In the evening, Steve was sitting in bed and I brought him soup and sandwiches and we talked about the movie we’d watched and how much he’d enjoyed it, too. I kissed him on the forehead again and went down to the restaurant. One of our reservations hadn’t shown up but two walk-in couples were a bonus and I watched over my sad little empire and wondered how I was going to keep it all together.

The Beneficiary, by Karin Bishop

Selected entries from the Journal of Donna Everton

Part 4

4/22

I’m writing this on the plane back home. I think I said, oh my God at the start of my last entry; let me just say for this entry: Omigod! Omigod! Omigod!

With that out of the way …

It was the strangest thing when I left for the airport–I found that I was missing Steve already. I was going to pay through the nose for the quick ticketing, but Lawyer Ketchum did a bit of fast talking and got me the special Bereavement Fare. I arrived and took a hotel shuttle to the Hilton, where I was met in the lobby by Thomas Ketchum, a very tall, thin gentleman, prematurely bald, who could be anywhere from thirty to seventy. He seemed pleasant and professional, driving me to the bank as he told me the legalities of what was about to happen.

At the bank, I presented my passport and driver’s license, swore a statement for a notary public, and a manager who was the vice president of the bank and Mr. Ketchum and I proceeded to the vault, the box was removed after we both inserted our keys, and then they discreetly left me. I opened the box.

And thank God there was a chair or I would’ve hit the floor. There were some items on the top that were unexpected; two prescriptions for Steve’s girl meds as well as two large bottles of them–what looked like a total of two or three years’ worth, actually–and a folder with the full information from the CD company and some more CDs, as well as some articles from the internet on the …process of feminizing a boy.

But under those items there were stacks and stacks and stacks of money. I had brought a lightweight day pack for whatever I found in the safe-deposit box, but it would only fit the non-currency items. I didn’t dare count it all right then, but I stuck my head out and quietly said, ‘There were a lot of …official papers’–with Ben Franklin and presidents on them, I thought!–and ‘Did they have a file box they might spare? And a roll of packing tape?’

I had the safe deposit box closed when there was a knock and Mr. Ketchum handed me the box and left, and as fast as I could I transferred the stacks of bills into the box as well as the bottles of pills. I pulled out one stack for my purse and then sealed the rest up with the tape and carrying the box under one arm and the backpack over my shoulder, I left after signing a last bit of paper. Mr. Ketchum drove and was polite enough to not ask, but I told him there was a bit of cash, some of her old medication, and some odds and ends of documents. I just hadn’t expected a safe-deposit box so large and he said that while I was in there, the bank manager had mentioned that he remembered at least once when Debbie had arranged for the next-larger size of box, on the way to the one that she’d had last. It stuck in his mind because she wasn’t a regular customer of the bank, was living in the next town, and she seemed a bit scared. She had told him that she wasn’t doing anything illegal; she was in a bad marriage and when it fell apart, she didn’t want some of her family’s items–particularly some of her mother’s jewelry–to fall into her husband’s hands.

Pretty much true, I told Lawyer Ketchum. Except I didn’t tell him that our mother never had any particular jewelry. He just nodded at my confirmation, made an offhand comment about ‘How sad some marriages turn out’ and was satisfied.

I asked for a detour to a UPS store, and wrapped the box in brown paper and sent it to myself, praying all the necessary prayers. I really couldn’t think of any other way. I’d thought of buying a small suitcase and checking it as luggage, but the horror stories of Homeland Security pilferage deterred me. Then Mr. Ketchum–after asking if I’d like anything else, any services, a tour, anything–drove me back to the airport. I consolidated the contents of the daypack into my carryon and tucked the pack away.

Once aboard, I read through the internet materials and the CD company info. I learned a great deal more and was particularly glad that Debbie had researched name and gender changes for official documents; there was a lot I needed to know. I was surprised to discover that the CDs included with the company info weren’t backups as I’d thought, but a continuation of the discs I already had, and my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I read the full possibilities of the set.

I went to the lavatory, taking my purse, and sat on the closed toilet to examine the stack of money I’d removed from the box. It was a combination of larger bills and I was only at halfway through when I thought I’d taken too much time in the toilet, so I popped it back in my purse and left. But I’d already been at $1900 …

So I’m writing this now and will digest things afterwards.

4/23

There’s no place like home. Cliché, cliché, but so true for me. My heart soared when I saw the sparkle of the lake under the moon and felt like I’d been gone a week instead of one day. I could only have done it because of the time difference, but I looked in on Steve before I went to bed.

He was sitting up in bed, at work in his laptop, wearing the Rolling Rock sleepshirt and I joked that I’d ‘have to get a six-pack’ for him. He blushed slightly and hugged me and said he’d missed me and I found myself choked up. I asked what I’d missed; he’d nearly finished the website that day but he’s going to show me tomorrow because he knew I was tired. Oh, and he’d had a nice chat with Tina, of all people.

So I plopped into bed and didn’t surface until nearly noon today.

Sorting through everything in the mail and email, I got on with the business of running the inn. We have about a month before things get hot enough and if there’s any chance of a profitable season, the long-range weather forecast looks promising.

In passing, Tina welcomed me back, and then came back and lowered her voice. ‘Um …I was talking with Steffi yesterday …’

Steffi? I thought; but I just nodded.

Tina went on. ‘I’m not quite sure …this is really embarrassing.’ I told her to go ahead and she said, ‘I can’t quite tell if Steffi is a boy or a girl …’

My mouth twitched in a smile while my brain ran through all sorts of possible answers. Finally I said, ‘Does it matter? Do you like Steffi?’ and Tina nodded and smiled. ‘She’s great! And so banged up …’ Then her face went funny. ‘If she’s a girl, I mean …’

I just smiled and nodded and said, ‘I’m glad Steffi has a friend.’ It really wasn’t an answer but she took it to be one.

She thought about it a second and smiled and nodded once, smiling. ‘Yeah!’

I went to Steve’s room. He was doing some leg stretching exercises that were on that sheet I’d downloaded from Dr. Bunting. His face was reddened from the exertion and there was a fine line of perspiration at his hairline and on his upper lip. For some reason it was cute; maybe it was the determination on his pretty face.

For his face is pretty; there’s no two ways around it. He’d been delicate before the accident, but the facial reconstruction and now the tighter skin stretched back into place had left him …like somebody from the movies, but I couldn’t think who.

It clicked into place. His face was now somewhere in between Kirsten Dunst and Anna Paquin in her blonde mode. There was a cute upturn to the corners of his mouth and his eyes were large and quite pretty. No wonder Tina was confused!

Suddenly the implications of a cute teenage niece began whirling around but I kept my voice neutral when I asked how he was doing. He was glad to have an excuse to end his exercise, I think, leaning back on his bed and sighing. It was going fine, he said, but it was easier having Carla move him around. I suggested the exercises might be hard to do on the soft bed and they should be easier on the floor; I said I’d hunt up an old yoga mat of mine. He nodded, and then slid off, grabbed his crutches, and asked me to follow him to where his laptop was on the desk.

I studied him; he wore baggy gray sweats that had the elastic cuffs cut off, and a small red t-shirt that didn’t quite come to his tummy. I’d told him to see what he could find in my room and he’d found some old workout clothes of mine, also from my yoga days. There was a tiny dab of sweat right between the mounds of his breasts.

When he sat at the table, he tucked his hair behind one ear with his fingertips; a typically feminine gesture. Then he began telling me about my new website as he clicked around the screen, and his free hand gestures were distinctly feminine. Not effeminate; there was nothing of the gay hairdresser cliché. They were the movements of a girl’s hand describing her work. How the heck did the CDs get that across–or was this already in Steven, waiting to come out?

The work was amazing, and I told him so. It was far beyond not only what I’d had but beyond what I’d hoped for, and he’d anticipated several potential problems with my original design. He’d provisionally set up links with search engines and places I’d never even thought of, like the Chamber of Commerce, AAA, and others. It was an incredible job and I couldn’t sing his praises high enough. Listening to them, he tucked his hands between his legs, knees together, and blushed happily.

Impulsively I hugged him and said, ‘God, I’m feeling terrible that I never really knew you all these years.’

He accepted the hug and then said, seriously, ‘You wouldn’t have liked me. I didn’t like me.’

I did the usual, ‘Oh, I’m sure that’s not so’ but he nodded and basically told me what a shit he’d been. So I said that it was a terrible thing, losing Debbie, but if we were to find one good thing out of it, at least he was finding himself.

He frowned. ‘But who am I?’

Still leaning on the desk, I reached out a hand; he raised one to mine and I was holding his fingers. ‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘Who do you want to be?’ I was shocked to see that his eyes were brimming with tears.

‘I don’t know!’ he gasped out, breathing shallowly to try to keep from crying.

Without thinking, I said, ‘Aw, baby, don’t cry’ but not ‘baby’ like an insult, but like ‘sweetie’ or ‘honey’. Whatever; the tears spilled down his pretty cheeks and I was hugging him again. I helped him up to his crutches and walked with my hand on his shoulder back to the bed, where he sat, dangling his legs over the edge, sniffing.

‘Andonna, I don’t know what’s happened to me,’ he wailed.

I thought for a moment and said, ‘Can you tell me what you think is happening?’

There was a long moment and then he said, ‘I think I’m …turning into a girl. At first I thought, like you said, it was a hormonal imbalance from all the medicines and the accident and surgeries and all …’

I gave a non-committal grunt.

‘And I’m kind of …’

‘In a holding pattern,’ I suggested. He looked at me and I said, ‘You know, like planes circling an airport, not sure where or when they’re going to land?’

He frowned, thinking. ‘Holding pattern …yeah, that’s me,’ he nodded.

It seemed time. ‘I just ran into Tina. She said to say hi. She seems to like you. How did you run into her?’

‘Carla came for a session and I guess Tina was coming to work, and then after Carla left I was looking for Tim to return the camera. I got all the pictures I needed. And Tina was taking something to the dumpster, I guess, and we got to talking.’

After a pause, I said, ‘Tina called you ‘Steffi’ and I was confused at first.’ That earned a blush and downcast eyes. Steve had to swallow and then said, ‘Uh, yeah, there was …some confusion. She heard Carla call me ‘Stef’, you know how she does, and thought she’d misheard it, I guess, or she’s the kind of girl that goes for cute names …I don’t know. But when I came back inside, she said, ‘Bye, Steffi’.’

‘How did you feel about that?’ He looked at me. I said, ‘You didn’t correct her.’ I also thought, ‘And you didn’t tell her whether you were a girl or a boy’, and I realized I didn’t know what Steve had been wearing; that might also have tipped the scale.

All Steve said was, ‘Um ….’

So I asked, ‘Sweetie, what do you want me to call you? I know we kind of kidded about ‘Stef’ because of Carla, but now Tina’s met you as Steffi, and so I think I need to know, who do you want to be?’

There was another ‘Um’ and then, fearfully, he looked up at me and said, ‘Steffi’s okay.’

I decided to press. ‘Only okay? Shouldn’t you have a name you like?’

And he swallowed again and so quietly that I could barely hear, he said, ‘I liked it when she called me Steffi. Like …Stephanie.’ He looked like he was about to bolt–pretty hard on crutches.

‘Sweetie,’ I began and then stopped. Why was I tip-toeing around? He was full of girl meds for probably a year now, the CDs were working amazingly, and I found that I was responding to this new person, so totally unlike the unlikable proto-thug he was before.

‘Sweetie,’ I began again. ‘I need you to talk to me and tell me your true feelings. Not what you think you’re supposed to say, or what society thinks you’re supposed to say, or what you think I want to hear. Can you promise me to do that? Whole truth, honestly?’

He frowned and nodded. ‘I always …I always try to tell you the truth, Andonna,’ he said.

‘I know, sweetie, and I also know that there was a time …well, when you didn’t tell the truth, right? And …stole? And cut school?’

He nodded again, blushing with shame. ‘I was …different then.’

I hugged him. ‘And you are different now. You can be anybody you want to be. Do you understand?’ He nodded but I said, ‘Let me say it again slowly. You-can-be-any…body …you-want-to-be. Now …do you understand?’

There was a long pause, a stillness in the room and only our breathing and heartbeats. Then he nodded. ‘I understand, Andonna.’

Then I asked again, ‘So …who are you …who do you want to be? Please tell me, sweetheart. Tell …yourself.’

He hung his head, frowning as he thought, and then quietly said, ‘I was a boy named Steven. Steve. I was …a punk. I didn’t like being …what I was, but I thought I had to be that guy. I know I hurt Mom, and I think that’s worst of all. I’ll never get a chance to tell her I’m sorry. To make it up to her.’ He inhaled raggedly. ‘I don’t know why or how I’m the way I am and I don’t care. I like myself right now, and it’s all so new and scary and …’ He looked at me, searching my eyes, my face. ‘You really won’t be upset with me?’ I solemnly shook my head ‘no’. He rolled his lips in and sighed deeply. ‘Andonna, I think I’m becoming a girl. A girl named Stephanie, Steffi, Stef …and I like it. I want it to happen! I don’t know how or why and I don’t care!’ he said again. ‘I want to be Stephanie!’

The sob that burst out of him startled us both and I hugged him. I kissed his forehead. ‘I love you, my beautiful niece, Stephanie.’ Another sob, this one of joy and release, broke forth and he hugged me tighter and cried and cried and shook and I soothed him and stroked him and kissed the top of his head and let him know it was okay.

4/23 (more stuff)

I brought him a dinner later, that really great chicken and wild rice dish that Eduardo makes, and sat with him. After the crying jag this afternoon, he’d slept and I didn’t have any qualms about triggering the CD, since I know now that he wants to become a girl. Whether it’s because of the positive reinforcement or everything that has happened to him has unlocked some inner being, it doesn’t matter to me. I feel confident that I could discontinue the CDs and he’d still feel the way he does. The girl meds are a different story; that’s a physical thing but now after the pills and prescriptions I found in the safe-deposit box, that wasn’t a worry. We’ll continue on this path.

We’d agreed that I’d call him Steffi or Stef, and he would be introduced to the everyone as my niece Stephanie. He’d been freaked at first but I told him that Carla already knew, Dr. Bunting was out of the picture, and that hopefully Carla would connect us with a doctor who would help. He smiled when I told him that Tina would be relieved that Steffi was a girl, and then his face clouded. ‘There’s so much I don’t know,’ he said sadly. I pointed out that the accident was a good excuse, and on his confused look, I told him that if he didn’t mind the occasional look of pity from people, we could put it out there that besides the damage to his face, there had been some brain trauma and there was some memory loss. That way things could be explained as ‘not remembering’, not ‘not knowing’. When he realized how it gave him an out for not knowing things that every girl would know–and would be suspicious if another girl didn’t know–he smiled and said he could handle the pity looks. He was more concerned about his body.

I spoke with him, seriously, about that. I said, from what I remembered and what I understood, that he’d always had a feminine body and he reluctantly agreed. I told him that it was unknown whether his body would have changed if there hadn’t been the trauma of the accident, and he admitted that his ‘boobs’–and how wonderful that he’d been able to handle that term so quickly!–had been swelling a little bit before the crash.

‘There! You see?’ I said, relieved that he’d noticed so everything wouldn’t be seen as post-crash, and therefore possibly my doing. It seemed to settle his mind; his body was becoming a girl’s and he was already disgusted with his macho ways. I felt a lump in my throat; Debbie didn’t have to die to accomplish her goal of Steven’s transition; it sounds like he was ready to accept it.

As long as we were talking about bodies, I brought up his. I spoke first about the need for bras. He was both embarrassed and excited–the same as every young girl when ‘mom’ talks to her about bras. I told him I had some ideas along those lines and we’d talk about it later, but not much later because if the photo-taking and Tina-meeting is any indication, he may still be on crutches but he was getting mobile.

Talking about bras naturally led me to talk about panties and I did it on purpose because it was time to talk about genitals. I asked him what he thought about his penis and he shrugged and said, ‘It doesn’t belong there’ but it seemed a kind of an ambiguous answer so I left it. Plus, it reminded me that I need to go over the CD instructions; I think the next disk addressed genitalia. So I brought up the matter of wearing a skirt, and was surprised that he didn’t have the expected qualms about wearing a skirt, but was concerned that his legs were ugly from the accident. Such a typically feminine response! I assured him that he was healing beautifully and as the swelling was receding, I could tell he had nice legs. He blushed happily at that.

On impulse I went to my room and found a ruffled-sleeve white cotton nightgown, a shortie with matching panties. Without a word, I handed the folded pile to Steve, took his dishes, kissed him on the forehead and left.

Good thing I did, too, because Dan Armitage had too much wine with his birthday dinner and Shelly Armitage had her hands full trying to quiet him down. I took over from a grateful Bonnie and restored order, getting Dan into the passenger seat–why do drunks demand to drive?–and wrote off the last bottle.

Back at my office, I studied the CD instructions, the disks I had and the disks that had been in Debbie’s safe-deposit box. It looks as though the disks so far have been designed to make a boy kinder and gentler, basically. There wasn’t anything that indicated they were designed to make a boy use the fluid, graceful hand gestures that Steve had when he’d shown me the website. But it seemed that the next disk in the sequence, and beyond, were specifically designed–and customized to Debbie’s specifications–to ‘redirect a typical male’s thought process along feminine lines’, as it stated. Since I’ve already figured out that they soft-pedal everything to avoid either outlandish claims or lawsuits, I knew that ‘redirect …the thought process’ means to change a boy’s mind to a girl’s mind, as much as the system can.

But Steve hadn’t heard these CDs yet! I have no doubt that the person I was talking to this afternoon, crying with and hugging, had a girl’s mind and emotions. I’m still holding off in my head using feminine pronouns until we pass the ‘fail-safe’ point of no return for boyhood–but I’m pretty sure we’ve already shot way past that. Well, this next CD might be further reinforcement of Steffi-the-girl. I think Debbie kept these separate because she, too, wanted to be sure it was right for her child. And besides the urging in her letter, I have absolutely no evidence to go on that Steven would be better off being Steven–but several hopeful pieces of evidence that Steven will be better off being Stephanie. Even how quickly and easily Tina wanted to be friends …

Friends! How could I have overlooked friends!

Even though it was late I knocked gently and heard Steve tell me to come in. He had almost been asleep and was sitting up slowly, slightly painfully. He wore the nightgown and the bare arms and ruffled straps looked so …right against his shoulders. The gentle swell of his breasts in the bodice was right, too, and I had a flash of wonder how this could ever have been a boy.

I said I was sorry to bother, but I’d just had a thought and before I spoke again, Steve said, ‘I’m so sorry, Andonna; you’re going to hate me.’ I misunderstood and said, ‘Not at all, Steffi! If I didn’t think you should wear the nightie I wouldn’t have given it to you! I just didn’t expect you to look so pretty in it!’

Steve startled and said, ‘What? Oh, no; I don’t mean about the nightie, and thank you, and …thank you-thank you for what you just said! It’s …really nice.’ He seemed to lose track. ‘No, you’re going to hate me because I gave the camera back to Tim and I just remembered a shot I don’t have and I’m so stupid that I didn’t think of it before, and we’re going to have to get the camera back, and I just …I just wanted to get the site up and running for you; I’m so sorry,’ all in a rush.

It was my turn to say ‘what’ and then I laughed and said, ‘I misunderstood. And I’m glad you like the nightie. The camera’s no problem; I’ll grab Tim tomorrow. What was the picture you remembered?’

‘Um …this is kind of mean to say …’ I said to go on, and Steve said, ‘I really think you need a shot of the restaurant really full, you know? And candles and everybody dressed nice, and the waitresses moving around and everybody happy. You know, to show ..’ He trailed off but I finished.

‘To show that we’re actually a successful restaurant?’ I chuckled. ‘God, we just missed it; we were pretty good on Valentine’s Day. No telling when the next big holiday is; I’ll have to talk to Tim about keeping the camera or maybe getting one of my own. And maybe we’ll just have to bite the bullet and stage it.’ He looked questioningly and I said, ‘Invite everybody we know to a free dinner and get the shot–’

‘They’ll all need to sign releases,’ Steve said. ‘I think that means we will have to stage the shot; it’d be terrible waiting for the next holiday and maybe filling up and maybe getting the shots and then have somebody refuse to sign the release.’

An idea broke and I grinned. ‘You’ve just given me a great idea, sweetie! I was going into town tomorrow to talk to Len at the Chamber of Commerce on a zoning thing, but I also want to hit the Elks, Kiwanis, whoever. Maybe we can host an awards dinner or something, and if not, we’ll just invite friends like your original idea.’

Steve, bless his heart, said, ‘That was your idea, inviting people. I can’t take credit for it. But I’ll design around the shot,’ and he went on to describe the page layout, leaving a box for the picture but filling it with a sample menu that he would move later. As he talked, I watched and listened. I watched his graceful gestures, with flat hands, delicate extended fingers, and how he flexed his wrists, and I listened to the …I guess it was the melody of his speech, how it rose and fell and damn it, he sounds like a girl and there’s no two ways about it. And we haven’t even gotten into the really girly parts of the CDs!

Then I remembered why I’d come. ‘Steffi, with all this talk about inviting friends to the photo shoot, and how Tina seems to want to be your friend, I suddenly thought–what about Steven’s friends back home? I’m sorry I never thought of them before.’

His pretty face clouded, and his jaw set. ‘That’s because there aren’t any, not really. There are guys I got high with, guys I stole stuff with …’ He looked like he was about to cry and a shudder rippled through him.

Without thinking I said, ‘Those are guys Steven got high with, stole with; not you. You’re a different person now, remember?’

He looked at me, his eyes brimming with tears, and said, ‘You think so? You really think so?’

I smiled warmly and said, ‘I know so’. He looked doubtful, so I said, ‘Those were things and people that a boy named Steven did and hung with. A punk with no future except addiction and jail. I’m looking at a pretty girl named Stephanie who is smart, compassionate, and has a bright future in web design, or marketing, or restaurant management, or anything she puts her mind to.’

He stared at me and gulped and said again, breathlessly, ‘You think so?’

Again, I said, ‘I know so’ and then sat on the foot of the bed and looked at him. ‘So …no friends back home who might want to know about Steven?’ He shook his head no. ‘And no friends here,’ I said, ‘yet. Well, then start with Tina. And she’s like eight or nine years older than you,’ I mused. ‘Well, you seem mature …now.’ That earned a raised eyebrow so I explained. ‘When …Steven first arrived, he was a whiny pain in the ass. I know you hurt–he hurt–but still, not a nice guy. But now …doesn’t it feel better being you? Being Stephanie?’

He nodded again and then spoke haltingly. ‘And the weird thing is …I’m not …working at it. I’m not …trying to be something I’m not. Steven always seemed like …a character I played, like a TV actor.’ He frowned. ‘No, that’s not true. I didn’t know it for a long time. Only in the last year or so, and then I was so caught up in …what everybody expected Steven to be. What I thought my dad had wanted me to be.’

I didn’t want to get into the subject of his father, so all I said was, ‘But what about what your mom wanted you to be?’

He nodded but looked downcast with shame. ‘I was …awful to her. That’s why I’m so sad that I can’t apologize to her–’ His lower lip trembled and he sniffed. ‘Oh, God, Aunt Donna …I feel so terrible about that! Poor Mom!’ and he began blubbering. It was indicative of his torment that he’d called me the formal ‘Aunt Donna’, I thought as I moved up the bed to hug him and shush the tears. Then he said something that shook me. ‘Maybe this is what Mom wanted me to be,’ he said, waving his hand at himself and his nightgown. ‘I know I should have been a girl, I should have, I should have. Then all our problems wouldn’t have happened.’

I said, ‘Sometimes that’s not always the case; you might have a whole different set of problems. But I know what you mean, sweetie; what you’re trying to say. So if you think you should have been a girl, if you think your mom wanted you to be a girl, and you seem to be pretty much along that road …what’s your hesitation?’

With big, red eyes, he said, ‘I don’t want to disappoint you.’ I looked at him and asked how and he said, ‘By being a sissy, I guess ..’

I couldn’t help it; I chuckled. ‘Oh, sweetie; that’s …geez, that’s so far off the mark!’ He was a bit freaked by my outburst, so I explained. ‘Look, to be a sissy, you have to be a boy. Right? I mean, boyish girls are tomboys and girlish boys are sissies, right?’ He nodded. ‘But if you’re a girl, you can’t be a sissy, because you’re not a boy, right? I mean, you can be a real girly-girl, all pinks and lace and frills and ‘ooh, I can’t get my nails chipped! Don’t touch the hair, don’t touch the hair!’

Steve burst out laughing at my impression, which I’d done with a high voice, my hands up, fingers out and waving around. He calmed and I said, ‘Look, I’m a girl–or I was–and I think it’s the best thing you can be. I wouldn’t want to be a male. Oh, some of the things they can do, sure, maybe a little jealous there, but to spend 24/7 stuck inside that body with those thoughts? Couldn’t cry, couldn’t hug, couldn’t …feel? Nope,’ I shook my head. ‘I’d be more disappointed if you tried to become somebody you aren’t. If you’re Steven, be Steven. If you’re Stephanie, be Stephanie.’

I looked at him seriously; he returned the look and then nodded. ‘Okay, Andonna.’

I took the chance and said, ‘So I’m guessing you’re …Stephanie?’

He nodded, tentatively.

I said, ‘Okay, that’s it! I’m going to lay down a ground rule. So far it’s the only one, so we’ll call it Rule Number One. You ready?’ He nodded and I declared, ‘Rule Number One is this: Choose. Make your choice, Steven or Stephanie, but stick to it. None of this tentative stuff. None of this maybe a boy-one-day, girl-the-next. None of this …‘ooh, I don’t want her to think I’m a sissy’ or anything like that. There’s pluses and minuses with both choices, and most of us never get to choose, but you do, so choose. But you can’t go partway. If you choose to be a boy named Steven, we’ll talk to the doctors about whatever they can do to remove your breasts and bulk you up. I don’t think they can do anything about your skeleton so you’ll always be shorter than the other guys.’

Steve had flinched when I said ‘remove your breasts’ and had a look of distaste at the last point I’d made. Good; I’d wanted him to; that’s why I’d said it that way. All he said was, ‘Or?’

I nodded. ‘Or you choose to be Stephanie, a girl, with all the pluses and minuses of being female in what is laughingly called ‘a man’s world’. But not partway,’ I said. ‘There’s no shame in being yourself. Don’t hesitate on anything because you think it’s too silly or too girly or too …whatever. For instance, don’t do something like wanting a doll but be afraid to ask because you think I might think you’re a sissy. You’re a girl that wants a doll, so of course ask for one and we’ll get one. Or more,’ I grinned. ‘But commit, whichever you choose.’

There was silence after that, and quietly he said, ‘I’ve chosen.’

I was silent.

‘I already knew. I mean, I already made my choice, and I told you already. I want to be a girl. I want to be your niece. You said, ‘no shame’. I’m sorry; I was worried you might think I’m a sissy. I mean, I do have …this thing between my legs, but …no shame. I’m committing. I’m a girl. I’m Stephanie.’

End of Part 4