The airplane ride, the trip through the countryside seemed to take forever.

The young boy in the back seat of the car felt somewhat like a criminal as he traveled with the social worker who knew all too well.

He was small for 12, and looked a little malnourished. His hair was way too long for the social worker who had accompanied him on this trip.

"Don't pull anymore of your tricks," she lectured. "You dressing like a girl. We couldn't keep you in foster homes. I suppose this one won't last very long if you keep that up."

The young boy remained silent as the car took a turn down a long dusty road.

He had been in six foster homes since his drug-addict, part time prostitute-thief of a mother went to prison. She didn't like him dressing up as a girl either, telling him "no boy of mine is gonna be a queer." She beat him quite a few times, which led to abuse charges being piled up on her, too, in addition to everything else.

He was beaten by a couple of foster mothers, too. But no charges were filed against him. The state just looked away.

One foster father got out clippers and shaved him bald for behaving "too much like a sissy" and told him he was going to hell for behaving too much "like a faggot."

He ran away twice and spent two months in a homeless shelter before the state reclaimed him and moved to another foster home.

This journey was somewhat of a surprise. He was planning yet another getaway when he was informed a family member had filed for custody.

"This maybe your last chance," the social worker told him after the judge granted custody to his mother's cousin Dorothy.

"Fat Dorothy?" his mother asked during the custody hearing. She was for some reason allowed to sit in on the hearing through her court-appointed attorney. "You can't be serious."

"Fat" Dorothy was the black sheep of the family, if you could call anybody in a white-trash family a black sheep. Even the boy's mother was treated with more respect.

The last time the boy saw "Fat Dorothy" was when she was thrown out of his grandmother's home with her "bull-dyke" girlfriend. She weighed about 400 pounds. And the woman she introduced as her partner looked more like a man than a woman with buzz-cut hair, leather jacket and Harley Davidson motorcycle. His grandmother was a "Bible-thumper," who much like the boy's foster father, proclaimed his cousin and her friend were "goin' to hell for bein' queers."

They moved away to far away Oregon where they would be more accepted.

Which was where the young boy now found himself as they drove up the driveway to the farm where his cousin and partner lived.

The "bull-dyke" was sitting on the porch looking very much like the boy remembered, only she was wearing overalls and a cap.

"He's here, Dorothy!" the woman shouted.

The boy was a little surprised when a woman wearing what looked like a frontier dress walked out of the house. She was not the "Fat Dorothy" the boy remembered. Instead, he saw a slender, tall, red-haired, pale woman, a woman who had a rough, but beautiful quality about her.

"Oh my god, Micah, you have really grown since the last time I saw you," she said, hugging him and pulling him to her chest.

"I hope it works out this time," the social worker told the boy before she left.

"I'm sure it will," his cousin Dorothy said with confidence. "This is Micah's home."

#####

His new home was a two-story Victorian house on a dairy farm. His cousin Dorothy told Micah he would be pulling his weight.

"Although you don't have that much weight on you," she said. "But that's something we'll change,"

She told him there would be a list of chores he would be expected to do as she showed him around the property. The boy said very few words. He figured the two women would be like all the of the rest of the foster parents he had stayed with. They wouldn't want him, either, after a while.

He did find them a bit peculiar. His cousin's partner's real name was Josephine Nelson. Her friends called her "Jo." But Dorothy called her "Papa Jo." His cousin Dorothy's name was Dorothy Walsh. But "Papa Jo" called her "Mama Dorothy."

Jo did the really hard jobs on the farm, especially with the cows. Dorothy tended more to the garden and flowers. She liked to paint, make dresses and played the flute. Jo seemed more like a tough man, Dorothy was more like an old fashion lady.

Micah was a bit surprised when he walked into what was to be his room. He had an antique canopy bed and two old fashion drawers. On top of one of the drawers was an antique doll. Hung in the closet were three old fashion dresses Dorothy made. The doll, he was told, was Dorothy's when she was a girl, passed down from her grandmother. He didn't ask about the dresses.

He just did what he was told over the next few days. He did his chores. He didn't want any trouble. Micah did what the social worker said.

"Don't worry, Mama Dorothy," Jo told her. "The boy will open up to us when he's used to us."

Both women tried to get him to talk. They were frustrated because the boy didn't seem to want to open up.

#####
It was a stormy night. Dorothy checked in Micah's room to find out if he were ok.

He wasn't there.

"Jo!" she shouted. "Wake up. He's gone!"

They both grabbed flashlights and searched the entire house. They couldn't find him. But Dorothy also discovered one of the dresses in the closest was missing.

Both went running out of the house and checked the Jo's workshed where she worked on motorcycles.

Nothing.

Suddenly, they heard a scream coming from the barn.

They rushed inside to find Micah wearing the dress and standing on a hay bale frightened as he could be of a gopher rat.

Jo grabbed a brick and threw the brick at the rat, which ran off. She then grabbed Micah off the hay bale and pulled him across her knee. She pulled up his dress and pulled down his briefs.

She was mad. She his bare ass with her bare hand.

It stung. Micah wept.

"Don't ever do that again!" Jo said weeping. "You frightened me and Momma Dorothy to death."

Dorothy put her arm around his shoulder and led him into the house, where they sat him on the couch.

"Why did you try to leave us?" Dorothy asked, weeping at the same time.

Still he was silent.

"Is it about the dress?" Dorothy asked.

"Yes," Micah whispered. "I'm dressing like a girl. Now you won't want me."

"Where did you get that idea?" Dorothy asked.

Micah told them what the social worker had said. And when he was caught, he would be beaten. He figured the spanking he received from Jo was because he was wearing the dress.

"No, it's because you scared the daylights out of both of us," Jo said.

"You want to know a little secret about the dress?" Dorothy asked Micah.

Micah nodded his head yes.

"That dress and the other dresses in your closet are yours," Dorothy said. "I made them for you."

Micah was stunned.

Dorothy grabbed him by his hand and took him to his room. She sat him on a chair next to the bed.

"Papa Jo and I have tried to have children, but we couldn't," Dorothy said. "We even thought we had a baby we were going to adopt, but the mother changed her mind and decided to keep her."

She told Micah that his Aunt Barbara, his mother's sister, told her about Micah being in foster care.

"When we asked our lawyer about us getting custody of you, we were allowed to read your case file," Dorothy said. "We know all about you wanting to dress like a girl. It didn't bother us at all. Everything you went through made us want you even more."

When Micah arrived, she had him put his things in one of the two drawers. She opened up the drawers of the other. It was filled with girls clothes.

"I went on a shopping spree," she said. "Oh hope you'll like them."

The drawers were filled with skirts, capris pants, shorts, tops.

"For some reason, I never got around to buying you any boys clothes," she said.

She told Micah she was going to tell him about the clothes, but the timing wasn't right. She kept waiting for him to open up, which he never did.

"I would have preferred a better time than this," she said.

She told Micah he needed to get a bath. He was wet and a little muddy from his attempt to run away.

She drew his bath, took his dress and underwear and took them to the laundry room.

She came back with a night gown and a pair of panties and put them on the counter next to the sink.

"Good thing I bought you a pack of panties," she said. "All of your briefs have holes in them, so I'm throwing them out. When you get done, come out to the living room so I can comb your hair."

Micah climbed out of the tub, put on the nightgown and panties and went to the living room. Dorothy pulled out brush and brushed his hair.

She gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"It's time for you to march off to bed young man...or young lady?" Dorothy said.

"Young lady," Micah said, giving her a hug and a kiss back.

She then marched across the room, gave Jo a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Aren't you sweet?" Jo said.

"Do you need us to tuck you in?" Dorothy asked.

"No, I'm ok," Micah said.

She walked quietly toward her room, but then walked back to the living room.

"Night Momma, night Poppa, I love you!" she said before heading off to bed.

"We love you, too, sweetheart, now get to bed!" Dorothy said.