The Calm Before The Storm

Life was good. I appreciated having Lucy in bed with me every night, Mom seemed to be happy with Lucy living with us, even if she rather thought of it as one of the sleepovers we had when we were kids.

The new book was coming along nicely. I had left Lady Elaine frantically whipping the horses on the wagon she had stolen when her Faithful Maid Lucinda discovered the tall, dark, handsome Gypsy was really a demon from the nether reaches, even if he could dance like a demon possessed. Hey - I just write 'em, I don't explain 'em.

I was trying to find some semi-plausible reason for Lady Elaine to go through a pseudo-marriage ceremony with another woman so I could do an Alfred Hitchcock and write myself in as the other bride when the phone rang. It was the one and original Carrie.

"Sherry? Caller ID says it's Sherry now."

"Indeed it is. Congratulate me, sis."

"What for?"

"Want to be a bridesmaid?"

"NO! Who?"

"The lovely Miss Lucy Kesslere."

"So she finally snagged you."

"The wedding is New Year's Eve. Will you be there?"

"We just landed in New York. We're going to take a couple of days to adjust to the time change and see a few things, then we'll be home late Wednesday."

"Cool. You're saying 'we.' Does that imply you have someone for us to meet?

"More than imply, sis. Hjalte is right here with me."

That's pronounced Yell-ta if you don't speak Danish.

"Darn! With Dad gone and Harry out of the picture, there's no one left to protect your virtue."

"Who says I have any virtue left to protect?"

"There is that. I guess we better move Lucy's queen size bed over from her old place so you have a place to sleep. I assume you aren't interested in twin beds?"

"Mom didn't raise no dummies, Sherry."

"It will be good to see my other half again. The only problem is we will again have two Carries around the place."

"Do we resort to forehead name tattoos?"

"Hush yo' mouth, chile'."

"This is going to be fun. See you Wednesday."

It's Almost What?

There's a story Dad told about a husband who was so wound up in getting to his destination he left his wife behind at the rest stop. He could really string it out and make it funny, but we never could believe someone could forget something so obvious.

That is, until I almost forgot Christmas was coming.

Between transitioning, proposing, planning a wedding, watching Mom and figuring out where to put Carrie and her man, Christmas almost got lost in the shuffle. It's a good thing I had a yearly reminder on my computer set for December 11 that told me to get the Christmas decorations out.

Not that I've needed it, living alone I didn't do much about Christmas except return to the old homestead at the proper time. Whether it was sentiment or inertia, I had never deleted the reminder. Thus it came to pass that I abandoned Lady Elaine and her Faithful Maid Lucinda in mid-crisis and went up to the attic to start toting boxes. Mom had been efficient, the Christmas boxes were all together and the contents marked. I schlepped them down to the living room.

As an active woman of the house, I helped Mom cook dinner. So far she was pretty much OK in the kitchen as long as I made sure the stove units were turned off and the sharp knives were racked properly. It was a good feeling to have dinner ready for my almost-wife when she got home from work.

Since Pam had developed an allergy to pine trees, we no longer had a real tree. Dad had bought a very realistic fake tree that had all the LED lights already on it. This had two advantages - Pam didn't get hives and Dad didn't get frustrated trying to string the lights, only to have them die before he was done when one of those cheapo, tiny incandescent bulbs blew out. Much easier to just remove the dust bag from the fully assembled tree and be done with it.

We were about halfway done when Lucy opened a box simply marked 'stuff' and pulled out an atrocity.

"What is the devil is this?" she asked.

I looked over and saw she was holding the most ugly Christmas sweater on the planet, the one with the reindeer nose boob on it.

You'll notice I did not include the head of the person wearing that abomination. For a guy that desperately longed to have breasts, such mockery didn't sit well. Dad bought it for Caroline one Christmas when she was getting a little too fond of displaying herself for her boyfriend and made her wear it when he was over. She got the message.

Somehow, since Dad bought it, Mom couldn't bring herself to toss it. I hadn't seen it in years because I was not around to help with the decorating.

"Ah Lucy, I'm afraid I haven't told you about the Ballston family tradition."

"And that is…"

"The newest member of the family gets to wear that sweater on Christmas Eve."

"The wedding is off."

"Oh Lucy, please don't say that. We love you, dear." Mom fretted.

"I'll reconsider, but only if Sherry wears the sweater."

"Wait a minute. You're not the newest member any more. Carrie is bringing home her beau. You get a reprieve."

"Sherry, making a Danish citizen wear that sweater might spark an international incident."

"Why? Denmark is a lot closer to the north pole than we are. They must know Santa better than we do."

"You'd better consult the State Department before doing anything rash."

"Did you know that Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer must have been transgendered?"

"Nothing could shock me after seeing that sweater."

"It's true. Both male and female reindeer have antlers, but males lose them in November and females the following May. If Rudolph had antlers like all the pictures show he must have been a she."

"Does that mean female reindeer are hornier than males?"

"Haven't the faintest."

"Enough with the biology, where do these elves go?"

"On the shelf, of course."

A Quiet Evening At Home

To some spectral observer glancing into our living room that evening, it would appear that the mother and her daughters were spending a quiet evening at home. Mother was knitting a sweater and watching something on the television. The dark-haired daughter was staring abstractedly into the ether and the blonde-haired daughter was absently playing with her smartphone. A peaceful scene of domesticity if there ever was one.

As they say, looks can be deceiving. The mother was fretting because she wasn't sure who she had started knitting the sweater for. The dark-haired daughter was busily plotting some outrageous misfortune to inflict on Lady Elaine and the blonde-haired daughter wasn't a daughter at all, but a future daughter-in-law. And all three of them were trying to be patient, waiting for the return of yet another daughter and her beau.

At last the doorbell rang and the dark-haired daughter, the one variously known as Carrie or Sherry or previously Harry, rose and answered the door.

"Hi sis! You need some freckles with that look."

The genuine Carrie stood there with a head-full of auburn curls, something she had not possessed when she left for her stint overseas.

"Hey, a girl can go wild in the Big Apple after spending a year in some nasty backwater patching people together. Like the look?"

"I do, although don't blame me if it confuses Mom. She's sure I'm Carrie and I haven't been able to change her mind."

"Sherry, meet the most wonderful man in the world. Hjalte, meet my sister Sherry and my best friend Lucy - the pushy blonde she's going to marry."

"Pushy, why you red-haired hussy, I'll show you who's pushy."

I felt a firm pressure at the small of my back and was quickly moved forward several inches. Carrie caught me and we embraced gently but warmly. "Those things look real," Carrie whispered in my ear.

"A dream come true, sis," I whispered back. Then more loudly "Come in, come in!"

When we got to the living room I said "Mom, Carrie's home."

"Mom stood up and looked confused. Carrie lifted her up and gave her a hug and a kiss. "I love you, Mom. It's been too long!"

"Carrie?"

"You bet, the genuine article. Has my sister Sherry been taking good care of you?"

"Sherry? Uh…"

"Mom, I want you to meet Hjalte, my fiancè."

Hjalte had been standing by with a bemused look on his face. I certainly hoped Carrie had briefed him as to what he was going to find when she brought him home. The man was gallant, he took our mother's hand and kissed it with a bow.

"I am so glad to meet you at last, Mrs Ballston. Carrie has told me many nice things about you."

Oooh! That lovely accent was enough to set any girl's heart a-flutter, even a girl like me who wasn't into guys.

"I'm glad to meet you too, Yell…"

She stumbled a bit over his name.

"Yell-ta, madam. Not a name common on this side of the Atlantic."

"I see. Can we offer you some tea or coffee?"

Always the perfect hostess, that's Mom.

"Only if I can help you make it, Carrie said. "I'm looking forward to cooking in a real kitchen again, not under a giant tent."

Carrie went off with Mom, leaving us to entertain Hjalte.

"Have a seat," I offered. "Have you been in the US before?"

"This is my first time. I did spend several years in England, however. I must say I wasn't prepared for just how big this country is. The only one of your states smaller than Denmark is Hawaii. Your country is almost as big as the entire European Union."

"I may be about to find out how big it is myself. My publisher is trying to put together a book tour for me."

"Carrie said you were an author."

"I am, but most men aren't interested in my books. I write romance novels."

"I will still give them a try. I'm afraid I am not as good at reading English as speaking it."

"You seem to have a very good grasp of our idioms."

"At least the British ones, but in the last year talking with Carrie and other American doctors has improved my English tremendously."

Just then Mom and Carrie came in with drinks and, of course, the cookies I had been baking, relieving us of the need to talk for a few minutes.

When our mouths were no longer full, Lucy and I started telling tales of the things we had done as kids, making sure that Hjalte got to know just who he was going to marry. Lucy already knew all the stories, having participated in most of them. We even told a couple of stories that we hadn't told Mom before.

See how much I love my sister?

When Mom started to yawn I helped her upstairs and made sure she was tucked into bed, savoring the irony of how she used to do that for me ages ago. The four of us talked late into the night, catching up with our lives and trying to see just who we had become.

I do have to wonder what Hjalte thought of his brother-turned-sister-in-law, but he didn't seem to be all that phased by our honesty. I later found out that gay sex had been legal in Denmark since 1933 and Denmark has consistently been in the forefront of LGBT rights.

Carrie picked a good one.

Storm Clouds On The Horizon

I was talking with Carrie and Hjalte one evening, learning about some of the things going on in medicine in the far-flung corners of the world when Hjalte mentioned that there was a lot of concern about a new virus that had originated in China. Seems the stuff was spreading at a phenomenal rate and people were starting to get worried.

I was skeptical, China was a long way away - why should we be concerned over here? So they talked about the Spanish Flu and the Asian Flu and Polio, diseases that spread worldwide and caused massive suffering. They were particularly concerned because Trump had dismantled our national response to pandemics.

I wasn't concerned, but we all know how that turned out. I was too busy thinking about getting married to worry about things like that.

Christmas

Christmas in a house with no children is a very relaxed affair. It no longer has the urgency of a kid just fidgeting and longing to rip and tear the wrappings to see what's in the next present. It does have its advantages, though, like continuing to snuggle close to the other warm body in the bed. That present was successfully unwrapped on Christmas Eve, so there's no urgency on Christmas Morning.

Now when I refer to early I am referring to early as in sunrise. Then there's early for an elderly woman, which is far earlier than the kind of early practiced by two pairs of lovers content to stay in bed and enjoy, shall we say, continued companionship.

When Lucy and I heard Mom moving about we arose, threw on our robes and went out to greet the day. My slugabed sister, not quite convinced that Mom needed a good deal of help these days, was conspicuously absent.

"Merry Christmas, Carrie, Merry Christmas, Lucy.'

"It's Sherry, Mom. Carrie is still in bed."

"You are?"

"Wrong sister, Mom. I'm Sherry, Carrie has the red hair now."

"Oh yes. Red hair doesn't run in our family."

"Nope, it comes from a bottle, she had it colored."

"Oh."

"Let's get dressed and have breakfast, then we can open our presents."

"Of course dear."

I was glad that Mom could still dress herself without help. I may look and think like a woman, but having to dress my mother still seems just plain wrong.

So we did the present thing, called Caroline and Pam, then went over to Lucy's mother's place to visit with her family. There were enough kids there to capture the Christmas Spirit of frenetic activity missing at our place.

All in all, my first Christmas as Sherry was a very satisfying one.

The Wedding Preparations

I hated to do it, but we had to tell the family there was no room at the inn for wedding guests. With Carrie home and Lucy's apartment no longer available, there just wasn't any place to put them. They understood and booked hotel rooms.

Carlene, the quintessential Women's Club Lady, had a friend who, while she wasn't a professional, could cater the expanded wedding. At least the fare would be simple, if not the wedding itself. I hoped that Hjalte the Dane appreciated that we were going to do it smorgasbord style.

We had decided to get married far too late to book a band or DJ for the reception, but Lucy solved that problem. Her ex actually did DJ work on the side and would take care of the music for our wedding. Having two brides was not the only thing non-traditional about our wedding.

Somehow it all came together and at six o'clock on New Year's Eve Lucy and I walked down the aisle together, there being no groom to be waiting at the other end. I was glad that Mom had insisted on a real bridal gown. A low cut gown to display my very own cleavage. Not as much as my bride was able to show, but certainly a dream come true for this former boy.

The Vows

Well, this is kind of embarrassing. For all that I make my living with finding the right words to convey an idea, I was stuck for what words to use to tell Lucy just what I felt for her.

When I write I usually have to wait for an idea to bounce around inside my head for a while before it manages to come out. Living by myself in a cabin in the woods helps a lot, solitude is a great inspiration. Once the idea is ready I have to get to a keyboard and see if my fingers can keep up with the flow.

Solitude had not been a part of my life since I got that phone call from Caroline in early October. Coping with Mother's dementia, finally admitting to myself that I was never going to go back to being Harry, delivering my manuscript to the publisher, getting a boob job and discovering that the old best friend I hadn't seen in some time was really my soulmate, asking her to get married six weeks after I found her again then getting married another six weeks later while fitting in three major holidays?

That has to be the worst run-on sentence that I ever put on paper. In fact, it isn't even a sentence, it's only a part of one that doesn't even contain a verb, but it gets the job done. What it didn't get done was finding the right words to say to Lucy when we stood before the preacher. I think I should write an essay on procrastination, but I'll work on it next week.

But I did find the words, and here they are:

 
"Lucy, you know I make my living as a writer, and something pounded into my head since Mrs Waters taught fifth grad English is that cliches are verboten in good writing. Yet here we stand in a situation that is simply inundated with about every cliche imaginable. I love you had been mouthed innumerable times, till death do us part comes a close second, at least until you end up in divorce court. Isn't the bride beautiful! is certainly true of the bride I'm looking at right now and isn't the groom handsome! is one cliche I am pleased to dispense with.

"We romance writers have a great deal of fun with the geek who can't see the signals the girl is sending, and sadly I was one of those when we were kids together, but in the stories the geek finally gets the message.

"Message received, love. I don't care if it's a cliche - I love you and we are going to live happily ever after.

"The End."

 
I should have known that Lucy would not let it go at that.

 
"Sherry, you may be the writer, but I have a pretty good history of making up stories in my head. You're just lucky that when I put them down they just don't come out like they were in my head or I'd be outselling you.

"But when we were kids, when Carrie, Sherry and Lucy would go out on the town it was always Sherry that made my heart beat a bit faster. If it was Harry, Carrie and Lucy you still managed to get my heart going. No matter who you were, you were always off in la-la-land, probably plotting your next masterpiece. You don't know how many times that I wanted to whack you over the head and scream 'Are you ever going to notice me?'

"Every time I almost started screaming I couldn't do it because I didn't want to scare off my friend. You went away and got famous, I stayed home and got my CPA. How could a nerdy CPA complete with a glamorous author?

"It wasn't until you came home that I realized that love is not a competition. Once I figured that out, once I began to see you as a the person I grew up with, the rest just fell into place.

"So Sherry, I'm going to say 'I love you' right back and promise you that whatever the end of the story is, we will be there together to see it."

 
So we kissed the brides, ate a wonderful meal with friends, danced to the DJ and welcomed in the new year with fireworks.

We were sure that that happy ending was right there to walk into.

Epilogue

That would have been a great place to end this scribbling, but reality just refuses to tie itself up so nicely. Nobody knew as 2019 flipped over into 2020 that we would be living in a horror story and not a romance. If I could have plotted it any other way I certainly would have, but reality will admit of no co-authors.

Lucy and I were two of the lucky ones, we both had jobs that didn't need us to go into some confined space and breathe other people's exhalations. Carrie and Hjalte were our advance warning system, they got the dope from reliable sources outside the USA, so we took Covid-19 seriously from the start.

Ironically, Carrie and Hjalte, being hospital staff, were among the early victims. They pulled through with fairly mild cases and went on to be among those who tried to keep thousands of others alive. They lost many colleagues to the virus and battled heroically for many, many months without a break.

Their marriage plans were shot to hell - they found a JP in Philadelphia, where they were living, and tied the knot with strangers signing as witnesses. No family, we weren't traveling by then, but they wanted to be married if the worst happened.

We followed the CDC guidelines and ignored the politicians. I mean seriously - who could believe the nonsense the political types were spouting? We wore KN95 masks when outside. I did most of the shopping, going in and out as quickly as possible. We disinfected, we washed hands, we tried our best, we really did.

Despite all that, Mom came down it it in late August. It accelerated quickly and we rushed her by ambulance to the ER, then held our breath. She passed in mid-September, in isolation and all alone since we were not allowed to visit for fear of spreading the damn virus even farther. Sometimes life just sucks.

Was it more merciful for her to pass in a matter of a couple of weeks instead of spending years with her mind slowly crumbling? I don't have the answer, that's for sure. It was something we never talked about. Dad keeled over in his mid-sixties, mom's dementia started in her early seventies. None of us expected them to fail so soon, so we never talked about it.

So part of why I wrote this is to beg anyone who has parents of, say, fifty or more to have that conversation. Maybe even forty. It's damned hard. Nobody wants to do it. Dad used to say 'nobody gets out of this world alive' when he was in a philosophical mood, but…

Yeah, but…

Believe me, you do not want to be the one who had to make those decisions for your parents without knowing just what they want done. I had to do it, and I hated it. The job was all the more difficult because Mom had never made a living will or a medical power of attorney.

Dammit, if your parents don't have those forms do not wait a single day more! And if you're the parent, don't let your kids flounder around if you suddenly get sick or - I'll say it - drop dead.

End of sermon.

 
Neither Lucy or I came down with it, and we have no explanation. Carlene stayed home, thanking her stars that she was retired, until Mom went into the hospital. We all decided that it would be best if she moved in with us and we all made it until the vaccines were available.

We all were first in line to get that needle. By the time the second booster was available, Lucy and I decided that if we were going to be parents, now was the time. That's what got me to write this memoir - the pregnancy test just came back positive and I started writing.

We may just be able to find that happy ending after all.