Images 50

Chapter 50

As much as going to see Hanna is on my mind the morning is a good morning by all of my standards. Nice waffles…I do like a good waffle, pancakes are awesome but I like the nooks and crannies thing.

I make a whole bunch and Taylor does a little scrambled eggs and a bit of bacon we don’t need much but I dig out the juice and the vitamins and take my meds and my vitamins and get Iggy hers and then Giselle’s Flintstone’s ones.

So trying to do the mommy thing.

Tay certainly makes it better with the kisses and nuzzles to my neck and places and him circling his arms around me.

I’m definitely more than blessed.

I learn something too and to me it makes sense too. Pancake syrup didn’t agree with Taylor and apparently it doesn’t with Ingrid either but maple syrup doesn’t seem to be as nasty on their systems.

Makes sense because you get a real finicky stomach on Chemo or being preggers and there is a difference in this stuff.

I should look into our stuff to see what’s organic and what’s GMO related maybe. People are really big into these things. Especially out here in Alberta beef…clean beef is a big thing here.

I get a whiff of things starting downstairs and it’s just such a good idea that we hired the extra help to get a start on the really early morning things here and just to be able to enjoy a breakfast together and even with Ingrid being there it’s not that bad.

She’s still kind of sort of doing the looking at me thing but it’s not as pointed or as nasty as it was last night. Y’know I’m going to leave it alone. I know she’s bound to look at me and to stare since we really haven’t seen each other in nearly two years and I’ve changed a whole lot as I’ve been transitioning.

A poor starvation diet will do that to you over that to you over the course of a few months in near complete poverty and with that came what I’ve read on some of the transitioning sites and pages something call muscle burn.

I wasn’t actually trying to do that and well with the hormones I dropped a lot of muscle too as things changed and now that I’m back to a healthy weight it’s kind of come back in all the right places.

Okay I still don’t like my shoulders and I still have an Adam’s apple…but it’s not that noticeable and there’s some days that I feel it more that others mostly it’s okay. The two little t-monsters are gone and I feel better for that and I’m not too far away actually I think to me actually having my surgery.

All in all…it’s a good day in a not too bad life.

Or so far. I have to meet Hanna the woman whose Ingrid’s ex that broke up with her when Iggy needed someone in her corner. I already don’t have a good impression of the woman.

I kiss Tay. “Can you watch the baby? I’m going to go for a run and then some roof time.”

He kisses me back and both Ingrid and Giselle are watching us smooch with different expressions on their faces and Iggy get’s herself some hot water for some tea.

“Roof time?”

“I hang some wash out up there when I can and I pray sometimes when I’m up there.”

“Pray?” She’s giving me this sort of are you crazy look.

“Yes I pray, I do it my way and it’s one of the things in my life that’s helped me keep it together.”

“But you’re Trans? Isn’t that like…like shooting yourself in the foot?”

“No…I’m not sure I follow that.”

She gives me this ‘You’re thick’ look. “Churches and churchy types have it out for people like us.”

“Actually no, there are some people that see things towards others in a fashion that I’m going to say requires a lot more introspection but there’s several great LGBT friendly churches around.”

“You go to church?”

“Not so much usually we don’t have the time and Taylor and god aren’t on speaking terms.”

“Sounds like he’s got sense.”

“Some but it doesn’t bother me.”

“You’re shitting me it doesn’t bother you?”

“No, faith is a personal thing and how Taylor see’s his relationship of lack there of with god isn’t really my business it’s between him and his faith.”

“Really?” she’s looking at me like she doesn’t believe me and she looks at Taylor. He takes a drink of coffee.

“It’s true; she keeps it to herself unless I take her to church. But I’m pretty much an agnostic-hostile.”

“Agnostic-hostile?” She looks at him.

“I’m not sure what to believe but in any event there’s some truth to it I think he’s an asshole.” He reached over and covered Giselle’s ears before saying that. She pouted and looked up at him knowing even as young as she is she missed something good.

Ingrid smiled but shook her head. “You guys are weird.” Then she’s looking at me as I’m getting into my running stuff. “You’re not going to shove that down Giselle’s throat are you?”

“No, as far as I’m concerned she doesn’t really need to learn about stuff like that until she can ask me about it when she’s curious herself.”

Okay even Taylor’s looking at me.

I get a bottle of water from the fridge. “Okay, most of the time kids get roped into one faith or another just because the family is into it. That’s not choice, it’s not free will and to me it actually lessens the value of that choice. If she chooses a different path than me that’s fine too but it’ll be her decision.”

Iggy looks at me. “There’s a whole lot of people that will definitely not agree with you on that. Any of that.”

I pick up my bible with all the little dg ears and post it’s and things in it. “And that’s why I do my thing in private.” I smile at them and take off. “See you guys in a bit.”

Yes I’m a little out there with my faith but I still have it. And for the record I don’t mind churches either I’m just…like I said there’s some doctrines out there that need some introspection.

I head outside top the loading dock and do a few reps of squats inside from prying eyes and a bunch of crunches too and then go outside and run the loading dock steps three times all to warm up before I head out for a run.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve done a good run and before that it was quite awhile so I’m still seriously out of shape but I want to try and do this at least once a week if I can find the time. I don’t want to look like the old me at all and I’m in my lady Nike shape wear stuff…it’s pretty neat it’s body shaping resistance wear that helps you get the body that you want. Exercises you in a more female way I guess. It could be hooey but I still bought it and it does seem to do something.

I go a long ways actually down two blocks until I get to the tracks and I run down those all the way until it comes out to the road and there’s the railway crossing and then I jog down that until I get to the turn off that leads to our street that the diner’s on and I jog down that waving at the regulars that are headed there on their way to work. Once I get back to the diner I go past it and back down to the tracks and go the other way for about a thousand meters until I’m at the rail yard where they do the grain storage at and I stop and walk it down to cool off and I drink my bottle of water then I head back and that’s the last stretch where I don’t jog but I run and I push it.

It seems like a long run but it’s not it’s about just over six kilometres total all the way around which still seems like a lot but a kilometre isn’t that far even walking. But still after not doing it…and not being in the practice of doing it and the hard run at the end of it I’m drenched in sweat gasping for air and panting and breathing and just to torture myself just a little more I do twenty side to side to touches each way and another twenty cross touching my toes before heading back inside definitely feeling the burn.

Taylor’s downstairs and he meets me with a shake?

“What’s this?”

“Juice and some yogurt, I figured y’know.” He smiles and kisses me. “Good run?”

“Yes wonderful actually it really helped me get into gear this morning.”

I take a drink and it’s good. Orange with some banana and peach with plain yogurt. I give him a fruity creamy kiss. “Where’s the baby?”

“Playing with Grampy.”

“And Ingrid?”

“Actually trying to do some laundry.”

“So upstairs is…”

He leads me upstairs and we make love again in our own bed and okay we might have been a little quick with it compared to usually it’s still amazing and intense and he still holds me just right and squeezes just so and kisses me long and slow and deeply and I’m not holding back or am I being quiet.

We’ve tried and been quiet it seems for too long now and it feels good to cry out in pleasure when I’m feeling it. It feels good to ask Taylor to do that thing he does when he moves like.

It’s nice to hear him being loud too and making all those sounds that guys are supposed to make when they’re with the women they love.

Once or well several times in our bed and then even to finish in the shower.

Okay that once was long and a bit slower and after the run and the work out getting someone to wash you feels amazing. He heads off downstairs to work and I get my tube of Close-up toothpaste and brush my teeth and strip the bed and change it and then just slip on some grey sweat pants for now and his Oilers jersey and I head down and put these into the wash too.

Ingrid’s looking at me.

The she sniffs the air.

I grin and she shakes her head. “You really are a straight girl.”

“Yes, I wasn’t lying to you back then Ingrid I like boys, well one boy that’s enough for me.”

“Yeah….I get it, all happily married and stuff.”

“Actually yeah, it’s kind of nice given everything else that’s happened.”

“So…nothing towards girls at all?”

“Nope, not even a little.”

“But you were such a man-whore?”

“I know right. It’s like this though all that whore part was exactly that sort of disconnect those girls try to have to do that. It’s why I was such an asshole with women because I wasn’t feeling things.”

“Nothing? I know you got off.”

“Oh physically sure but as Jaimes…nothing I was living on auto-pilot my brain was going okay this is how we’re going to do this…and I went from step a to b to c and so forth just doing all the stuff that I was supposed to do.”

She looks at me. “So you were in hiding and not letting anyone know that you were a girl.”

“No…I wasn’t hiding. The thing was I was so inside fundamentally not Jaimes that I had no way of making the connections to really be a person much less a guy. I was faking being human.”

“So when you found out that you were a girl?”

“Completely by accident. I was doing this panty thing with a girl I was seeing and I figured it fit into the whole crazy jock stuff and I’d seen it actually sort of done by Tom Hanks on Dragnet or mentioned that he was wearing his dates panties and I thought what the hell. It was just another camouflage attempt.”

Ingrid slowly gets up and she takes out some whites from the washer to the dryer not pushing it but trying to do something and I start going through Taylor’s stuff grabbing an old two litre ice cream container and going through his pockets and putting all of it into there.

I’m not saying a thing about guys and that either. We don’t have good pockets in our clothes as women and if we did we’d just be as bad. Have you ever seen a woman’s everyday purse and how much it’s not cleaned out? Yeah totally the same only different.

She looks at me. “So when you came to me?”

“I had felt something as I wore them the first time and it wasn’t like anything I knew. Hell the first times it was like being haunted by something, y’know there but not quite there. Then the first time I actually tried dressing in drag and as bad and ugly a girl as I made then, I was a girl.”

“Well you certainly look the part now.” She’s looking at me in that…well I think I know which way and I think I know what’s been up her butt.

“Thank you I try, I’m still in transition though and I have a ways to go yet.”

She nods and takes a seat back down. “But you said you were a girl when you first saw yourself in the mirror in drag.”

“Yes, see before it wasn’t a reaction for me at all I’d look in the mirror make myself look like I should look as Jaimes but that’s it. There wasn’t anyone there.”

“But you’re a person, there has to be someone there you’re not some vampire.”

I lean on the washer. “But as Jaimes it wasn’t connecting it was like it wasn’t my real reflection. When I saw myself the real me that’s when I connected with myself for the first time I think and from that point on really there wasn’t any going back.”

“So why did you come to me then for help?”

“Honestly?”

“Yeah dammit honestly.”

“You were one of the drama club kids and if you weren’t a lesbian then you knew enough people I figured that were LGBT that you’d be okay with it.”

“So you thought that I was a lesbian?”

“Actually I wasn’t sure all I knew…all I thought was that you hated the IN crowd so much that if I really wasn’t one of them then you wouldn’t turn on me like I knew that they would.”

Yes I know there’s a little ouch me being a bitch there with that but she wanted me to be honest with her.

Ingrid does look down. “Fuck…sorry…I mean it too just…I was so fucked up back then.”

“Back then? Iggy you still are and you need to see someone about the stuff that’s gone on with you.”

“What’s the point with the way that things are now?” (Sniffle.)

I go over and get some of the wet stuff out of one of the washers I want to hang up. “The point is that even if things are going to turn out badly that you take control of your life and take control of the abuse and get some help so you can have some peace. So you can go out if that’s what’s going to happen on your terms.”

(Sniffle.) “Easier said than done.”

I look her in the eyes. “Easier to face it than be tortured by it.”

I hold her eyes until she looks away. “I suppose you have that as one of these appointments too?”

“No, not yet but I have a friend working on finding you the right doctor to talk to.”

“Shrinks are quacks.”

“Therapist actually but it’s someone who knows what’s going on.”

“Really?”

“You can only stack bullshit for so long Ingrid before it comes falling down.”

“And…you’re not going to let this go are you?” She looked back up and I’m still staring at her.

“No, you owe me this and you owe Giselle this.”

“How long are you going to use that?” She whines and bit with that.

“Forever actually.” I kiss her cheek. It’s your fault, you wanted me back in your life and in Giselle’s I’m not going to give up on you.

(Sniffle-sob.) “Why?”

“Because I still love you and you’re still my friend.”

“But I was such a cunt to you!” She sobby kind of wail-whines at me crying.

I grab the basket. “And Friends are friends no matter what. Yeah what you did sucked and I hated it and I hated you for it but honestly Iggy, it’s a lot easier for me to just love you than spend all that energy hating you.”

I grab the basket and I carry it to the roof and okay I could have stayed and stuff but she doesn’t need me there to hold her hand through her getting her mind wrapped around some stuff.

She needs to get there herself.

I’ll pick her up when she falls but if I think she can do it and get there on her own two feet I’m not going to carry her. People do that too much. Forgiving someone isn’t becoming their crutch.

I slip back down and make a coffee and take it up and I hang the laundry out and enjoy the way the air feels. It’s getting cooler but it’s still plenty nice enough to hang clothes yet and I get my lawn chair out and I sit in the sun and I just read my bible some.

No I don’t take it verbatim, it’s as flawed as man is and to me it’s supposed to be. We’re not perfect. To me its stories and verses and allegories of us trying to get a grip on and understand something that’s bigger than us.

Not everyone’s take sure but then again it’s just me up here.

Well not just me right?

I read mostly my psalms, they’re my favorite parts actually and I just sit there when I’m done and sip my coffee and let the sun shine down on me and I just close my eyes and just be nothing else but that for awhile.

When my coffee is done I figure it’s about that time and I head down stairs and I get changed to go see Hanna.

I’m not trying to impress or intimidate so I just go with a good pair of jeans and one of the shirts from work here and a jacket and I go down to meet up with Daddy.

He smiles at me. “You ready?”

“Ask I’ll ever be.”

I go and I kiss Taylor and Giselle and she gives me this big hug and kisses me over and over going. “Mum, mum, mum.”

Ow…I so get why new mothers get separation anxiety over leaving their kids even for awhile. I am so feeling the tug on my heartstrings with her. I’m so there…Mum…yep…forever and ever kiddo.

I’m biting my lips and I hug daddy when we get out to the truck and let out a shaky sigh. “Wow…I didn’t think that I’d get that hooked that fast.”

He hugs me really tightly all of a sudden. “I was as soon as I laid eyes on you and being without you honey was hell.”

I hug him back. “Love you too Daddy, I’m so glad I have you back in my life now.”

We just stand there for a moment and hug each other tight and breathe. “Dad?”

“Yes honey?”

“We have to do this more often.”

“What?”

“Just hug each other tight and take a few minutes.”

He leans on the truck and holds me. “I couldn’t agree more kiddo.”

We actually do that for a good five minutes before we break the hold and I beam at him. He could so be a lot of things with me y’know. He’s been out of my life for almost all of my life and I’m transitioning into becoming his daughter instead of his son and he’s just…he’s my dad.

My Daddy the man who just held me tight just because for five minutes. Honestly when was the last time you held someone for that long outside of bed? Heck I know people who like have never done that…even in bed.

We drive out to the address she gave and it’s a little strip mall out in Capillano and I see what I think is her parked in front of the Safeway there and she’s drinking a coffee from Starbucks and she’s smoking but she looks like the girl I saw Iggy with when we ran into each other that night back when at the movies.

I get out of the truck and I walk over.

“Hanna?”

“Yeah, so you’re her.”

“Yes I’m Jenna Winters.” I offer her my hand.

She just stares at me and takes off her sunglasses and takes a drag off of her smoke and looks at me and sort of blows smoke at me. “Funny, you don’t look like a guy.”

“I’m not so why should I look like one?”

“You’re a tranny, I just figured but hell you’re kind of a pretty one. I still don’t see the big deal.”

“I’m sorry but you lost me a could of turns back there when you pulled onto ignorant street you want to fill me in on just what your problem with me is?”

“Don’t get smart with me.” She bristles and looks really hateful and pissed off at me. I can’t help it but just stare back at her. I’ve had plenty of stare down situations on the ball field and in the strip club and just with people that wouldn’t leave me alone.

“I’m not getting smart I’m just not taking your shit.”

“What’d you say to me you fucking freak?”

“I didn’t stutter and if you stopped acting like you were six and actually said why you’re copping an attitude instead of actually talking to me like a grown woman then we wouldn’t be doing this.”

She looks ready to hit me. “It’s not woman to woman you’ll never be a woman.”

I sigh.

“Alright it was worth the gas to come see. Now I know.” I turn and head back to the truck. I see dad pointing and I turn and see her arm raised to throw her coffee at me.

I stare at her again and she looks like a six year old that was caught throwing a fit and was going to do something really wrong.

I stare.

She lowers her arm eventually.

“Pour it out.”

She looks at me. She get’s this I effing hate you look on her face but she actually does it.

“Fucking satisfied?” She sneers.

“No not remotely, why did you leave Ingrid?”

“She wasn’t in love with me she was cheating on me.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, like fuck you are she was cheating on me with you.”

That, that get’s me to raise an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“Ever since we ran into you and your date at the movies she’s been non-stop talking about you and looking you up and everything’s…Oh... Oh My gawd look at Jenna isn’t she beautiful now, isn’t she awesome, did you see her on you tube!”

Okay…

“Look Hanna…There’s a lot of history between me and Iggy, Giselle for one thing she’s my daughter.”

“See, you’re a fucking tranny…and it just proves it!”

“Proves what?”

“That she was still in love with you and she was never serious about us or her being a lesbian it was just a fucking lie, all she ever did was lie!”

“Okay…look I’m a transgendered woman but I’m still a woman and I’m a straight and very married woman too. I have never wanted to be in a relationship with another woman not now, not ever and not with Ingrid.”

“But you knocked her up.”

“She got me hammered and sexually assaulted me.”

“It still doesn’t change the fact that she’s at your place, living with you.”

“No that is what’s going on and she’s living on my fold out because she doesn’t have anywhere else to go?”

She’s grinding her teeth. “She could’ve went home.”

“To her folks?”

She nods. “Not an option her dad molested her.”

She drops the cigarette out of her fingertips and she looks pale, really pale in that bad flashback kind of way.

And I was all set to seriously dislike her.

Hanna’s sucking air and choking and I go over to help her and get her turned away from me just in time before she has a major hurl session all over the pavement. I hold her shoulders as her legs give and settle her to her knees on the pavement and then hold her hair back with one hand and pat her back softly with the other.

“You too huh?”

She nods and makes some crying noises and get’s the heaves for a bit. I just keep doing what I’m doing until she’s done and Dad’s walked over and he passes me my purse.

“I’ll go and get some water in the store.”

“Thanks daddy.”

Hanna looks at me and then him but dad’s already headed into the Safeway.

“She…she didn’t tell me.” (Snuffle-spit.)… Eeeww, girls shouldn’t hock a greener…ever.

“I can see that.” She’s staring at me.

“Why?”

“Did you tell her?”

(Snuffle-spit.) “Yeah…”

“Was it hard?”

“What’d you think?”

“I think that she loved you enough that she didn’t want to trigger you anymore than she wanted to relive it herself.”

“Oh….” She glares at me. “You have an answer for everything?”

“Nope, not even close but you did ask what I thought.” I try a smile at her.

“Fuck…” she wipes at her face as I pass her a Wetwipe. “And here I was all set to hate your guts.”

“I got that with the whole I want to shampoo you with my vente thing.”

She stares at me. “You’re cracking jokes?”

“Hey that was funny.”

“I can see why she likes you so much.”

“Well we were best friends before everything happened and she outed me.”

“She never said, she just got all weepy about stuff with you and cried over the girl.”

I look at her hard. “The Girl is my daughter, her name is Giselle.”

“Sorry…I’m…I’m not a good person Jenna, I’m all fucked up.”

“Yeah…” I stretch that out sarcastically. “I wouldn’t have gotten that.”

She’s giving me that look like she has no idea what to say but wants to tell me off. I smile at her. “Fine, I won’t call her that again.”

“Good, so how did you treat her before?”

“I didn’t…I can’t really stand kids…I just sort of ignored her as much as possible, she was Iggy’s kid not mine.”

“Uh-huh, it shows. Look you have any give a shit about Ingrid at all?”

She’s staring at me.

I stare back.

That lasts until dad comes back with two bottles of water and a mini thing of Scope. I let her take them and rinse her mouth out. “You’re fucking direct aren’t you?”

“She’s got ovarian cancer Hanna she doesn’t really have the time or the strength for bullshit or games.”

She’s starting to cry again and she looks at me. (Sniffle-sob.) “I can’t…I...I just can’t Jenna it’s too much I can’t handle her being sick…not like that I’m…I’m not good with shit like that and…and she’s still in love with you.. (Sniffle-sob)...not me.”

She get’s up and I do too and grab her wrist as she’s trying to go. She looks at me and I’m looking her in the eyes and it really, really sucks to say it but I let go of her wrist…

“Don’t…don’t call me again Jenna…not even...”

I looked into her eyes and she was upset but it wasn’t there…that little something that I hoped might be there for Ingrid it just wasn’t. She get’s in her car really, really fast and she pulls out squealing the tires and just watch her go and I’m crying.

“I won’t.”

I’m wiping at my eyes because I can’t help but to cry for Ingrid…this, this was what happened with Tay and it sucks, it’s not right it isn’t fair and Then Daddy’s arms are there again hugging me.

“At least you tried honey, a whole lot of people wouldn’t come close to doing half the stuff that you did for Ingrid.”

“Daddy?” (Sniffle.)

“Yes honey?”

“We need to just keep this between us okay; Ingrid doesn’t need to know this part. Hanna’s already hurt her enough.”

“Okay…but not for Ingrid kiddo.”

“That’s okay, it’s not for me too…Iggy needs to be strong, she needs to be strong enough to fight this as hard as she can for our daughter.”

He nods and he holds me tight until I’m ready to leave and it’s a long way home it feels like and I’m leaning my head on the glass of the truck door in the sun and just trying to get there…where I need to be for her and for our little girl.

I do love her…she was my very first best friend she was my sister.

But can I love her enough that it’s enough to get her through this?

I have to try, I have to try.

If we do lose her I want the Images Giselle will have of her mom to be good enough to outweigh the bad. It might be all we may have of her in the end.