*Before…

Josh’s dad snorts. “Your father thinks he can order the weather to change, your mother thinks that she can order him.”

That makes me laugh.

Which has them staring at me again.

I look at them. “Sorry I had this whole image in my head.”

Josh asks. “You think it was your parents.”

I shake my head no. “No more like seeing those rich people like on TV.”

He nods smiling. “Well honestly your dad’s a lot like the guy that tried to sell out the ski lodge out from under everyone in those nineties movies.”

I laugh again and reach out and take his hand and pull him to the floor with me in front of the kids and we just play with them.

And kiss, like twice but we kiss.

In front of his parents and the kids.

I know I’m different than the Taylor I know, I know there will be a long hard climb up into my life but right now, sitting here it’s already worth it.

*And Now…

One of the good things that day was Josh bringing me some of my things.

Mostly clothes and Dr. Smith said that’s fine the scrubs were just because I didn’t have anything here.

Someone washed and folded them and I’m going to say that her styles and mine are pretty different or what I think my style would be.

Then again I’m not her and not from places like New Hampshire.

And even if it’s comfort wear well that’s still all pretty high end shop kind of things.

She/I never shopped at Target or Walmart in their life I don’t think.

And ankle socks.

I get they’re cute but they’re a nope for me.

He brought me the last book that he thought she was reading and her laptop and tablet.

That brought Dr. Smith in.

Dr. Smith says. “We’ll hold those for you we want to go through things with you if that’s alright especially where it can lead to what happened.”

“That’s fine with me. I’ve not secrets because I can’t remember anything so everything is a secret.”

She takes those to her office and then we’re done with visiting for now here at least. It’s time for my physiotherapy.

Josh and the family come too as I’m there mostly getting assessed for my injuries and I’m good with telling the specialists there all my aches and pains and they right those down and compare notes with my other listed stuff from the accident then we try working out lightly. A good deal of this was stretching and massaging me first not for exercise but to check for soft injuries or rather more soft injuries. After that we start really slowly.

Nothing is too bad but the jogging.

Jogging with breasts is different.

Jogging when you have large breasts is very different.

And if I hadn’t been trans to begin with I’d have had no idea where to start when it comes to the arms up and the side to side shift that I need to do.

I’m horribly out of shape.

I can’t even do the first setting on the treadmill for ten minutes.

I got four and forty seconds in.

And I’m weak.

I mean I know there are going to be big differences but I’m weak, Taylor was a very sedentary woman. And I get the pregnancy thing but this is something else.

She really had been giving up or losing that fight for a while now.

There will be more to come of course because they want to be sure I’m going to be on the road to recovery.

And that took up most of my afternoon and it ends our visits too with a high note.

I’m allowed to feed the boys in the observation room.

Me, me with them...feeding from my breasts.

Feeling their bodies, their heat, the smell, how warm they are.

And at one point I’m with Tucker in the rocking chair they have in there and the baby blanket over us as he’s feeding and I can feel the little thumping of his heartbeat against me.

I started crying.

Josh asks. “Taylor what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just nothing, I’m just feeling so many things Josh. (Sniffle.) I can feel his heartbeat.”

“Is that normal?”

I nod. “He’s still so little so yeah, it’s easier.” His mom nods and she’s smiling as she’s holding a fed, burped and changed Thomas.

I look over at him. “Come here, slide you hand in between us and just be still.”

He comes over and there’s definitely this moment, this whole deeply intense thing starting to happen as my husband is sort of cradling my breast and looking me in the eyes and I’m looking into his as we just quiet down and listen, listen but not listen just feel Tanner’s heartbeat through our skins.

It’s such a strong moment that just seems to stretch out for the longest time and there are these fatherly and husbandly tears leaking out from Josh’s eyes as we were like that together and then he’s kissing me again.

Which was a incredible soft, sweet, deeply loving kiss.

And definitely woke parts of me that I hadn’t felt in that way before as I got...warm, aroused...and that, that was like...a hardness of this really focussed part inside of me, this hyper awareness of the inside walls of my vagina like they’re there quite suddenly or I’m just...and then dampness.

It’s entirely new yes but there’s comparable things enough that I knew what was going on.

And with me sitting and him standing there wasn’t much doubt of my effect on him.

Then we both got a lesson that babies dislike weird texture changes in their mommy when eating and Tucker pulled away his little face all WTF.

I laugh. “Well there’s an Ugh mom...dad...get a room you two if I ever saw it.”

Josh laughed too and took Tucker and started doing the tiny bounce burping walk thing.

There really are few things as handsome as a father with his kids.

Then it’s getting cleaned up nd dressed and all too soon seeing them off for the evening.

I miss them almost as soon as they’re gone and I let myself feel it and cry a little but it’s one of those bittersweet good times when you have tears.

Dr. Smith does ask me. “Are you alright?”

“Just feeling it.”

“Feeling what?”

“Everything, being a mom, a wife, being lucky, missing them, being here.”

“You don’t think you should be here?”

“No, I absolutely think I should be here. I just sort am using being here and all of the trouble I’m in to really highlight all the good stuff right now instead of letting me get too focussed on how big and terrifying everything could be if I just focussed on all of that.”

“That’s fair.”

“I...I think before...I think I lived in my head too much Doctor. I think before all of this I lived in this really lonely, just me and no one can get to know the real me place and people just knew that shell version of me.”

Not one bit of that wasn’t me. I don’t know about her/Taylor but the old me yeah all anyone was ever allowed to see was the surface and half of the time the audience was just me...just to cope.

“That seems pretty specific.”

“I’ve been noticing me being just the only me that i can be and people looking at me like I’m from another planet.”

She nods. “I’ve noticed that too.”

“That and things that my family and others have said right?”

“That too.”

“Yeah I figured, you seem less surprised than my family.”

“Well while your case is pretty different for me it’s not that much out of the things I do regularly.”

“I feel like I’m in a soap and I’m the amnesia girl finding out she’s literally one of the bad guys.”

“You used to watch soaps?”

“Not really it’s just one of those things people talk about.”

She looks at me. “Well there is some time before supper do you want to look at your computer and things.”

“Sure, it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

“Try?”

“I have no idea what any of my passwords are.”

“Hopefully you’ll have things set to remember.”

We head into her office and plug everything in and while my tablet is charging my laptop is ready to go.

Well it’s dirty and dusty but used, so it’s like she never cleaned it or rarely. I take a few minutes to clean it with some of Dr, Smith’s computer things because I just need to. It’s a hold over from being military. I like clean spaces and things.

Though with a working husband and two twins I can see my home looking very differently.

Once that’s done I get into my stuff easy enough it’s got no passwords to open the computer to use and all my things on Chrome are password remembered.

There’s not much here.

Social media is stuff like home shopping, Amazon, Pinterest, Snapchat, Instagram and well of course Facebook. I was surprised at her having a Spotify account but other than those that’s it and e-mail.

The Dr. is right there with me as we look through things and it’s pretty bleak?

She has FB Friends but I see zero posts on what’s going on with her. A lot of it’s funny videos and memes. We both like Disney stuff and she posted things on some of the releases and movies. Then there’s stuff on some LGBT+ friendly things which is nice and there’s a few news stories and oddities like the blue/gold dress thing.

But nothing she’s passionate about.

Not a lot of chat.

Lots of people on her friends lists but not a lot of content coming off of it.

And nothing, nothing about what was going on.

No pics of her house unless it was a special occasion like Christmas.

Nothing saying that I was going to kill myself except for the isolation I’m seeing and the mask.

She was wearing a mask, one that said she was thriving and functioning.

A lot of selfies with clothes ect.

A lot of selfies period and wow...my body did change a lot, a lot with the pregnancy.

We eat through supper looking through it and it’s all that theme.

Not a lot of downloads, nothing really in my documents, loads of pictures.

I’m very, very sure that I was my favorite subject.

And again it’s super telling that there’s no concern over her being hurt, injured, or trying to kill herself like most of her friends were pretty much button click friends.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

No one cared.

Shit...I mean as self centered as she comes across this must have been so hard.

And just too stubborn to say she couldn’t do it, too caught up it what she lost while pregnant to get that stuff she gained.

I turn things off and close things and Dr. Smith is looking at me and I’m crying.

“There really was no one there was there? And with how I looked then to now…”

She takes the things and locks them back up. “Having twins is hard.”

I nod. “But they make me so happy.”

“But you don’t remember before this do you?”

“No, no I don’t but you saw right there with me. Who was I besides a shell trying to keep up all these appearances.”

“I don’t know let’s get some tea and talk about it.”

We get some tea from the nurses station and we go to my room and I take my meds when the nurse brings them and have a shower and we talk.

It’s mostly me telling her what Josh told me about me and literally being the stereotype rich girl that while she rebelled against her family she really just ended up being the little Stepford wannabe that they were crafting anyways.

I sip hot tea and I cry and vent about it all because I can get Taylor so much.

Go in the service, family tradition, serve, and while all of that is dear to me there was this entire other part of me the biggest part of me that was never him. Never my father’s son, or anyone of the family’s really.

LGBT+ was never, ever talked about, we certainly never had any gay family members ever or anything else like those poor souls.

And that’s what it was too.

“Poor souls.” My family would look down on all the hate slurs it was beneath us as a family but by God we were lucky that we never had any such misfortune in our family.

Taylor’s was like that.

Money, position, who someone was looked at being more that who they really were and that’s what I let out.

What I think that this felt like.

And I get some stuff out that I should have vented about in my other life although a little sideways but still...Different closet same darkness.

Me it was being trans and never able to get close to myself.

Her it was being shaped and molded and getting to where she thought that she was this...empty shell of a person. Not real enough or strong enough to be a mother or a wife and drowning every bit as much as I was in a situation that she only saw one way out of.

One that I and most trans people think about too often.

God I feel it, I feel that drowning despair in her like a phantom pain left over from when her soul was amputated from her body.

I end up crying for the both of us until the sedatives and meds and just getting emotionally worn out kicks in and Dr, Smith takes my tea before I spill it and helps my under the covers as I drift off into this whole place of shared soul deep hurt.