“Jack, it’s Mindy. Tim has — gone through a Twist. You promised you’d come if — when — it happened...”

 

“I’ll be there.”

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Wanderer and Homebody

Part 1 of 6

by Trismegistus Shandy

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This story is set, with Morpheus' kind permission, in his Twisted universe. It's a sequel of sorts to my earlier novel Twisted Throwback, but it should stand alone tolerably well (though it features three characters from Twisted Throwback). Thanks to Morpheus for his feedback on the rough draft.

You can read the opening chapter of my novel The Bailiff and the Mermaid for free, or buy it at Smashwords or Amazon.

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I’d been hiking through the highlands of Papua New Guinea for several weeks, stopping here and there for a few days to get to know people and learn their language. I’d been staying in one village for three days, picking up a decent working knowledge of Wogamusin; the itch to travel was getting stronger, but I thought I’d resist it for a day or two more — until I had a larger vocabulary and a stronger grasp of the verb system.

But then my sat phone rang in the middle of the night. It was an emergency tone; at that time of night the call would have gone to voicemail if it weren’t from one of the small set of people who have the right to interrupt me any time. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and answered it, too bleary yet to read the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Jack, it’s Mindy. Tim has — gone through a Twist. You promised you’d come if — when — it happened...”

“I’ll be there.”

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But getting from the PNG highlands to Austin, Texas — where my ex lives with our son, her new hubby and his kids by his previous — isn’t a short trip no matter how you hurry it. Just getting to the nearest international airport, at Port Moresby, took me most of the following day, and then the next flight I could use wasn’t for several hours. Then I had a three-hour flight to Brisbane and a four-hour layover before I could get on a plane to Houston.

By the time I got to Austin, I’d gotten several worrying messages from Mindy, one brief one from Tim, and one (more reassuring) from my niece Emily, who said she was flying out to Austin to help Tim with his Twist. She’d get there way ahead of me, having a much shorter distance to travel; fortunately Tim’s Twist happened during Emily’s spring break.

Emily offered to pick me up at the airport, but I declined; I wanted to rent a car to use while I was in town. “You know how I am,” I said, “if I get wanderlusty in the middle of the night I don’t want to depend on somebody else for a ride.” Actually, once the crisis with Tim was over, and it looked like I was overstaying my welcome with Mindy and her new guy Steve, I’d probably end up buying a used car and traveling around the States for a while. But I didn’t want to waste time car shopping when Tim needed his dad.

I called Mindy again when I’d finished signing for the car. “I’ll be there in about half an hour.”

“We’re almost finished eating supper,” she apologized, “I wasn’t sure how long you’d take... I can reheat some leftovers when you get here.”

“Maybe, or I can eat on the way. Don’t sweat it.”

“Actually... I think Tim would like you to eat here.”

“...I’ll save my appetite, then.”

I’d heard partial accounts of Tim’s Twist in those messages, but I didn’t get a clear picture of it until I’d been in Austin for a couple of days. Maybe it seems coy or disingenuous, but I think it makes sense to show you how I saw Tim for myself, as though I’d heard hardly anything about his Twist ahead of time, instead of filtering your perceptions through Mindy’s and Emily’s, the way mine were filtered.

Traffic was light and I made good time. I sent Mindy a heads-up message while I was sitting at a stop light near the house, and minutes later I parked on the east side of the driveway. I saw another rental car, probably Emily’s, and one I recognized as Mindy’s; the other one must be Steve’s.

A few moments after I rang the bell, a girl opened the door. She looked about fourteen years old, as indeed she was, with shoulder-length light brown hair done up in a ponytail, and blue eyes, wearing a yellow housedress with a blue apron. I recognized her from a photo Mindy had sent me.

“Tim?”

“Hi, Daddy,” she said, looking shy — as though she weren’t sure I would approve of her. I couldn’t let her doubt that for a moment longer; I enfolded her in a hug.

“It’s so good to see you, Tim. I’ll always be proud to be your dad.” Then I remembered how she’d addressed me, and added: “Or your daddy.”

“It’s okay if I call you that?”

“It’s okay, Tim. Um — last I heard you hadn’t picked a new name?”

“No, I’m still thinking about it. Emily says I should be sure it’s the right one.”

“Your cousin’s a smart girl, you should listen to her.”

“Come on in, Jack.” Mindy stood in the doorway to the kitchen, and didn’t move any closer as Tim moved aside to let me into the living room, then closed the door behind me. “Tim’s kept a plate hot for you.”

“And I didn’t put the cake in the oven until after you left the airport,” Tim added. “It’s apple walnut cake.”

“Your grandma’s recipe?”

“Yes. I messaged her and asked her for it, when I found out when you were going to get here. Mom and Emily helped, but I did most of it.”

So was Tim’s interest in cooking new in the last three days, or something he’d picked up in the months since I’d seen him at Christmas, before his Twist? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want my priorities to look weird; I decided to save it for later. I just said: “Sounds delicious,” and followed them into the kitchen.

Tim took charge, heating up a plate and setting it on the table with a set of silverware. “Do you want sweet tea?” she asked.

“You know me well,” I agreed. She poured a glass and set it next to the plate, and I sat down, more than half expecting her to sit down with me; but instead she went to work putting dishes from the sink into the dishwasher.

“I’m almost done with this,” she said.

“Tim, do try to sit down and talk with your father when you’re done with that,” Mindy said. From what she’d said, and more from Emily’s latest message, I’d gathered that Tim had some compulsions since her Twist, and I realized I was seeing one of them now.

“We can talk while she works, if it makes her feel more comfortable,” I said, and then realized I’d just used female pronouns for Tim. Would Tim like that? Safer to stick to second-person pronouns until I was sure... “Or — you can do the talking at first, Tim, since your mom won’t want me talking with my mouth full.”

Mindy gave the ghost of a smile.

“So, um, I guess you want to know about my Twist?” Tim said, looking over her shoulder as she loaded the dishes. “I turned into a girl, and I care a lot about keeping things neat and clean and organized. Um. That’s about it. I still like collecting arthropods but I’ve been too busy to go out looking for more. And I’d like to keep playing soccer, for a girls' team I guess, but I’m not sure they’ll want me since I’m Twisted. I’m too busy right now anyway, but I’d like to play again, maybe with kids who are just playing for fun and not competing in tournaments...”

I’d been hearing TV noises, and occasional loud comments, from the den; I inferred that Mindy’s husband Steve and her stepson Craig were in there watching something, possibly a basketball game. Just then I heard the muffled sound of rushing water, and the door of the hall bathroom opened; Emily came out.

“Uncle Jack!” she exclaimed, coming into the kitchen. “I won’t hug you while your mouth’s full and my hands are wet. — We need a clean hand towel in the hall bathroom, Aunt Mindy; where do you keep them?”

“In the hall closet, on the lower left shelf,” Mindy started to say, and Tim said: “I’ll take care of it,” stowing a plate in the dishwasher and then heading toward the hall.

“Nuh-uh,” Emily said. “You sit down and visit with your dad, I can find the towels.”

Tim looked torn, and I said: “I won’t be offended if you go and do housework while I’m eating supper. But — just something to think about — you won’t know how strong your compulsions really are unless you try to resist them sometimes.”

“The house will still get clean if you let other people do some of the work,” Emily said. “Sit.”

“Okay,” Tim said, and sat down next to me.

“Where’s your sister? Watching the game in yonder with the boys...?” Lisa was Steve’s daughter, and just a few months older than Tim. They got along pretty well, or such had been my impression when I’d seen them together.

“Sleepover at a friend’s house,” Mindy volunteered. Tim was fidgeting with the stuff in the center of the table, scooting the napkin holder, salt shaker and so forth this way and that until they were symmetrically aligned. I was getting worried about him. About her. Over and above whatever gender confusion Tim might be feeling, a compulsion like that could be crippling if Tim couldn’t find a workaround for it.

“What did the doctors say about you?” I asked.

“Um, our family doctor said I’m a real girl with all the girl parts.” Her tone was matter-of-fact; maybe slightly embarrassed, but not more than I’d expect any girl to be when talking about a medical exam with her father. “But I haven’t seen a Twist doctor yet.”

“There aren’t any Twist specialists in Austin,” Mindy put in apologetically. “I was going to take her to the clinic in Dallas, but it’s such a long drive and Steve or I will have to take the day off work...”

“I can do it,” I said.

“Would you? Thanks. We have a tentative appointment for Friday at one. My boss approved me taking the day off, but he’ll be even more pleased if I don’t have to.”

“I hope I can get things straightened out by Friday,” Tim said. “Would it be okay if I work on some stuff while we visit, the next few days? I need to wash all the windows on the other three sides of the house — I did the front ones today — and I need to finish organizing the cabinets and closets, and clean the den and the other bedrooms besides mine... If I can do all that by Friday I think I’ll be okay to go to Dallas for the day.”

“I’ll help,” Emily said, returning from her towel-mission.

“I’ll help out too, with whatever you need — washing the outside windows, maybe?”

“Thanks, Daddy.” She smiled back at me; but I noticed that Mindy was biting her lip.

“What’s up?” I asked her.

“It’s just... when Steve came home and saw Tim washing the front windows, he told her to stop, and he’d wash the rest of the outside windows himself; she could do the inside ones if she wanted. But he won’t have time until Saturday.”

“Steve needs to learn to accommodate his stepdaughter’s Twist,” I said, with a glance at the hallway and the den; but the TV was still loud enough they couldn’t hear us in there. “Tim, if you feel like you can’t go anywhere unless you’re easy in your mind about the house being in order... is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah.”

“Then we’ll try our hardest to make sure the house is in order by Friday, or if necessary, we’ll postpone your clinic appointment until it is. But maybe you should try resisting that compulsion sometimes. Maybe not with a seven or eight hour trip to Dallas, not at first, but we could try going out for lunch tomorrow during a break from cleaning?”

She twitched. “I... I’d rather not, Daddy. I... got kind of weird when we went out yesterday.” She glanced at her mom, and Mindy said:

“Not long after Emily got here we took Tim clothes shopping. But she got so anxious about the state of the house that we had to come home early, we hardly had time to buy anything.”

I involuntarily sucked in a breath. That was bad.

“Well,” I said, “let’s get this place clean, shall we?” I started to push away my plate, which I’d about finished with, but on second thought I picked it up and walked toward the dishwasher with it. I glanced aside at Tim; would she be happy that someone else was helping keep the place clean, or upset at not being able to do the cleaning herself? She seemed okay with it.

Just then an alarm pinged, and Tim said: “The cake should be finished.” She took it out of the oven and poked it with a fork. “Yes! Mom, could you tell them the cake’s ready? Daddy, how big a slice do you want?”

Mindy smiled and went down the hall toward the den.

“So,” I said as Tim served up our slices of cake, “I haven’t had a chance to ask yet; how is grad school treating you, Emily? Are you keeping up with your Mandarin?”

“Yes, Uncle Jack,” she said in Mandarin. “I am practicing with Chinese exchange students, although I am not currently taking any Mandarin classes.”

“Good. — Let’s talk later, privately. I’d like to hear what you think about how Tim is adjusting, especially to the change in gender.” Then in English, “This is some good cake here, Tim. You’ll make your grandma proud.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I hoped I got it right. It’s the first time I’ve made it.”

“Had you ever done any baking before?”

She shrugged. “I helped Mom bake cookies now and then, back when it was just her and me. But not very often.”

Just then Mindy returned with Steve and Craig. “Somebody mentioned cake?” Craig said, and Tim offered him a slice on a small plate.

Steve nodded politely to me. “Jack.”

“Steve,” I said. “Good to see you.”

I didn’t begrudge him Mindy. We’d remained intermittent lovers after we separated for the first time, and we were still friends after the divorce, but I knew I couldn’t be the kind of man she needed, not with my travel-compulsion, and I was glad she’d finally found someone. I just wished Steve would believe that.

“How long do you think you’ll stay in town?” he asked.

“As long as Tim needs me, with maybe a break of a day or two here or there if I find I have to get on the road again for a while. I’ve got a reservation at the Holiday Inn over on Parmer Lane; I’ll head over there in a little while.” They just had one guest bedroom, and Emily was sleeping in it; besides, the one time I’d stayed there since Mindy and Tim moved in with Steve, I’d felt acutely uncomfortable, and since then I’d stayed in a hotel.

“I’ll see you tomorrow after work, then. Have a good visit with Tim.” He took his slice of cake and returned to the den and the TV. Craig paused long enough to compliment Tim on the cake, of which he’d already wolfed down once slice and taken another, before he returned to watch the second half of the game with his dad.

It was only after everyone else had gotten some, and she’d set aside a couple of slices under plastic wrap with a big label saying “THIS CAKE IS FOR LISA”, that Tim sat down with us and ate a slice of it herself.

“I need to get back to work pretty soon,” she said. “I can run the dishwasher after we finish our cake, and then I need to get back to work on the windows...”

“You need to get to bed soon after your father goes back to his hotel,” Mindy said. “You can wash one more window after you finish the dishes.”

Tim sighed. “Okay, Mom.”

Despite how delicious the cake was, and how full of childhood memories of Mom and Grandma baking cakes like it, I made myself slow down and pace myself so I finished my slice just when Tim finished hers. Then I took my plate and fork to the dishwasher and said: “So, what do you want help with? Mindy, is it okay for me to stay another hour?”

“Sure. Maybe until ten? I’ve been letting Tim stay up until midnight when it’s not a school night, but staying up reading or playing games is one thing — working her fingers to the bone is another. She needs to get some rest sometime.”

“Mom, can we wash the windows in you and Steve’s bedroom?”

Mindy pursed her lips. “You’d better ask him... No, tomorrow while we’re at work would be better, even if he’s likely to be watching TV for another hour or two.”

“Okay. What about organizing one of the closets?”

“Not the hall closets, or the ones in the bedrooms. I’m not sure you could finish it before bedtime, and leaving stuff lying around in piles overnight would be inconvenient. What about... um... the cabinets in the living room?”

“Oh, yeah! I forgot about them. Come on, Daddy!” She took me by the arm and led me into the living room, where there were several wooden cabinets and shelves. Emily followed us. It looked like the knickknacks and mementos on the open shelves had all been dusted in the last few days, but Tim opened up one of the closed doors to reveal a compact mess of papers, notebooks, envelopes, data cubes, board games, card games, and less identifiable items.

“How do you want to do this?” I asked.

“Just start pulling stuff out,” she said; “we can sort things into piles on the sofa cushions and the easy chairs. Papers there, games there, data cubes there... I’ll go get some organizer trays.”

For a few minutes, we worked on sorting the junk out of the cabinets and didn’t say much besides “Where should this go?” or “What is this thing?” Sometimes Emily asked me, “What do you call this?” and I’d tell her the name for it in Mandarin, if I knew.

After a while I decided I was ready to ask some more questions, and said: “Tim, how do you feel about all this? Being a girl, for instance?”

She didn’t pause in sorting things as she said: “Being a girl is okay. I mean, back when I was a little kid and I heard about how Emily had Twisted, it scared me; I didn’t want to be a girl. But now that it’s happened I wonder what I was afraid of.”

Emily smiled at her. “Have you thought any more about a name?”

“Um, not much. I’ve been kind of busy.”

“But do you want a girl’s name?” I asked. “Do you want me to say ‘he’ or ‘she’ when I’m talking about you? I don’t want to assume too much.”

“Yeah. I’m a girl now, and I know I need a girl’s name... I just haven’t made up my mind yet. Mom said you and her never came up with a girl name for me, because you already knew I was a boy by the time you got serious about names.”

“That’s right. I guess you could look at your grandmothers‘ and aunts’ names — Diane, Karen, Rhoda, Wendy...”

Emily winced when I mentioned her Aunt Wendy, my little sister. She had a self-injury compulsion, even worse than Tim’s obsession with housecleaning, and had to be kept in a straitjacket for her own protection. She’d lived in the Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia for her entire adult life. “On second thought, maybe not Wendy.”

“Rhoda’s a pretty name. I’ll think about it... I was sort of leaning toward ‘Elizabeth’ or ‘Anna,’ but I couldn’t make up my mind, and Emily said it’s important to get it right the first time, because changing your name is a lot of hassle.”

“Those are good names, too. What about this... intense focus on keeping things clean?”

“It feels right. It feels important. It’s like how you have to always be going places, right? Shouldn’t I be doing this?” She paused for a moment in her work, and looked at me with the most plaintive expression; I wanted to hug her. After a moment’s thought I did.

“Oh, sweetie, you should do what you think is important, even if other people don’t care about it. But you shouldn’t let one important thing crowd out all the other important things. You remember how we went to Trittsville last summer?”

“Yeah.”

I’d picked up Tim a couple of days after the school session ended, and gone on a road trip with him; we’d meandered around the southeast, never staying in one place for more than one night, until we got to Trittsville, Georgia, where I grew up and where most of our relatives still live.

“And we stayed there for almost half our trip, even though I normally don’t like to stay in one place more than two or three days. Sometimes when the need to travel got too bad I had to get on the road for a few hours, but I came back to your Aunt Rhoda’s house every night, remember?”

“Yeah.”

“Because constantly going places is important to me, but family is important too.”

“So... I need to learn how to stop cleaning for a while when I need to be with family?”

“Or anything else that’s important to you. Yes.”

“Okay... I’ll try.” She sifted through the stack of unsorted papers and started separating it into smaller piles. “But it’s nice when I can do both at once.”

“It sure is. — Which stack do you want Lisa’s fourth-grade book reports in?”

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If you've enjoyed this and the other free stories I've posted here, you may also enjoy these novels and short fiction collection -- available from Smashwords in ePub format and from Amazon in Kindle format. (Smashwords pays its authors more than other retailers.)

The Bailiff and the Mermaid	Smashwords	Amazon
Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes	Smashwords	Amazon
When Wasps Make Honey	Smashwords	Amazon
A Notional Treason	Smashwords	Amazon
The Weight of Silence and Other Stories	Smashwords	Amazon