There are key moments in everyone’s life that determine their future. They lie in one’s memory and emerge when other major events occur and this way they influence forthcoming life. Sometimes they seem negligible and are ignored by others while others that seem to be significant are just a consequences of a series of decisions made years ago. Those are not pleasant or sweet in most cases though they force me to go back and relive them again and again. Thus I can write only ‘bout my memories ‘cause only I and nobody else can know what moments are really key moments.

The Name

The first thing I remember that influenced my whole life was my mom calling me a tomboy when I was eight. First of all, I didn’t like the word itself. Has it the same meaning as a tomcat? A cat that’s supposed to be gentle and soft but is scrappy and pugnacious? I wasn’t that! I wasn’t a kind of pink colored girly girl though I wasn’t a boy. Dolls and doll houses weren’t my favorite game but I’d played doll house with other girls and I didn’t like to play with toy cars and trucks or, what was even worse, to play a soldier. I didn’t like dresses and white tights for everyday wear, preferring shorts or jeans though a frilly dress was okay for Sunday church or for a visit to Granny.

“Don’t spoil Diane with dolls. She’s a tomboy so buy her a bike instead,” Mom said to Granny. That name had hurt me a lot and brought me to tears. Both Mom and Granny tried to soothe and calm me down but the word had been said. This incident might be seen as a petty and insignificant. Probably it was such in fact, but for me, it was a clue of uncertainty about who and what I was. Was I false, awry, or simply incorrect? I return to it seriously or sarcastically every time my behavior is questioned till now, when I'm my mother's age.

The New Home

I was eleven when our family moved to the new house after dad was promoted. The house was big enough for my elder brother Zen and me to have separate bathrooms. While before, Zen lived in the guestroom on the first floor. On the same floor, our parents’ bedroom had its own bathroom, too. On the ground floor there was a big family room, the kitchen, the guest room, and an additional bathroom. Our backyard was separated from our neighbor's yard by a picket fence and wicket. The neighbors’ houses were identical to ours as it was a block of all new houses made by the same builder.

A day after we’d moved in, I saw a girl strolling around the neighbors’ backyard, and I went over to introduce myself. She was almost my height, her dark blonde, slightly wavy shoulder length hair framed her face and it seemed to draw attention to her big light blue eyes and long eyelashes. She was dressed the same way as I: shorts and short sleeved shirt.

“Hi, I’m Diane,” I said, "We moved in yesterday so we are neighbors."

“Hi, I’m Jerry,” it was a boy apparently, “call me J, I don’t like Jerry.”

That same day, I met another girl my age, Chloe. I invited her to our house to play. I had (I still have it) a big doll house. It was boring to play with the house alone; while playing dolls with some other girls was much more fun. While we were in my room, I looked out the window and saw Jerry in the backyard.

“Would you like to join us?” I called to him from the open window.

“I have to ask my brother,” he said and ran into the house and a minute later I saw him crossing the backyard again and a few moments later, I was introducing him as J to Chloe. I was sure it would be a lot of fun making a boy play doll house with us. But where I thought that J would be embarrassed to play with dolls, he did not have a problem at all.

J was taking every doll in his hands the way a mother would hold her babies, not the straight way I or other girls usually did. Then he was adjusting their clothes and changing them as if they were dirty and later he brushed their hair. He wasn’t showing a sign he was bored or embarrassed to be doing any of this. He was talking to them, telling them how nice and pretty they are and how their mom and their dad loved them. Then he put all the dolls in a semicircle to watch TV.

Later, he asked me for a wet duster. I brought him one from the kitchen and he began to clean the dolls’ house crooning silently something I wasn’t able to understand. I have to admit that I’d never cleaned my doll house; probably Mom was cleaning it every time she was cleaning up a mess in my room.

Then I thought ‘why not play in full?’ “You’ll be mom and I’ll be the dad,” I said to J. So he put every doll in its bed and said he had to make dinner for them and for daddy while they had a nap. He arranged a table and put plates together with spoons on it. Then it was time for daddy (me) to come home so he awakened all the dolls and made them sit in the room.

“Kids, come here. Daddy’s home!” he shouted and then turned to me, “The kids and I are so happy that you are at home at last, honey.” He took every doll and made them kiss my cheek. ”We missed you all day,” and he kissed me on my cheek and suddenly turned beet red. It was something to see.

Chloe was stunned and I, too, had never seen other girls being such a mom. I was certainly nothing like that. His play was as an instructional video of how ‘The house’ had to be played.

We were chatting and Chloe wanted to boast about her newly pierced ears. My ears had been pierced already.

“J, you definitely need your ears pierced,” Chloe said. “You would be startling in earrings.”

“I can’t. I’m a boy.” The way he said that sounded so sad.

“I’m a pope if you are a boy,” she said, shaking her head.

He suddenly noticed his mom’s car pulling up to his house.

“I’ve to go,” he said, “see you later, bye!”

“She can’t be a boy!” Chloe stated as we watched him running in girl manner across the backyard to his house.

The Silly Girl

It was a state hard to describe. It was when everything was going well without any problems. That included a supportive family, friendly neighbors, success at school, relatives and friends. There was no sign of any kind of disaster coming or, in other words, I was sure any adversity would bypass our home.

It was the second Christmas in our new home and Granny had come and stayed for ten days for the school’s season break. Granny was a very special person. I could talk to her more than to my mom and she was understanding and supportive. My friends liked her too and Granny would say that she’d gained another two grandchildren, Chloe and J.

But everything comes to its end. Season break was over and Mom had to take Granny home and I asked to go along. It was a nice sunny winter day and the temperature dropped a little and some fog formed during the drive home. I had insisted upon sitting in the front seat because it was more convenient to chat with Mom during the drive home.

The road had become covered with black ice and traffic was moving very slowly. Suddenly, the truck in front of our car started to brake and its trailer’s tail slid to the right. Mom tried to brake too but our car, instead of stopping, turned across the road and continued moving in the same direction while the jeep behind us smashed into my side and pushed mom’s side into the edge of the trailer. Glass crushed first, then the car’s metal parts crumpled. Mom and I were pressed into each other and then the trailer’s edge tore into Mom’s shoulder.

Everything stopped.

No, time didn’t stop. There was a clock in the middle of the cockpit and it was showing time passing. Seconds and minutes passed in silence and I heard Mom whispering “I love you” to me. Those were her last words. Another two hours passed till help arrived.

In the time between the crash and the rescue team cutting me free, I tried to talk to my mother. She never answered me. I tried to tell her I was sorry about wanting to tag along on the trip, that it was my fault she got hurt. By the time I was pulled out of crumpled mess of our car, I knew that my mother was no more and I was curled in on myself.

I didn't say anything to the paramedics while they were examining me. I barely knew what was happening around me and their assessment was shock, so I was rushed to the hospital. My father was a surgeon at the same hospital and he brought me home rather than leave me there in a bed.

Dad gave me a shot to help me sleep. J and Chloe were with me. I squeezed J’s hand tightly and asked “Don’t leave me alone please.” The next thing I remembered was the sun shining and I was lying in my room and J was sitting by me with his hand still in my tight squeeze.

“Thank God you’re back. Feeling better?” he asked. I nodded. “Your dad asked me to call him after you woke up.” I nodded again and released his hand. He rushed from the room and called my dad.

He squeezed J's shoulder in thanks and said, “Go home now J, I’ll take care of Diane.” J left the room. Dad sat beside my bed and held my hand in place of J. We missed my mother together.

I knew what happened and I knew why it happened this way. If I was sitting on the back seat, Mom would be still alive while there wasn’t enough room for both of us in the front of the crumpled car. No one ever blamed me but me myself.

There was something else that I didn’t remember by myself but my brother Zen told me few months later. I was unconscious for almost a day and a half after my dad’s shot. J sat by my bed for all that time with his hand squeezed in mine, he refused to eat or go to bathroom because he said I needed him to stay with me.

The Perfect One

“Who’s the perfect one,” ‘it was rather a statement than a question and I didn’t intend to answer. It was one of those “girly talks” with J’s mom, one of those things I was longing for after my mom being gone. Chloe’s mom was very sweet, a kind of girly girl like Chloe was, and talks with her were usually a one way consolation of poor girl (me), not a conversation. J’s mom was different. She wasn’t trying to comfort me rather to help me find the right way.

One of things that I missed after mom’s death were her reminders to behave. Strange? When mom was alive, her standard “Sit straight” or “Watch your knees” were phrases that I usually ignored. Now, when I was left to myself, those phrases sounded in my head and I started to watch how I sat, how I ate, how I walked, how I talked, how I laughed.

I started to watch others, Chloe and J, my best friends. They both were perfect. I mean they both were acting like perfect girls, Chloe and J. I’d treated J as a boy, a weird one but a boy anyway. I’d tried to imagine that J was a girl. That wasn’t hard. J, as a girl, suited all situations better than a boy except at school.

In fact, J was probably better at being a girl than I was. I was confused. I needed advice and I turned to my brother Zen “what do you think about J?” His answer was something like “what’s wrong with her?” I didn’t bother to ask him again. ‘She’? I had to talk with someone. No, not with someone, but with J’s mom.

"I have a strange feeling that J is a girl not a boy. What do you think?” I said.

“Is this first time in three years that you have wondered that?” she replied with a small smile.

This was really not the answer I had expected. “So do you think that it is okay if J is a girl?” I asked.

“Yes, I do. It’s ok when and after she says she’s a girl.”

Wow. “But she’s not real and she will never, NEVER be a REAL girl!” I almost shouted. “Who’s the perfect one?”

I didn't know that J had overheard our conversation, but not all of it.

"J is a better girl than I am. She would be a better mother than me, I'm just a tomboy. I wish I could help her."

J's mother caught me up in a hug to calm the shaking that had come over me. When I had calmed down, she pushed me out to hold me at arm's length and looked me in the eye. "Yes, J is going to be a girl and she must try harder because of that."

The Despair

A couple of weeks after I’d realized that J was rather more of a girl than a boy, J’s dad came home earlier than usual. He didn’t expect anyone to be at home so he sat in the kitchen and put a kettle for some tea when he suddenly realized water was dripping from the ceiling. “Again with that bath tub’s plumbing,” he sighed and went upstairs.

Bad plumbing was rather by luck and not otherwise or it would have been too late because there was J laying in the tub with the veins at his elbows cut deep and warm water still running. He was already unconscious and the doctor couldn’t say whether he would survive or not. “This time we’ve saved him,” doctor said next day.

‘This time…’ If they were talking about ‘this time’ than there could be ‘another time’ and then another and another till J succeeded in his attempt. I had a bad feeling. The same feeling as when my mom was passing away in the car a year ago. I caused J’s attempt. J was left in the hospital to recover and he asked me to bring him some books from his room. I found all the books he wanted quickly… as well as Jessica’s diary.

I probably should not have, but I took the diary, with good intentions of course. One good thing is that I got to know her name. I’d started to read from the last page. There was a despair that she could never be a mom and she’d grasped it after she’d heard my words ‘never real’. There was no hate in those pages, only love and hope. Both her mom and dad knew everything and they’d planned that J would start high school as a girl as a real life test. Everything was set but here had come a wise girl named Diane with her verdict: “She’ll never be a real woman!”

‘This time…’

I had to do something about it. If not, there might be another time. I was a self-confident, stupid bitch much too often so I asked dad for advice. He simply took the diary from me and went straight to J’s mom. I don’t know what they’d been talking about but the doc (my dad) and the lawyers (J’s parents) had come to some conclusion although I didn’t know what.

Getting Through School

We started high school that autumn, Chloe, me, and Jessica. Chloe's family and mine were the only ones other than the school administration who knew that Jessica had been born as Jerry. The law would not allow Jessica to become complete a girl until she was legally an adult, but she was able to take the medications she needed and she looked just like the rest of us.

Of course, kids are smart and they eventually figured out that Jessica was not who she said she was. There were only a couple of families who had a problem with Jessica being a girl. They had no grounds for a complaint because we were more than halfway through the school year and she had not done anything that could make anyone uncomfortable. She never used the same bathrooms as the other girls and she did not go into the locker rooms.

There were still a couple of problems when she was revealed. She was never physically bullied, things never had a chance to get that far. No bully, boy or girl, had the nerve to go up against an entire group of girls who would tell them in no uncertain terms that Jessica was our friend and anyone who bullied her would deal with all of us.

There was one boy, Paul, who still had a problem with Jessica. He was careful never to say anything to her after that first time. I never knew why he felt the way he did. I remember telling him something just a couple of weeks after Jessica's secret was out and he said something mean about her. I told him, "Jessica is more girl than any other girl you can find in the world…ever." He left her alone after that and stayed far away from her. At least for a while.

All through high school, Chloe, Jessica, and I did everything together. There were slumber parties, shopping trips, and parties. Sure, there were other girls in our group, but it was always the three of us together.

It was in our last year of school that we started to drift apart. The cause, of course, was boys. Chloe started dating one of the boys on the football team and then it was just Jessica and I. Jessica wasn’t a problem but I was. The only boy to whom I was attracted was J and J was long gone. I wasn’t unmoved by Jessica but I couldn’t allow myself to show my feelings to her. She was a girl and girls were supposed to be interested in boys not girls. If my feeling were odd that didn’t mean I had the right to force Jessica’s feeling in the wrong direction. I wasn’t a lesbian but no other girl was important to me but Jessica.

Both of us were very surprised when Paul came to me to tell me that he wanted to ask Jessica to the senior party at year end, but he was afraid that I would think that he was trying to cause trouble. He told me, "I've thought a long time about what you told me once Diane. I looked at Jessica through your eyes and I found that you were right."

I was surprised at what Paul said to me and I told him that he would be very sorry if he hurt my friend in any way. After he assured me that his intentions were pure, I give him my blessing to ask Jessica to be his date. I ended up by myself at the party because I had turned down my invitations before Paul asked Jessica, but I was so happy for my friend. She looked like every other girl in the room when she was dancing with Paul.

My dad was Jessica’s surgeon. The operation was carried out the day after we graduated from high school. Chloe, Jessica, and I had remained best friends for all of these years. In all of that time, there had never been any reproach or blame from Jessica, just friendship if not to say love. I still remembered the hurt my words had caused my friend and I always tried to watch what I said to her or around her.

Jessica and Paul continued to see each other after her surgery and I felt a bit like a fifth wheel when I was around them. As a result, I took the opportunity to leave for Europe to pursue my architectural degree. I didn't want to stay and hurt their relationship by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. I had never forgotten Jessica's time in the hospital.

Home Sweet Home

I was still in touch with my family though, I called my dad few times a year. But men are men and such is my dad. He never said more than I asked him about. The only time when he said more was almost four years ago when Chloe’s dad passed away. My dad was home alone now in the house that I had grown up in. My brother Zen had gotten married and had moved away with his wife. He has three kids now and saw my dad quite often. Chloe was married too and was the mother of three kids and they lived in her mother's house.

Jessica and Paul had broken up about a year after school ended. She was still living with her parents and was helping my father at times. Seven years had passed since I had left home and gone off to school. Because I had just gotten a job back in my home town, I agreed to celebrate my twenty-fifth birthday at home with my dad. Dad said it was okay with him and he would make sure that my room was ready for me.

The house was clean and neat when I arrived and Dad was happy to see me. There was my old doll house in the room. I looked out the window at the backyard with the picket fence and wickets with signs of frequent use. Everything was the same as if I’d left yesterday.

Everything with the exception of the emptiness inside. Inside the house and inside of me.

Standing there in my old bedroom brought old memories rushing back to me. I had spent years worrying about what I might say or do because it could cause someone pain and I was so afraid that it might happen again. I still missed my mother so much and I realized that I had missed being around Jessica.

It was time for some coffee with dad so I went downstairs to the kitchen. As I turned the corner at the bottom, I was confronted with a loud chorus of “Happy birthday dear Diane…”

It was really something! The living room was full of my dearest friends. I didn’t remember a time when I had so many hugs and tears and hugs again. What dad hadn’t told me was that Zen had married Chloe and she was now my sister-in-law and that dad was about to marry her mom and was just waiting for my approval (I was confused). My sister-in-law would be my sister and my brother would also be my brother-in-law. It made me think of a silly joke.

Of course, Jessica was there and looking as pretty as she ever had. We hugged and exchanged friendly kisses. After all of the greetings and hugs, she and I ended up in a corner of the living room to talk about the paths that our lives had taken. She had gone to university to learn to be a teacher and I was coming back to my home town to take a job with an architectural firm.

She told me about how she and Paul had parted as friends. We giggled when she told me that he was a good kisser. I admitted that I had dated a few times in school, “I never found the right one that I wanted to settle down with”, I said.

It was when Jessica confessed to me that she was sorry that she could never be a mother. I was sorry too. It was a pity that a woman whose destiny was to be mother couldn’t be one.

The Mummy

I was talking with my dad the same night after the party. “Jessica could be the best mummy I could imagine and she can’t to be one,” I said.

“She can’t deliver the baby though she can have children of her own,” dad replied. “I took samples of her semen and froze it. So she has just to find a surrogate mother.”

“Why didn't you say something about that before?” I yelled at him.

He just looked at me and said, “Have you asked?” Are all men the same?

Why had Jessica never told this to me or Chloe? Maybe it was too personal or she didn’t want to make us feel that we owed her the possibility to have her own kids. I didn’t know at the moment while I was running through the backyard to her house. Even though it was very late, I saw lights in the kitchen.

Jessica was sitting at the table, eating a slice of the birthday cake I had sent home with her. I sat down next to her and took her hands in mine.

"I’m sorry I’m so late but I just found out about your frozen semen. Will you accept me as your surrogate mom, please," I said as I looked into her eyes. This day was suited for hugs and tears of joy.

It was just the following week that we had the procedure performed and we discovered that I was pregnant a few weeks later. It was really lucky for us because it does not usually happen on the first try. By October, there was no doubt that I was carrying twins. I thought that it was good karma for me because I felt that I owed two lives. Dad and my new Mom let me stay with them (after a few months to let them enjoy their honeymoon) and Jessica watched over me when we would both arrive home from our jobs.

I recalled the days when we had played house together and Jessica would take care of the babies and pretend that I was coming home from work. Now it was true with the only difference that Jessica was coming home at the same time. She would act like the mother and fix us all an evening meal. After eating, she and I would sit and talk about our days. She loved to hear my stories about some of my more interesting co-workers and clients. When she talked about her school children, it was obvious that she really cared for them.

I got to know my new step-mother during those days as well. She turned out not to be woman I thought she was when I was growing up. She did not just tell me what she thought I wanted to hear like she did after my mother died. I should have known that because Chloe grew up to be a wise and mature woman and mother. Chloe's daughter and two boys were well behaved and polite. They studied hard as well. My step mother and I got along well. I found that I was willing to accept her as the mother I had lost and she helped me with some of the guilt I had carried over the years.

In the middle of April, labor pains started and Dad took me to the hospital. Of course, Jessica was my delivery coach and she helped me through it all, staying right by my side. When it was over and I was completely awake again, I found out that I’d delivered two girls, pretty ones. Jessica had already decided to name them Lena and Natalie.

Jessica was taking medication to help her breasts produce milk because we thought my own milk might not enough for the twins. We were sure that both girls would need to be changed at the same time or be fed at the same time. Everyone could see that Jessica and I made a good team to take care of them both. But reality was a little different. Every mother knows when she needs to check her baby, when her baby is about to get restless, or when it’s time to feed him. I was sure I was that kind of mother but every time I thought it would be good to check or feed the girls, Jessica was already at their cradle no matter if it was a day or night. Then there came teething time for both of girls and Jessica was tireless, soothing and caring for them every day and every night.

The Agreement

Status quo was exactly what suited me best. There was Jessica and the girls, my dad and my brother were happy and lived in my neighborhood. On the other hand, being a mother increased Jessica’s self-confidence to new levels. She was now the mother of her own daughters and at the same time she was young and attractive. She was ready to build a new family, a normal family.

Before we had started on this adventure, I had signed all the usual papers for this procedure in which I agreed to never interfere in my daughters’ lives after they were weaned. I knew that I would have to give up the girls to Jessica and I was feeling bad as the time to wean the girls approached, but it was the only way I could make Jessica’s life happy.

I was making arrangements to move again. I needed a job first and I had submitted applications to some European companies. The first one that had sent me an invitation was from Norway. It wasn't exactly the best choice, but some challenge could be good for me at the moment.

“Something important?” my step-mother asked while I was reading the letter in the kitchen.

“I’ve got a job in Norway,” I replied.

“Wow, it’s a wonderful country. I visited it when I was pregnant with Chloe. I’m sure Jessica and girls will like it a lot.”

“I'm going alone,” I said sadly. “I signed an agreement to leave the girls after they were weaned.”

She frowned at me. “Does Jessica know?”

I just shrugged. Accepting the fact that I was losing my daughters and leaving Jessica had me feeling very low. “She signed the same agreement so I guess she does know that I have to leave.”

Mom put our conversation on hold by holding up a finger. That was something she used to do when I would visit Chloe. It didn't matter if someone was in an argument, when that finger went up, talking stopped.

She grabbed the phone and made a call, “Hello Melanie? I need your help. It’s urgent. Please, now!”

Jessica’s mom was in our kitchen in less than a minute.

“Diane is leaving,” my step-mom said.

There was only one word in response, “Why?” which was said in unison by Jessica’s mom and by Jessica who had come in behind her mom. Jessica's expression showed that she was upset by my news and tears were already forming.

I took a deep breath to get through the coming painful conversation.

“First of all, we both signed the agreement that said I have to leave after girls are weaned. Second, Jessica, you and the girls are most important people in my life. I can’t stand in your way to build and live in a straight family with a father and you as the only mom. If I leave now, the girls will not remember me and I could come back later as your friend.”

Jessica's mom crossed her arms and looked at me sternly. “First,” she said, “the statement you are referring to was embarrassing for you and unfair to the girls. I told you that some changes were made but you said you trusted me and you signed without reading.”

My step-mom took up the conversation and said, "Second, you haven’t learned the lesson I was talking about. Follow your heart, not prejudices, to make yourself and people around you happy.”

I found myself getting tag-teamed as Jessica finished off. “Don’t you see we are the one, the family you are talking about? You, me, and the girls? Don’t break us apart please, stay with us.” She was in tears when she added, “I never told you how much I missed you when you went off to university."

The Names

Jessica and I got married less than two months after that. We both wore white and our fathers gave us each away to the other. We have been staying with her Mom and Dad until we can buy our own home.

Jessica decided to take time off from her teaching position to be with the girls. They were calling her Mummy while I was simply Mom or Mother just to spice things up.

When I come home from work, she is waiting with the girls to give me kisses and to welcome me home. Just like when we would play with the doll house.