This is an expanded version of a story I posted some weeks ago and I have had a lot of help from two of the best writers on this site, Angela Rasch (Jill MI) and Emma Anne Tate.

The silence continued for just a few moments. Pins dropped everywhere. Five faces turned in my direction.

There was no way for me to escape.

Kylie did a very creditable imitation of Pauline Hanson, our home-grown Fascist senator, “Please Explain.” That was what Pauline had asked her interviewer when she was asked if she was xenophobic!

The laser death-stare that accompanied her demand, on the other hand, was straight out of the playbook of Julie Bishop, formerly our Foreign Minister. Julie was a lady I admired, not for her politics, she was on the wrong side, but because she was not only attractive but had it all together as a fashionista and a politician. That death-stare was one trademark of a steely lady. I actually thought she would have made a good Prime Minister, but she was operating in the old-boys’ sandpit and never stood a chance.

Kylie’s reaction was the very thing I had been afraid of, the mother wolf baring her fangs, ready to protect her family from an immoral predator.

All this went through my mind while I wondered what to do. My main consideration was to insulate Ali from the fallout.

It really wasn’t her fault. She could have had no conception of what my life had been like. She was a child of her times and I was a child of mine. She may have been sixteen in years but she hadn’t received that education and nurture that young girls almost instinctively absorb in their formative childhood from their mothers. Her emotional development was somewhat lacking.

“Well,” I cleared my throat, ready for battle.

I was beaten to it by my grandchildren. “Does this mean you’re not my Grandy but my Granny?” Nine-year-old Dixie asked in all innocence.

Out of the mouths of babes. In different circumstances I would have laughed myself silly. “Yes dear, in a way.”

“Kewl,” said Max from his pinnacle of thirteen. “Wait til I tell the kids at school Grandy is non-binary!”

It seemed that I had a couple of allies. They wouldn’t cast me adrift but in the end they didn’t get a vote. One of my main fears in exposing myself had been that I might be separated from them. Their parents would decide that.

I grinned apprehensively. Kylie is the one I had always been afraid of. A mother’s natural instinct is to protect her children and I always worried that she would think I would harm them and react with hostility.

At least the initial shock seemed to have passed and she stared at me with a neutral face. I hope that is a good sign.

“It’s true. I’m on the transgender scale, leaning well to the feminine side. I never told you because I was scared of how you would react. Would I have preferred to have been born a girl? Yes. Am I going to take any drastic measures like surgery to make me into a female? No.”

My announcement was met with silence, but the jury was clearly out. After an awkward moment I continued.

“Now that you know will I appear as a woman in your presence? Very likely. Or if you object I’ll just stay out of your way and you can stay out of mine. You need have nothing to do with me if you don’t want to.”

Kylie was mute. My son, Anthony, stood with his mouth agape. I guess they were absorbing it. I hoped that was the case.

The first sign of real opposition came from an entirely unexpected quarter, Joy, Kylie’s mother.

Joy got up from the table. “I don’t want to hear any more. There are only men and women. There are no half-way houses. God doesn’t make mistakes.”

I can’t say I knew her well. She was Kylie’s widowed mother and had always been as nice as pie on the occasions when our paths had crossed. Her hostility came as a total surprise.

Although I suppose I couldn’t blame her for being as much a product of her times as Ali or me. She was a little older than me and had been born and brought up on a farm in rural Queensland, not quite the outback but not far from it, and they were social conservatives out there. She probably had no conception about transgender people and had likely never knowingly met one in her life.

“No! I don’t think God makes mistakes. I’m here, just as much as you. My existence is not something I chose or asked for.”

I know I’m neither fish nor fowl; too much of the gentleman to give her the beating that I felt like doing and not enough of a woman to know my next move. Do I dissolve in tears? Sorry, that’s not me. Stomp out of the room? It looks like she’ll beat me to it. I moved between her and Ali to protect the girl, just in case.

“Kylie! Your children don’t need to see or hear this!” She stalked away, pointing at me. “I don’t want anything to do with this THING ever again. Please, Kylie, get “IT” out of this house!” She left and went into another room.

I assume she will be true to her word and never speak to me again.

In a strange kind of way her outburst helped to clear the air.

“M-u-u-u-m,” Kylie called to her mother’s back, but to no avail.

Joy’s mind was made up.

My son Anthony entered the discussion. “Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you tell Mum?”

“I tried, I really did. I know I should have told her before we got married, but I was afraid, and times were different then. I loved your mother and I didn’t want to lose her. After we were married I tried a couple of times but she didn’t want to know, didn’t want to hear it, wouldn’t even discuss it.”

“So you lied to her, all those years,” he accused me.

Joy had spoken for the past and the kids had spoken….I hope....for the future. But we only live in the present, and the present was Anthony. My only son. And his mother, the woman he had loved to pieces.

“No, I didn’t lie to her, I just stayed silent. I loved her with both my male and female selves and concentrated on being a good husband and, I hope, a good father. I didn’t neglect you, did I?”

He didn’t answer that. “Did you cheat on her?”

“No! I never cheated. She was my love. The only ‘other woman’ she ever had to contend with was me, and I kept myself under control. I wasn’t into men, not then, not now. She didn’t know, or if she suspected, she never said anything.”

“I think your mum had to have known,” Kylie mused. “I always suspected.”

“Really?”

Anthony subsided and chewed all that over.

I hope that we had brought him up well enough to extinguish any prejudices against those who are different.

He had lived with my wife and me in Papua-New Guinea, in Fiji, and had extended holidays over the years in Hong Kong and Singapore so I was pretty sure he had no problems with different races. Some of his best friends at boarding school had been students from overseas. He had even brought a couple home with him for the holidays. We hadn’t focused on gender variations. Maybe we should have, but it didn’t seem important at the time.

Ali had been weeping softly while all this was going on.

I could do little more than shush her and wanted to get her away from this mess, but I had to let it play out a bit longer. In the middle of all this tension I was trying to think of ways to divert her mind from her faux pas.

Kylie hasn’t contributed much input. I think her mother is responsible for that. “Where do you stand, Kylie? Can you live with me or not?”

“I don’t know, Mac… or is it ‘Joanne’? I’m confused. I don’t think this is the time or the place to make a decision on all of this. Christmas Day lunch hardly seems appropriate for this discussion.”

She’d at least got over her initial reaction and is considering her attitude.

Kylie shook her head. “Look, I’m sorry about Mum. I didn’t know she was so violently anti-transgender. I thought it was… you know…. just a mild prejudice. She didn’t try to drum her feelings into us when we were kids, but I suppose it was one of those things that just didn’t come up.”

She looked at Ali. “This girl doesn’t deserve to hear that ignorant bigotry. She’s a sweet kid.”

Anthony and Kylie exchanged glances.

I couldn’t detect the meaning of their non-verbal communication.

He let Kylie take the lead. Sometimes men do have common sense.

“It’s a lot to digest, maybe too much for here and now.” Kylie said. ” Look, I suggest we think it all over and we can talk amongst ourselves for a bit, not tomorrow, it’s Boxing Day. How about we get together the day after and see what we come up with.”

“Suits me.” I shrugged. ” Let’s have lunch at The Ship? That’s sort of neutral ground. We can leave Ali at the building’s pool with Max and Dixie and she can babysit them while we talk and hopefully agree how we’re going to handle this. Bring cozzies.”

Kylie smiled, “Right, 12.30, OK? We’ll come to your place at noon, get the kids set, and walk up the road for lunch. Just one thing, who’s going to meet us?”

“What do you mean?” I puzzled.

“Will it be Mac or ‘Joanne’? I think, after all these years, we’re entitled to see what we might be letting ourselves in for.”

My mind whirled. What was impossible fifteen minutes ago seemed probable. There and then I decided that it would be Joanne who showed up. If they couldn’t face me en femme then the show was over and we didn’t even need the lunch. On the other hand I might make their dilemma into a victory and my grandchildren would see me, too. If they approved, it would at least be a draw.

Still, I prevaricated. “I don’t know, I’ll have to think about it. I don’t want to give you too much of a shock. Let’s leave it for now and let me take this poor child home. It’s been pretty traumatic for her. I’m sorry we ruined Christmas lunch.”

The strange thing was, and it had given me hope, that other than from that cow, Joy, there seemed to be no animosity or antipathy towards Ali. I still thought it best to get her out of the frying pan and back to a place of sanctuary.

Nobody argued so I called an Uber and five minutes later we were on our way and back home just ten minutes after that.

Naturally, Ali was feeling guilty and distraught for having once again inadvertently outed me. When we were back on the sofa with her in my arms I told her it was the alcohol that was the cause and we should have been watching for the effects. A couple of glasses of champagne seemed harmless but she wasn’t used to it. There was a saying that explained it all, ‘in vino veritas’!

She asked what that meant.

I told her how wine or any alcoholic drink loosened the tongue. I actually got a giggle out of her.

“I’ll have to be careful in future. I’m always making mistakes and calling you ‘Joanne’ in the wrong places.”

“The problem is almost over, my love. In two days’ time they’ll either accept me or they won’t. In either case I’ll be ‘Joanne’ most of the time after that. My biggest concern is that you are accepted for who you are. In a few more days we’ll be going into court and I’ll be applying to be your guardian. I hope we’re successful and then it won’t matter what anyone thinks.”

“Do you still love me after all the damage I’ve done?” Her face did little to hide her anguish.

“Never mind. It was all going to happen anyway. We probably just advanced things by a few days. You’re still my darling girl and I’ve still got to get you into TAFE. I can’t let you stay ignorant about seafood, and there are so many other things we’ve got to do together that we haven’t even thought about yet. I’ll always love you.”

“Anyway, tell me about other places where you spent holidays. Your parents couldn’t have left you at home ALL the time.” It was my attempt to get her attention elsewhere.

“Mostly we went to places with golf courses that Dad liked. We went to Sydney one time when I was about eleven. Mum came too and my sister. But basically, we went shopping and I wanted to get some nice clothes but I couldn’t because I wanted girls’ stuff and I couldn’t tell Mum. Morag knew but she couldn’t help me.”

“When Morag went to Canberra we went down for a few days to make sure she was settled in her new job. It’s a pretty boring place and Mum was cranky because she wanted to play bridge, so I can’t say I enjoyed it. Other than that we really didn’t go anywhere and Dad ignored me nearly all the time. He knew by then that I was never going to be a champion golfer or cricketer.”

I realised that I wasn’t doing very well in trying to elicit memories of good times, but at least she wasn’t thinking about the lunchtime debacle, so I gave up and just held her close.

She snuggled into me and made me feel so wanted. The rest of the day was restful and she gave me the DVD of “Dune” which we watched in the evening . We didn’t need to eat after that lunch.

I still had a couple of glasses of Chardonnay. I told myself it was to settle my nerves. Yeah! Right! One of my colleagues in Hong Kong had a tee-shirt which I always coveted. On the front it said “I’m not an alcoholic! I’m a drunk!” On the back the slogan was” Alcoholics go to meetings”.

“Dune" is a really good movie. I read the book(s) years ago and saw the first two screen adaptations, but this one was far superior .I can hardly wait for Part 2 to come out. Naturally, Ali was happy that she had been able to give me a Christmas present.

By the time we went to bed she had calmed down and recovered from the day’s events. She took MacBear to bed with her and he evidently helped her to go to sleep. When I looked in on her she was out like a light and the bear was clutched tight in her grasp.

Next morning she was up and at ’em. No cooking for breakfast but a healthy fruit platter, pineapple, melon, orange, grapefruit, blueberries, etc. She said it was to settle yesterday’s overindulgence.

Now I’ve inherited a dietitian!

No sooner had we finished eating and drinking and washing up than she was zipping around the place cleaning.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Well, I’ve been here nearly two weeks and the place hasn’t been cleaned. Mum used to insist that I helped with the cleaning, laundry, vacuuming and dusting. Once Morag was in Canberra I seemed to be doing all of it, so I just got into the habit. I like it tidy. She was off shopping or playing bridge.”

I couldn’t argue. It seemed like I’d got a maid as well. The only thing I’d been doing was making my bed! I had a man come in once every two weeks to do the heavier stuff like cleaning the bathrooms and doing the floors, but he was on holiday over Christmas and New Year. The poor bugger was going to be out of a job, not that I thought it would bother him. He had plenty of other customers.

Meanwhile, I’d been pondering the upcoming family meeting. I had already determined that it was Joanne who would greet them. I figured it was all or nothing. If they had made up their minds to boycott me, then that was it, better to get it over with and rip off the Band-Aid in one go.

I really wasn’t worried about my grandkids. Joy wouldn’t be there, that was for sure, so I only had to worry about Kylie and Anthony. I got hold of Ali when she had finished her whirlwind actions round the apartment and told her that I wanted to be ‘Joanne’ tomorrow. I needed to be the best possible ‘Joanne’ that I could be so to be sure that my face and make-up was perfect. We had to choose the exact right outfit for me to go to lunch with them….or not, as the case may be.

I think Ali saw this as atonement for yesterday’s mistake.

There is no problem with her doing my face as long as I moisturise and shave closely. Her cosmetic skills are now just about up to Arpi’s standards.

We spent some time discussing what I should wear.

Now Christmas in Brisbane is technically the height of the wet season, but this year the weather had been behaving itself and we were experiencing mainly fine days. I checked the forecast for tomorrow and it said it would be another like today, blue skies, low humidity and a maximum temperature of about 29C.

That meant I would be able to dress in light summer clothes, so I thought a skirt with some floatiness would give me room to move. Tight would not fit the occasion. We looked in my wardrobe and I had a few which I reckoned would be suitable. Ali had quite a good eye and we settled on one about knee-length with a dark brown background and white flowers to set it off, conservative, suited to my age and the occasion.

I always had to wear dark legwear because sixty-plus legs with varicose veins are not a good look. If not for the veins I thought my legs were pretty good.

That was OK, with a skirt of that length thigh-highs would do and would not be too hot. I also had a nice pair of coffee-coloured sling-backs with a heel of about one-and-a-half-inches that would be suitable for walking up to the pub, if we got that far. I had a matching bag for my bits and pieces.

My underwear would have to be light-coloured. No problem. It was summer after all. I had a high-necked orange blouse that tied with an Alice-bow and had flared three-quarter sleeves that I rather liked. We agreed that it would complement the skirt nicely. I would wear my favourite wig and be a real woman, going to lunch with her family.

That was the plan. We’d see if it worked! Of course, there’s the old saying that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy!

I sat her down and told her she would have a job to do as well. Even if I was declared persona non grata I didn’t want her to suffer. Assuming the best, I would be going off with my son and daughter-in-law for lunch and leaving her with Max and Dixie. While I thought they were on side I wanted to make sure they accepted her. I didn’t want her to be isolated.

So I made sure that she used her skills to cement their connection with her. Cavorting in and around the pool was a start but I told her that the way to their hearts was through their stomachs. If her parents and I were off to the pub she should give them some kid grub to keep them filled and occupied. We had sausages and buns, mustards, tomato, and onions, so hot dogs would be in order. No problem for my girl. She could deliver those in a trice.

Once we had our battle plan in order, we settled down for lunch. I was eating too much and too well since she came into my life. If I wasn’t careful I wouldn’t be able to get into my carefully selected female clothes!

Anyway, we just had tomorrow to worry about first. I didn’t want either of us over-thinking the situation. I wanted us to be cool, calm, and collected.

As if that was going to happen!

The TV news was as bland and uninformative as it always is over the Christmas holiday. Pictures of the Pope giving the message of peace and goodwill get boring when you’ve seen the same thing over and over and they always show a church service in Bethlehem. I haven’t watched the Queen’s Speech in years, although this year it was the King.

Still, we did manage to push the problem to one side by watching several episodes of Game Of Thrones before going to bed.

We were up a little later than the sun. I did the hated shave while Ali did breakfast. I was very careful. Today was not the day to nick myself. Thankfully I didn’t.

She served poached eggs on toast plus the usual orange juice and coffee to make my pills go down.

The one thing I’ll have to teach her is how to make coffee. I like mine VERY strong and the right blend of beans is the basis.

We cleaned up and the dishwasher did its work.

With teeth cleaned and all pearly we went onto the balcony, and she got to work on my face. Back to my bathroom for inspection when she finished and it was as perfect as it could be, so I got dressed in the chosen outfit and fixed my wig. My teeth are great but my hair much less so. Male pattern baldness’R’us.

I went back to the living room and asked her how I looked.

“Gucci! You’re beautiful.”

“Liar!” I’m nervous.

“No, really. You look like a very elegant fifty-year-old lady, better than my mum. Nobody would ever know.”

“I do hope you’re right, my dear.”

I went and sat on the balcony so that I could see their car coming and get a bit of a heads-up. I wanted to look my best when they arrived.

Ali was dressed completely casual since she was going to change shortly to get in the pool. For her it hardly mattered. To my eyes she still looked enchanting and, fingers crossed, my family would think so, too.

The car appeared and I rushed to the full-length mirror in Ali’s bedroom. There was nothing out of place, nothing I could improve on.

When the buzzer sounded I told them to come up. They had keys anyway. To buzz was only politeness. I jammed my front door open with the little wedge that serves to do that, so they would get the full view when they came out of the lift.

If I was going down it would be with all guns blazing.

My grandkids sort of spoiled my big reveal by charging out the instant that the lift-doors opened and then coming to a sudden stop in front of me. It was quite funny.

They looked at me, mouths agape.

“Grandy, is that really you?” Max found his voice first.

“Wow!” Dixie added. “You’re pretty…. for a grandma.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “Maybe you’d better call me ‘Joanne’ when you see me like this.”

By this time Kylie and Anthony had caught up. They did a classic double-take, by which time I had ushered the children into the apartment where Ali was waiting to greet them and there was a group hug between the three kids.

Kylie looked me up and down. “Well, I’m glad you didn’t tell us before. I would have been jealous!”

“Do I look all right?” I guess I was fishing for approval, if not a compliment.

“Silly woman,” Kylie gushed, “ you look great. I didn’t want to believe it. I was prepared to hate you, but I can’t.”

My son was still gawping.

“Come in, come in,” I said, getting out of their way so they could get into the unit.

“This is going to take some getting used to,” he said, but there was no hostility in his voice.

“So why don’t we let the kids go down to the pool and we go up to the pub?”

With the immediate crisis averted we agreed to go to The Ship, leaving Ali in control of the juniors. They were down to the changing room before we left and the sound of happy splashing pursued us as we crossed the street. I was sure there would be no problems there.

The three of us walked up the footpath, my son in front. Kylie took my arm in hers. My skirt flapped gently around my knees but I’d already forgotten that this was the first time I would be doing this with them as a woman.

“Now there are no more secrets you’re going to have to come clean on everything,” Kylie demanded.

I almost burst into tears but managed to stop myself from ruining my mascara. All those years, all those fears, melting away. As Roy said in the movie, “Like tears in rain.”

So we got to the pub, sat, and ordered drinks before perusing the menu.

My son broke the brief silence. “You’d better give us chapter and verse and I’ll decide if I forgive you.”

I knew he already had, even if he didn’t know it himself.

“OK. I did start telling you on Christmas Day but we didn’t reach a conclusion. I’ll go back to the very beginning.” I told them how I had realised I was different when I was about eight or nine. That would have been about 1965, and in those days I didn’t have a clue why. There were no personal computers and no internet, I just had this desire, this yearning, to be a girl.

Nobody would have understood in those days and not for many years later. I thought I was a freak until the nineties when the internet began to explain to us what we were, the transgendered.

I went through the various problems that had arisen for me over the years and how I had continued to hide them and live a ’normal’ life so as not to hurt anyone else, until we got to where we are. “I got so used to hiding my feelings that it became a habit.”

Kylie said, “I did have my suspicions about you sometimes because I thought you were sort of too gentle. The way you looked after Saranne when she was sick, but I just thought it was because you loved her.”

“It was because I loved her and it broke my heart when she died.”

“A lot of the life went out of you,” Kylie agreed. “I also noticed, in just one day, that you’re very fond of Ali. She has woken something in you.”

Women are far more perceptive than men.

“You’re half right, but I’m not ‘fond’ of her. I love her. She’s given me back what I was missing. I love her as much as I love you all.”

I realised with a shock that I probably did love Ali more than my children and grandchildren, but I wasn't going to say anything.

Anthony opened up. “Dad, you never tried to push any of this on to me. How did you keep it all bottled up?”

“You learn, son, you learn. You didn’t need to be burdened with my problems. But I don’t think you should be referring to me as ‘Dad’ while I look like this, do you?” I giggled, something I never do when I’m ‘Mac’.

“You’re a bastard, do you know that?” He said with a grin.

“No, I’m a bitch.”

We all had a good laugh. There was no ice left to be broken. My family was one again, with the exception of Joy.

I could do without her. It wasn’t as if we had ever been close. I hoped it wouldn’t upset Kylie too much. It didn’t seem to. I had heard stories over the years that not everything had been rosy between them, but family is family. Her mother had had five children, four girls and a boy, the youngest. Perhaps that means that the bonds between parent and children aren’t so strong. I wouldn’t know.

Lunch over, we walked back to the apartments. This time, Anthony walked arm-in-arm with me on one side and Kylie on the other. It couldn’t get any better.

I told them the rest of Ali’s story and that I was applying for guardianship.

They thoroughly approved; I think because they could see that it would be beneficial for me as well as for her.

We arrived back at the pool and the kids were still enjoying themselves. Ali had fed them with hotdogs and made sure they didn’t drown themselves after eating. It was clear that they loved their new sister.

We chivvied them into changing back into ‘street’ clothes, under protest, but they did as they were told and after a few minutes upstairs my tribe departed .But not before I got kisses from all of them. That’s the kind of thing you miss when you’re hiding a big secret.

We organized for them to come over to watch the fireworks on New Year’s Eve. There’s no better place to see them than my apartment. Us grown-ups would have drinkies while the kids oohed and aahed at the light show. Kylie volunteered to be the designated driver. I was told in no uncertain terms that “Joanne” had to be the hostess.

Coming over for the fireworks was something I had let go when my wife died. Apathy I guess. Now the fire was back.

Ali insisted that I should spend the next several days as Joanne and I was on cloud nine. I t didn’t take any pressure for me to agree. She was giving me extra tuition in applying my own make-up and I was getting better. I still relied on her approval.

The fireworks show came and went. The grandkids were as good as gold and Ali did a splendid job looking after them. She was already part of the family. My son and daughter-in-law never indicated that I was anyone but “Joanne”. I had spent nearly all the time before and up to then en femme. We had gone and done a bit of shopping in the meantime. A girl always needs new clothes and especially new shoes and the sales were on.

After New Year we had to come down a bit. On the third of January we were going to have our first court appearance and you never know how those are going to pan out.

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