The Kates, II   By Melissa Tawn   Each of the Kates follows her own path to womanhood.

CHAPTER I. AFTER THE WEDDING

The fairytale double wedding of the Kates was the culmination of their close relationship and, still unbeknownst to them, the beginning of its morph into a new and different form. This change began, essentially, right after the wedding when both couples went on their separate honeymoons. Harold and Kate O’Hara (nee Jefferson) headed off to Banff for three weeks of hiking, climbing, and making love. David and Kate Katz (nee Chan) flew to Israel for three weeks of sightseeing, visiting holy places, and making love. True, the Kates talked to each other, exchanged text messages, and swapped pictures several times a day, but nonetheless it did occur to both of them that this had been their longest physical separation from each other since their freshman year at the University of Washington.

The management of the restaurant was left in the hands of Pierre, the resident chef, and Marv Alcorn, the business manager. For the first time since the Kates had taken over the ownership, weeks passed by with neither of them there to personally greet the customers. Boats of tourists and local residents still came regularly, and the diners still raved about the wonderful food, but the regulars could sense a slight change in the atmosphere, like a slight cool breeze on a warm autumn day, possibly heralding the coming of winter. Some even noticed that, for the first time in memory, three weeks passed with no new items being added to the menu.

When the Kates returned, things were not quite as they were before. Kate and Harold O’Hara had been living together for several years in the house on St. George Island, so they did not have to make any post-honeymoon adjustments and she was ready to go back to the restaurant immediately. Kate Katz, on the other hand, had plenty of personal things to do. She had to move her things into David’s house and that, of course, also entailed redecorating some of the rooms so that, for example, her books and her large collection of fine Chinese art could be properly displayed. There was also the matter of the kitchen. David had employed a cook but Kate could not possibly tolerate the idea of anybody but herself preparing her meals and so she insisted on doing the cooking herself, and especially the cooking for the Sabbath (including baking her own challahs), which was always special. Of course, that in turn entailed completely modernizing the kitchen and installing all of the latest gadgets that she was used to. It took about a month before she was ready to come to the restaurant on a regular basis. Even so, she often left early because David liked to go out in the evenings (and show off his beautiful and exotic wife) - either to visit friends or to concerts or other events.

Meanwhile, Kate O’Hara had been greeting the guests and making most of the business and culinary decisions, though she always tried to consult the other Kate by phone or text message. Still, a feeling of being imposed on began to creep, like a shadow, into her life. She also felt more and more irked at living on the island while her partner enjoyed the social life of a city. She was, after all, a much more social person than Kate Katz. She loved talking to people and interacting with them, as opposed to her friend who tended to stand or sit quietly by herself unless directly addressed. Harold, also, began feeling antsy. He felt that he had accomplished his mission in setting up the radio station and running it, and was beginning to look for new challenges in life. When his boss retired, he began lobbying for a promotion and was, finally, offered the job of sector coordinator for the joint American/Canadian Coast Guard rescue services. This, however, involved moving to the sector headquarters in Bellingham, Washington. He and his wife talked it over - if one Kate could live off the island and commute to the restaurant, so could the other. So the couple moved to Bellingham, with their house being rented out to the new radio operator on St. George Island.

Thus, within four months of the wedding, the situation at the St. George Island Salmon Restaurant changed radically. Both owners now lived off-island and came in for only part of the day: Kate Katz had her responsibilities of running her home and her social obligations, and Kate O’Hara had the problem that the ferries from Bellingham were far fewer than those from Victoria, so that she arrived later than before and had to leave earlier. They had far less time to invent new dishes in their private kitchen and so the menu tended to be more static. Pierre was a great chef when it came to making sure the kitchen ran smoothly and dishes were prepared properly, but was much less of a culinary innovator than were the Kates.

CHAPTER 2. AN ASIDE ABOUT MARRIAGE

Why, in this day and age, do couples bother to get married? The requirements of religion, or even law, rarely play a significant role in the decision, as they used to. For some - Harold and Kate O’Hara among them - it is a matter of formal affirmation of their love for and commitment to each other. Kate undoubtedly saw it, too, as a further affirmation of her womanhood, something which transsexuals, especially those not blessed with overwhelming beauty, need more than genetic women. This made the situation somewhat asymmetric, though of course they were not really aware of it in these terms: should their love ever diminish, both would have told anyone who asked, they would simply get an amicable divorce and move on. But of course such action would hit Kate’s self-image harder than it would Harold’s.

Since this option of quick-and-easy divorce was one they wished to keep open (though neither would ever say so explicitly) they did not think about children - children only complicate such situations.

For Kate Katz, too, marriage provided an ultimate validation of her status as a woman, trumping all of those self-doubts to which transsexuals - no matter how “passable” they are - are inevitably prone. But Kate and David Katz carried with them cultural traditions which saw marriage in a very different light. If you asked Kate’s grandmothers, or David’s, you would get the same answer: marriage is the first step in building a nest for raising a family. A marriage not blessed by children can hardly be called a real marriage. In both the Chinese and Jewish cultural traditions, this is an axiom. Neither Kate nor David challenged it.

Soon after her marriage, Kate began realizing the implications of this tradition. At social gatherings, as she segued from the “girlfriends and fiancés” circle to the “young wives” circle, she found that the conversation now tended to revolve around pregnancies (past, present, and future) and related topics. Kate had never been much of a conversationalist to begin with, and found it very hard to empathize with a situation that she knew she could never share. She tended to just sit there, feeling left out of everything. At times, she tried to steer the discussion to her main area of “housewife” expertise, namely cooking, but here she was a professional among amateurs (many of whom employed a cook who ruled the kitchen at home and so knew very little about preparing anything more complex than breakfast or a light lunch) and never found anyone else who could hold up the other end of the conversation.

CHAPTER 3. DO YOU WANT CHILDREN?

It was Kate Katz who brought up the topic of children to her friend and partner, on one of the increasingly-rare occasions when they were by themselves in their private kitchen at the restaurant.

“Do you want children?”

“Are you trying to drum up business for Dave’s clinic? In case you forgot, I can’t get pregnant, unless they came up with womb transplants when I wasn’t looking.”

“No, they haven’t done that yet, though I really wish they would hurry up and do it. I meant adopting children. Dave and I have been talking about it.”

“To tell you the truth, running a house and this restaurant is complicated enough. I don’t think that I could also manage it with a few brats running around under my feet. What do I need children for anyway? The planet is way overpopulated as it is.”

“I don’t know. I suppose that I have always associated marriage with children. Families with no kids seem to be missing something.”

“Yeah, they are missing all the fun of changing diapers and not sleeping at night. I think that Harold and I will pass on it, at least for the present.”

“Still …”

“Well, it might be satisfying to be pregnant, but I suppose there are risks to it too.”

“Don’t worry … as far as I know, being a post-op transsexual is not something genetic which is passed from the mother to her children.”

“Yeah, sure.”

"Really."

“It isn’t easy to find babies for adoption these days.”

“I know, but David says that mixed Caucasian-Chinese babies are available, usually the result of ‘souvenirs’ left by European and American businessmen and soldiers stationed in Asia or visiting it as tourists. He has contacted a very reputable agency which will be on the lookout. We just have to make a final decision, and it is very hard.”

“Well, if you want it, go for it.”

CHAPTER 4. DECISIONS

Kate O’Hara gave this discussion considerable thought on the way home to Bellingham. There was no doubt that she had progressed tremendously since she left home to go to college. Against all odds, the “non-passable” boy had transitioned successfully, had her SRS without falling into the many possible dangerous pits along the way, had become a successful businesswoman and co-owner of a world-famous restaurant, had married a wonderful man who loved her immensely and provided her with great sex, as well. She felt she needed no more affirmation of her femininity or womanhood (though here she was probably kidding herself). She had - she knew - more than most genetic women of her age can expect. What did she need children for, at this point in her life? They would only complicate things. As it was, there were other problems looming on the horizon (to which we will get shortly) which she hadn’t told the other Kate about. Raising a family could definitely wait for several years.

Kate Katz - the “eminently passible” Kate; the Kate who, even as a boy, was often mistaken for a girl - did feel the need for affirmation. Despite the ease of her transition, despite her marriage to a wonderful man who loved her, despite the love and respect from everyone who met her, she was never quite sure of herself. She was never positive that she was, in fact, the “total woman” which everybody else perceived. Having children would help, she hoped, to relieve the persistent doubts. Would she ever be at peace with herself? Kate didn’t know.

What Kate did not understand, of course, is that most genetic women are prone at one time or another to the same self-doubts about their role in womanhood. The fact that she felt the need for children to validate herself as a wife, ironically, proved just how female her soul already was.

The decision was made - she and David would look for a suitable baby to adopt. An agency specializing in foreign adoptions was given the task of finding the right baby and, after a few months, found what they considered was the perfect match, in Singapore. The father was a European diplomat (Kate later found out that it was the First Secretary of the Belgian Embassy) and the mother was his mistress, a businesswoman of pure Chinese descent. Both parents were good looking and intelligent; they were devout Catholics and so abortion was out of the question (as the person from the adoption agency put it, “she didn’t take the pill and they … er … miscounted the days”). DNA samples from both parents confirmed that neither carried any genetic defects and medical tests showed that the fetus (to be born in three months’ time) was totally healthy. The parents put the baby up for adoption but were very anxious to know that it found a good home. For legal and other reasons, it was convenient to both of them that the baby be adopted by someone neither in Asia nor in Europe. Kate and David Katz fit their criteria perfectly.

The deal was signed, and Kate began preparing to be a mother.

CHAPTER 5. THE END

One thing Kate realized was that, when the baby came, she could no longer do her share of the work at the restaurant. Quite frankly, inventing new salmon dishes was also beginning to interest her less and less. All of her thoughts were on the baby. Finally, she decided that it would only be fair if she bowed out of the business altogether, and offered to sell her half of the restaurant to the other Kate. But, as it turned out, Kate O’Hara was also having problems - of a different kind. Her father, whose health was never that good after his accident, was seriously deteriorating. It had taken Kate’s father a long time to reconcile himself with the fact that he had a daughter - and only one, for Kate had no other siblings - rather than a son, but now he had reached the stage where he needed her to take care of him. Kate’s filial instincts were very strong, and she felt it her duty to take care of her father in his old age, even if it meant moving back to Port Angeles. Harold welcomed the possibility of moving. He quickly found that his new job involved mostly shuffling papers and begging for additional funds, something that he considered boring and was not very good at. He checked and found that he would be able to get a much more interesting job in Port Angeles without any problems, one that would fit his interests and abilities much better. Since it would be very hard to commute from Port Angeles to St. George Island every day, he and Kate decided that it would be best to bow out of the business and sell their share of the restaurant to Kate Katz.

Thus, within less than two years of the grand double wedding which represented the acme of the restaurant’s fortunes, both owners were anxious to sell their shares of the business and move on, each in her own direction. But buyers for gourmet restaurants are not easy to find and so, in the end, they sold it to a chain specializing in mass servings of standardized meals, cafeteria style. Pierre and his sub chefs were all let go, as the new owners brought in their own people from Vancouver. The new people had no idea how to prepare salmon dishes and so the place rapidly lost its popularity among the locals and even among the tourist boat operators, who found it simpler to offer box lunches on board ship. Within three years, it would close its doors altogether.

A few months after their daughter Batya (which means “daughter of God” in Hebrew) was born and safely delivered to them, David and Kate Katz moved to Toronto, where David had been offered a partnership in a major gynecological clinic and staff privileges at Mt. Sinai Hospital. Kate had thought about starting another restaurant but, in the end, decided to concentrate on raising her daughter and the son Azriel (which means “God has helped me”) whom they adopted two years later. Both babies were adopted at birth and the fact that they were adopted was kept secret as much as possible. Kate did not want anybody to suspect that she could not bear children.

Kate became active in women’s groups and charities - always fighting those lingering doubts in her mind that she was truly being acknowledged as a woman, even though the doubts had no basis in fact. She continued, however, to be creative in her cooking, and even wrote a few cookbooks, the most famous of which being The Art of Creating Exotic Salmon Dishes and The Art of Creative Kosher Chinese Cooking, which became somewhat of a cult objects in both the Jewish and Chinese communities in Toronto.

Harold and Kate O’Hara moved to Port Angeles so that Kate could take care of her father. Here she was confronted with the problem of running into people who had known her when she was a boy. Rather than try to hide, she decided (with her husband’s support and blessing) to be very forthright about being a post-op transsexual. She did not flaunt it, nor did she participate in various GLBT events, but she did not deny it either and was always available to help others who sought her out. She even gave a talk about transsexuality at the high school from which she graduated. She was totally secure in her womanhood, and her infectious good humor and open personality were such that nobody could doubt her.

After several years, it was Harold who suggested that the time had come to adopt a son, and that they did. He was adopted at the age of three, after his parents - friends of the O’Haras - were killed in a traffic accident. No attempt was made to hide the fact of Richard’s adoption; on the contrary, his birth parents were always remembered and honored. Raising Richard did not prevent Kate from opening a restaurant, as she had always wanted. It was not on the gourmet level of The St. George Island Salmon Restaurant, nor did it attract ex-presidents and Nobel-prize-winners as steady customers, but it did fairly well and provided Kate with a place to which she could escape the pressures of homemaking and indulge in her love of cooking.