My Father’s Legacy
A Short Story following upon “Legacy”
By Maryanne Peters

Do you remember me? Some time ago I told the strange story of what happened after my grandfather, a famous drag artiste, died and the heirlooms that he left behind. Things that changed my life forever. Those things and meeting my grandfather’s … well sort of his adopted son, I think – Rodney Gaspard.

Well, this is me now: Corseted and surgically adjusted to become Rodney’s happy wife – Mrs. Emily Gaspard.

I ended my story with the sad note that my father could not accept that his son had become his daughter. It seemed to me then that my father had been embarrassed all his life at his own father’s occupation, and he was perhaps a little old-fashioned on the issue of gender. But as it turns out, there is another story to be told.

But my father was not so cruel that he would not turn up to my wedding. And when he saw me in my bridal dress, he cried. I had never seen him do that. He told me that he owed me an explanation for his behavior, but that it could wait. The wedding was my day, and there was a honeymoon after that. I was freshly healed and ready to take the rod from my Rodney.

In fact, is was not until over a month after I got back that the opportunity presented itself. And this is the story that my father told me:

My grandfather was born after his father returned from fighting in World War 2. Not much is known about his father, who left his family when my grandfather was still young. The story goes that he went to live in Paris and was involved in entertainment there.

Perhaps then, entertainment was in the blood, because my grandfather had a talent for showmanship. From an early age it was clear that he loved the stage. While drag had been around for centuries, the 1960s was a time when there was a new interest, possibly sparked by the success of the movie “Some Like it Hot”. Somehow, despite being married and soon to be a father of a son and daughter, my grandfather chose to become what as then known as “a female impersonator”.

His wife, my grandmother, was immensely proud of her husband, and probably his biggest fan. My father and I accept, and this is supported by Rodney who knew him so well, that my grandfather was never unfaithful to his wife. But clearly he lived with a deep need to be woman off the stage as well as on. He lived with it.

It turns out that my father lived with the same need, but it ate him up. Who knows whether these traits can be inherited? It might be said that I am the same, but unlike my father and grandfather, I never felt the need until Rodney came into my life.

My father wrestled with his feelings, as so many transgendered people do. He distanced himself from his father and disparaged his occupation and his talent. He got married and had a family. He tried to be the most masculine of men. He raised me to be a man, and I thought that I was one.

My father seemed to have achieved what he wanted, even though the cost of that was alienation from his own father. He was close to his mother, my grandmother, but she could never understand why he had turned against the man she adored. He never shared his feelings with her or anybody. She tried everything to bring them back together. It was a source of great sadness to her, and we could all see it.

Even when her mind began to fail her, my grandmother had moments of sadness, but she never forgot the face of her husband, and the sight of him whenever he visited her, would bring her total joy. Even when he appeared at the care facility in costume to perform for the residents, she would know him and she would say: “That beautiful woman is my husband”.

Then he died and a light went out in her. But she lived on. And as long as she did, my fathers estate was partially tied up. We knew about the small legacies he had included in his will. There was the mention of Rodney, of course, and small bequests to the widow of his manager, some younger performers and distant family members. Then there was a sum of money set aside for Eva, with the note: “for her to make herself complete”.

We had no idea who Eva was, but the lawyers said the as the estate could not be realized straight away, there was time to identify her. When my grandmother died the money could be paid out, and whatever was left would be split equally between the two children of the marriage – my father and my aunt.

If you remember, after I went to live with Rodney short after my grandfather died, my father did not take it well. It seemed as if my father, who had been so close to me when raising me to be a man, would push me away as he did his own father, and this time it would be my mother who would suffer for it. But two things happened to change all of that – or maybe three things.

First, my grandmother died. His house, the one in which I found the treasure trove of femininity that changed my life, could be sold and Rodney was to buy it for us. The proceeds would trigger the inheritances, and renew the search for Eva.

Secondly, with a new home as an engagement present, Rodney proposed. What would have been unthinkable only months before, became essential to me – I agreed to become a wife – his wife. It was the second happiest day of my life, with the promise of the happiest day to come.

As I have said, on that day my father led me down the aisle with tears in his eyes, and that made it even happier for me.

But the story that was told I have barely started, because it was not until Rodney and I got back from our honeymoon (which is a story in itself, but definitely X-rated) that we were sat and told everything.

My father said that he would start with the bad news: He and my mother were separating, but amicably. In response to our disbelief my father simply said: “I am Eva”.

He told us all about his struggles, but what was clear by my grandfather’s will, was that he knew what his son was going through, and what he needed to do to come out of it. He would need to do what my grandfather had never done, but what I had – to become a complete woman.

Remember what I looked like at the start of this story, well this is what my new mother, Eva, now looks like in the same pose. Look at how tight her ass is for a mature lady!

She says now that she regrets that most of her life until now has been story of bitter repression of feelings that would never die, a struggle that cost her a relationship with her father, and may well have cost her a relationship with her son, now her daughter, and the mother of her grandchildren (and how that was achieved is another story entirely).

She says now that if she had accepted the reality earlier, she could have lead a longer life as a woman, like the life in front of me, her daughter Emily, with a husband and family. But when you look as good as Eva does, there are so many mature lonely men who want her, and are not concerned about the absence of a womb. Her future happiness is assured by that body and that smile.

I think that the men of our family, disregarding the curious gender anomaly, are blessed with the legacy of beauty.

What do you think?

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2019