Link: Lost Faith Title Page and Description

CAUTION - emotional pain/open emotional wounds

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Rinsing off the body wash as he remembered the happy exchange that now nearly brought him to tears, Eric's heart ached to see his best friend even though he knew he likely never would again. Draining the tub, he pulled in one of Faith's towels and dried. Stepping out, he pulled the towel around him tightly to ward off the bitter cold seeping in from the outside.

Noticing a small pile of clothes on the counter that weren't there when he entered, he realized his aunt must have placed them there while he was lost in his memories. After drying himself, he absently donned the second pair of panties he'd ever worn, this time pink, but there was also another article present that he recognized, which almost made him balk.

It was a training bra.

Warring within himself, he remembered his aunt's admonition to obey first and ask questions later and pulled it on over his head. Seeing the last garment she'd left for him, it looked like a very plain nightgown. Quickly figuring out it must be a slip like the one he'd seen Faith wearing the night before, he dropped it easily over his head to drape down his body. The war still raging inside him, he hesitated only a moment before opening the door.

Walking out, he saw his aunt, now fully dressed in a beautiful gown of blue and silver, standing next to the chair for Faith's vanity. Shuffling over to sit, he saw his cousin standing next to her bed smiling, her shocking blue eyes following his every move. Once seated, he watched his aunt crouch down and start to push what looked to him like a giant white sock up over his toes. "What's that?" he asked curiously, but with a hint of irritation that she was dressing him as though he were baby.

"Tights." his aunt said simply. "They'll help keep your legs warm." Pulling them up over his feet and calves, she stopped when she reached the bottom of the slip at his knees. "Stand and pull them the rest of the way up." she ordered, warring within herself whether or not she'd chosen the right therapy, as he didn't seem to be struggling against it nearly as much as she believed he should.

Vacantly, he did as he was told while Heather turned her back to give him a modicum of privacy. Faith on the other hand watched him avidly as he lifted the slip and pulled the tights up over his rump. "Done." he said as he let the slip fall back into place.

Holding out a thin pink petticoat, she lowered it down to the floor. "Step in."

"What's that for? Is it really necessary?" he asked with more than a hint of irritation in his voice as he stepped in, remembering the house rules.

Sliding it up to his waist over the slip she explained with a faint smile, seeing that he was, at least vaguely, beginning to resent being dressed as a girl. "It's called a petticoat, dear. It gives the dress the proper shape so it doesn't just hang loosely around the legs." Hoping that the next item would be the final straw that would break his anger out, she went to Faith's wardrobe and pulled out a dress that she was sure would push him too far.

Eric turned and nearly fainted as she lifted the pink satin dress up for him to see. It looked to be the same length and a similar style as the cotton dress Faith wore, but had shorter puffy sleeves, a bodice covered in a swirl of vines and little flowers in a brocade pattern, and tiny pink sequins scattered about it. The neckline was accented in a Peter Pan collar with lace trim and more tiny sequins. The very full skirt was made of pale pink bridal satin and edging around about an inch above the lace-trimmed hem was another band of lace, ribbon, and a floral patterned organza with even more of the tiny sequins scattered around. He also noticed two satin sashes attached to the sides of the dress at the waist.

It was the girliest thing he'd ever seen.

"Point your arms up, sweetie." Heather instructed, waiting for him to balk.

Afraid to say no for fear of being sent away, and not really wanting to say it, he lifted his arms straight up as instructed. He was soon feeling a zipper closing up his back, followed by a tightness around his waist as his aunt tied the sashes together at the small of his back in a perfect bow. Inside he felt conflicted. The thick satin warmed him quickly, for which he was thankful, but the satin and lace all over his skin gave him more of that feeling of butterflies in the stomach than the nightgown had.

Directing him to sit back down, his aunt proceeded to brush and comb out his long wet hair. Every stroke seemed to fill the room with more girlish scent, making the butterflies in his stomach change to little rubber balls, bouncing around inside him every time he thought, I smell like a girl! I'm dressed like a girl! which he repeated with each brush of his hair.

His conflicted feelings weren't over wearing the dress. He honestly didn't care one way or the other, accepted the necessity, and in fact enjoyed the feeling. It was the other things that bothered him. If his aunt had just told him he had to wear a dress for the day, even this one, he would have been fine with it and perhaps liked it even, though he wouldn't tell his aunt that. Insisting he wear a petticoat and bra he didn't really need, simply because they were things a girl would wear with the dress, made him feel things he didn't want, and wasn't prepared, to face. The war inside himself became a pitched battle, feeling that he must fight to stop his aunt from treating him like a girl, but being treated like a girl gave him a feeling that made him simply give in to the apathy and quietly obey.

"Well," she said after a few minutes, "we can't dry and style your hair properly without electricity, and brushing it out it just makes you look like a boy with long hair in a dress."

"Well aren't I?" Eric huffed.

Heather smiled sweetly, certain that he was about to lash out. "Yes sweetie, but I'm sure you don't want to feel that way, do you?"

"Mamma?" Faith asked. "He could wear one of my play wigs! The red one!"

Believing him to be close to breaking through the apathy and venting his anger out at her, she smiled. "Yes, dear! That would work, wouldn't it?" Pushing his boundaries to the breaking point, she coiled his damp hair on top of his head and pulled the auburn wig Faith brought her over it, seeing the anger in his eyes. "There!" she made herself say happily as she picked up a brush and did her best to make it look nice. "Take a look!" Heather ordered, preparing herself for the dam of emotion to finally break.

Furious that she'd added yet another unnecessary feminine article that made him look and feel even more like a girl, Eric angrily turned and regarded his image as instructed. Reflected back at him was someone who only looked vaguely like what he recognized in the mirror, but somehow seemed so very familiar. As the wind howled outside and the beating rain turned slowly to sleet and snow, he realized that he was watching an echo of the past; a ghost reflected back at him instead of his own image.

A chill ran down his spine unnerving him when he realized why the image in the looking glass appeared familiar; not because it was a reflection of him dressed as a girl, but because it wasn't. In desperation to escape his tormented life, his broken mind took the reflection that vaguely resembled pictures of his mother as a child and twisted it to make him actually see her image as a child reflected back at him. Mom?

Seeing his shocked reaction, his aunt readied herself for a full-scale rebellion. "Well?" she asked.

The traumatized child could scarcely speak. After a moment, his expression of anger and shock melted into one of fascination. He simply nodded and murmured, "It's... it's fine, Aunt Heather." causing her to visibly blanche.

Watching him, Heather had been certain he was seconds from pushing back; moments from the break that would finally see him pour out his pain, grief, and anger at her instead of the faceless world that had been so cruel to him. If he had, she would have been ready to take it all, begin working through his grief, and help him learn to cope with it. Instead, something she hadn't anticipated happened as he just stared at his reflection, mesmerized.

Bringing over a pair of pink patent leather Mary Janes still in their box, Faith handed them to her stunned mother. "You bought these for me for when I grow some, Mamma. I think they might fit her already."

Swallowing hard at hearing himself referred to as 'her', he wanted to turn toward his cousin, but was almost physically incapable of looking away from the vision of his mother as a young girl staring back at him.

Heather was about to correct Faith's gender switch, but it started a thought brewing. "Are you sure, dear? You haven't even had a chance to wear them yet. They might get ruined before you even get a chance."

Faith dismissed the idea. "Of course she won't ruin them! Will you Erica?"

Hearing his mother's name broke the spell and he snapped his head around, thinking that they could see her in the mirror as well. When he saw Faith looking back at him and mentally processing the conversation he'd heard but wasn't listening to, his shock slowly melted away and he shook his head, noticing the strange sensation of the long red curls tickling his neck. "N-no Faith. I promise I won't mess them up for you." he said softly.

Beaming happily, Faith handed the shoes to her mother, who slipped them on the stockinged feet without a word. They fit well and his aunt then bade him to stand and look at himself in Faith's full-length mirror, hoping that perhaps the full image would be too much for his male ego to handle.

Stepping in front of the oval freestanding mirror, he got another chill as he once more saw his young mother in the mirror trying to copy his movements, just out of sync enough that he could tell it was her and not his reflection. He no longer cared about the clothes he was wearing or the uneasy feeling looking like a girl gave him. All he cared about was seeing his mother, even managing to smile at the idea that she was here with him once more.

Coming to stand next to her cousin, Faith looked at their reflections, appearing to her, and anyone else who might see them, like a perfectly normal pair of young ladies.

Heather quietly opened the door. Turning in the doorway she said, "I'm going downstairs to let Cook know to start serving breakfast. Please don't dawdle." Closing the door behind her, she was in a near panic. It almost worked! she insisted to herself. It nearly did, but something changed in him. I wonder... Guessing what it might be, she spotted Fredrick dousing the gaslights in the hallway and approached her butler. "Fredrick?"

Turning to face her he asked, "Is there something you need, Madame?"

Blushing slightly, she steeled herself. "Please inform Cook that we will be down for breakfast shortly. Additionally, I want to let you know something so you don't react negatively. Lacking options, and with his consent, we have attired young Eric in one of Faith's dresses. He was quite unnerved by it, but we didn't have much choice in the matter, given circumstances."

Explaining further, she added, "He didn't want to feel like a boy in a dress, so Faith and I helped to make her look more the part, which helped, so please treat her as you would any young lady. Can you do that, Fredrick?"

Barely able to restrain his shock, after a moment Fredrick accepted it as simply what his employer, a trained therapist who knew more about these things, desired. "Very well, Madame. How shall I address the child?"

Sighing, she replied, "Miss Erica. This should only be for part of today, hopefully. I'm going to go talk with Franchesca. I want you two to figure some way of fixing and drying his clothes today. Once his clothes are dried and repaired, he will remain in them until the roads open... even at night. Please inform Cook of the situation."

Bowing slightly he stated, "Of course, Madame. I shall do my best to make... her... comfortable with the situation." At that he returned to extinguishing the gaslights while Heather went off to find her maid. She wasn't sure what was going on in Eric's mind, but she couldn't live with herself if she didn't do everything possible to ensure Jack and Erica's son remained their son.

"Mamma picked my prettiest dress!" Faith pointed out after Heather left. "You look gorgeous in it, Erica! Do you mind if I call you that?"

Looking back at Faith in the mirror, he shook his head. "I suppose not, Faith. I... I guess Eric wouldn't be right... for... for a... a girl." A feeling he didn't understand washed over him as he referred to herself as a girl for the first time; a calm unlike anything she'd ever experienced. The war inside her was over. All that remained was the blissful calm. Turning back to marvel at the image of her young mother in the mirror, Faith took her hand.

"We should be getting down to the dining room. Mamma doesn't like it when we're late and it's already seven-thirty... half an hour late."

Swallowing hard, she asked, "Can I tell you a secret, Faith?"

She turned and faced Erica's reflection. "Anything, Erica! I promise not to tell... unless it's something bad."

She shook her head, this time enjoying the tickle of the hair on her shoulders and neck. "It's not a bad secret. When I look at myself in the mirror dressed like this?" She paused and let go of Faith's hands, gathering the nerve to say it out loud and not cry. Closing her eyes and holding her breath a moment, she finally blurted it out. "When I see myself in the mirror like this, I... I see my mom when she was a little girl!"

Faith gasped and her eyes grew wide. "Oh, Erica!" She'd seen pictures her father had of his sister growing up and, looking closely, she realized that in the dress and red wig her cousin did resemble her somewhat. "Are you OK?"

She nodded in fascination as her mother nodded with her. "I... I never noticed how much I looked like her before because my mom has red hair, and I have dirty-blonde hair like my father did."

"So I was right to pick the red hair?" she smiled.

Erica nodded, watching the youthful image of her mother eerily shadowing her head movement. Fascinated, she turned only her body away from the mirror slowly, continuing to watch her youthful mother following her movements imperfectly. She could turn her body just enough to see the big pink satin bow at the small of her mother's back, its ends trailing down the back of the skirt as though the ghost were a giant present.

Taking her hand, Faith chirped, "Come on, Erica! Let's go have breakfast!"

Entering the hallway, they saw Fredrick waiting for them at the top of the stairs. Erica's cheeks flushed and she felt the urge to run back into Faith's room to strip the dress off, but the impulse to do so was small and distant, like a memory of a desire. Instead, she just let Faith continue to lead her, hearing the clacking of their short heels against the marble floor. It was an odd sensation for her, having never heard her own footsteps so prominently.

When the two reached the top of the stairs, Fredrick bowed. "Good morning, Miss Faith... Miss Erica. Breakfast is served. If you will accompany me?"

"Thank you, Freddie!" Faith said happily as she released Erica's hand and took his, descending the stairs with the perfection of royalty.

Following, Erica tried to descend the stairs as gracefully as Faith. Passing the framed paintings that hung along the stairway wall, she would occasionally catch sight of her mother in the glass and smile. Slowly, she formed a story in her mind unlike any she'd ever made up. Reaching the bottom, Fredrick held out his free hand and waited. Taking the offered hand gently, she held it the way she saw Faith doing, letting the butler escort them both to the dining room. Entering, they saw Heather already seated at the head of the table.

"Miss Faith and Miss Erica, Madame." Fredrick announced formally.

Nodding to him, Heather gestured to the same places they had occupied the night before. Realizing that she should wait to be seated like Faith, she stood beside her chair while Fredrick assisted her cousin. When the muscular man moved her seat out for her, she smoothed the back of the long skirt and mimicked how she'd seen Faith sit. Sliding into place, she again followed Faith's lead and placed her napkin across her lap.

Waiting patiently, she saw Cook come out with two plates. Serving her aunt first, she again served Faith second. The household cook then left and came back to place Erica's plate in front of her, smiling at her gently, if nervously, the whole time.

"Thank you." she muttered, her voice soft and meek.

"You're quite welcome, dearie!" Cook replied. "Just let Fredrick know if you want any more! There's plenty!"

Remembering dinner, she clasped her hands to pray and bowed her head while her aunt repeated the same prayer from dinner. During the prayer, the broken child imagined she was her own mother, praying as she must have done thousands of times before Erica was even born. It gave her a warm smile that lingered all the way through "Amen."

Throughout breakfast in fact, she was smiling. She hadn't played pretend, creating stories like she used to, since before her mother's hospitalization, but at that moment she was lost in a world where she was Erica Hargrave, a twelve-year-old girl visiting with her cousin Faith and her aunt Heather. Imagining it as she ate, she changed the back-story so she was living with her 'aunt' who was really her sister-in-law because Richard was her much older deceased brother. She just called her 'Aunt Heather' out of respect because she was old enough to be.

Watching the two eating, Heather noticed that Erica seemed happy, but lost in thought. Worried that she was in some kind of fugue state at the shock of seeing herself dressed as a girl, the therapist decided that she'd made the right decision in arranging to have the boy clothes cleaned, dried, and repaired as soon as possible. Whatever's going on in his mind seems to have broken through the apathy and depression, so it's done some good, but the sooner he's back in his own clothes, the better. I don't like this...

When at last the three finished breakfast, Fredrick helped each of them out of their seats in turn. Moving from the dining room into the living room where the large fireplace warmed the house, Heather sat once more on her usual loveseat while the two girls took seats on the other one facing her.

"Well!" she began. "Since there's no school today, and likely not for a few days at least, we needn't worry about getting Erica registered until likely next month." Looking at Erica's reaction, she noticed no change in expression over the use of her name in the feminine form. Needing to see just how badly damaged she was, Heather used her therapist's training and began engaging them in light conversation. "Do you two have any plans for today?" she asked.

Looking at one another, they shook their heads, Faith answering for them both. "Not really, Mamma. I've done all my homework, and Erica doesn't have any yet, so I guess there isn't anything we have to do. Could we just go upstairs and play for a while?"

Her mother shook her head. "I think we should sit here together and talk about a few things. Besides, it's much warmer in the living room than in your bedroom, don't you agree?" Turning to Erica, she asked, "Did you have anything you wanted to talk about? You must have a lot of questions."

"Not really, Aunt Heather." she said demurely.

"I noticed that during breakfast you seemed to be deep in thought." she probed. "What were you thinking about?"

"Well, I was thinking... um..." she began hesitantly, sure that her aunt would react badly to the idea that she was pretending to be her own mother. Deciding to just let her know some of her thoughts, she closed her eyes and took a breath, her way of making herself say something she didn't want to. "I noticed that I look an awful lot like... um... my mom... when she was younger. I was thinking about that." Still sorting out the details of her story, she justified her statement by separating Erica's life into two parts; her old life as a grown up and her new life, reborn in the body of her own child.

Faith looked at her surprised. "I thought you wanted me to keep it a secret?"

"It's alright, Faith." she sighed. "I couldn't very well lie to your mom, right?"

"I guess so." she replied. Turning to her mother, she asked, "I noticed I look a little like some of the pictures of you when you were little. Don't you think so, Mamma?"

Smiling, Heather turned to her daughter. "Somewhat, dear. I also agree, Erica... you do look somewhat like your mother at your age. How does that make you feel, seeing something of your mother reflected back at you?"

She shrugged absently. "Mostly I like it... like she's still here with me."

Looking at her intently, Heather nodded. "I understand. Well, I see no real harm in it for a while. Maybe it can help you cope with your feelings."

Smiling, Faith turned to her cousin. "Erica? Would you like to play pretend and your name can be Erica while my name can be Heather?"

Shaking her head slowly, she replied, "No, that's OK, Faith. I think you should just be yourself. You can still call me Erica, though. I like it." Even as the words came out of her mouth, she remembered that she was sitting across from her aunt. Looking over at her with eyes wide, she tried to stammer out a retraction. "Well, what I mean is... um..." Unable to come up with a convincing restatement of a meaning other than the truth, she finally sighed and looked down in her lap again, waiting for a lecture that she shouldn't be enjoying her predicament. The response she got surprised her.

"That very understandable, Erica." her aunt replied.

Looking up at her guardian, she asked, "It is?"

Heather laughed. "Yes, sweetie! You see, from a certain point of view, Eric is an orphan boy, uprooted from the life he's always known, and cast into a strange place with family he doesn't know with almost nothing to his name. Erica is a young lady with pretty dresses, lots of toys, a cousin just her age, and living with loving family and isn't missing anyone in her life, because she has no life other than what you want there to be. Do you see?"

She nodded as she began to see what her aunt meant. "I think so. It sounds like something I read in a psychology book once. I think it's called escapism. Is that right?"

Sitting forward, Heather was surprised by her degree of knowledge on the subject. "Very good, Erica! You seem to have a knack for psychology. Isn't that what your mother did for a living?"

Thinking about her mother Erica while being Erica was confusing and unsettling. If she was Erica Dunning, that meant her mother was also Eric's mother, therefore her mother was also dead, whereas if she was Erica Hargrave, her mother was alive again. Shaking free of that confusing and depressing line of thought, she answered her aunt's question distantly. "In a way, Aunt Heather. I think she was called a Human Resources Consultant."

Nodding, Heather already knew that her mother had gotten a degree in psychology; they'd both attended Stanford at the same time, Heather one year ahead of her. She also knew what her sister-in-law had done for a living after her husband Jack was killed overseas. It was all in the letter that the dying woman had written to her asking her to take 'Eric' in. "Well I'm impressed, young lady." she complimented.

Faith was bored with the conversation. "So then, can we play down here in the living room then, Mamma? If we promise to play quietly?"

"In a moment, dear." her mother replied absently. Turning back to her niece, she waited to see if the girl would volunteer anything more.

"Aunt Heather? If what you say is true, about me using escapism? Doesn't it mean I should stop? It's not healthy, right? Isn't it what crazy people do?"

"No, sweetheart. In fact a little escapism can be very healthy. Actually we do it all the time. Sometimes we need it the same way a pressure cooker needs an escape valve. When life gets too hard, or changes too quickly, the pressures it can cause can lead to very self-destructive behavior. A little escapism, like reading a book or watching a movie, is as healthy as a little wine; too much and you can't function in the real world... too little and you won't have much fun at all. Do you understand?"

Erica nodded. "So it's OK to be Erica?"

"For a while, yes." she nodded and smiled. With an almost laughing lilt in her voice, she added, "We'll see how you feel once your regular clothes are clean and dry and you have a choice!"

"Is it OK now, Mamma?" Faith sighed.

Her mother looked sternly back at her. "Now Faith, you know perfectly well that whining will not get you what you want. I think it would be good for you to be reminded of that by you two staying down here to read for a while. You may chose from any book in your library, so long as you read until ten. Is that clear, young lady?"

She'd regretted her impatient tone the moment it left her lips and knew that she'd blown any hope of getting to play downstairs any time soon. "Yes, Mamma." she replied apologetically. Standing up she extended her hand to her cousin, helping her stand in her unfamiliar outfit. "Come on, Erica. We really do have a very nice library. Would you like me to show it to you?"

She smiled at the idea as she'd always enjoyed reading. Pausing a moment, she realized she'd missed something. "Wait, you have your own library?"

"Well, I call it my library." Faith shrugged. "It's just one wall, though."

Her mother intervened, standing next to the two. "That's enough, Faith. Follow me, ladies."