Bobby *finally* gets to see his mother in the hospital ... while wearing his new friend's dress. Just as he starts coping with her reaction, the last person Bobby wanted to see bursts in and winds up trying to drag him away.

As the nurse wheeled me down the hall, I kept waiting for someone, anyone, to start laughing at me. To my surprise I got almost no reaction at all. A couple of people smiled and someone wiggled her fingers at me from behind a nursing station, but that was pretty much it. As I rode along, I took occasional sniffs from the flowers Terri had given me to pass on to my mom. Everything seemed to be going fine ... until we got into the elevator.

It was already crowded with Aunt Joan, Cori, Terri, Mae and me (especially since I was in a wheelchair with one foot propped up), but it got uncomfortably close when a woman carrying a huge, gift-wrapped box slipped in just before the doors closed. As the elevator started to rise, the woman looked down at me, smiled, and gave me a wink. "I bet I know what your secret is."

Goose-bumps popped up on my arms and bare legs. "W-what do you mean?"

"Oh, no need to shy about it. You should be very proud. I must admit, I'm surprised to see you starting so young."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, seeing you in that pretty dress and carrying such a beautiful bouquet of roses could mean only one thing. You've just won the Miss America Pageant and twisted your ankle walking down the runway."

My heart felt like it had stopped when the elevator was filled with giggles and laughter. It took a second for me to realize they weren't laughing because I was a boy dressed up like a girl. I felt so relieved I started giggling too.

The woman pinched my cheek as the elevator doors opened. "You're just adorable. If you haven't won yet, I'm sure you will when you grow up." With another wink she walked out of the elevator and waved to me as the doors closed. By the time we stopped in front of a varnished wooden door with a sign that read 'Room 704', I was in a pretty good mood.

Even though Mae was smiling when she crouched down in front of me, she looked serious as well. "Okay, baby. Visiting hours are officially over, but the floor supervisor agreed to let you see your mama." She pulled one of my hands from the flowers in my lap. "Now I'll warn you ahead of time, she's going to look a bit banged up."

All the awful images of what might have happened to my mom came rushing back. After all this time waiting to see her, I was almost ready to chicken out. "Whatcha mean by 'a bit banged up'?"

"Well, from what I saw on her chart, it seems as if the side-impact airbags didn't open when she was sideswiped. She hit her head pretty hard, and dislocated her shoulder."

"Oh...."

"Bobby, if you're having second thought about seeing your Mama...."

"No, I'm fine." It was probably the biggest lie I ever told, but I was more determined to see her than afraid of what I might find.

"I'm glad to hear that." Mae smiled at me as she stood back up. "Your mama's been asking for you."

Even with the warning, I really wasn't prepared for what came next. When the door opened, an odd medicine smell nearly choked out the sweet scent of the roses in my lap. Except for the soft yellow light over my mom's bed and the pale green glow of the slowly beeping monitor beside her, the room was completely dark. She had a stiff plastic collar around her neck and her left arm was in a sling.

Tubes and wires were coming out of places I didn't want to think about. Where bandages weren't wrapped around her skull, a tangle of damp black curls poked out. When she slowly rolled her head on her pillow and looked in my direction, I noticed most of the left side of her face was covered in bandages; my stomach squirmed when I saw the dark stains.

"Irene, you have a very special visitor." I could hear the smile in Mae's whisper as we pulled up beside Mom's bed. After setting the brakes on my wheelchair, she reached over my mom's bed and pressed a couple of buttons on the monitor before turning to me and stroking the back of my head. "I imagine you to will want a few minutes alone. I'll be at the nurses' station for this floor checking on a few things. If you need me before I get back, just press the call button."

As Mae closed the door behind her, Mom leaned over the edge of the bed and squinted as if she were having trouble focusing on me. "I'm so sorry, but the drugs I've been given have left me a little dopey. What's your name?"

Out of all the people in my life, I would have expected my mom would recognize me. Did I really look that different in a dress? For a scary minute I wondered if she was too embarrassed to admit she knew me. But she didn't look embarrassed; she just seemed confused. Could the drugs really have affected her that much? I sat up higher in the wheelchair and laid the flowers beside her. "It's me, Bobby."

I did my best not to look at the tube taped to the back of her hand as she lifted the flowers, closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. "These are just lovely, Bobby." Her eyes popped open with surprise. "Bobby, is that really you?"

"Mom, I can explain."

"You look so --"

"It's really not what it looks like."

"-- so beautiful."

"You see, me and Cori was -- what'd you say?"

"I said you look beautiful, Pumpkin. But what happened to your foot?"

Instead of saying I looked silly, Mom had said I looked beautiful. And instead of grilling me about why I was wearing a dress, she asked me about the foot I had wrapped in bandages and propped up on the wheelchair's footrest. It felt both very weird and wonderful at the same time. "Oh, I kinda twisted my ankle when I stepped in a pothole in the hospital parking lot."

The corners of Mom's eyes crinkled when she smiled. "I guess if you were going to get hurt, the best place to do it would be at a hospital." Although this was far from her regular playfulness, her smile and attempt at a joke gave me some hope that she really was going to be okay.

When she reached for me, I swallowed the queasiness I felt and put my hand in hers. "So how are you doing, Mom?"

"From what I've been told, I was pretty lucky, since I don't have any broken bones. My head feels four sizes too big and I ache in places I didn't know could ache, but the medication is helping with that."

"And there wasn't any fire?" I was pretty worried when her laughter turned into a coughing fit and stood up on my good foot to pat her on the back. "You okay, Mom?"

Once her coughing was under control, Mom laid back in bed and turned to me with a crooked grin. "I'm okay, Bobby, and no, there was no fire. Why don't you sit back down before -- no, not like that, Pumpkin."

Feeling confused, I stood back up. "What'd I do wrong?"

"When you're wearing a dress, you need to smooth the back of your skirt before sitting so I doesn't get all bunched up and wrinkled."

I tried to remember how my mom usually sat when wearing a dress. "Like this?"

"Much better." There was something odd about her voice. It almost sounded like she wanted to cry, but she was smiling too.

"You okay, Mom?"

"I'm fine, Bobby. But you look as if you have something else on your mind."

"Well...."

"It's okay, Pumpkin. You can tell me."

"There is something I'm kinda confused about. You seem to be acting like me being in a dress is perfectly normal. Don't it seem even a little bit weird?"

Mom frowned a little, but it seemed to be from concentration rather than because she was upset ... at least, I hoped she wasn't upset. She spoke a little more slowly when she answered, as if she was choosing her words very carefully. "I have to admit, I was surprised to see you wearing a dress. Except for the fact that the dress seems a bit fancy, even for visiting someone in the hospital, nothing about what you're wearing looks especially unusual. How do you feel?"

"I feel weird."

"About wearing a dress?"

"Actually, no. I mean, it does feel different. But it don't feel weird ... which feels weird. Does that make sense?"

Mom's lips moved slightly as she worked through what I'd just said. "I think so. Are you saying you feel more like a girl than a boy?"

I opened my mouth to answer, then clamped it shut and decided to think about the question first. What did it really mean to be a girl? Was it just the clothes I was wearing? Was it my body? Was it something deep inside me that was telling me what I was? Did it matter if the rest of the world was telling me something different? What would happen if people found out about me? What would happen to Mom?

As I was wrestling with these questions, I heard the door open and a deep, booming voice say, "I'm sorry it took me so long to get up here, Irene. I came as soon as I heard about the accident, but you wouldn't believe the paperwork they put me through before they let me see you."

I turned and saw ... my father. Somehow, his sideburns had turned grey over the summer. He was also a lot thinner than I'd ever seen him; the skin was sagging from his cheeks and jaws. I almost didn't recognize him at first, but there was no mistaking his walk when he strode into the room and smiled down at me. "Oh, I didn't realize you already had a visitor, Irene. What's your name, sweetie?"

I was so glad I was sitting down just then, because my legs would have never held me up. "It's B-Bobby."

My hands started to shake as his smile turned into confusion, shock, and then ... something too awful to describe. "What the hell?" I felt a guilty sense of relief when his glare shifted from me to my mom. "Irene, is this what's been going on all summer?"

The monitor started chirping loudly and red lights began blinking after Mom sat up and returned the glare. "How dare you ... how dare you make accusations! You're hardly here two seconds and already you're jumping to conclusions."

My father folded his arms and bunched his hands into fists as he stood fully upright and puffed out his chest. As thin as he had gotten, he still somehow managed to fill the room. "All I did was ask a question, Irene."

A tear rolled down her right cheek as she squeezed her eyes shut. I was barely able to understand her as she growled through clenched teeth. "That sounded more like an accusation."

"I can't believe this. I've barely stepped in the door and you've already started yelling at me."

"I'm not yelling; I'm angry. You can't just walk away and leave us to fend for ourselves and then come back and play the concerned father. It doesn't work like that."

"Irene, you're impossible. I see I'm not going to get anywhere with you right now. When you're ready to have a rational conversation, let me know." My father wrapped his long, bony fingers around my upper arm just a little too tightly, but not quite enough to hurt ... much. "Let's go, Bobby. We'll talk about this on the way home." It felt like ice was sloshing around in my stomach as I started to imagine what the "talk" might include.

"Sir, please let go of my patient." Craning my neck to see past my father, I found Mae standing in the doorway.

I gasped when my father wrapped his hand more tightly around my arm. Just as I was being lifted out of the wheelchair, Mae's hand was suddenly around my father's wrist. "Please let her go, sir."

"Dammit, that hurts! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Right now, I'm applying just enough pressure to get your attention, and politely asking you to let go of my patient. If you'd like, I can be less polite." Mae seemed to tower over my father, which was a bit of a trick with her being at least a head shorter than him. With all the weight he'd lost, she may have been a little heavier than him, but that didn't seem to be it. There was something about the sureness in the way she stood, the level tone of her voice, and the glint in her eyes that said she was in charge.

My father slowly lowered me back into the wheelchair. His grip loosened, but he didn't completely let go of my arm. "You can't do this to me. As a parent I have the right to --"

My mom slumped back into the bed and the monitor started to quiet back down. "Robert, we've been through this a dozen times. I thought you had agreed to give full custody of Bobby to me after the divorce has been finalized."

"But it hasn't been finalized yet."

"Are you saying Bobby is your daughter?" The politeness was completely gone from the nurse's voice; my father's wrist was still firmly in her grip.

"My daughter? Are you serious?" A half-hearted grin was pulling at the corners of my father's mouth.

"Yes, I'm very serious."

He let go of my arm and yanked his hand from Mae's grip. I caught a glimpse of raw red marks on his wrist before he tucked his hand under his arm. "I see. So that's how it's going to be, eh?"

Just then the door opened a crack and an ancient woman with silver hair pinned under a nurse's cap poked her head in. "Is everything okay in here, Mae?"

"Everything's fine, Carrol. I was just explaining to this gentleman that visiting hours are over and he was about to leave." Mae was all smiles, but the way she stood suggested she was prepared to wrestle my father to the floor if necessary. He gave her a nasty look, mumbled under his breath, and then stormed out of the room.

Carrol poked her head back in after my father shoved his way past her. "Oh my, I don't think I've seen anyone THAT upset about visiting hours in a long time. Speaking of which, my shift is going to be over soon, and the supervisor on the swing shift isn't quite as understanding about extending visiting hours as I am."

"I understand Carrol." Mae turned to me, lifted me out of the wheelchair, and gently sat me beside my mom. "You better give your mama a hug and kiss goodnight, baby."

I did my best to hug Mom without squishing the arm she had in the sling, and then gave her a kiss on her unbandaged cheek. After all this time worrying about her, it felt so good to finally be able to be close to her, even if only for a moment.

I could feel the tears sliding down my face when she hugged me back and kissed me on the forehead. "Don't worry, Bobby. Just seeing you is making me feel better already. Soon I'll be out of the hospital and we can properly move into our new house." My mom pulled a tissue from the box on her night stand and blotted at my tears. "Aunt Joan has offered to watch you while I'm recovering. Can you be a good girl for me and stay with her for a few days while I'm in the hospital?"

I nodded and smiled, knowing I'd start bawling if I tried to say anything. Seeing my mom hurting was awful, and having my father freak out had been scary, but when Mom called me a girl, it felt like all the emotions I'd been keeping bottled up since the beginning of the summer (or maybe even before?) were about to spill out. I wondered if it had been because of our talk or something she had already known. Whatever it was, it felt absolutely right, even if it had been a long time coming.

"That's my girl." Mom pulled me into another hug. My control broke and I started crying into her shoulder.

Finally, I managed to pull myself together and blew my nose into a fresh tissue. "I'm sorry, Mommy." The old name slipped out before I was even aware of it, but at the moment it felt right and I decided not to worry about it.

"No need to apologize. Everyone cries sometimes."

"Even Dad?"

Mom was quiet for a minute. "Yes, even he cries sometimes."

"But I've never seen him cry before."

"I know, Bobby. For some reason, he seems to think it's important to hide that from you."

"Why's that?"

"I wish I knew, Pumpkin. I wish I knew."

The door squeaked open and Aunt Joan stepped into the room. "We've got to go, sweetie."

My mom rubbed my back. "You better get going, Bobby."

"Okay, Mom." I hadn't felt this afraid of being separated from her since my first day of kindergarten. "I love you."

"I love you too, Bobby."

As Mae wheeled me out of the room, Cori came running from the waiting room at the end of the hall. "Bobby, what was that guy doing in there after Mae left?"

Terri caught up to her little sister. "Hey, didn't Mom say not to ask awkward questions?"

"But I was just asking --"

Aunt Joan put her hands on her daughters' shoulders as she came up behind them. "I think Bobby has been through a lot tonight. Why don't we save the questions for later?"

The elevator ride down to the lobby was very quiet. Except for the rumble of the engine and the splattering of rain hitting the windows, the ride back home was pretty quiet too. Eventually, Cori gently touched my arm. "Bobby, was that your dad who came out of your mom's room?"

"Yeah." I felt the gears in my head slowly turn. "At least, he will be until the divorce is finalized."

"How could he not be your dad?"

"I ain't really sure, but that's what it sounded like was gonna happen when him and Mom was talking."

Aunt Joan spoke up from the front of the mini-van. "Bobby, whatever happens between your parents, your mommy will always be your mommy and your daddy will always be your daddy."

"What if I don't wanna see him?"

"You don't have to see your daddy if you don't want to, sweetie. Just remember: things may not be exactly how they seem, and you may feel differently one day."

Even though I knew she was wrong, I was too tired to argue, so I just nodded, closed my eyes, and leaned my head against the chilly window. I found myself wondering about how my parents had reacted to seeing me in a dress. My mom seemed fine with it, while my father went crazy ... again.

But this time my pretty dress hadn't been torn to shreds before he'd been pulled away from me. This time I wasn't hiding under my covers and crying alone in my bedroom while my parents screamed at each other downstairs. Even with my mom in the hospital, I still felt a glimmer of hope. Things were finally changing. Somehow, I was going to find a way to make sure they stayed changed.