THE ONSET OF PUBERTY

By Rhayna Tera, copyright 2022

Warning: If you don’t like reading fetish stories, then stop reading now.

Author’s Note: None.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

RT

FAMILY

Jody McGuire was a 12-year-old boy. Somewhat shy, plainly sinewy, and relatively slim, he was a typical teen on the cusp of puberty. His was a friendly disposition, given to a little mischief here and helpfulness there. He had friends; his fellow students, both boys and girls, liked him. Few could be found who would say anything bad about him.

His interests? Again, typical for a boy his age: a growing curiousity and liking for girls his age, a fan of first-person shooter video games, Dungeons & Dragons, some basketball, some soccer, his bike, some flag football, and such.

He did his chores with little complaint. He did his homework in a timely manner. He cleaned (sufficiently he thought) his room once a week. He preferred jeans, T-shirts, and running shoes to anything else. All that said, every now and then, he had to be reminded by his mother to take a shower and to brush his teeth.

His mother, Karen, was a widow, her husband having died in a car accident two years prior. Theirs had been a happy marriage. The insurance payment for his death had paid off the mortgage and provided a large six-figure amount in her bank account. Jody missed him dearly, as did his mother, who had opted for a change of pace after the accident and now worked as a senior manager at the headquarters of a well-known chain of furniture stores.

His sisters missed their father too. Simone, Sylvie, and Stephanie. Triplets they were: 14-years-old, attractive, doing well at school, active at volleyball, sociable, outgoing, and positive. They were close and, insofar as older sisters could reasonably be, were nice and loving toward Jody.

Given the circumstances, the suburban McGuire home enjoyed peace, harmony, and tranquility. Though not without the usual ups-and-downs of a family in a close setting (periodic petty squabbles, minor teasing, miscellaneous but negligible acrimony), theirs was a happy house on a street in a suburb of a medium city in a smaller state.

SATURDAY --- BIRTHDAY EVE

“Jody, I’d like to speak to you a moment, please,” his mom asked him one evening in early September. They met and sat in the family room. She turned the TV off. The girls were upstairs.

“Tomorrow is your sisters’ birthday.”

He nodded. He knew. He had already prepared three identical birthday cards and wrapped their three identical birthday presents: pink sweatshirts that said, “Play Like A Girl”. He knew they’d like them; the slogan to them was a statement of pride.

“There’s going to be a party tomorrow afternoon. Now, your sisters don’t want any boys to attend. They’re inviting all their friends over; having boys over too would put a damper on things.”

“Okay, mom. I’ll give them their gifts in the morning at breakfast and then head over to Greg’s place for the day. I understand,” his light, gentle voice accommodated.

Karen sighed; he was such a thoughtful boy.

Then she drew her breath.

“Well, Jody, we had a discussion, and they would really like you there too.”

Jody looked puzzled.

“It would mean a lot to them.”

“But you said it’s going to be girls only?”

Jody sounded puzzled.

Karen deliberated to herself for a moment and again concluded that the female McGuires’ plan would be a fun bonding experience for all of them.

“What if you dressed as a girl? They’d like that! I’ll help you get dressed, and then you can sit around and enjoy their party too!”

Jody was puzzled.

“You want me to dress up like a girl and go to their party as a girl?”

He couldn’t believe it. He was a boy. He had zero inclination to wear any girl clothing: none. This was too much. He couldn’t believe his mom was even suggesting this.

“I don’t want to.”

“It’s for your sisters.”

“It’s not me.”

“It’s for them.”

And back and forth they went, Karen slowly wearing him down, gently alternating guilt, enthusiasm, love, and a tinge of disappointment.

She saw him come around to her view, albeit reluctantly.

“Okay. I’ll do it. For them. For you. But I really don’t like it.”

Karen slapped her hands on her thighs, jumped up, and said, “Wonderful! You’re such a good sport! They’re going to love you all the more!” She bent over and kissed him. He nodded half-heartedly, but dread filled his heart.

That night, his mom and his sisters led him to Simone’s room. She was closest to him in size and height.

There were a few giggles as they watched him undress down to his underwear. There were no turning heads as the women faced a wall when he took off his underwear and put on a pair of panties. Apart from one light-hearted remark as his bra got stuffed with socks (“I hope mine will be bigger!” Stephanie chuckled), there was no teasing. “You’ll look good!” they said as the paisley-patterned dress came down over his arms and torso. It didn’t fit; nonchalantly, they put another one on him.

He blushed furiously. And, no, his little man never became erect. Indeed, it shrank as though he had been dunked into a frigid lake.

Soon, their creation stood in front of a mirror. The abstract-patterned, crew neck, casual, knee length, short sleeve knit dress fit well. The necklace was modest. The several wrist bracelets and two rings glittered. Two thin bracelets wrapped his ankles. The canvas wedge espadrilles fit too.

What did not fit? His short haircut. His bushy eyebrows. His Adam’s Apple. His shorter index fingers relative to his ring fingers. His narrow hips (hence the broad, white belt). The hair on his legs.

His voice would not have fit either, had he happened to speak.

But he said nothing.

“We can fix those other things tomorrow morning when you dress!” his mom beamed.

“Not bad, bro!” the triplets in unison cheered.

“Let’s get those things off and share a movie!” his mom enthused as she and her three daughters left the little boy in a dress in his sister’s room.

Jody looked at himself in the mirror.

His face was saturnine.

He undressed and said little as the five of them watched “Mean Girls”.

SUNDAY --- BIRTHDAY PREPARATIONS

The next morning, his mom led him into her bathroom.

“I’m going to help you shave your legs,” she casually said.

“But I don’t want them shaved. What will they say at school? I can’t even shave my face yet!”

She looked at him. There were a few slightly darker hairs on his chin. Not enough to shave, not yet. Yet his daily masculine ritual would begin soon, she saw.

“It’s nothing. Your hair will grow back. Now sit on the edge of the tub and I’ll show you.” She grabbed the hot washcloth and warmed his legs in preparation.

“I don’t like this,” he quietly said.

“You don’t want to look silly wearing a dress with hairy legs, do you?”

“Mom, I don’t even want to wear a dress.”

“It’s their 15th birthday. They only have it once. I want it to be special for them. Don’t you?”

He said nothing.

In silence, she took the razor to his legs.

And finished up with the few hairs on his face.

Later, around ten, while the sun filled Simone’s room, his sisters sat him before the vanity and hovered over him. “Close your eyes, Jody,” they asked. “Hands out,” they said. “Don’t wiggle your toes,” they required.

Blush. Eyeliner. Eye shadow. Mascara. Lipstick. Perfume. Antiperspirant. Nail polish. Toenail polish. His sisters doted on him in order to make him look pretty. His mother concluded the ordeal by fitting him with a synthetic, layered, long hair, raven-colored wig.

By eleven o’clock, they had finished.

The various compliments came: “You’re quite pretty like this,” said Stephanie caringly; “It’s all come together,” added Sylvie nicely; “Class, bro, really classy,” Simone sincerely gushed; “I’m very proud of you,” his mom said.

Jody stared in silence at the monster in the mirror.

They left him alone in the family room while they bustled about the house.

Plates on the table. Snacks on the plates. Glasses on the table. Cans of pop and other refreshments by the glasses. Stephanie turned on the radio. Sylvie pranced while placing the streamers. Simone brought in some extra chairs. Karen moved the patio table. They wanted to present to the several guests a welcoming, happy home.

Eventually, everything was ready. The family gathered in the family room.

“Thanks for being such a good sport about this, Jody,” said Stephanie. Simone and Sylvia said the same. Karen looked at her son with pride. He was being such a good sport; he was doing something special for his sisters. She felt his love for them.

The doorbell rang. The sisters hurried to answer it. Karen stood, smiled, and told Jody that the afternoon would be fun. She walked out of the room. Jody slowly got up, sighed, and followed.

SUNDAY --- BIRTHDAY PARTY

A scrum of teenage girls stood at the door. Simone, Sylvia, and Stephanie greeted their friends with shrieks and cheers. Like the sisters, the invitees too were in dresses and heels of varying heights. The giggling began at once as they admired each other. They were growing up; dressing up was something women did, and today was the first of (hopefully) many occasions in which they could celebrate their femininity.

Karen approached the foyer enthusiastically.

Behind her, Jody approached the doorway with trepidation.

Irene was the first to notice him.

“Look! It’s Jodie!” she shouted.

The others looked. Karen turned and put her arm around Jody’s shoulders.

“Yes, it’s Jody. He’s being a really good sport about this and wants to celebrate his sisters’ birthday with them. So, no teasing or jokes then, right?” She cast a stern eye at each girl. Each nodded.

Irene, Diana, Claire, Bianca, Ty, and Rita showered him with compliments and embraced him as though they were besties. “Nice dress, Jodie!”, one said a tad sarcastically. “My brother would never do something like this for me!” said another ambiguously. “Those shoes are adorable!” exclaimed a third, enviously though perhaps mockingly. There was more giggling.

Karen drew her son closer to her, bent over, and kissed the top of his wig. “See? It’ll be nice!”, she reassured him as she led him and the girls into her home.

Jody was horrified! He’d never hear the end of this! They’d tease him forever! They were going to pick on him all afternoon! Worse, Rita, his favorite amongst and prettiest of all his sisters’ friends, would never look at him the same way ever again!

He wanted to fall into a hole and disappear.

In the ensuing hours, he sat, quietly, patiently, as the girls bantered back and forth about the usual subjects: school, boys, volleyball, basketball, movies, school again, boys again, and such.

His chair stood by the fireplace. Whenever the family had a fire, he started it, stoked it, fueled it, and minded it. The chair had been his dad’s favorite chair when he, his dad, had tended the fire. He sat as his dad had sat and felt its warm, loving embrace.

He avoided conversation as much as possible. Whenever anyone needed anything, he without being requested got it for them: cookies, chips, pop, anything --- anything to get away.

No, there had been no direct jokes about him. Nor had there been any insults.

But he felt their eyes: nine pairs of eyes glancing at him, scorning him, laughing at him, mocking him. His mouth was tight, his jaw was clamped, and his attention was focused. Just one single comment, just one snide remark, just one simple joke: he would abandon ship.

Karen for the most part stayed in the kitchen away from her daughters’ merriment. She smiled to herself. It was comforting to hear so many young voices in the house and they reminded her of many fond memories of her younger years and of old friends now afar. She sipped her Pinot Grigio. She was particularly pleased that she did not hear anyone picking on Jody.

“Gift time, girls!” Karen shouted, marching into the room carrying several colorful boxes. Her daughters sat on the floor, their dresses spread.

Karen began a little speech; she didn’t want to intrude too much.

“I love you all and am so thankful that you have so many dear, close friends with whom you can share good times such as these. You’re turning 15 and that in itself is special. You’re on the cusp of becoming young women and young women deserve special gifts. Here,” she started handing out three small, beautifully wrapped boxes to her daughters, “are your first tickets into womanhood!”

Simone opened hers: a gold necklace from which hung a small pendant, shaped in the letter “S”. “Thanks mom!” she gushed hugging her mom. Stephanie’s and Sylvia’s gifts were identical and they equally gushed and hugged their mom.

Jody was glad to see the broad smiles on his sisters’ faces.

“A picture of the three of you with your necklaces!” Karen required. Her daughters stood by the window, arms around each other’s waist, necklaces around their necks. Beautiful smiles, white teeth, wide eyes, rosy cheeks: happiness.

“Your turn ladies!” Karen chortled to the guests.

The sisters began opening their friends’ gifts. A bracelet. A Goth T-shirt. An Amazon gift card. The latest FIFA video game with women’s teams. A fancy multi-colored pen set. Manga. iTunes gift cards. Things like that; things that 15-year-old teenage girls like. The hugs and tearful thanks followed.

Jody remained seated in his chair near the fireplace.

“Jody, it’s time for your gifts,” Karen merrily said looking down at her son.

The young boy in a bright purple dress turned toward the small stack of firewood by which he had hid his sisters’ gifts. His sisters and their friends looked at him.

There was a whisper. The another. Then a giggle. Hands covered mouths. Heads bent down to muffle raucous laughter.

His head swiveled and his eyes narrowed in anger as he drilled his resentment into the nine young women.

“What are you laughing at?” he snapped.

“Well, little sister, we can see your panties,” Stephanie said in a gentle voice.

Jody blushed furiously and punched the crotch of his dress in between his legs to prevent anyone from seeing his underwear. He saw Rita smirk.

He tossed the gifts to his sisters. “Happy birthday,” he said flatly.

Each opened the card taped to their respective gifts. The cards, identical, read: “Happy Birthday Sister! May you always know how much you’re loved by so many people, especially me!”

Simone quickly got up to hug and kiss her brother. The hug was not reciprocated. And his head turned from the kiss. His face was expressionless. Sylvia’s efforts were met with the same result. Stephanie’s too.

Karen detected his unease and hurried to instruct the girls to stand together for a picture.

“You too, Jody!” she encouraged.

Jody’s face fell. “No pictures,” he replied, stunned at the request.

Karen glared at him. Seething, he stood and moved next to Sylvia.

“Thank you, Jody. Big smiles! Say ‘cheese’!”

“Cheese!” the three girls cried.

Karen looked at the picture. Jody wasn’t smiling at all. She told him to smile for the next one. It was a bit better. “One more!” Better it was, although her son’s smile seemed more of a grimace.

“More snacks!” she said as she walked back to her kitchen. Some of the girls followed her.

Rita hung back. She had oft sensed that Jody’s furtive glances at her hid a young boy’s crush. He was cute, in a puppy dog way. And, unlike some of her other friends’ brothers, he wasn’t a pest. She stood before him and grinned.

“Jodie with an ‘i’ and an ‘e’? You look good in a dress, little girl!” She gave him a flashing hug and the briefest of kisses and followed the others into the kitchen.

Several minutes later, Karen heard the front door slam. Curious, she went to it, opened it, and saw Jody running as fast as he could down the street wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes --- and no wig.

“Oh dear,” she sighed, closing the door and returning to the kitchen.

A dinner for five had devolved into a sullenly cheery dinner for four. Table talk had been mutedly gleeful. The empty chair dominated the table.

-----000-----

The sun was now near gone. The girls were upstairs doing what sisters do upstairs. Karen sat on the couch by the front window watching the street. She checked her phone. When Jody had missed supper, she had texted her several neighbors asking whether they had seen him. None had.

She saw him in the distance limping toward the house. As he approached, she increasingly saw the filth on his sweat-drenched clothes and the dirt on his face. As he walked up the front path, she thought she saw makeup: he had left the house with it on! She raced to the door.

“Where have you been?” she shouted in both anger and genuine concern.

He ignored her and kicked off his shoes.

“It’s late. Where were you?” she said sternly. “What did you do? Why are you limping?”

All she got in return was a glare: a mean, nasty, evil glare. She watched him go upstairs and heard the bathroom door slam shut and its lock click. The shower ran. Soon after, she and her daughters heard his bedroom door slam shut.

They left him alone.

MONDAY --- SCHOOL

Karen left her office early: a privilege of management. She did several errands, took the car in for an oil change, and drive home. Tonight’s dinner would be cheese tortellini with wilted spinach, garlic, chopped mushrooms, smoked salmon, and cream sauce. All of her children loved it. As she prepared, her daughters came home from school.

They weren’t talking. They always talked, chatted, chittered, or howled. This time they didn’t. They went straight to the kitchen.

“Mom,” Sylvia said, “Jody had a tough day at school.”

“He’s definitely not in a good mood,” said Stephanie.

“What happened?” the distressed mother asked.

Simone glanced at her sisters and looked at her mom. “Word got out about his wearing a dress yesterday. It went downhill from there.”

Stephanie: “Rita’s boyfriend Todd started it.”

Simone: “He’s a jerk. But I’m really mad at Rita for this.”

Sylvia: “Then it spread. We didn’t see it all, but we heard about it. We tried to tell people that he did it for us just for fun. But I guess it was too late.”

Karen needed nothing but a glance to see how glum they were. She turned to stir the sauce. “I’ll talk to him once he’s home. Where is he?”

The sisters exchanged looks. Sylvia spoke for them all. “The last time we saw him, Bill Furscoe and Ed Jackson were leading him out to Henderson Park.”

Karen reacted immediately. “Finish preparing the meal. Eat if I’m not back. I’m going to the park.” She hurriedly left for her car.

Karen walked the park endlessly looking for her son. The sun was setting. He was nowhere to be seen.

Her phone beeped. A text message. From Stephanie: “J is home. Come fast.”

“Where is he?” she asked without taking her shoes off, having raced her car home. Hearing their reply, she dashed upstairs. His bedroom door was closed.

“Jody! Open the door!” she pleaded.

Silence.

“Open the door, Jody!” she insisted.

Silence.

Her daughters cautiously gathered in the hallway. Karen glanced at them --- they were frightened --- and then focused on the door again.

“Jody, open the door right now or I will break it down!” she threatened.

-----000-----

The door opened.

What she first saw was fearfully expected:

A bruise under one eye, a faint hint of blood at the corner of his mouth, the collar of his T-shirt ripped, the shirt itself scruffy and dirt-smeared, and his two hands: covered in blood, gashed, bruised.

What she then saw was completely unexpected:

Jody stood before her, his feet square to her, his legs steady, his torso parallel to hers and ramrod straight, his arms hanging casually by his side, chin up, head high, and a confidently grim, cocky, smug grin.

What she last saw shocked and frankly scared her:

His cold eyes.

TUESDAY --- TROUBLE

The police arrived at seven-thirty in the morning. “Mrs. McGuire? We’d like to talk to you about your son. Is he home?” Karen ushered them into the family room.

“We’ve received a complaint from two different sets of parents. They allege that your son Jody beat up their boys yesterday. Two broken noses. Some fractured ribs. Can you shed any light on this?”

Karen told them what she knew.

Sylvia came downstairs. “Mom, what’s happening? Who’s here?” She recoiled when she saw the two officers. She raced back upstairs and informed her sisters. They checked their cellphones. Innumerable messages from their various friends, including Rita.

“Rita’s pissed off. Jody apparently kicked Todd in the balls and the face,” gasped Simone.

Stephanie added, “Lisa texted me. She says she made a joke to Jody, and that he pushed her against a locker.” She stared open-mouthed at her sisters.

Sylvia then read aloud another text: “It’s from Christa. She’s saying that her brother got slammed against wall in the schoolyard. Jody. He’s got a concussion. Her parents have told her to never hang with us again.” She stared in stunned silence at her phone.

Back in the family room, Karen continued to relate the sequence of events of the past birthday weekend.

“Why did you put him in a dress?” one officer asked. Karen answered.

“Show us the pictures please,” the other stated. Karen did so.

“Did he say whether he wanted to be in a dress?” the first questioned. Karen explained.

“Is he upstairs in his room now?” the second asked. Karen nodded. She got up to fetch him.

“No, Mrs. McGuire. Call your daughters down and please stay here with them. We’ll talk to Jody alone thank you.” They rose and headed upstairs. Karen called the girls. They sat together on the couch as they heard the policemen identify themselves and demand Jody open his bedroom door.

Karen heard the door shut; presumably, the officers were talking to Jody.

They waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Footsteps.

Creaks on the staircase; they were coming.

Karen burst into tears as she saw her son in handcuffs being escorted down the stairs by the officers.

“Mrs. McGuire,” one said, “we’d like you to come down to the station with us.”

WEDNESDAY, FIFTEEN YEARS LATER --- REMEMBERING

Karen sipped her morning cappuccino at the kitchen table. She read the news on her tablet.

The usual partisan venom still grieved the country. The war in Ruritania was still ongoing. Another school shooting: Seattle this time. A Florida teacher had been arrested for having sex with several of her male teen students. Runaway electric cars mowing shoppers down. The Chinese moon mission was---

Punched by a sudden realization, her eyes darted back a couple of pages.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

She put the tablet down, put the cappuccino down, and put her hands down.

She stared out the window.

Stricken.

And she remembered.

-----000-----

The interview at the police station. Jody being let off with a very stern warning and a requirement to perform fifty hours of community service. His running upstairs once they returned home. Karen’s deep apologies to the injured boys’ families; Jody’s ignoring her when she told him he had to apologize and his refusal to even attend when she did.

The innumerable calls in the following years from his school informing her of his various scraps, his bullying other students, his several unsportsmanlike conduct penalties on the football field, his ejections, his dropping marks, the few but ominous harassment complaints made by some girls, the dozens of phone calls from his trashy girlfriends’ irate parents, and such.

And complicating his behaviour was a tremendous growth spurt.

By 13, he had lunged into sports, especially football and its weight room and had soared to rival his sisters’ height. By 14, he towered above them and could likely have beaten them up (he never did though) --- and no one at school dared try to beat him up. By 15, he weighed 165 lbs, stood 6’0, and was the school’s pre-eminent middle linebacker, a prototypical nasty one. By 16, girls swooned over him. By 16-and-a-quarter, he was, Karen learnt, discarding them, used and now boring, one after the other, an endless litany of names. Hence the phone calls. By 17, he had become a state football champion; but she only learned of this because her daughters told her. There had been no invitation to attend his award ceremony.

Above all, she remembered his silence once home.

He never spoke to her again. Nor to his sisters.

Dinner? He’d just make a peanut butter sandwich or take some leftovers from the fridge while the women ate; he ate in his chair by the fireplace in the family room. A dirty shower? The girls skreiched and were disgusted; he nonchalantly walked naked to his room. Where did he get his money? Karen knew he regularly ransacked her wallet and purse.

The four psychologists couldn’t succeed where she and his sisters had failed. He never opened up in any meaningful way to them. “You couldn’t get into medical school?” he was said to have sneered at one. “You’re a fat, out of shape slob,” he apparently had insulted another. The worst had been the poor female psychologist: “Trailer trash MILF,” were it was said his lone words to her.

Night after night, year after year, he had sat in his chair by the fireplace and stared blankly at either the fire or out the window at the setting sun. When anyone else sat in the room, he ignored them --- completely. He slept in every Christmas, never gave any gifts, and snubbed --- his could be an arrogant look, Karen thought --- any gift offered to him. His birthday didn’t exist to him anymore; if it did, then he utterly ignored it.

The girls rarely brought their friends or boyfriends over. They couldn’t risk something untoward occurring when Jody was around. Even their apprehensive boyfriends acknowledged that Jody McGuire was “not one to fuck with”. Karen’s heart had sunk at that. The girls fled the house as quickly as they could upon being accepted to university. “We can’t stand the tension anymore, mom,” they confessed.

One day in late May one year, he had left a note on the kitchen table: “Family room. 7 tonight.”

He sat in his chair. She sat on the couch.

“I’ve graduated early,” he said to her, speaking to her for the first time in years.

She again saw those cold, hard eyes.

“I’m leaving and I'm not coming back."

Stunned, Karen tried to compose herself. Like her daughters, she too had felt the tension, the pressure, the volatile, dark cloud that inhabited her home. Truth be told, she had known her life would be less stressful upon his departure. Equally, she had feared that she would never see him again.

And that pained her to the core of her soul.

He spoke before she could reply:

“I’ll never forgive you,” his deep bass voice growled.

He rose, looked at his chair --- his dad's chair --- one last time, and left.

She jumped to the window and watched him walk down the front path. His short haircut, his T-shirt, his jeans, his running shoes, his back.

-----000-----

Yes, Karen remembered all that now.

She cast her eyes again upon the tablet.

The news. The war in Ruritania. The American troops deployed there. The shelling. The IEDs. The suicide bombers. The casualties. The dead. The obituaries.

The obituary for Staff Sergeant Jody Adam McGuire, 33-years-old, killed in action.

She stared at the picture: a headshot. A sandy beret. A short haircut. A muscular neck. A confident grin. A lean, chiseled face. A warm and manly gaze. Her heart had for years longed to see his face again, to cup his cheek, to give him a caring hug.

She broke her trance and read the obituary once again.

Today? Today!

She hurried to get her purse and to get changed. She called her daughters as she dressed.

They were devastated.

As she put on her coat in the foyer, she glanced at the empty chair by the fireplace.

She wiped her tears and locked the house. The car wouldn’t start the first time. She swore. It started. It raced down the street toward the highway and the Special Forces base not twenty miles from her home. He had been there all that time! She looked: enough gas. It rained. She sped.

The car was left parked, on an angle, on two spaces, at the military cemetery. Karen saw a small crowd dispersing.

She was late: the funeral was over, and the undertakers began shoveling the dirt back in. Uniformed soldiers drifted across the freshly cut grass. The military chaplain loitered near the site, talking to fewer and fewer attendees.

Her face wet from the rain, the dreary clouds hanging over her, she briskly walked toward the headstone.

No, please God, no.

But there it was on the granite headstone: "Jody Adam McGuire". His name. His birthdate. His rank. His honors. His...

Gone.

Motionless, she wept as she solemnly watched the last shovels of dirt cover her baby boy’s casket. Her eyes looked to the heavens. She sobbed uncontrollably. The rain poured.

“Ma’am, it’s okay to cry. It’s okay.” The grey-haired chaplain exuded care and compassion.

“My son,” Karen struggled to say.

The chaplain looked surprised. “Ma’am, perhaps you may be mistaken. Staff Sergeant McGuire’s only family is over there.” The chaplain tilted his head toward a small gaggle of small people walking away. He passed her the funeral pamphlet.

Before he could say anything else, Karen dashed toward that gaggle.

“Excuse me!” she shouted. She wanted to run to them. Her body just couldn't.

The woman leading the gaggle stopped and turned. She’s beautiful, Karen saw. And so are the...

Oh my God! she thought amidst her shock.

“Yes?” the woman asked.

Karen arrived breathless and took a few seconds to compose herself. She fought to obtain the necessary focus; it eluded her.

“I’m... I'm... Jody’s mother,” she hoarsely sputtered.

Pause.

“How dare you! How fucking dare you! My husband’s funeral and some wacko like you pops out of the woodwork claiming to be his mother? He had no mother! How fucking dare you!

“He was an ORPHAN!” the woman yelled.

The chaplain raced toward them as quickly as he could. He was old.

There was young wail.

One of the little girls grabbed her mummy’s hand and looked at Karen suspiciously.

A second little girl tugged at her coat: “Mummy, why are you screaming at that old lady?”

Some uniformed soldiers started walking back toward the disturbance, their eyes targeting Karen.

A third little girl tended the wailing baby in the stroller and whispered, “Shh, quiet, Jody. Mummy’s alright. We’re going home.”

Karen gasped.

The chaplain grabbed Karen’s arms and tried to bustle her away.

The beautiful woman shot her a withering look, turned, and led her three little girls and baby boy to a black limousine.

Karen watched this stranger, her son's wife, her daughter-in-law, leave.

She watched her granddaughters leave.

She watched her grandson leave.

As the chaplain held her, Karen sobbed and howled:

“Never put Jody in a dress! Never! Do you hear me? Never!”

END

By Rhayna Tera, copyright 2022