Crystal Radio

by Michelle Wilder
 
Magic

 

----

"No!!"

The little boy shot bolt-upright on his cot. Choking, breathing too fast, desperate, he almost caught the plastic crystal radio before it fell on the floor. Almost.

-

The noise of sobbing succeeded where the clatter of the radio had failed. Annie whispered at him to be quiet, and when she realized he was crying, tried to ask why. Finally guessing it was another bad nightmare, she went to get their mother. He sleep-walked sometimes with the bad one and her Mom had told her not to try waking him herself.

-

He huddled, rocking. It was impossible. He stared at the tiny radio, a shadow on the floor. The tiny flying saucer radio that had whispered to him in the dark, the lady on the radio.

It said... the lady on it said....

It was a dream, a story. Like a book, like Cinderella, like a fairy tale...

But it was him. True. Everything she said. Her whole life... was him. His life. Hers. Even if she was grown-up, she was exactly him.

The hall light was bright, even the reflected glow that reached the little nook with his bed and dresser. Annie and his Mom made it almost dark again for a second as they came in, and then Mom whispered for Annie to go back to bed, that she did good.

His Mom... was so big. A grownup girl. What girls grew up to. Like the voice lady.... He couldn't keep his eyes open....

"Tommy, what is it? Are you sick?" Mom touched his forehead, looked into his face, hugged him, then reached over to the small lamp on his dresser... all at once. "Tommy?"

He looked up at her at last, even though his eyes almost rolled back.

"Who...?"

-

He woke again almost immediately. Everyone was the same... in the same... the same place. No. It was different.

His mom was scared, that he... did something. All he could think of was that he'd had a dream, that he couldn't remember. She accepted that, told him that it was gone and wasn't real.

But she was scared, and that scared him, more. And he was warm. Mom had pulled the heavy quilt up and it was too hot. His little radio was on the radiator, bright red.

-

It felt like a long time before Mom left, checking his temperature with a thermometer twice and looking for spots and... all sorts of stuff. She kissed him goodnight and wished him sweet dreams. He really did feel better by then. And less sleepy.

In the dark, alone, he suddenly wanted to ~not~ dream, to make it all real like it felt, as if it really was a dream, what the lady... everything she said, if it was a dream then his heart would break.

He clipped the ground wire to the place on the radiator where the paint was chipped away, put the earphone in and pulled the little antenna thing out slowly until it made that tiny, tinny hiss, and then it settled... into quiet music. Not the woman. It only got two stations and one was Italian, Dad had said, and there was only music. On both.

It was magic, Dad said, how the radio worked. A little magic crystal made music from no electricity or anything at all, just magic. And he said it'd work ~forever~, and only magic was that way.

The Beatles came on. He tried to think just about them. He liked the Beatles and tried to learn all their new songs. But he kept thinking about the woman, talking like a dream. He tried to remember his favorite song....

Half way through the song on the radio, half way through the other song's words, all the ideas came back, pushing the words and music away.

He was a boy, and he knew everything about being a boy and just was a girl in his head, so was he crazy? Was that what crazy was? Would he scream and run around like in that awful movie, and get put in those dirty straightjackets that tied them up forever? The lady said some people thought she was crazy, but she wasn't.

Dad said that crazy people heard things that weren't real, or they thought real things weren't really there, or something.

If he thought a dream was from the radio, was that crazy? He was sure it was real....

The radio station changed tone, something... clangy music came on... the news. News was real.

He had to be real, not crazy. He knew he had a boy body.... He was a boy.

He was four, almost five, and he was in Vancouver. And he was himself. A boy. Dad was a policeman and drove a police car that looked like a normal car but had a radio. And Mom was a grownup girl.... Annie and Janet and Mary were girls. He was a boy.

He stopped. Went over it all again.

The lady said she was a girl, but she grew up a boy....

She said she knew she was a girl. That's all. She just knew. And now she was, so she was right all along.

And ~he~ knew he was a boy.

But he was really a girl, too.

----

Janet and Mary jumped out of the big bed and raced each other to the bathroom. Neither looked at him, his nightmare and Mom's visit forgotten. Or maybe they never even woke up. Maybe Annie hadn't even woken. He stayed in bed, watching. Maybe it really had been a dream.

If it was a dream, then maybe he wasn't crazy, but he'd been too afraid to sleep. Up all night, he'd tried to understand, or at least not dream any more. The radio had helped, up until the stations went off. They came back around first light again, though.

He might be crazy, but maybe everyone would at least think he was okay. Or it was ~magic~....

But magic was make-believe and it wasn't like magic in books, or even what he wished for, before. He was still a boy, in... in their house on 2nd Avenue. His home. It was like the magic was backwards, and not in the stories anymore. It was the magic that was the real part.

Because now he had a... a horrible secret. That he was ~really~ a girl. That he really could be one, for real, like the lady. And the magic was just in him. He was magic, and magic was real, and nobody would ever believe...

Except it was really real, like the lady on the radio said. He was.

The lady, he couldn't remember her name, she'd talked about being a girl and growing up, being a boy... and she was him. Just exactly like him. It wasn't a dream. It was real. She was real, so he was real.

How many times had he prayed that he could be a girl? Woken up right? Prayed to God and Jesus and the Blue Fairy and his Fairy Godmother and the wishing star and the golden window? For magic, a miracle, anything... just to be a girl.

A hundred hundred nights he'd wished, and then dreamed, and then remembered it in the morning like a dream, because it ~was~ a dream. A dream that made him cry because it was a lie.

But now it was real. The lady on his crystal radio was different.

It could happen! It did! People could change, doctors and people like that could change him! The lady, ~she~ was like him! And ~She~ changed, for real!

But how? In the wishes and fairy tales he'd made a perfect, magic switch to a girl, all perfect, 'cause magic would be like that, or God.

Now, she had a... different magic. Doctors and... stuff. ~Practicing~. Real things, like she was. She was real.

God. If God made her this way, then God made her... want this. God made her want to be a girl?

There was a cross on the bedroom wall with a dried, curly wisp of palm leaf pinned behind it. She got out of bed and kneeled down, just the way the nuns at school said, and prayed to change, for real, like the lady on the radio. Like God wanted. And one more time, like her magic wishes.

Like God wanted when he made her a girl for real, inside, even looking like a boy.

The prayer was different than all the ones before.

Before, she'd really been praying that ~God~ was real....

----

She knew Mom would be coming up to check on her in a minute, since Janet and Mary were already up, even if Annie was still asleep. Annie always slept longer if she could.

But she wasn't sick, and she always got up when Janet and Mary did unless she was sick.

She couldn't be sick, mental sick. Crazy. She had to be normal, for... how boys acted. The lady said some people thought it was mental sickness....

She slowly gathered some clothes, jeans, a t-shirt, hi-tops, underwear, to carry to the bathroom. Stopping and starting. Thinking. It was hard to do anything without staring, wondering... what was boy stuff, how boys did things, what would be different and how soon....

Finally in the bathroom, she climbed up on the small wooden step at the sink, her shoulders still barely clearing the countertop. She stared at her face in the mirror. ~Her~ face.

Ears stuck out like she hated, but they were just like Janet's and hers were cute, really, 'cause it was... it was her hair that was wrong. Her little nose, and funny teeth... like Mary's. And Mom said her baby teeth had been like that too, and Mom was ~really~ pretty.... And eyes like Dad, the exact same color... like his hair. Like his haircut.

Suddenly she was a little boy again and tears filled her eyes so fast she was blinded.

Urgent need- she tore the pajama pants down, sitting to pee only at the last instant... it was so embarrassing when she was too late and Mom was mad- but not mad, really. But it was bad. She made it this time.

And the horrible fear went away, a bit. She was a girl again. A bit. She knew it was a girl thing to sit, and she always had, and it had made her feel wonderful when she'd found that out. Mom even said sometimes....

She did girl things.

She washed up and brushed her teeth as quickly as she could and then changed and ran back into the bedroom to find a pencil and paper. At the door she stopped. The room was so different all of a sudden that she had to look around and see why.

There was the low, big dresser with her sisters' stuff and the closet that had dresses in it. Theirs. And her dresser, with no dresses. And their big bed. And books on her windowsill. Black Beauty with the beautiful picture on the front had fallen over. The old living room rug under the big bed. Pictures, the one she loved. Toys, the little shelf under the front window with their toys, a fire truck she only cared about with Dad, games, and dolls and their stuff. Puzzles were stacked beside the shelf.

But no writing paper or pens or pencils. Oh, yeah. She ran out, downstairs, 'cause the paper was in the living room-

She stopped and stared... and sat down hard on the top step.

Everything!

After a few seconds, she bumped down a few steps.... The front hall, the living room and... everything was new, or... something....

She had to remember all the stuff she thought of all last night. All the stuff from the radio lady. Write it down, 'cause it was hard, some of it, hard to think of. She had to make a list of the boy and girl stuff, too....

She had to see everything again, too, it felt like... like it was all new.

There were voices, Mom and her sisters. Was Annie up? Was she still in bed? Was it a weekend? Was Dad home too? She couldn't remember 'cause it was summer and her Dad worked some weekends too, but Friendly Giant was on yesterday, so it was... it might be Saturday.

Suddenly, again, it was hard. Pretending. Pretending she was a boy. Pretending she didn't know.

And now she had to pretend magic hadn't happened.

Last night with Mom, and... it was summer... it was breakfast.

She could just be quiet, and eat. She ~had~ to move. She needed to write so much, because she just knew she wouldn't remember it all and she was suddenly afraid she'd forget some of it, some of the important stuff, and she'd never remember it ever again....

And she had to pretend everything was normal. The same.

With a kind of shiver, she stood up and walked down the steps. The papers and pencils were at the fireplace they hardly ever used. The front window....

She stopped at it... at the view outside, the yard, and the peek of English Bay between the Coleman's and Green's houses across the street. There was a tricycle on the lawn. Her bike. Red with a white steel seat. She began to cry.

-

"Tommy! What's wrong, honey?"

Long, warm arms hugged around her. "What's the matter? Why were you crying?" She felt over her arms, "Did you hurt yourself?"

Tommy realized she had to be better at seeming normal, since Mom was looking right in her eyes. She looked down and lied.

"I had a dream again... I was scared...."

While Mom fussed, mostly a bigger hug, she remembered her night. Maybe she'd really had it again? She couldn't remember, exactly.

Whenever, saying she'd had a bad dream seemed true, and she was still afraid of making mistakes that would... well, she didn't know what, but bad things.

She followed Mom into the kitchen, clutching at her apron, afraid to try anything new on her own. Mom allowed it and didn't even comment, so it must've been okay. Dad wasn't there, just her sisters, watching her. Annie wasn't, so she was still asleep, probably.

Which chair? Was it different now? Did she get a... there was a bowl of porridge. Okay, it was the same. It wouldn't be different, it wasn't magic, or ~everything~ wasn't... just her.

She climbed up on her chair and looked around. Yellow and chrome and aluminum metal. The automatic toaster that was so neat. The bread box, wallpaper she didn't remember all the pictures on until she looked at it every day. The window over the sink, the pink teapot.... Janet and Mary were staring at her.

Janet was a lot bigger than her and more grown up, and totally different than Annie even if they were twins, but Mary was almost her size, just a little more... bigger. Taller and everything. But they were both looking at her with funny faces, which meant she'd done something wrong already.

"Why were you crying?" Mary asked. She wasn't mad or anything, and maybe a little scared-seeming.

Oh. She ducked to hide her face.

"I, I had a bad... dream... I just was... scared...." She realized she didn't know how she was supposed to talk, if she had to pretend to be a boy. She'd have to be quiet. If she even talked different than she should. Or ever did.

"Dreams can be very scary but they aren't real...." Mom came around again and squeezed her shoulder while she sprinkled brown sugar and then poured milk on the porridge. It did seem to help, even though the real problem was different. Mom said it was "just the way you like it" and kissed her cheek.

Tommy didn't know what to feel. Or how to... understand. It was like a hundred new feelings were happening.

-

Janet and Mary talked about the day, the new fence and if they could have a play in the corner under the lilac or if the paint was still wet, and Tommy's birthday party (she was a week away from five, so she was ~really~ five, already, really) and the Woolworth's store on Granville where they were going shopping after lunch.

Mom joined in a little, and directed the seemingly random table manners of the three of them, and Tommy watched. And ate. The porridge was great. Like everything was better tasting, or more, and more interesting.

Mom noticed Tommy was being quiet, and asked several times, but she said she was tired. Mary looked at her like she was acting wrong every time she said anything, making her even more quiet.

Finally everyone was finished and they were excused, 'cause breakfast was a sit-down meal even when Dad wasn't home, even if they didn't say grace for breakfast, usually. And even if Mom let Annie sleep in. Tommy figured that since she was a girl, she better help clean up, so she gathered her bowl and glass (she decided she really liked the pink plastic tumblers) and took them to the sink... or the counter, near the edge, but where they should be. She couldn't even see into the sink. Maybe when she was five she'd get big enough to help Mom dry, like Janet and Annie could....

Everyone was staring at her when she turned back.

---

Her sisters, even Annie, went out to play in the yard by the new fence between their yard and next door, the Friend's. Tommy collected papers and a pencil and went back upstairs. She could hear the vacuum whistling.

-

It was harder than she'd thought. A lot of the words were hard, too, the ones she thought she needed.

"Me." She decided to make it like a list. Then she made another list on a new paper.

'Me." She copied the title from her other list and almost wrote 'Susan' there, too, 'cause it didn't make sense them being the same. But since she knew, she decided not to. 'Me' was right, too.

She wrote 'cloths' and 'act' and 'look' on both lists. Then she added 'tok' to the first list. Then she erased it and wrote 'talk' on both.

Looking at the last word and remembering breakfast, she pulled out a new sheet of paper and carefully wrote.

'Daingers'

---

She looked at the sheets of her best writing and felt the tears start again. So many bad things she had to think of and change. And the danger list was so long, so awful. But it hadn't seemed like that. Even when she woke up. Even at breakfast.

She walked over to the bedroom window and looked down at Janet and Liz playing on the old, raised playhouse in the Friend's yard. The old blanket was draped over the fence at the back and she thought she could see Annie and Mary and Margaret there.

The dresser was beside her, their dresser, where the white sweater was, the one. Almost automatically, she pulled it out and put it on. Janet's, from her first communion last spring.

It was as soft and comforting as her wishes, and the terror was still there, but not the same.

-

An overwhelming rush of fear that Mom was watching her spun her around... everything was different....

What if Mom had really been there?

She hugged her precious sweater close against the goose-bumps.

---

All the lists were the same, really. Her boy 'Me,' her girl 'Me' and the 'Dainger' list. That she spelled right after remembering it from a book.

'Can I tell?'

She still wrote it on the 'Danger' list because it seemed dangerous. Even in her wonderful, soft sweater, it was so scary to write she had to squeeze her eyes tightly closed and cry.

---

She took off and neatly folded and put back Janet's sweater, even neater than Janet would. Janet was a slob.

In the living room, she decided to sit and think and remember all of last night, so she closed her eyes. Instead, she began to remember the things in the room, as hard as she could, like that mattered, like it was something she really had to do.

The nubbly sofa, the patterns in it she traced with her finger. The new TV. The fireplace, the play table, the pictures....

Walking over, she peered up at it. The Seawall and the bridge. It was-

"What are you looking at?" Mary's voice startled her into jumping and blushing. Her two-year-older sister was right behind her, looking at the painting to see what, she guessed. But Mary quickly re-focussed on Tommy.

"You've been weird all day, y'know. Janet said so too. Even Mommy asked if something was wrong." She looked almost angry.

Tommy didn't know what to say, to make it less bad, what she could do. And all the worries about her danger list, what she wrote down, went through her mind. Even the old ones, the ones from the first time, so far ago. Long ago.

And what she used to do.

Anger, lies, fake boy stuff, hating girl stuff where anyone could see. She thought about her beautiful sweater.

Mary was still there, as still as a statue, staring at her.

She decided.

"I always like this picture." She looked back at it, half to hide the fear that was almost freezing her. The cold feeling on her face and the pain in her stomach.

"I really like the one in our room too. It's my favorite one." Her voice shook.

"Which one?" Mary sounded normal again. She usually was all happy. She stepped over beside her and looked at the picture, and then at Tommy. "The one with the boats?"

"No, the... the ballerinas. I like that one the best of any picture I've ever seen." She realized she was whispering.

"But it's a ~girl~ picture!" She sounded angry, and Tommy knew why. She thought she was making fun of her or something. It was Mary's favorite picture, too.

"I don't care." She looked at her sister. How they were the same height, almost nearly the same. She was as big as five and Mary was only six.

"I just really like it. It's pretty, and it makes me feel good and I look at it in bed and it's like a nice dream."

Mary's eyes did a little open-wide and she smiled. "That's almost like I do. I imagine I'm the one bending over, and I'm tying my slipper and that I'm in it, in a real ballet and I'm a beautiful dancer in a whole ballet." She grinned. "Do you think you're in it too?"

"Sometimes." Tommy had to look down. Besides the blush, she felt dizzy. "I just really like it."

"Really? That you're in it? Like a ballerina?"

Tommy nodded at the floor. It was the first time. Really telling. Before, it had been lying, even just not saying. She always thought that. She looked up at the picture of the Seawall again.

Mary was still grinning, but she looked at the picture too.

"I can't imagine anything in this one." She smiled. "What do you?"

Tommy smiled back, still red. "I just like it. It's so pretty, and if you look out the front window, like there..." She went to the picture window.

Mary followed and looked where she pointed. The park was a low hill over the water, between the houses. A tiny sliver of the park.

"I imagine the picture is right there, and I have the park in my head, I mean, like I can imagine it?" She couldn't explain in words. Mary looked at the tiny bit of Stanley Park with her, miles away.

"Remember the picnic when we went there? And the rat?" Mary shivered and Tommy remembered... so long ago.

Mary had fed a black and white squirrel, not knowing it was a tame wild rat until Dad shooed it away. Mary had shrieked for a long time when she saw how scared Mom was.

Without thinking, Tommy hugged her. "It was cute, before, before we knew... and it didn't do anything."

Mary stiffened, then hugged her back.

And from the feeling, Tommy decided.

Forever.

She was never going to lie about who she was again. She'd be quiet, but never lie again. It was the lies that hurt.

She forgot her long, long list. Her dainger list. She just remembered all the things she had to learn on her 'Me' list, the real one. All the good things that made her happy even thinking of them, all so exciting.

She squeezed her sister hard. "I thought it was so brave that you'd even go near a squirrel! I could never do that!"

Mary let go and looked at her in surprise. "But you're a boy!"

Tommy blushed, and didn't know why. "Not me. I'd be scared. You're way braver."

She smiled at the look on Mary's face and let her go, stepped back. "I always wish I was as brave as you."

Mary scrunched her face and thought. "Like with dogs?"

"I... yeah. Like that. I wish I could pet them like you...." Tommy closed her eyes tight. She ~was~ afraid. Afraid of the huge black dog from 4th Avenue that she thought of, afraid of what talking like this would change, even if it ~had~ to be better... didn't it?

Mary suddenly hugged her hard again, though Tommy kept her eyes away, hiding her tears.

"I won't let any dog get you, okay? I promise."

Tommy had to look. Mary was being brave, and strong, and looking in her eyes. "I promise."

Tommy burst into loud tears. It was too much, too fast, and too wonderful. She clung to Mary, to how she was brave enough for both of them for right then. How she always was.

And how there wasn't anything that felt bad in what she'd said.

-

When Mom came to investigate the noise, Mary explained that they were just talking about dogs and Tommy got afraid and it was okay now because she was there to protect him.

She didn't relax her fierce hug until Tommy finally stopped crying, a few minutes after Mom sat on the couch to wait.

"Could you both come and sit with me?" Mom opened her arms for a cuddle on both sides. Mary let her hug go, but took Tommy's hand instead and walked them both to the couch.

After they were settled, Tommy had to fight the shiver of another strong feeling, of warmth and comfort and safety, sitting with Mom and Mary... even if she didn't know what the feeling was called. Just "voo."

She had stopped... allowing... hugs, once she became afraid of acting too babyish. The fear of being girly, or a baby... she'd been so afraid of everything.

She twisted away and hid from them both, crying aloud, afraid of the loneliness, how scared she was they'd laugh at her, or see, and wanting to feel Daddy's arms around her again, too.

"What is it? Is it dogs? What is it honey?" Mom turned from Mary, who came around to add her own hugs, crying a little from fear of her own.

Suddenly Tommy found herself talking, blabbing everything.

"I... I... I'm 'fraid you'll hate me and I told Mary and now maybe you will and it'll all be wrong and you'll call me a sissy and you and Dad'll be mad and it'll all... all..."

She tried, but it was too hard. Telling the truth. Even a little one. Because she wasn't going to lie anymore and it wouldn't stop now.

It wasn't a little one. It was the worst one, the one that made her lonely and push everyone away. And it was over. Being alone that way was over and she was afraid it would be even more alone, the new way she'd started.

Mom rocked her and Mary sat and held her hand, or leg, or whatever she could, and cried at her helplessness and how their Mom was scared.

---

When Janet came in the front door with Liz, she started to yell she was home, when she saw the three of them. Liz stood beside her in the doorway and they both stared a second.

"What's wrong?" Janet's voice was small.

"Nothing's wrong, dear. Tommy's just having a hard day and we're making him feel better." Mom sounded so normal.

Tommy tried to stop snuffling and sit up, but she was afraid to look at the new arrivals, more than a peek. Liz was her best friend. And now she'd seen her crying.

"Why..."

"He's just crying and leave him alone he's allowed!" Mary turned back around to give Tommy her best protection and whispered, "There, there... it's okay...." as if to one of her dolls.

Mom hugged them both harder and Tommy could feel her turning her attention to the other girls, and things being said, but she was in her own world.

---

Instead of lunch, Tommy had a quick sandwich and then went back to bed for a nap, which Mom thought was a good idea once she admitted she hadn't slept at all last night, she thought.

She took off her pants and crawled up onto the bed and under the covers. Staring at the wall, and then rolling over so she could see the ballet painting, she thought about the morning. Her decision to tell the truth to Mary. What had happened, if anything really had. It felt like it-

The door creaked as Mary poked her head in and then smiled at her.

"Are you asleep yet?" She grinned at the joke 'cause it had just been a minute and she was looking at her. Tommy shook her head no and grinned back.

"Not yet."

Mary trotted in and over to the big bed. She pulled at the pillows and then turned back to Tommy.

"I always have nice dreams when I hug Pinky and I dunno if you want, but I bet she'll help you too and Mommy says it's 'cause she remembers the stories she reads and whispers them when I'm asleep."

She looked down and hugged her favorite stuffed toy harder. Tommy knew she didn't believe the little-girl story, but knew she loved Pinky the Bunny too, and that she was embarrassed that she still slept with her because Annie and Janet didn't have sleep dolls anymore.

"I know that's not real, but it... I mean, she still works and would you like to hold her?" She looked up again. "I mean just for now? I want her tonight."

Tommy tried to smile and to say yes, but could only nod. Mary brought over her best toy and placed her gently beside Tommy, who looked at it, and her sister. Whatever was on her face, Mary smiled a little.

"You have to hug her, and she likes to peek outta the sheets but she's okay under too, and she really likes hard hugs." She picked up Pinky again and put her under the sheets and made sure she was properly hugged by draping Tommy's arm the right way. Then she leaned over and kissed Tommy's cheek.

"Sleep tight."

After she had quietly closed the door and gone, Tommy thought about it. Everything.

It all seemed good.

---

She woke up to a gentle shaking and Mom smiling over her. Tommy hadn't felt her sit down on the cot.

"You better get up now or you won't be able to sleep tonight. Supper isn't too long." She stroked Tommy's forehead, then pulled the sheets back, smiling again.

"Mary said she loaned you Pinky. Did she help you have nice dreams too?" She tugged gently on the floppy ears poking out from Tommy's arm.

"Maybe. I don't know... but I feel better." Tommy squeezed the bunny one more time for comfort and smiled back as Mom stood up. Tommy propped Pinky on her pillow while she sat up and pulled her pants on.

"Mary...."

She didn't know what to say.

"Your sister's helping me with supper, if you want to thank her."

Tommy perked up. Thanking Mary and helping make supper both sounded great. "Okay!" She pulled the covers up neatly and then carried Piny over to put on Mary's pillow, after a final hug.

She followed Mom downstairs and then around into the kitchen, where Mary was standing on a chair at the counter, tearing up lettuce for a salad. Tommy pushed another chair over and climbed up to stand beside her.

"Can I please help?"

"Oh, no you don't, not until you've washed your hands.... OOof!" Mom lifted her over to the sink, holding her up while she washed her hands, using the bar of soap. When she rinsed, Mom carried her back over to the chair with a peck on the cheek. "Always wash before cooking."

Mary showed her what to do and Tommy was careful to copy her and follow her directions. When all the lettuce was ready, Mary asked what else they could do and Mom turned from the stove.

"You've both been wonderful helpers, but everything is prepared now and it's time for you to relax before dinner. Why don't you go out front and wait for your Dad? He'll be especially surprised to have you both welcome him home!"

-

On the front steps, Tommy sat close to Mary. It was the first time she'd been out of the house with her new... idea, maybe, and there was lots to see, but first she turned and hugged her sister, returning the kiss on the cheek she'd gotten upstairs.

"Thank you for Pinky. She really helped. A lot."

Mary twisted around and hugged her breath right out, kissing her back. "You're so different today."

Tommy pulled back and blushed, afraid that she'd done something too different and wrong, that would be... too girl, maybe. But Mary just hugged harder.

"You never have to worry about dogs or anything! Just ask me and I'll help, okay?" She smiled a wonderful, toothy grin. "I bet there's not one dog in all ~Vancouver~ I'm 'fraid of, so I can be your big sister, okay?"

All the fear that had so recently shot through her, the embarrassment at Liz seeing her cry, and the sudden release of... something... caused Tommy to grab at Mary and hold on like her world depended on her brave six year-old sister. She barely managed to whisper thank you, over and over, she was so happy.

Safe in Mary's arms, she didn't notice the door opening, either, or Liz and Annie and Janet. Mary said they had to be nice.

-

Janet wanted to go over to Liz's again, but Mary and Annie convinced her they had to wait for Daddy, and so all five girls... well, four, and Tommy, ended up sitting on the front steps. They were wide, perfect to all sit together, and Mary and Liz smooshed Tommy between them, closer than they needed to be. Janet sat a step down so she could twist around and see them all and Annie leaned against the rail.

"So, what's going on?"

Janet was tall, almost five feet, and long-legged like a movie star, she said. She was also kinda mean sometimes. Tommy loved her, but she wasn't like Mary was, or even Annie. Her question was pretty normal-sounding, though. Mary hugged her tightly.

"Nothing. Tommy's just cry-y is all and he's little and it's okay if he has bad days." She tugged at the hug.

"But what happened? Something had to." Janet scrunched her nose. "Was it that dream? Was it the same one?"

Liz bumped her shoulder. "You had a bad dream? I hate those. I had one once last winter. It made me afraid to go back to sleep for hours. Was yours like that? Is that why you were crying?"

Liz sounded worried, or maybe scared, and Tommy remembered that she talked like that when she was. Not often, but a lot and really fast when she was scared.

"Not like that one." Tommy leaned into her to say it too. Liz smiled out of her frown.

"What did you dream?" Janet asked. "Can you remember? What was your bad one?"

Tommy shivered. It wasn't a dream, but it might as well have been, here, now. She thought about how to tell them her real nightmare, and how not to lie. And tell them.

She closed her eyes. "I was a grownup...."

"Like Daddy?"

Tommy nodded. That was part of it. All of it, really. The real dream life. The one in the nightmare, before last night.

Her real life, before last night.

She shivered again.

"Why was that so scary? Aren't you gonna be a grownup? Why was it scary?" Janet sounded confused. "I never heard of dreaming you were grownup."

Tommy ~couldn't~ just tell them, and was trying to think of what true thing to say when the popping of gravel under tires took all their attention.

The big blue car swung into the driveway and Tommy stared at her father, smiling at them from the driver's seat. She was unable to move, had no strength in her legs as he got out, the door making a loud, metallic squeak. Her twin sisters danced over to him, yelling hellos. He picked Janet and Annie both up for hugs and then walked to the steps carrying them, stopping as he saw Tommy and Mary and Liz still sitting together.

Her Daddy... was so strong!

She leapt into him, hugging his legs, his waist, holding onto him, to her wish, like the day hadn't happened, like this was enough, like hugging him was all she'd ever need, all it would ever take to make it better. She missed his hugs so much!

He'd always been the one who held her when she couldn't play with the boys, or when she was scared.... More than anyone, he'd always seen how she'd been... scared that people were laughing or would hurt her, like... he knew, somehow, almost.

When he smiled and said he loved her.

She burst into new tears. He knew, he knew how big her feelings were, and he was the one she was afraid would never understand, would make her leave....

All she could get out, over and over, was "Daddy...."

---

She was clingy, she knew, and she wasn't usually as far as she could remember, but she wanted to touch him, and Mommy too. That it was all real, still, even after she was so different.

What if she let go and lost them?

She spent the minutes before supper alternating between following Daddy around and hugging his leg and trying to climb into his lap, and staring up at Mommy in the kitchen, clutching her apron and dress.

She needed to see Daddy's face, his smile, his eyes and black hair. He was so tall. Mommy's voice, the way she touched her head and smiled when she listened.

Daddy's hugs back were so strong they finally reassured her enough that she could sit in her own chair for the meal. She still ate staring at him and Mommy.

Janet and Annie and Mary watched her while they ate, too. Mary smiled whenever she looked back, and Janet frowned, like she was thinking. Mommy and Daddy chatted and showed their worry at their oddly-behaving... son.

She saw that, and still was as happy as she'd ever, ever been.

---

Mary helped her choose one of her favorite dolls, Kelly, the one with the beautiful blue dress that she said was from the Anne of Green Gables picture in the book that Mom made to match. Mary said she was good to sleep with and she loved to listen to whispers.

Tommy looked at Kelly and held her to see what Mary would do and when she smiled just right, she hugged both her doll and her sister.

Tommy put her carefully to bed before she got in herself and then, before she did, she decided to do something she'd stopped more than a year ago. She kneeled down and closed her eyes and tried to think her prayer perfectly, because she needed to get it perfect, even if it only took a second. Like Mommy said, a thank-you note didn't have to be long, just from the heart.

Mommy gave her a kiss and tucked them both in and then, after a few minutes, Daddy came in the room and tucked everyone in too, even though he hardly did anymore, since his times at work were so different all the time. He sat on her cot and ruffled Kelly's hair a little and smiled.

"This is Kelly, Daddy. Mary said she'd be good for helping me sleep better."

Daddy smiled at them both and then took Kelly's hand and said, really seriously, "Hello, Kelly, it's good to meet you. You take good care of my little boy tonight, okay?"

He looked back at Tommy and put his hand at the side of his face, all the way around the back, in his short hair, and looked at him. Then he leaned down and gave Tommy a kiss on the forehead, just like Mommy had.

"If Kelly can't help enough, you come and wake me up, okay?"

-

After the lights were out and she was pretty sure her sisters were asleep she turned on her side and settled comfortably. She bumped foreheads with Kelly, really close, so she could whisper.

"Hi, Kelly. I'm really a girl, and my real name is Susan."

After thinking about all that she had to tell, she started it like a story.

"Last night on my radio, I dreamed there was a lady who used to be a little boy, just like me...."

-

The End

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