Lahaina Noon --

There wasn't much for me to look forward to in my life since my transition in the way of companionship. Sure, I was attractive and sexy. But, truth be told, once most guys found out I used to be a guy, they walked away double quick.

Don't get me wrong, the transition was totally worth it. Being free from the horrors of crying myself to sleep begging for release. On one of those tear soaked nights with my head on my pillow, my dad sat on the side of my bed, held my hand tenderly, and said he would grant me my freedom. My mom looked on with tears in her eyes lovingly towards my dad. He could be a pill, but, sometimes that pill could be the one needed for a cure. Three years later, I graduated from high school as a normal geeky girl.

After those tears dried up, and I could see again at night, I saw the stars outside my window for the first time. Thankfully, we lived out in the boonies so I didn't have to fight light pollution. My mother encouraged me to explore my world of feminine splendor. But, there was still a touch of boy in me, I suppose. I loved the stars in the sky. I built my first six inch reflector and gazed into the sky. I thrilled at seeing the rings of Saturn and red spot of Jupiter.

I pretended to be sick one day so I could stay home and watch the launch of New Horizons on its way to Pluto -- while it was still a planet, I might add. It was so worth it. My fascination continued and I received a degree in astronomy from the University of California at Santa Cruz in astronomy. I ventured a little north and completed my masters at Berkeley. I did an internship at Mount Graham in Arizona. And now, I am part of the support staff at Mauna Kea in Hawaii hoping to choose what kind of thesis I could do for my doctorate.

My weekend home is in Hilo. Well, my small abode when I am not on the mountain. It is a tiny apartment without much to write home about, so I don't. My mother gets annoyed. Thankfully, we do Skype once a week.

"You're too thin!"

"Mom, it's not like I am going to have a baby or anything."

"Found anybody yet?" My silence answered her question.

"There is somebody out there for you. You just have to be patient." she sighed. I knew that she worried about me.

"I have my career and it keeps me happy." I interjected before she prattled on about how I could adopt and somewhere, against all odds, would be a man like my father, God rest his soul. She missed him. So did I. Excuse me when I say, cardiac arrest is a bitch!

"How about James and Courtney?" I asked to change the subject.

"James is having difficulties. She wants to get pregnant and he thinks they should wait until they can buy a home. I just want a grandchild." I think she could see me wince. "Sorry, honey. You know I love you no matter. It is the same for James, but ..."

"You want a grandchild. I know." I shook my head in responding fighting tears. "I wish I had a body that could carry a child."

"Why anyone would want to abort a child when there are girls like you who would ..."

"Adopt them in a heart beat. Yeah, I know Mom. It's not fair."

"Who said ..." she continued and we finished together, "... life was fair."

"Look Mom, I have to get to bed. You know I work nights."

"Take some time to enjoy your surrounding, Honey. Check out the beaches. Look for starfish. Wear a sexy bikini." She saw me smile. "Flirt with a guy or or two giving them the impression they might get lucky." I turned red at her suggestion.

We hung up after the usual 'I love you and I miss you' banter. I looked up at the calendar. It was July. Summer in the tropics. Time for bed. I shut the blinds and crawled into my futon. My five o'clock bell rang. The hours drive to the top of the mountain would be in front of me. Had to be there before nightfall. My work largely was focused around being support staff for the many astronomers that needed to use the telescopes from around the world. With digital imagers these days, some fancy pants at Stanford could request a shot of the Pleiades over an afternoon cup of tea and have his or her images in their email folder the next morning if there was time on the scopes. Given the lack of cloud cover in these parts, our schedule was typically full up.

My job was to verify the correct equipment was attached to the scopes and that it was pointed correctly. Not that hard. But, the isolation of the mountain and the all night hours made it hard for someone raising a family or wanting a life outside the walls of the facility. And, sooner or later, the red lights and dark passages of being at the forefront of astronomical research lost their allure to young astronomers like myself and we would drift off to some institution of higher education or become some science teacher at a local high school.

For myself, I had an air of permanence. Having chosen my outward sex, I had given up any real chance for a family for the sake of sanity. The only pain I suffered from was the pain of being alone. I had long hours to think about it too. One night, it hit me. Either way, I would suffer the pain of loneliness. Either in a body I didn't want in a world that would accept me at face value, or in a body I did want with a world that couldn't face my value being diminished by my choices.

When I came in for the night, Rex, one of the other techs, accosted me looking as if I had won something. "You're lucky!"

"Say what?"

"I noticed the schedule, you are off on Tuesday."

"Why?"

"Come on, you are an astronomer and don't know about the Lahaina Noon? The zero shadow day."

I thought for a moment and it hit me. "No, I am just a well educated tech, but, yes, that's right, we are in the subtropics, aren't we! Solar Noon. What day does my shadow disappear?"

"Tuesday. I would go to the Kona side of the island. Hilo can sometimes be too cloudy."

"Thanks for the suggestion."

For once, being a newbie was grand. Most of the senior staff wanted their weekends off so they could party at night. A quick trip to Oahu and a brilliant hangover on Monday. By Thursday, they were recovered and off for another weekend of incivility. Me, I worked Thursday thru Monday on a ten hour shift. I got to drive up the mountain in broad daylight at least. Coming down, I had to wait for the coming dawn. No lights allowed on the roads. I suppose I could stay up in the clouds, but I liked living in the community. I liked walking on the beach early in the morning and late in the afternoon. Hilo was cool as far as weather. If I needed the sun, I traveled to the Kona side and enjoyed the almost dessert like experience.

I pulled up to the state beach and parked. I place a Manfrotto lighting stand on the ground with the legs splayed flat on the ground. I then set up a chair next to it to watch how the sun's shadow was cast by the stand. I then placed a DSLR on a tripod next to it setting it to take a photo every second for fifteen minutes. I started it at seven and a half minutes before solar noon. That would make for nearly a forty second movie I could post on youtube to show my family what a zero shadow day looks like.

I put on a straw hat and sat down to watch the shadow move. I didn't know that in the next few minutes, my whole life would change.

I heard a shout. "Gimme that, Elsa!"

"It's mine, Shauna!" I turned to look towards the voices.

Two girls, about six and eight tussled about five meters away from me. I raised my hat to watch them fighting over a soccer ball. Before an adult male could get to them, the older one tugged it free and kicked it hard. The ball careened through the air, bounced, and then hit my camera and tripod. I quickly grabbed the assembly as it tipped towards the ground. I stood up and set it back in place realigning the camera to be back on the Manfrotto stand.

The man came over and picked up the ball. He turned to me and said, "Sorry, my girls didn't mean to ..." He looked me in the eyes. At first, his face was filled with fright which gave way to shock and then to sadness. I could tell he was about to tear up. One of the girls walked up to take his hand. When she saw his face, she got concerned and then up looked at me. In her face too, I saw a similar progression. From fright to shock. But, in her case, it went to concern.

"Mom ... mommy?" she began to cry. "Is it you?"

"Excuse me, Miss, I'm sorry. It's just that you look so much like my late ..." The poor man was distraught and barely holding on. I looked back down to the little girl as what I assumed was her sister came running up.

"Daddy, she looks just like Mommy." said the little girl as she arrived.

I smiled at the girls. "Hi. My name is Day. It is short for Delilah." I fell short of asking where their mom was. I figured they would tell me on their own. But, my resemblance to her was disturbing them and I wanted to mark my name as soon as possible. I looked back at the man who seemed to be getting back his composure. "I assume that's like somebody you ..." I didn't finish the question and let him speak instead.

"Lost. I'm sorry." he stumbled as he spoke, "How rude of me ... of us ... I lost, we lost someone very close to us a year ago. My wife got food poisoning and died after a week." I winced realizing that her loss was so close. "Anyway, the girls and I came here to spend time together. And to get to know each other better." I nodded. He was babbling and clearly it was best that I listen. Out of the corner of my eye, I checked the shadow and saw it creep closer to the center of the Manfrotto stand. I didn't want to miss this.

I raised my hand to stop him briefly, "Oh, please, do go on, I don't want to stop you, but I don't want to miss this moment either. The sun is about to align itself straight overhead and I don't want to miss my first zero shadow day here in Hawaii."

"Zero shadow day?" he stammered.

"If you look at my stand here, and around us too, the shadows are about to disappear. This happens twice a year here in the sub tropics and is the only place in the United States that you can see the shadows disappear as the sun moves directly over your head."

I don't know if my solar experiment was the answer to their pain, but the distraction of watching the shadow moving closer to the stand held them in a sort of bubble of distraction.

"Wow, Delilah, how do you know all of this?"

"I'm a tech up on the mountain. I pointed up to Mauna Kea." In a moment of inspiration, I grabbed a few bottles of coke from my cooler and set them around the ground. "Come watch this girls?" We all stood around and watched the shadows disappear.

"This is incredible!" he said when it first happened.

"I know. There is nothing to give you a visual reference. It throws you depth of perception. Look around us." I said.

As we looked around, Shauna exclaimed. "Everything looks fake."

"It's just as real as it has always been. It just looks like an illusion because your brain can't handle perspective without shadow."

After it was all over, he said, "Thank you for this moment. Sorry, my name is Alan. Alan Crenshaw. We're from Abilene, Kansas. Came out here on vacation to spend some quality time together. Look at me. I am babbling something awful. I just wanted to thank you, Day, for sharing this with us. What do you say, girls?"

"Thank you!" The said in unison.

Without thinking, I picked up two water bottles and handed it to them. "You're welcome. But, you better drink this. You don't want to get dehydrated. I hope you are wearing your sun screen. The UV rays are pretty powerful here."

"Thank you." They smiled and took the water bottles. The older one stated, as though it was an indignity, "Daddy made us put on sun screen before we got here."

"Good for him." I then looked up into his eyes and saw something there. The question my rational mind asked was I just a replacement for his departed wife. The emotional side of me said just shut the hell up. Moments like this are rare and you need to grab them when you can.

His voice was tender when he asked, "Can we offer you lunch? we brought a picnic."

Giggling, I said, "Well, I don't know what it would be for me. I am usually in bed around this time. Maybe a midnight snack?" He laughed and took my hand.

For the next hour, we shared seafood, salads, and conversation. In that short space of time, I grew to really love those two girls. And, in a moment of clarity, with all the shadows gone, I found someone. With the girls away, I confessed to him, "I was born a boy, but I transitioned when I was eighteen. About seven years ago." I expected him to leave just like the others had before him. But, he stayed. Sunset that day found me cradled in his arms as we watch the sun melt into the ocean. I saw a flash of green. I called in sick the day after.

At the end of his two week vacation, I called Mom. "Mom, how do you feel about instant grandkids?"

Ten months later, we were married at Lahaina Noon, on that same beach, where there was no shadow of a doubt we were meant for each other.

Copyright © 2020 by AuP reviner