December 2021 Christmas Holidays Story Contest Entry

It was the dreaded office Christmas Party. By some cruel whim of Fate, I was the guest of honor. Not something I had expected or frankly welcomed. But there I was, dressed in a tasteful outfit appropriate (if a little too formal?) for the occasion, sitting by my lonesome at the bar of the huge conference room they had transformed into the proper seasonal mode. Speakers were blaring Phil Spector’s Christmas album. The Crystals’ La La Brooks was singing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” It was at that point General Manager Arnie Simpson came toddling toward me, a broad and devilish smile plastered across his, well, plastered countenance, his hand beckoning. Oh, God, he wants to dance. For 3 months on this assignment, he had acted like a lovesick teenager around me. For one, I had never solicited his attention and had comported myself in a totally professional manner. Secondly, at 58, I was a good 20 years his senior. And lastly, he doesn’t know I was born a boy.

As he made his way across the room, my life passed before my eyes. Or at least the past few months. I had elected Early Retirement from my position as VP of Marketing and Promotions for a rather popular (some say notorious) cable network. Only a month after settling into what I hoped to be my salad days on the South Shore of Long Island, an old colleague of mine asked me to come to Boston and help re-launch a local cable news channel his new employer had just acquired. So, I’d spent September through December setting up everything from a new social media array to a visually striking yet comforting color scheme for their studio. And now, like a conquering heroine, I was being toasted for what all the executives thought was a job well done. Timing is everything and that’s why my farewell send-off coincided with the office Christmas Party. Lucky me!

“May I have this dance, Joanne?” leered Arnie as the crowd hooted and hollered their encouragement.

“I’m not much of a dancer,” I demurred. Oblivious, Arnie grabbed my hand, pulling me off the barstool. And immediately spun me around like a wobbly top. He reeled me in as if we were tangoing. To Phil Spector? His paunch invaded my space, and I didn’t know if I was dizzy from being twirled by his deft dance moves or just queasy from his unctuous proximity. Then it happened. He threw me like a deranged Russian ice skater spinning his partner into a death spiral. My hand slipped from his grasp, and I went barreling onto the floor, landing in a heap.

“Owww!”

The crowd hushed and someone abruptly turned the music off. I grabbed my left hand and moaned in pain. Damn! I had broken off a couple of nails. The French Nails done at the salon the day before. Did this ever happen to Bella Hadid?

“Joanne! Are you hurt?” my personal assistant Cecily practically screamed in my ear. That was when my escape route from this sordid affair popped into my dizzy head.

“I think it’s my wrist. Feels like it’s broken.” Arnie had come around to help lift me to my feet. I cradled my left wrist, still mewling for effect.

“Cecily, take her to the emergency room, pronto! Take the company limo. I’ll call Isadore to wait for you downstairs.”

Cecily walked me out of the conference room as the sea of concerned faces followed my trail of moans. I tried to wave to them with my right hand, smiling nervously. And winced convincingly. Lesley Gore’s defiant lyric of triumph echoed in my brain: “It’s my party and I’ll cry (in pain) if I want to!”

“Listen, I’m not really hurt that bad. Forget about the ER. Just take me back to my hotel,” addressing both Cecily and our driver Isadore. Cecily punched me rather too emphatically in the arm, shaking her head.

“Oh no. I’ll be in hot water with Arnie if I don’t see that you get your injury taken care of. Look, you’re covered by the company’s insurance anyway.”

“Well, it’s probably not anything serious. It hasn’t turned blue and swollen up. How about you drop me off at the urgent care center near my hotel?”

“O.K. but if you get gangrene and have to get your hand amputated…”

“They’re not sawbones in urgent care. There are real doctors in attendance, Cecily. Well, I’m sure there are.”

As I walked into the Urgent Care Center, I turned to give Cecily as she stood by the limo a reassuring wave. Absentmindedly, I used my left hand. I grimaced with pain and Cecily started but I smiled to let her know I was alright.

After checking in with the nurse at the reception desk and declaring my particular ailment, I took a seat in the waiting area. There were maybe half a dozen other poor souls waiting to be attended to. Not especially busy for a Friday evening the week before Christmas. Holding my phone in my right hand, I figured I could use the time to read a chapter of Alastair Reynolds’ latest novel, Shadow Captain. My sister had gifted it to my kindle months ago for my birthday or was it a retirement gift? Whichever it was, she was always spot on with my reading preferences.

It was a good twenty minutes before it was my turn to be treated. I must have been an odd sight, sitting there in my $2500 Stella McCartney Houndstooth-print coat. Hopefully my lips weren’t moving while I read. However, a groan or two did escape my lips whenever I tweaked my left wrist. A young man who had come in some minutes after me gave me a sympathetic look while his girlfriend in the seat next to him mouthed “nice coat.”

“Joanne Prentiss? The doctor will see you in Room 3. Down the hall to your right.”

Oh, goody, I’m getting a real doctor. Do not fear, my dear left hand. No battlefield surgeon for you, my pretty. I sat myself on the examination couch, still wrapped in my coat and holding onto my Saint Laurent satchel bag. Then she walked in.

She was the spitting image of the woman who had been the love of my life, so many decades past, another lifetime ago. Quite literally. It was before I had transitioned. Before I had even finally decided that I couldn’t continue living a lie. That I was a woman, never a man, despite the troubling body parts that signified differently. I must have had a gob smacked look on my face. I couldn’t speak, barely breathe.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Petry. You don’t seem to be in much pain. Although the expression on your face…” She perused my registration form and looked up intently at me. “Ms. Prentiss? You look familiar. Are you by any chance related to Joseph Prentiss?”

“I was…sorry…Dr. Petry…but I was going to ask you a similar question.”

“Alright. You first. What’s your question?”

“You remind me so much of someone I knew many years ago in New York. More than 30 years ago. Are you related to Elizabeth Robbins? I know she’s a pediatrician here in the Boston area. Last I heard.”

“Yes. She’s my mother. Although these days she’s a painter. She retired from her practice a few years ago. But tell me. Are you Joseph’s sister? My mother mentioned he had a younger sister. Back in New York, of course.”

I nodded, hoping it might seem noncommittal. Then I changed the subject.

“Doctor, I think I’ve sprained my wrist.” I held out my left hand. It served as a stop sign for a conversation I had never expected nor was I ready to continue.

As she examined my wrist, eliciting a groan or two as she manipulated it, we talked about me. Surface things like what I was doing in Boston, the nature of my work with the cable news channel, my plans for the holidays. For her part, she told me she was a second-year resident at Tufts Medical Center, taking on the swing shift here for a friend who wanted to spend the holidays skiing in Colorado. I restrained myself from asking anything more about her or her mother. It wasn’t something I needed to explore at this point in my life. The memories were still scars. Even now I didn’t want to pick at that wound.

“Well, Ms. Prentiss, I don’t think you’ve got a sprained wrist. No swelling, no discoloration, not a lot of pain. I suggest you take 2 Advil if you feel any lingering pain in the next 48 hours. If you want, I can take a look at it on Monday. I’m here from 4 to midnight.”

I took an Uber home that night and collapsed onto the bed in my hotel suite. I’m not sure but I think I still had my black suede booties on.

Monday morning I was going to spend my last day at the office packing up a few things, making the rounds and saying my farewells. I managed to avoid Arnie until late in the morning since he was occupied by meetings. Meetings I no longer had to attend. Tuesday, I planned to check out of my hotel and drive the four and a half hours back down to Long Island to spend Christmas Eve at my sister’s house. With luck, considering the inescapable holiday traffic, I’d get there just in time to hear her husband complain the turkey was too dry as he set to his carving duty.

But Arnie appeared in my doorway at 10 to noon, smiling broadly, arms reaching toward me. Unfortunately for me, I was facing away from him and slightly bent over my desk, sifting through some hanging folders in a drawer. I had just turned my head to catch sight of him before he crushed me in a bear hug. Was he nuzzling my neck? Gahhh!

“I’m going to miss you, Joanne. Any chance you’d extend your deployment with us?”

“Fat chance, Arnie,” as I almost shoved him off me. He pretended to smash himself against the wall.

“You still mad at me for twirling you a little too hard at the party? You let go, you know.”

“You’re lucky I don’t report you to HR for harassment, Arnie.”

“I’m sorry, Joanne. I know I come on a little too strong sometimes. But you’re such a smart, beautiful and…”

“I’m old enough to be your mother, Arnie. Look, let’s shake hands, say farewell, good luck and, hopefully, we’ll never cross paths again.”

“Joanne?” Cecily was at the doorway. “Someone is here to see you. Jocelyn Petry? Umm, Dr. Petry?”

I thanked Cecily, told her to send my visitor through and pushed Arnie out of my office. He muttered something about seeing me before I left at the end of the day. I hissed under my breath and looked up to see Jocelyn about to knock on my open door.

“Ms. Prentiss?”

“Call me Joanne, Jocelyn. Sit down. What brings you here today. My wrist is much better. You don’t make house calls in this day and age, do you,” I laughed.

She was wearing a lavender cowl neck wool pullover and skinny jeans, her puffy jacket draped over her left arm. She was every bit as model pretty as her mother had been at the same age. I found myself unable to speak for a moment.

“Joanne, I’ve come to take you to lunch. I think we need to talk. At least, I need to. I realize you might not be…comfortable…”

I took her hand. “No, I’d love to do lunch. Let me get my coat.” I reached for my everyday cloth coat and linked arms with her, exiting the room.

We were in the Beacon Hill section of Boston, close to the Charles River. It was a brisk day but not arctic at all. You didn’t need a scarf or gloves. My suggestion since I knew the area better than Jocelyn did was a high-end restaurant about six blocks from the office that served up good standard American fare with a bit of a Mediterranean twist. I didn’t mention it to Jocelyn, but it was also notably LGBTQ friendly, something very welcome in a city I wasn’t that familiar with.

Our waiter resembled a 25-year-old Harry Potter with stubble. Yes, the round glasses but half a foot taller than Daniel Radcliffe. He took my order in 30 seconds but took his sweet time detailing the menu to Jocelyn. She just gave him that same heartbreaking smile her mother had shown me in our halcyon days. We both ordered the Cobb Salad. I asked for a glass of Chablis. Jocelyn preferred water.

“You’re staring at me. It’s a little…discomfiting.”

“You look so much like Elizabeth. I can’t get over it. It’s like she stepped out of a time warp.”

“I don’t think I look that much like her. She tells me I take after my father more.”

“Speaking of your father. It must be great working at the same hospital your dad’s at.”

“I wouldn’t know. Dad moved to Seattle after the divorce. Almost ten years now.”

I didn’t know Elizabeth had divorced Dr. Willard Petry. Nor did I know they had a daughter. My sister had vaguely mentioned a child, but I was pretending not to care when she told me that tidbit. Water under the bridge, you know. I tried hard not to let my face betray my thoughts, but Jocelyn pushed on.

“Mom told me she didn’t think you’d know. The two of you haven’t spoken in more than two decades, maybe three.” I began to sputter a response as I realized…

“She wants to see you. To, I don’t know, apologize? No, that’s not what I mean or maybe what she means. But she says she’d like to see you. If you…”

“I don’t know, Jocelyn. What is there to say? For either of us. We’ve moved on. I know I’ve moved on. And, anyway, we can’t undo the past. It is what it is. No matter what we…”

She took my hand. The good one. “Please, Joanne. You’re here in Boston and you’ll be gone tomorrow. Back to New York…”

“We may never pass this way again? A cliché if I’ve ever heard one.”

She passed me a slip of paper. On it she had written her mother’s address in Somerville, a suburb 10 minutes north of the city.

“Go see her tomorrow before you drive home. Please.”

We ate the rest of our lunch in silence. Still, I couldn’t keep from staring at her beautiful face. And tears began to well up in my eyes. To think, she could have been our daughter. My daughter. I had to look away, pretending to look out the window at Beacon Street, where to my surprise flakes of snow were drifting down with feathery delicateness.

“There’s heavy snow forecast for late tomorrow afternoon,” she said languidly as she speared a sliver of chicken breast with her fork.

“I’ve got winter tires on my car,” I said as I finished my glass of Chablis.

A light snow fell on the streets of Tribeca in Lower Manhattan that Christmas morning when we were 25, Elizabeth and Joey, the young hope of a nation. Well, that’s what our friend Cooper called us when he’d had a few bong hits. I was finishing my doctoral dissertation on James Joyce and the Modernist Novel at NYU. Elizabeth had one more semester in Columbia’s School of General Studies to complete the pre-med courses she needed to move on hopefully to SUNY Downstate Medical School in Brooklyn.

The airy loft apartment Elizabeth had bought with the inheritance from her grandmother gave us scant insulation from the winter cold. We were bundled up in sweaters and shawls, exchanging the Christmas presents placed under our tiny table-top tree. Elizabeth gave me a rare second edition of Joyce’s Dubliners by an American publisher in 1917 that must have cost several hundred dollars. I was almost embarrassed to give her my comparatively frugal present, a gold bracelet with a heart-shaped charm depicting the Rod of Asclepius, the medical symbol comprised of a snake entwined wooden staff on a six-armed cross. But she slipped it on her wrist, shed a tear and hugged me with all her might.

There was one gift left to open. She handed the rectangular be-ribboned box to me with a knowing smile. “Merry Christmas, baby,” she exhaled in a seductive tone. I opened it to reveal a long-sleeved green velvet dress with red and white holiday trim. It was in my size. “Put it on. A little makeup. A red flower headband to give you a pixie look. Black tights. Your biker boots are girly enough…”

An hour later, we were strolling arm in arm toward Kelly’s Tavern, a homey little Irish pub on the edge of Chinatown, to have Christmas brunch. Elizabeth’s borrowed cloth coat barely covered my knee length dress, and the boots looked a little clunky, but this was downtown Manhattan. Nobody noticed. “You look lovely, babe,” she murmured in my ear, my hair dampened by the light snow falling on it. I hugged her to me and almost purred. Or maybe shivered. It was cold.

The usual crowd was there. A lot of boho artist types, perennial students, even some middle-aged couples of every imaginable sexual identity. They knew us and accepted my…quirk? Kelly, the owner and barkeep, an expatriate Belfast former folksinger, of course, importuned me to play the creaky standup piano against the wall. “Joey! Joey!” they all chanted and proceeded to call out every Christmas carol or pop tune they could think of. I led the singing in my wavery countertenor that leaped into falsetto to the delight of the crowd. We ate, we drank, we sang our hearts out. Kelly made a mint that day as brunch rolled into lunch and on into the small of the evening. But he didn’t charge Elizabeth and me a single shilling. He even kissed me on the cheek when we finally toddled out of the pub. That didn’t shock me as much as the furtive pat on my behind as his eyes twinkled mischievously. Elizabeth laughed. I was happy.

Later that night, basking in the warmth of the love we’d just made and the wonderful Christmas Day we’d just spent, we lay in bed talking of cabbages and kings. I turned to her, softly nuzzled her warm neck and whispered my deepest secret.

“I had such a wonderful day today, love. Everyone saw me as I really am, and they accepted it. They validated me. The female me. The real me.”

“It’s cosplay, Joey. A little game between us. You like to cross-dress and I’m happy to indulge your…fantasies. It’s not real. You’re a man, my man.” She rolled over and feigned sleep. I looked out at the night sky as flecks of snow brushed the floor to ceiling windows of the loft, melting into slowly descending rivulets.

I started the process of transitioning shortly thereafter. My mother wouldn’t support my decision, saying my father would’ve been outraged if he were still alive, but my paternal grandmother gave me a hug and a generous check. After a few weekly sessions with a therapist confirmed my gender dysphoria, I was greenlighted to begin a regime of hormone treatment. My life was starting to make sense, but Elizabeth grew more and more distant. We never really argued or blew up at each other over my transition but the truth about her feelings came out the day she asked me to move out. She was going to sell the loft to pay for medical school and move to a smaller studio apartment in Brooklyn. I was no longer in her plans. She said all this with little emotion as if it wasn’t important what I thought of her decision. I said I still loved her. She cut me to the quick when she derisively told me, “I’m not a lesbian.”

It was difficult to complete my dissertation and go through my Real-Life Test while submerged in a paralyzing bout of depression. I decided to quit school and get a job. My grandmother’s largesse wasn’t going to stretch that far if I wanted to have the GCS. Fortunately, TV is an industry that requires little actual business knowledge, so I slowly climbed the corporate ladder of Cable Network TV and had my completion surgery when I turned 30. My sister wanted to keep me abreast of Elizabeth’s developments, but I tried not to care. She met a fellow medical student, got married, graduated medical school and moved to Boston. Oh, they had a child. My sister might have mentioned the child’s name. She thought it sounded like they named the child after me. Looking back now, it seems to me she always had a sardonic sense of humor.

I stepped out of my pure metal silver BMW and looked at the house in Somerville where Jocelyn’s mother lived. A gray three-story two-family structure probably built some time in the early 20th century. I had struggled to decide what to wear but finally put on a dark blue pantsuit, accessorized with Manolo Blahnik pumps and a floral embroidered designer bag. I draped my Stella McCartney coat over my left arm and pressed the doorbell.

The thought occurred to me as I waited that maybe she was out. After all, I don’t think she was expecting me, and I didn’t get the impression that Jocelyn had been convinced I would actually stop by on the way home. I was startled out of my musing when the door opened, and she stood before me. Apparently, she had had to walk a fair distance from the bowels of the house to answer the doorbell. I don’t know what I had envisioned. She was an older yet still beautiful version of my Elizabeth. Her hand covered her mouth as her eyes widened.

“Joey…I mean Joanne!”

“Hello, Elizabeth. Good to see you. Can I come in? It’s rather cold out here.”

She motioned me inside and took my coat. Her hand went to cover her mouth again as she stood in the foyer, stock-still, taking the image of me in, speechless.

“Your daughter must have told you about my misadventure at an office Christmas party…”

“Yes. Joey told me. I hope you didn’t mind I asked her to be a go-between.”

“So you did name her, sort of, after me. Your idea of a joke? I’m sure your husband wasn’t too happy about.”

“Come. Sit down. Have you had lunch?”

“Yes, an early one. I’ve a long drive ahead of me. I might just make it home by 6, 6:30. God willing—”

“And the creek don’t rise. You and your westerns. Coffee?”

“I’d like that. Thank you.”

“Here you are dressed to the nines and I look a total mess. If I’d known you were coming—”

“I’d have baked a cake. You and your fifties pop songs.”

She walked away, presumably to her kitchen. “I was in my studio trying to paint. Sometimes the muse doesn’t want to visit me.”

I was in what they called the drawing room in an earlier century. Photos of family members festooned the walls. Mostly taken it seems at various vacation locales through the years. I saw the three of them in ski outfits on some slope, maybe in Vermont. Jocelyn looked to be in her late teens, perhaps 17 or 18. As I panned the line of photos, there was something odd. What looked like older photos showed Elizabeth and Willard standing or seated with a young boy in shorts, a baseball cap perched sideways on his towhead. The family resemblance was there. Did they lose a son? Was there a second child?

Elizabeth walked in and handed me a cup.

“Question?”

“I’m sorry. Did Jocelyn have a brother? I wasn’t aware that you had more than one child.”

“No, Joey is an only child. Come. Follow me into my studio. I want to show you something.” I followed her through a long hallway before entering a large room in the back of the house that she had apparently reconfigured to be a workspace. There were canvases on easels, on the walls, and lying about on the paint splattered hardwood floor.

“It’s a mess.”

“Looks like our…your loft back in the day. When we first met, your loft was filled with canvases and art supplies. The medical books came later.”

“Joey is my only child. She’s transgender.”

It was my turn to be shocked into silence.

“She told us when she turned 15. Her puberty hadn’t kicked in yet, but she despaired turning into a boy, as she put it. Willard was confused, angry, resentful. Kind of disappointing from a pediatrician, no?”

I turned away. Tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t want her to see me cry.

“I got her counseling, therapy. We got the best professionals in the field in Boston to confirm her dysphoria and she started hormone treatment at 16. I did everything I could do to help her, Joanne. I loved her as much as I loved…”

“Don’t say it. I’m glad you did right by her. She seems happy and well-adjusted. I like her a great deal. I would’ve been proud to be her…parent.”

“Willard wasn’t. We split when she started on hormones. He said it was a travesty he didn’t want any part of. His own child! Joey had her surgery when she turned 18, took a year off after high school, and when she enrolled in college, I quit my practice and went back to my first love, painting. Here, this was one of the first paintings I did back then.” She pulled a canvas from a group in the corner of the room and held it up.

“Painted from memory. Wonderful memories. I never stopped loving you, Joey.”

I took the painting from her and looked at it intently for some minutes.

“I was a coward, Joey. I was scared. Afraid I couldn’t give you the emotional support. I couldn’t. I wanted so badly to become a doctor—”

“It was a game to you. You let me dress up so you could get off on it somehow. When it became real, you saw me as a pitiful freak. You threw me out of your life, Elizabeth!”

She reached out to touch me, but I used the painting as a shield. I looked around the studio and saw a creaky standup piano pushed up against the far wall. I put the canvas down, walked over to the piano and sat down on the chipped wooden bench.

“This is the piano from Kelly’s. I wondered what happened to it when Kelly passed and his widow sold the pub. You bought it?”

“I understand now, Joey. What you went through. What you needed from me. I should have done right by you. By myself.” She sat down next to me on the bench. I turned to look at her and couldn’t turn away. I wanted to so badly.

“I play it when I’m stuck on a painting. Sometimes the muse returns after I play a Julie London torch song or Chris Connor jazz tune. I used to play for Jocelyn when she was down in the dumps. But I could never sing like you could. Play something. For me. For—”

“Old time’s sake? I’m afraid my left hand is out of commission. Can you play the bass notes? I can play chords with my right hand.”

“I’ll try.”

We played the piano side by side on the bench, she using her left hand, me using my right. And I started to sing one of her favorites from our time together.

I’ve had bad dreams too many times
To think that they don’t mean much anymore
Fine times have gone and left my sad home
Friends who once cared just walk out my door
Love has no pride when I call out your name
Love has no pride when there’s no one left to blame
I’d give anything to see you again
Yes, I’d give anything to see you again

She looked down, averting my eyes, when we finished. I got up and started to walk out of the room.

“Wait, Joanne. I wanted you to have something. It’s Christmas and I didn’t know what to give you.” She took a canvas off an easel that had been turned around to face the opposite wall.

“I still have the photo that’s based on. Here…on my phone.” I scrolled through to the original photo and showed it to her.

“We were good together weren’t we. I’m so sorry, Joey.” She dabbed at her eyes and sniffled once to collect herself. “Did you find love, Joey? Do you have someone?”

“You would have liked her, I think. She was an English professor at Columbia. We had 15 good years together. She had ovarian cancer. I took a leave of absence when it got really bad. Then I lost her. She wrote beautiful poetry.” I fell silent as my emotions broke through.

“I’m glad you found love again. Even though…”

“I have to go. There’s snow coming. Heavy snow. It’s gonna be hell on the roads in a few hours. Thanks for the painting. Merry Christmas, Elizabeth.”

She took my coat off the hook in the foyer and helped me into it. It was awkward with the painting and all.

“You’ll come back and see us sometime? Jocelyn would really benefit from your counsel—”

“Oh, she’s fine. She had the best mother in the world behind her, doing right by her child. Some of us are lucky that way. She’s fine.”

Her eyes implored me.

“We’ll see. I might come up this way after the channel is launched. Kind of a post-mortem. Who knows, maybe they’ll think I’m not such a genius after all. Goodbye, Elizabeth. Be well.”

I thought I heard her say, sotto voce, “I always loved you,” just before the door closed.

It was a quarter of seven when I finally reached my sister’s house in Port Jefferson on the North Shore of Long Island. It had been an arduous slog that included a ferry ride across the Long Island Sound from Connecticut to Port Jefferson. The snowfall had started to diminish sometime during the trek through Rhode Island and was now mostly icy rain. I cut the engine and reached into the back seat to haul out the two bottles of Chardonnay that was my contribution to the Christmas Eve feast, such as it was. The house was alight inside and outside. Fred, my brother-in-law, was a proud suburban burgher. He didn’t want his neighbors outdoing him in seasonal extravagance. I almost kicked over an inflated Santa Claus that was weaving in the wind as I navigated my way up to the house.

This year, my niece and nephew had come, bringing with them their own families. So, there was a table for the adults. Seven of us. And a table for the kiddies. Five of them, ranging in age from 3 to 9 years old. Fred complained about the turkey being dry again, but we silenced his remarks with wine and good-natured heckling. A good meal was had by all.

Later, I drove home toward the southeast tip of Long Island to my house in Southampton. The night sky was clear enough to show off its blanket of twinkling stars. I reflected on the day that was soon turning to Christmas Day. It was a day to put Christmases past, present and future in perspective. I thought of my sister, her husband and the three generations of a loving family with whom I had just shared a wonderful dinner. I thought of my partner Emily who must be waiting to reunite with me in whatever the afterlife is, if there really is one. I thought of Jocelyn, who had had the great fortune to be supported and championed by a good mother who, this time, chose to heed her better angels. I thought of Elizabeth, who redeemed herself by being selfless in giving her child unconditional love. She didn’t have to apologize to me. I hope she is in a place in her life where she can forgive herself. And finally, I thought of Joseph Prentiss, that lost soul who discovered herself after 30 years of confusion and frustration, becoming Joanne Prentiss.

My idea of how Joanne and Elizabeth sounded playing the piano and singing “Love Has No Pride” is Jane Monheit’s rendition here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxwlmY6qAXE.
“Love Has No Pride” written by Libby Titus & Eric Kaz.