The smell of tea wakes me up.

Not good tea either but that orange pekoe that someone’s plopped in a teapot and think that you can keep it on the heat after the water’s been boiled.

I’m going to taste the teabags.

I can take this, I can take the canned milk in it, I can take anything really.

Except all of this…

Of losing them for good maybe...

When I met Sarah she’d been Shaun and yes she’d been a man. Well I thought that she was one for the longest time.

All through us dating.

Shaun was wonderful, my best friend and a really old school charmer.

And I don’t mean the stuff where he’d run lines and stuff. No, when Shaun thought you were beautiful he meant it. He’d open doors for me, pull out my chair, bring an umbrella if he thought it was going to rain out.

And it wasn’t any bull either, he genuinely loved to do those things.

One year was all we dated and then he went ROTC from college and into the air force. He loved to fly, loved being up there in the blue and the free.

That’s what he called it.

We wrote lots when he was away, got together on leave and the sex…well it was amazing. I wasn’t a blushing virgin when we met though he was and I never though it odd that he never gallivanted around with all those beauties of the nights on tour.

He was a sweetheart, my sweetheart.

We had gotten married after his first tour and Shane and Tara followed the year after that, and the year after that.

Then he got worse.

Mood swings, nightmares and he’d lose his temper.

Never on me, never on the kids but he’d go out into the garage and work his boxing bag without gloves until he bruised his hands and cut them sometimes.

He drank too for awhile…well it was right up until…

I saw it.

Shane wanted to play and had his soccer ball and Shawn had just cracked a beer. He was never a happy drunk, usually he drank I think to forget and that never helped either.

But Shane saw Shawn crack that beer and there was that little sigh…and he went off to play alone. Only Shawn saw that. He poured out the entire case of beer after that and e cried a little and quietly while he did it.

I hugged him as he did it and there was such a shudder that went through him. It nearly broke my heart that it felt so…like the stuff in him was just so…strong.

“I’m not going to be him Mare, I’m not…I can’t.”

Mare, kind of our thing for Mary. I like horses and well it just sort of stuck.

And “Him” that was his dad.

I don’t like the man no matter how old he is, he’s a prick.

And mean, unfriendly and yes all the times I’ve seen the man he’d a drink in hand.

I hugged him and when the last beer was poured out he washed his face in the sink washing the last of the beer away and he kissed me sweetly. Then he changed to his sneakers and went out to play.

I love her for that.

Her…damned right, because now knowing what I know, all the stuff I learned. To get the strength to set everything that must have been screaming to get out and go into dad mode.

When she was really…

I take a swallow of the tea pulling a face and look at my mom.

It’s good of her to be here. I can overlook the tea.

Things still got worse though, all the stuff in the forces coming out, the stuff inside breaking down too and when the big breakdown had happened…Shaun tried to stop it, I know he did but we were in the mall getting clothes for Tara and we saw a trans woman…and there were so people that were pretty rude.

It didn’t help that I didn’t get it at the time at all and said. “I hope he doesn’t use the women’s changing rooms.”

He looked at me and stared and stared and there were streams of tears running from his eyes as he looked at me.

I don’t think he even knew he had started crying.

“Why would it matter?”

“Why would what matter?”

“Why would it matter if she used the ladies change room.”

“Because he’s not a woman?”

“She is.”

“No…look I can tell, he’s trying really hard and stuff but he’s got a long way to go.”

“Not all of us are able to pass right off the start Mary.”

“…………………………..Not all of us? Shaun what the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m not a man Mary.”

“What? Okay this…this is sick Shaun and it’s not funny.”

Yes, I know one of a lot of bad choices of words.

He looked right at me and wiped his eyes off with the backs of his hands…he gave me a serious a look as anything he’d ever given me and he said. “I’m not joking Mare…I never was…I was never a guy, never a boy, never a man…I’m just like her.”

And that was when I honestly think I first met Sarah as she took the car keys out of her pocket and put them on the store counter and she stormed away.

Just guessing at the hurt and the crying that night has kept me awake a lot.

Shaun got a motel room and didn’t come home that night.

I’d like to be able to say I handled everything after that better but I didn’t.

We had fights.

I jumped her verbally as soon as she came home.

How could he do this to me?

Sadly my first reaction, second, third too. As that first month went past. I took the kids, left Sarah and moved home.

Which I hated… I hated my hometown a lot. I hated coming back like this. I hated the inevitable whispers.

I was losing my best friend, losing my husband, my sexuality…I was suddenly a lesbian if that’s the way that you think about these things and my marriage was over.

And I was still nowhere near nice when Shawn showed for time with the kids.

Because I put it all on him.

On her.

Even when I’d…I’d need something, they’d be there. Like Shawn buying a new snow blower when I didn’t have one at the house I was in.

That he was paying the rent on. It was just…he was that target…my life blew up and I couldn’t get why?

Only the last big fight…. The stuff I said…he looked different, something…he’d started. The hormone thing and he was over in guy mode trying. But I lost it…was a total bitch and honestly I know half of the stuff was bullshit. I took every little thing about us and al the stuff I’d been through since and unleashed hell on them.

I wasn’t expecting Sarah to fight back.

I didn’t listen either since I was more concerned about being right, about winning but it wasn’t me fighting, me just yelling at Shaun and Shaun taking it…because honestly that’s what Shaun did.

Sarah was here to stay and it was my first married fight with another woman and we ended up screaming at each other.

She left in tears, I stayed in bed for a week in tears and depression.

Mom, practically moved in which just sort of made stuff worse.

Then we got separated.

And the kids being older…well Shaun barely showed except to pick them up.

And I lost it once on the kids when they were talking about Sarah and how much they liked her and when it clicked just who this Sarah was I freaked out.

Sarah, Sarah…even my mom had mentioned this Sarah.

And Tara got back in my face then. “Jesus Christ Mom it’s not about you! I know it sucks, I know you hate this but JUST BECAUSE YOU MARRIED SOMEONE DOESN’T MEAN YOU GET TO CONTROL WHO THEY ARE!!!”

And Shane agreed with her…hell so did mom…it was like puling teeth for her to tell me but…

And that’s when I went into therapy.

I had to get past this somehow for my kids…to tolerate her…Sarah.

We still never talked after that…

I touched based in therapy with a lot of my feelings.

Ranted, cried, went on anti-depressants for awhile.

Jogged…since I was “Back on the market.”

Actually jogging got Tara and me tighter…she’s on the track team so I started going out with her on training runs.

Dated…still not divorced…I can’t file those. I couldn’t.

Couldn’t if She wanted out then She would have to file dammit.

But yeah, dating…I hated it. I’m not meant to date…It just felt off and wrong and none of those guys were Shaun.

I slept with two of them, I hated it as soon as we were done.

I cried both times.

I even tried…tried being a lesbian.

I went out with a lesbian friend at a club.

That was okay, it sort of wasn’t as bad as guys hitting on me…women sort of did that differently.

It took seven of those nights before I went home with Monique.

And I broke down on her halfway through bawling because it was good…but it was good because so much of the way she touched me, so much of the way she did things…was so much like Shawn.

That’s the night the Sarah truck ran me over all over again.

That’s when I realized it.

It’d always been Sarah…right?

And that was another three months of therapy.

And some gender study stuff.

And a shit ton of guilt.

Then Donald passed away, Sarah’s dad and she I guess had to go and deal with stuff so we brought the kids down. Mom’s helping out and I’m…I’m here.

After the funeral, with my In-laws.

And they’re being extra assholes…the estate stuff and the fact they have a hate out for Sarah. It’s just al kind of redneck asshole anti-trans…eeew it’s queer and we don’t get it stuff.

I take another drink or tea and barely get it down and I head into the kitchen looking for something else, coffee maybe.

That’s when I see her.

She’s got shoulder length light brown hair now, her bits of grey gone for some red-blonde highlights, glasses…well new cute ones and she’s in a nice blouse and a skirt and she’s dabbing at her blouse with a stain on it.

“I have a new one you can use in my bag.”

She looks up at me and there’s this look there.

Lonely but something else too…and that’s herself.

Her eyes, the eyes shadow, the mascara…the glasses can’t hide those eyes and the fact that Sarah has Shaun’s eyes minus a lot of the stress and pain they had carried for so long.

“You wouldn’t mind?”

I shake my head and bite my lower lip. “No…wives are supposed to share stuff sometimes right?”

And that’s where she’s really staring at me. “Mare?”

I shrug… “I…I don’t know…okay, Sarah honestly I don’t know…” I walk over and touch her face and she actually flinched a little.

She gave me this heartbreaking look of hope? She does the hard swallow and nods.

“But I…I think I want to find out…I think I want to try…can we?”

She’s quiet crying now leaving little mascara trails down her face and it’s her pouring out that beer at the sink all over again.

She nods.

I try a shy smile. “Can…Can you stay just a little bit longer?”

Sarah nods again and another swallow.

I lean in and I kiss her…I’m scared as hell and it is on the lips…and she smells like perfume and make-up and like a woman’s skin.

But everything about the kiss is the same…She’s…yeah…dammit she’s that girl I never knew but fell in love with back in my first year of college.