SHE’S OUR DAUGHTER

I am Samantha Gerard née Shilling, appropriately perhaps, an investment banker for a multinational finance house. I am good at my job, and, love it. I live in a converted village smithy a long commute from the city and work on line from home a lot. My husband, Joseph, makes bespoke furniture in the old forge, and, has been a house husband since we married. Some neighbours think our lifestyle is a bit odd, but we’ve been happy with our lives which enabled us to spend a lot of time together with our three children.

Percival has recently turned life upside down. He has always been gentle and quiet, but we assumed that due to having two older sisters and no local boys anywhere near his age to play with, so weren’t worried. He has just left school and wants to do A’ levels at sixth form college. It happened last week. He came into dinner wearing a frock. It took me a few seconds to realise who the slender and pretty stranger with the attractive long hair between the girls was. He announced he was now Penelope, and, had been a member of an online support group called Transteen for over two years. He is now insisting on she. It turns out his sisters have known for a long time. I was stunned, but Joseph seemed to accept it because all he said was, “Son or daughter you will always be my child, and I love you.”

The last six months have been difficult. I was the cool, calm and collected one who nervelessly rode the roller-coaster called the stock markets. I wasn’t the one who swore at pieces of wood. I couldn’t accept what Percival had done to me, and he carried on doing it. I was convinced if I’d been a proper mum I would still have had the young man I had dreamt of my little boy growing up into. I know I’ve been behaving badly, childishly, but I can’t help myself, and Joseph’s understanding makes me worse. I refused to drive Percival to college dressed as a girl, but Joseph took him. I stopped Percival’s allowance, but Joseph gave him the money, and then the girls stopped speaking to me. Joseph and I have started arguing over money, no, that’s not true. I threatened Joseph in a way I promised myself years ago I never would. I earn most of the money, and I hated myself for using that as a weapon against the loving man who had converted the smithy into our home, made all our furniture and reared our children, but I still did it. What was his response to such appalling behaviour? He very mildly suggested that I was being unreasonable, and, pointed out even though he had made our bed he was not threatening me with nowhere to sleep. He asked why my higher income made it more my home than his and our three daughters’. I completely lost it when he said three daughters, and, stormed out of the house. I started staying at work and rented a flat in London to use over the week.

We argued all the time at weekends, usually starting along the lines of me shouting, “He’s my son.”

Countered calmly by, “No. She’s our daughter.”

Joseph was so unreasonably reasonable. He made excuses for my behaviour to the children, telling them I was having difficulty accepting reality, and they all had to be patient. We hadn’t made love for months. I knew it was my fault, and I think it hurt me more than Joseph.

As time went by, I learnt a lot I didn’t like about myself. I also realised I wasn’t as good at my job without being able to enjoy my family. I hadn’t anyone to fight, my family kept tolerating me, and I’d achieved nothing other than making us all unhappy. I couldn’t keep it up, but I didn’t know how to stop. After dinner one Friday after a week in the capital, I was reading the local weekly newspaper. The previous Saturday, the children had done the Pink Ribbon Run, a half marathon raising money for the breast cancer charity. There was a picture of three young women in running kit. The headline read, Gerard Girls Give a Grand. It was over. As the silent tears for my lost son fell, I turned to Joseph holding the paper for him to see. He was more concerned about my distress than the paper. As he took my hand he said, “Stop blaming yourself, Love. It’s no more your fault than hers. Trying to be a boy hurt her because for her it was living a lie. Penelope was prepared to die rather than try to live as a man.” He blinked away his tears. “She is waiting to turn eighteen to begin treatment, but is uncertain about the future. Her sisters can’t provide her with what she needs, and I certainly can’t. She is happy now, but, needs her mum to talk to. Her sisters and I need you too. Please stop hurting yourself like this.” The rest of the evening was very emotional. Penelope and I have agreed to let a little time go by before we talk.

Penelope tells me she enjoys studying at the sixth form where everybody knows about her, and it’s no problem. Times have changed since I was seventeen. Deirdre is in the upper sixth, and going to France for a year this Summer. Helen is doing a gap year with a heritage seed company before reading genetics at Bristol in October. This will probably be the last few months I have with all my children together at home, and I want to make the most of it. My marriage has healed, but I haven’t given up the flat. It’s too useful when I go to town shopping with my three daughters, or to the clinic with Penelope.