Belle Road
A Transgender Anthology based on
The Beatles' Abbey Road Album
Part Four: I Feel the Ice Is Slowly Melting!
Little darling
Its been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling
It seems like years since it's been here
Previously - Tall Pines Trailer Park, Shreveport, Louisiana
It was as if nothing had taken place the night before, but it still was almost other-worldly as Jackie stood unrepentant in her doorway. She handed him the I-pad and he turned to go. She spoke.
“Jah….” She paused in the middle of speaking his name, even wincing at the recollection of the previous day’s pain.
“What about the account?” She turned sideways, almost like a fencer waiting to parry a blow, but he remained calm. He pulled out a wad of cash from his pocket and smirked before dropping it on the stoop in front of her. He turned his back to her and walked to his pickup without a word. She watched silently as he pulled out of the gravel driveway; this time slower and almost with more purpose. Thankfully there was no breeze, and the money still lay at her feet in a rude pile. She stooped to pick it up and a pain shot up her back; a souvenir from the night before.
She sank down on the doorstep and looked up once and whispered a faint plea for help before collapsing through the open doorway to the floor behind her in a torrent of tears….
The office of Margot Lemieux, Psy.D, Shreveport, Louisiana…
“It’s like I don’t deserve to be happy, Margot. It’s not fair.”
“By deserve? Fair…you don’t think it’s fair that things are the way they are?” Chris looked away; a common gesture when her beliefs matched the moment.
“No…it’s like it’s not fair that I want…” The rest of the words stuck in her throat.
“You don’t think it’s fair to want something good for yourself; somehow it’s wrong to imagine anything good coming your way?” Chris nodded with a hesitation, as if even having an opinion was wrong. Margot continued.
“And the reason you don’t feel worthy of good things?” It really wasn’t a stretch; merit and just desserts are two sides of a coin that should never be tossed when deciding self-esteem, but it happens all the time in the game of life.
“No…” Tears came to her eyes. It was an improvement, though. In ten months of counseling, Chris came to the place of expressing emotion without feeling unworthy of the attention it might gather. She shook her head and placed her hand in front of her face.
“Oh…you don’t deserve good things even to the point that it’s wrong to even want them, oui?” The girl nodded her head; once again in hesitation, as if by agreeing with Margot she was committing some sort of error.
“So when your father said it was your fault that your mother went away?” Chris winced and shuddered at the mention of her parents. She shook her head no; not in disagreement, but rather in agreement that it was entirely wrong to have caused her mother’s ‘departure.’
“Tell me about that day again, Chris, merci? “ Margot smiled with a very reserved, almost grin-like expression in welcoming the girl to feel safe.
“I can’t…it…hurts too much.” Margot continued to smile softly, like a loving…parent.
“Okay…let’s just do this, oui? Don’t say a word. I’ll ask you questions, and you can nod yes or no, okay?” Margot put her finger to her lips as if to shush the girl. Chris nodded.
“Let’s see, what did we talk about last week?” Margot didn’t need to ask; in fact, she had a difficult time forgetting what Chris had ‘confessed’ the week before.
“Your mother. Christophe told his Maman about his ‘sister,’ oui? The girl that no one in the family knew?” Chris’ eyes widened in acknowledgement. It wasn’t a revelation since they had talked often in the past several months about her rebirth. Rather, it was a sad recollection of a painful moment among many painful moments in her life.
“She…said, ‘Oh, ma petit. You must never tell your father.’” The girl winced just repeating her mother’s words. What happened next proved to be a sad turning point in the girl’s life. Rene Fontenot had overheard the exchange.
“Papa was so angry. He pulled me by the arm and got down face-to-face.” Chris struggled, and the words came haltingly.
“I thought he was going to hit me. But….” The girl began to sob. Margot spoke softly but clearly.
“He made you watch, didn’t he? When he hit your Maman, non? But it didn’t end there, did it?”
“He…said it was my fault. I was the reason he had to punish my mother.” Chris said haltingly before burying her face in her hands. She cried for a few minutes, trying without success to speak. Margot repeated the gesture of her finger over her lips.
“Shh…shhhh, Cheri. Let’s look at this in the clear, warm spring instead of that cold winter, oui?” The girl seemed puzzled but nodded anyway. Margo reached into a folder and removed a handout that featured cartoonish faces.
“You remember how your mother looked when you told her. We spoke of this last time. Point to the expression.” She held the paper up as Chris wiped her face with her sleeve, missing the box of tissues sitting on the table next to the sofa. Chris scanned the pictures before pointing to one; eyebrows raised with a frown and eyes widened in surprise.
“Ah…fear, non? Yes, that was for her but also for you, Christelle. But didn’t you say she looked different at first?” Chris nodded and pointed to another expression; eyes widened once again and eyebrows raised, but with a broad smile.
“Different! Acceptance? Perhaps even …what did you say last time? Glee?” The girl nodded once again.
“So before she feared for both of you, she did what, Ma cher?” Chris tilted her head a bit at the question. Margot continued.
“She saw something. She recognized something?” Margot smiled as Chris nodded and managed to speak only a few words, but powerful and life-changing.
“She…she knew?” A question that was posed out of fear of being wrong; misinterpreting her mother’s intent would be devastating, but Margot finished her sentence.
“Already, oui, that you were a girl…all along?” The girl nodded, almost reluctant to invest any more energy into a foolish hope that had no basis in reality until Margot reminded Chris of her mother’s last words.
“You said what, Christelle? That your mother called you what? What were those words, Chris?” The girl’s eyes widened in recollection of their exchange. She frowned, as if by acknowledging her mother’s last time with her she would be committing the crime of which her father blamed her. But she nodded and said finally,
“Ma petite fille.” She managed to get those three words out before placing her hand before her face once again in shame.
“And for those three words, your father blamed you for your mother’s departure.” A statement rather than a question; her tone seemed to identify the absolute evil of his father’s anger.
“She….he said she hated me and that’s why she….” The girl sobbed. Neither needed to repeat the accusation; Catherine Fontenot had chosen to end her life after years of abuse. Some might have called it a cowardly act since she left behind a confused and deathly frightened child to the care by a hateful angry man. But she would have died very soon after that anyway; a broken heart cannot sustain the fight against cancer, no matter how good the doctors or brilliant the intervention.
“No, child. Please think about what I am going to say, oui? Remember your mother’s expression? When you told her for the first time. A smile? A happy surprise? Would that be a hateful or a precious acceptance?” She was guiding the girl, of course, but the girl had lived for nearly twenty years in icy shame, and needed a hand to escort her to a place of warmth and clarity.
“She…she loved me…why did she leave…why did she have to go? What did I do wrong?” Perhaps a misguided reaction, but an improvement, since for the first time, her gender didn’t come into play within all the other misplaced accusations.
“Cheri, you did nothing wrong. She chose to give up. What did you say last week? That she had no more strength? Did you…a little boy who only wanted to be a girl? What did you do to rob this grown woman of her strength and will? What did that little girl do to hurt her mother?” It was a leading question, but one for which the girl was finally prepared to answer.
“I…didn’t do anything.” She covered her face with her hand; a shameful but firmly engrained response, as if telling the truth was wrong and agreeing with her father’s lies was the right thing to do. Margot pulled the girl’s hand gently away from her face, revealing a look of horrific fear. She cupped the girl’s chin and looked into her eyes, and the girl beheld the most peaceful, accepting look that she had ever seen.
“No more shame, ma petit fille,” Margot repeated Catherine Fontenot’s last words to her daughter; a strong and welcome reinforcement of the truth.
“No more shame.” Margot tapped the girl's knee and she nodded; with little energy save for the tearful smile that began to lighten her countenance.
Little darling
The smiles returning to the faces
Little darling
It seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun (du dn du du)
Here comes the sun
And I say
It's alright
Next: Golden Slumbers
Here Comes the Sun
Words and Music by
George Harrison
as performed by
Sheryl Crow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3h6FgFthC8&feature=fvsr
Comments
“No more shame.â€
Indeed. No reason for shame. For her. For me. Or for you, sis.
Thank you 'Drea,
"No more shame" and then I realized that I was the victim,but I carried that
shame for nigh on 60 years but now these stories of yours help me come to
terms with my life and what I missed out on.It is a new life,thank you 'Drea,
you understand.
ALISON
Here There Be Monsters
Some are lurking outside and some within our heads. Christelle has just been helped by Margot to deal with those inside. Those outside will always be with us, even when they hide in jolly skins,
Joanne
special skills...
you havem 'Drea, in linking the poignant words of the songs we love with the situations you describe in your vignettes. Wonderful few moments reading these. Thank you. G x