Honeymoon Reveal
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

We had only been married for three years at the time and we had never enjoyed a proper honeymoon. The fact was that after we had met on a dating site and almost immediately, she had thrown herself in to caring for my young sons … and me. My sons and I had all been devastated by the loss of my first wife Marion, their mother, only a year before I met Cherise, but she helped to pull us all out of our dark mood. She said that it was all she wanted - to bury herself in a loving family.

We took what little time for us as a couple that we could, snuggling on the couch after the boys were in bed, great sex when we knew they were asleep, and just a few date nights when I could find somebody to act as babysitters.

The boys were a little uncertain at first, but it didn’t take much time for her to win them over. I had been won on the first date, but after a year we were married, and the boys were treating her as their mother. She was devoted to them, and she seemed to know exactly what teenage boys needed. She even got involved in their sports and not only was she knowledgeable about football and baseball, but she even had some skills that she could hand on.

I didn’t think much about that at the time. She just seemed to be the perfect mother – able to offer them so much while I was hard at work. She was a great cook and made great dinners, weekend treats and packed lunches for them at school.

It was not until they were mature enough to leave them at home alone that we could even think about that honeymoon. Of course we had a neighbor to check in on them, but we had confidence enough to leave them with just that. Cherise in particular, seemed to have given them a sense of independence that I never had at their age. But the truth is that the Bahamas were only a flight away, plus we were on the phone and online if needed.

We were both looking forward to it.

It gave us the first opportunity to talk about something other than the household, and that meant our future together that we hoped would be long.

Her past never mattered to me. I only knew that it had been difficult and so it was not something she wanted to talk about. I left it at that. I suppose that I thought she might have come from an abusive home because she said that her relationship with her parents had broken down completely. I knew that they were alive and that they made no contact with her, although they knew where she was and could have. As far as I was concerned it didn’t matter. My parents filled the grandparent’s role and they adored Cherise.

The other thing I knew was that she could not have children, which seemed to explain why the boys meant so much to her. She mentioned past surgery. I didn’t ask about such things, and it didn’t worry me.

Our vacation was spent mainly on the beach, but one day we went into Downtown Nassau to have lunch and a look at the sights. The restaurant we chose for lunch was near the market and we chose a view of the street for some people-watching. We were doing this when a large and very colorful woman walked past.

I remember the conversation exactly.

“Do you think that’s a man?” I said, referring to the woman. It was not said in a nasty tone, but simply asking her for her opinion as a matter of interest, as I often did on other matters. But suddenly, it seemed, this was not how it was received.

“That is a woman,” she said hotly. “She is every bit a woman as I am.”

“Hey, Sweets, take it easy,” I was a little surprised. “But you have always been a woman, and I am not sure she has.”

“Why would you say that?” she snapped. “We don’t talk about my past, remember.”

It suddenly dawned on me what she was trying to say. It seemed unbelievable to me, as she sat there shaded from the Bahaman sun, looking every inch as beautiful as she always appeared to me. Was it possible? There were broad shoulders and hips narrower than for most women. How was it that she could throw a knuckleball to the boys? What other women know the right name of spanners? Who was this person – really? I suppose that the first feeling that I had was rage. I felt betrayed – lied to.

“I certainly would have remembered if you had told me that you were a man, or you once were one” I said.

“That is what you don’t understand I have never been a man. Never. I was born a woman and I have always known that. It was just that a deformity forced me to pretend to be a man. It turned out that I was good at pretending, but that never changed the fact that I am a woman, and I always have been!” She was angry too.

“What was it that you said that could have hinted at that kind of past,” I demanded.

“I told you that I could not bear children and that I never could,” she said. “I told you that I had surgery. I was going to tell you more, but you cut me off, remember? You told me that the past did not matter to you, and you did not want to hear about any of that. Do you remember that?” There were tears in her eyes. It seemed odd to me to see them. This was not how things should be.

“I thought you were perfect. I didn’t need to know.”

“Thank you,” she said, using the table napkin to wipe under her eyes before any tears fell. “You’re right. It should not matter. But now suddenly it does.”

“I think you should have said something” I said, wishing that nothing had been said at all.

“I took you at your word – that it did not matter,” she said. “Nothing should matter except who we are now, and what we are to one another. What are we to one another?”

“We’re husband and wife,” I said. “We are on our long-awaited honeymoon.”

“I would not be anywhere else,” she said. “I would not be in any other place, or with anybody else but you. So-what if I was not as perfect as you thought. Many women aren’t. It was nothing more than removing a small piece of ugliness from my body,” she said. Women do it all the time. A nose job or an eye lift.”

She was talking because that is what she did when she was frustrated. It was one of those things that I loved about her. It seemed like a female thing. Perhaps it was. That would make sense.

But I noticed that she was in tears again. It made me think that there had been tears of joy in our marriage, but she was strong and only cried in sadness, in caring for, or sharing the pain of others. I had always admired that strength in her. Was it a masculine trait coming through? It had always made me proud to know that this incredible woman was my wife.

Now it seemed to me that this was the first time I had ever seen her cry from her own pain, and it was my words that were causing it.

I suddenly realized who she was and why I loved her. She was the very best of women, which meant that she was right – she was a woman.

I went up to her and took her into my arms. She quietly sniffled into my shoulder, but I could feel her body, stiff from grief and anger, suddenly soften in my embrace, warm in the knowledge that our love was real and constant.

“I should have told you,” she said. “I talked around it, but I never said the words.”

“Unspoken is better,” I told her. “I only wish I could take back all the words I have just said. I love you, Cherise.”

We made love. After all that was said and done, it was the very best of honeymoons.

The End
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(c) Maryanne Peters 2025