going to be SO spoilt”

I slapped him on principle, and then I was on my own.

That was the bad time. I knew I would be taken in a few hours, doped on pre-meds till I was giggling, then injected or gassed with a variety of interesting pharmaceutical products as they took a sharp knife to my soft parts. I resolved to ask the anaesthetist what he was using, just to let him know I was in the trade, so he better get it right.

That idea went West rather quickly. I tried to ask the girl who gave me the pre-med, and she simply said “Now, that would be telling” and by the time I got to theatre I was giggling. I told the man with the bottles and gas that I was going to have seriously filthy sex with Tony and he might have smiled, but he had a mask on, and I couldn’t see, and he asked me to count backwards from ten, so I told him I would do it in the proper language, and deg, naw, hwyth, saith, chwech

Tony was by my side and it fucking cunting hurt.

“Oh fuck, love, it hurts, I knew it would hurt, but this is taking the piss”

Water. Sips. The taste of vomit and the feel of a hangover. The pain down there. Tony’s hand in mine.

Anyone reading this far will probably have some idea of the process, so I am not going to spell it out. Inspection by a surgeon and a bunch of students, as if I was a fucking training aid. Dilation instructions. Catheter. Tips on cleaning myself down there. Patronising talks about which way to fucking wipe my arse.

Then a little fair-haired man behind a bunch of flowers more than half his size and my parents behind him, and a hand-painted card with every letter just so. ‘My mum’

I had to explain that I wasn’t sad, really I wasn’t, and that mummies cried when they were really happy because they were girls and girls were different to boys. As I did so, I knew that whatever last little piece of flesh that had hampered me was in a hospital incinerator.

My mother cried as well. It’s what mummies do.

Daddies too, it seems.