“Last time Brenda and I played backgammon,” Grandpa said, “we talked about venning into little bitty bodies, maybe two or three inches tall, and seeing how the board would look from that angle. Big enough to roll the dice and move the pieces, but small enough that it would be as good a workout as an hour at the gym.”
After breakfast, Nathan and I cleaned up, and then I texted Jada, Britt, and Meredith asking when it would be a good time to video chat with each of them. Grandma, Mom, Nathan, Desiree and I played a couple of board games, while Grandpa and Dad went out on the porch and talked for a while.
We were just finishing up a game of Kingdom Builder, which Nathan had been introduced to by his friends at college and which he’d brought with him, when Dad and Grandpa came inside. Grandpa came into the living room where we were playing, and Dad seemed to hesitate on the threshold before following him into the room.
“This is going to be over in a few more turns,” Nathan said, “if y’all want to join us on the next game.”
“How do you play?” Grandpa asked, and several of us, mostly Nathan, started explaining the rules as we played out the last round. Dad didn’t say anything at first, but after the game was over and Nathan continued explaining things as he set up the board and shuffled cards for a new game, he asked a couple of questions to clarify things he didn’t understand. I hesitated, thinking that now might be a good time to bow out of the gaming and go talk to Britt, though it wasn’t time yet for Jada or Meredith to be done with their family’s Christmas morning traditions. But if Dad was willing to play with me, and he’d been pretty decent through this whole visit, I wasn’t sure I wanted to snub him. Mom might take it hard.
“But since there’s only enough cards and tokens for four players,” Nathan said, “either we’ll need to double up and form teams, like Lauren and Desiree played together this last game, or some of us could play something else while the others play this.”
“There’s only seven of us,” Desiree pointed out.
“I can play without a partner,” Nathan replied, “since I’ve played a dozen times and y’all have only played once, or not at all. How about Grandpa and Dad team up with Grandma and Mom?”
So, without much further discussion, we did exactly that. Mom and Dad were at the opposite side of the table from me and Desiree, which meant that Dad and I tended to meet each other’s eyes accidentally when we looked up from the board. At first, most of the conversation was about the game, with Mom and Grandma reminding Dad and Grandpa about the rules, and Nathan explaining things to all of us when necessary, and people complaining about the cards they’d drawn or somebody else building a settlement and blocking their expansion. Once Grandpa and Dad got used to the game, the conversation started wandering to other subjects.
“Last time Brenda and I played backgammon,” Grandpa said, “we talked about venning into little bitty bodies, maybe two or three inches tall, and seeing how the board would look from that angle. Big enough to roll the dice and move the pieces, but small enough that it would be as good a workout as an hour at the gym.”
“That sounds fun,” I said. “Some of my friends and I have venned into tiny bodies a few times, but we’ve never played board games while we were small.”
Dad pursed his lips, and then whispered something to Mom. She nodded and built their three settlements for the turn (one of them right next to mine and Desiree’s kingdom, those scoundrels), then asked, “What did you do when you were shrunken?”
I gaped for a moment, realizing I’d said too much and backed myself into a corner. I didn’t want to talk about what we’d done last time I was tiny, and for some reason I was blanking on all the other times I’d venned into a tiny form. I hoped I wasn’t blushing too visibly. But Desiree had better presence of mind.
“On our second date,” she said, “we venned into little bitty dragon-girls, small enough our wings could lift us, and flew around downtown Brocksboro. It was really cool. Another time several of us venned into smaller bodies so we could have a sleepover in my dorm, which barely has enough room for me and my roommate if nobody shrinks.”
Grandma and Grandpa both looked at us like they could guess we were doing a lot more than that, but didn’t want to say so.
“Anyway,” Grandma said, “we couldn’t do that without somebody to drive us home from the Venn machine, and back again after we played a couple of games. Do you think one of y’all would like to help us with that sometime before you go home?”
“Sure,” Nathan and I said almost simultaneously, and after looking at each other and silently negotiating for a moment, Nathan continued: “How about this afternoon?”
“Sure!” Grandma said happily. “After lunch?”
Mom looked sort of like she wanted to join in, but didn’t want to provoke Dad into making a fuss. Dad looked like he’d bitten into something sour, but he didn’t say anything.
We finished the game of Kingdom Builder and played a game of Chickenfoot, a silly dominoes game that Mom was fond of and that I found I liked better now than I had the last time we’d played it. Then Grandma and I fixed a light lunch, and after lunch, Grandpa, Grandma, Nathan and I got ready to go to the nearest Venn machines, which were on the sidewalk of a shopping center on the west side of town.
“We should put some soft blankets or pillows in the back seat for y’all to bounce on once you’re tiny,” I said. “That would be nicer than sitting directly on the car seats’ upholstery, at that size.”
“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” Grandpa said.
“Yeah,” I said. “A friend of ours shrank me and Jada one time and we used a pile of blankets in her back seat as a bouncy castle. Or more like a bouncy labyrinth.” I was fudging a little, combining two different incidents to avoid getting into the complexities of splitting, but I didn’t feel like I was misleading them much.
So Grandma got some extra blankets and pillows out of the hall closet, and we got in their SUV, with Grandpa and Grandma in front and me and Nathan in the back, the blankets piled up in the back storage area. Once we got to the shopping center, which was almost deserted, with all the stores closed on Christmas and just a few people using the Venn machine, I got in line with Grandma and Grandpa while Nathan crumpled up the blankets in the back seat.
There were just a couple of people in line ahead of us. One was changing back to his everyday body after having turned into a Santa Claus, and one was giving a venn of herself to her girlfriend for a Christmas present, which seemed really sweet to me but which Nathan found kind of creepy. The girlfriends were in the machine for several minutes before one of the girls came out, taller and with lighter hair, and picked up a pair of tiny doll earrings from the other side.
“Your turn,” she said as she took out her old earrings and put the new ones in (which were squirming and giggling as she fastened them into her earlobes).
Grandpa put a coin in the slot and they went in. I waited a minute or so until the doors opened, then looked in and saw them; they’d both shrunk down to about two inches tall. I held out my hand at ground level for Grandma, who stepped onto my hand and sat down, then extended my hand for Grandpa, who joined her. “How do you like it so far?” I asked them as I brought them to the back seat of the SUV.
“It’s a little scary out here in the open,” Grandma said in a high, squeaky voice. “I can’t help worrying a little that a bird will swoop down and grab me. I think it’ll be better in the car or the house, though.”
“You’d be okay, though, right? If a hawk somehow grabbed and ate you, even though you’re surrounded by normal-size people that would scare off most hawks, you’d be fine when the venn expires in eight hours.”
“I know, but it would still hurt a lot. And I’d be back in my seventy-three year old body somewhere with no phone or anything.”
“Yeah, let’s avoid that.”
I set them down gently in the pile of blankets in the back seat, and they hopped off my hand. “Enjoy the ride.”
I got in the front seat with Nathan and we headed back to the house. My phone had buzzed while we were in line for the Venn machine, so I checked the messages, and saw that Mom and Dad had gone out and would be back in an hour or two.
We’d been hearing high-pitched giggling from the back seat, Grandma and Grandpa evidently discovering the delights of a bouncy castle. When we got back to the house, Nathan said, “So are y’all decent back there, or do I need to grab the bundle of blankets and dump it in your bedroom with my eyes closed?”
“We’re decent,” Grandpa called back (at least, I thought it was Grandpa, but with their voices scaled up in pitch and apparently muffled by the blankets, it was hard to be sure).
So Nathan and I got out and opened up the back doors. I let Grandma and Grandpa climb onto my hand, while Nathan gathered up the blankets and pillows, and we went inside.
“Please get out the backgammon set, Nathan,” Grandpa said. “And you can set us down on the dining table, Lauren.”
“How much of the setup do you want us to do for you?” Nathan asked as he brought the box over to the table. “Just the board, or all the pieces in place too??”
“Let’s start with the board, and then we’ll see if we’re strong enough to manage the checkers and dice at this size.”
“I think you will be,” I said. “I remember when Jada and I were small, we were stronger than you’d expect from that size. Kind of like ants that can lift things way bigger than they are.” We got out the board and laid it on the table, then dumped the dice and checkers out and let Grandma and Grandpa start moving them around to the starting positions. It looked like they weren’t having much trouble with that.
“If you don’t mind,” I said, “I’ll be back in a little while. I’m going to call some friends who said they’d be done with family Christmas stuff by this time of day.”
“Sure. Have a good phone visit,” Grandma said, hefting a red checker and toting it across the board to where they needed another one.
So I went to the guest room, where Desiree had been watching anime on my laptop, and said, “Hey, you ready to do a video call with Jada and Britt?”
“Is a dragon scaly?”
I sighed dramatically. “Not at the moment, no. Maybe I should have asked Nathan or Grandma to venn me just now.”
“Sorry.” She rubbed her foot along my arm where I’d sat down next to her. “I bet your grandparents are pretty cute right now.”
“Adorable!” I squeed. “I was holding it in until now because I didn’t want to embarrass them, but oh my gosh, they were so adorable just now picking up those backgammon pieces and hauling them around the board!”
I got out my phone and called Jada, getting comfortable in bed with Desiree on my lap where she’d be in the video frame. Jada answered a few seconds later.
“Hey, Lauren! Let me excuse myself and go somewhere we can talk, okay?”
“Okay, sure. Should I go ahead and call Britt, too?”
“Yeah, go ahead.” Her face disappeared from the video for a few moments while I brought up Britt’s name in my contacts and called her.
“What’s up, Lauren?” Britt said as she answered. “And Desiree. How have your parents and grandparents been treating Desiree? Your mom and grandma already knew you were dating her, right?”
“They’ve been pretty decent to me,” Desiree said. “Except her dad —” Just then, Jada popped back into the frame.
“Sorry, I had to get away from family so we could talk freely.”
“It’s so good to see you, sweetie,” I said. “How has your Christmas been going?”
“Pretty good,” she said. “But they don’t know I’m a lesbian, except for one of my cousins, so who knows what it would be like if they did. How are your folks treating you?”
“A lot better than I expected,” I said. “I knew Mom and Grandma were okay with me, but Grandpa has been really cool, and Dad has at least been decent. He hasn’t talked with me more than a little, or to Desiree at all, but when he did, he called me by my real name both times! And I found out, talking to Grandpa, that I have a lesbian cousin, so that’s a thing. I’m gonna get in touch with her later. She’s a lot older than me and lives out in California, which is why I’ve never met her.”
Jada had been walking or standing until now; she sat down on something and reached out of the frame to pick up Lydia and perch her on her shoulder.
“Hi, everybody!” Lydia said. “Hey, me, Jada showed me our Christmas present earlier. You want to see it now or wait until you get home?”
“Hmm... let’s wait.”
“Awww,” Lydia pouted. “But it’s sooo neat!”
“Yeah, that’s why I want to be able to wear it or read it or whatever right after seeing what it is instead of having to wait several days.”
“Do you want a hint?”
“No,” I said. “No hints. Britt, what’s going on with you?”
“Not a whole lot,” she said. “One of my brothers and his wife, and my sister, came to visit for a while yesterday. We watched several Christmas movies and ate way more than was good for us, and played some games.”
“We’ve been playing a lot of board games here,” I said. “Right now my Grandma and Grandpa are playing backgammon while they’re like two inches high, not much bigger than the pieces.”
“Whoa, seriously?”
“Yeah, they’re into venning. I’m not sure what all they’ve venned into, but they look way younger than my parents.”
“That’s good. Have you venned into a dragon-girl or something since you’ve been there?”
“No, I’ve been in this human form ever since I left Brocksboro. Trying to keep the peace. I told Grandma and Grandpa about my dragon-girl forms and showed them some pictures, though, on Thursday before Mom and Dad got here.”
“Maybe you could get someone to venn you into a dragon-girl tonight when you take your grandparents back to the Venn machine,” Desiree suggested. “I think they’d be cool with it.”
“Yeah, they would, and Mom and Nathan, but I’m not sure I want to push Dad too far right now when he’s being unexpectedly decent to me. I’ll give him some more time to get used to me being a girl, and then maybe next time I see him, I’ll be in dragon-girl form?”
“Might be a good idea,” Britt put in.
We talked for about half an hour longer, and I heard the noise of a door opening and closing and Mom and Dad’s voices from the living room. “I think I’d better go,” I said. “It was good to talk to y’all! I’ll see you on New Year’s Eve if not before, right, Jada?”
“Yeah, and we should renew our plushie selves’ venns before the party, in case we can’t get together the day before I go back to school. And I’m pretty sure I can spend some time with y’all before then. Bye!”
“Bye!” Britt and I said, and we hung up.
I went back in the living room. Grandma and Grandpa were still playing backgammon; Grandma was hefting the dice one at a time and hurling them across the board when I came in. Mom was sitting at the dining table with Nathan, watching the game, while Dad was on the sofa, reading something on his phone.
“Hey, Lauren,” Mom said. “Did you have a good phone visit?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I talked to Jada and our other friend Britt back in Brocksboro. I’ll talk to Meredith and Sophia later on. What all did y’all do while you were out?”
“We drove over to the beach parking and walked up and down the beach for a while,” Mom said.
It turned out Nathan had said he would play the winner of the backgammon game, and after Grandma won, she and Nathan started setting up the board for another game. Grandpa asked me if I wanted to play something, and I said sure, so we sat down to a chess game a few minutes later; he beat me soundly, which didn’t surprise me since I hadn’t had much chance to play chess in the last couple of years and he’d always been a better player than me. But it was really cute to watch Grandpa walking around the board, taking in the big picture he couldn’t see from overhead, and then pushing one of his pieces along for his next move. It made me wish I’d gotten Nathan to shrink me down along with them.
“Hey,” I said to Desiree, who was watching both games, “do you think you’d want to play a chess game like this later on? Both of us shrunk down to about the size of the chess pieces?”
“Maybe not chess,” she said, “but some kind of board game, sure.”
“I could shrink you when we go back to the Venn machine tonight,” Nathan offered.
“That would be fun,” I said hesitantly. “I’m not sure it suits, for overnight and all, but...” I glanced at Mom, and then at Dad. “I’ll think about it. What about you? Would you like to shrink down and let Grandpa and Grandma drive us both back here?”
“Sure, why not,” he said. “It looks fun, and you’ve got more experience with the machine than anybody I know in Mars Hill. Probably not that tiny, though, six inches tall at least.”
“That would be more practical in some ways,” I agreed. “What do you think, Mom? What’d be the best size for still being able to get some things done but being able to see the world from a totally different perspective?”
She seemed startled, and glanced at Dad before replying. “Well, hypothetically... I think you’d start having problems as soon as you’re, say, a couple of feet shorter than the average adult. Not being able to reach the upper shelves, needing to have your car customized so you can reach the pedals and see over the dashboard. And I doubt you’d get much of a change in perspective until you’re smaller than a toddler, so there’s a big gap there where you’d need help with a lot of things.”
“Yeah, I’m assuming you’d need help from somebody bigger if you’re shrinking down very far. But let’s say we want a size where we get some mind-opening change of perspective but without having to make your big friend do everything for you.”
“Then somewhere around a foot tall would probably be about right, I guess. You’d need someone bigger to get food and cook for you, but you could handle child-size silverware and not have to eat with your hands.”
“You’d need an attachment for your toilet seat so you don’t fall in, but that would be something I could make in an afternoon,” Grandpa said.
“And you could jump higher, relative to your height, than a full-size person,” I said. “Like a grasshopper. One time when Jada and some of our friends shrank down I jumped about six times my height. If you were a foot tall, you could probably jump onto a sofa or chair. Maybe even onto a counter or a high shelf, like a cat.”
“It would be easier if you had claws like a cat to help you climb,” Grandma put in.
Dad got up and left the room, mumbling something I couldn’t hear. The conversation faltered at that point, and I at least felt awkward — Dad had finally started feeling comfortable being in the same room with me for a while, and then I had to mess it up by steering the conversation toward venning.
After the chess game, Desiree and I excused ourselves to go call Meredith.
“Hey, Lauren, Merry Christmas!” Meredith said as she answered.
“Merry Christmas. How have you been?”
“We’ve been having a good time. We went to see that new Night Nurse movie yesterday, and last night after church we had a long video chat with Uncle Eric and his family. This morning we swapped presents and then had a big dinner; Hunter’s family joined us.”
“Awesome. It’s just my grandparents, my parents, Nathan, Desiree and me here. We swapped presents on Christmas Eve after we got home from church; we’ve been playing board games today. And Grandma and Grandpa venned into tiny bodies about the size of chess pieces for the afternoon. It was super cute.”
“Oh, wow! Did you get pictures?”
“No, I should have been taking more pictures this weekend... I’ll try to get some before they venn back.”
We talked about what we’d gotten for Christmas, and then the conversation led to my dad and how he was treating me.
“You said you were pretty hopeful your Grandma could keep him in line,” she said. “How’s that been going?”
“He hasn’t said anything mean,” I said. “He even used my right name a few times. But he’s been mostly avoiding me. I thought it was getting better; after swapping presents last night, he wasn’t avoiding me this morning like he was before. But then some of us started talking about venning earlier, while I was playing chess with Grandpa — he’s still tiny — and Dad got up and walked out of the room. I guess he was uncomfortable with the talk about venning.”
“That’s his problem, not yours.”
“I mean, yeah, he’s in bad health and Mom can’t seem to talk him into venning into a healthier body, but despite how he treated me when I came out, I still care about him. I didn’t mean to make him more uncomfortable when he was trying to take a few little steps toward being okay around me... and other venned people, come to think of it.”
Desiree spoke up. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t make up with him, but you shouldn’t tie yourself in knots to do it. I know you aren’t gonna detransition to satisfy him, but here you are staying in human form since you left town on Thursday, and now you’re censoring yourself when you want to talk about venning. It’s not healthy.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “But I feel like there’s a middle ground between — well, telling him he can take or leave me, and making myself someone I’m not. I know there’s topics you avoid when you’re hanging out with your grandma.”
“Yeah,” Desiree said, “and I won’t need to do that anymore once I’m living on my own year-round. I can tell her I’m a lesbian and I’m dating you and Britt and take the risk that it’s not gonna go well, which it won’t. And you don’t need to do it anymore with your dad.”
“Another thing,” Meredith said. “Who all was participating in that conversation about venning into tiny forms?”
“I think it was me, Nathan, Mom, Grandma and Grandpa. Oh, and Desiree...”
“In other words, almost everybody in the room except your dad. If your mom or grandpa thought you used poor judgment, bringing the topic up in front of your dad, they would have changed the subject. But it sounds like nobody saw anything wrong with it until your dad got up and walked out. Do you think everybody at your dad’s office avoids talking about venning around him?”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m beating myself up for no reason. I’m still not sure if I want to venn into a dragon-girl when we go back to venn Grandma and Grandpa into their usual bodies, but... if I don’t, it won’t be because I’m trying to tiptoe around Dad.”
“Attagirl,” Meredith said.
“So, ah... is Sophia there?”
“Yeah, let me get her real quick.”
I chatted with Sophia for a few minutes, then said goodbye to the Ramseys and told Desiree I’d be right back. “I need to go to the restroom.”
“How about carry me as far as the bathroom door; I’ll walk to the living room from there.”
“Okay.”
So I set her down outside the bathroom door, which was closed, and knocked.
“Occupied,” Dad called out.
“No hurry,” I said. “I’ll use the other one.”
So I went to Grandma and Grandpa’s master bathroom. When I got back, passing by the hall bathroom on my way to the living room, the bathroom door was still closed.
It occurred to me that Dad might have gotten up and left to use the toilet, not because he was offended at the talk of venning, and had been in there the whole time I was on the phone with Meredith. It would fit with the health problems Mom had mentioned.
It was another ten or fifteen minutes before Dad rejoined us in the living room, by which time Nathan and Grandma’s backgammon game had finished, and we’d started setting up a game of 7 Wonders.
I glanced at Dad as he came in. He looked pale and exhausted. “Are you feeling okay?” I asked.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. It sounded like an automatic response. I looked at Mom and saw how worried she looked. But Mom knew more about his health problems than I did, and if she wasn’t going to say anything, I wasn’t sure I should.
“You want to join in the game?” Nathan asked. “We’re still setting up.”
“I think I’ll sit and read for a while,” Dad said. “Y’all go ahead.”
7 Wonders was not a great game for two-inch-tall players, given that the cards were nearly twice their size. Grandma and Grandpa had trouble handling their cards without showing the other players what they had, and after the first few turns, we decided that wasn’t working. “Do you want to go back to your usual bodies?” Nathan asked.
“Might not be a bad idea,” Grandpa said.
“Or maybe we could play one more game with pieces small enough for us to handle before we change back,” Grandma said. “I’m sure we can handle Scrabble tiles.”
So we played a game of Scrabble. Partway through the game, Dad got up and left, and came back twenty minutes later looking worse than ever. I would have suggested he call a doctor if it hadn’t been Christmas day; I wasn’t sure it was bad enough to go to the ER. After the game was over (Grandma trounced us with “jukebox” on a double word space), Nathan, Grandma, Grandpa and I got ready to go to the Venn machine again. I had been leaning toward getting Nathan to change me into one of my recent dragon-girl forms, but at the last minute, after seeing how badly Dad was obviously feeling, I said, “Y’all go ahead without me.”
So Nathan left, carrying Grandma and Grandpa in his shirt pocket, and Desiree and I were alone with Mom and Dad.
“Peter,” Mom said, “I think we should go to the local urgent care tomorrow. If not to the ER tonight. Seriously, how are you feeling?”
“Just weak and worn out,” Dad said. “From — you know.” I didn’t, but I could guess. “I’ll be okay in half an hour.”
“Okay,” Mom said doubtfully. “But if you’re not, we’re going to the ER.”
“So, Dad,” I said carefully, “I get that you don’t approve of casual venning. Or long-term venning for people who don’t have a life-threatening illness. But have you considered venning into a healthy body for, say, three days? By the time it wears off, you’ll be able to see your own doctor instead of some random doctor who doesn’t know your medical history.” And, I thought, maybe feeling what it’s like to be healthy for the first time in a long while will change your mind about venning. “Think of it as a stabilizing treatment.”
“I’m not sick enough to need that,” Dad insisted. Oh, well.
“Do you want to watch something while we wait for them to get back?” Mom said.
“I think I might just go lay down. Y’all can watch something or play a game or whatever.”
“I’ll check on you in a few minutes,” Mom said.
Dad got up and walked down the hall. Mom and I looked at him until he was out of sight around the corner and then at each other.
“I’m worried about him,” I said.
“Me too.”
“How long has he been like this?”
“It’s been gradually getting worse for a while. A few months? But I think this afternoon he’s the worst he’s been in weeks, at least. Maybe ever.”
Just then we heard a thump. We both jumped up and hurried down the hall after Dad. Dad had collapsed just outside the guest room.
“Call 911!” Mom told me. I hastily grabbed my phone and dialed, while Mom knelt down and checked Dad’s pulse and breathing.
The next few minutes were a blur of panic and confusion. Nathan, Grandma and Grandpa got back from the Venn machine right after the paramedics arrived, adding to the confusion. Mom rode in the ambulance with Dad, while the rest of us bundled into Grandpa and Grandma’s SUV and followed them a couple of minutes later. We sat around the ER waiting area for what seemed like hours before we learned that Dad was having intestinal bleeding and had lost enough blood to pass out. Mom had given permission for him to have a transfusion, and once he was stabilized, they were going to do some procedures to try to find where it was bleeding and stop it.
“The rest of y’all can go home,” Mom said when she rejoined us for a few minutes. “I’ll stay with him tonight.”
“Can we visit him for a couple of minutes before we go?” Nathan asked, and I nodded.
“He’s asleep right now. I’ll call you if anything changes.”
We were silent and somber on the drive back to the house. I hugged Desiree tight enough she would have been in pain if she’d been made of flesh, letting out a sob now and then. Mom texted when we were almost to the house, saying that they’d started transfusing Dad’s first bag of blood. They were going to do at least two, then wait a few hours and check if he needed more.
When we returned to the house, Grandma gave me and Nathan another hug, and said, “Just relax, if you can. I’ll fix supper.” I nodded numbly and sat in the living room with Nathan across from me and Desiree in my lap. After a couple of minutes, Nathan asked me if I wanted to watch something.
“Not really.”
“Me either.”
Mom called us shortly before Grandma finished supper, saying that Dad’s blood pressure was up and he was seeming more clear-headed. “His voice is still a little weak, though. I’ll keep you posted.”
Nobody said much during supper, and after sitting around for a while afterward, I went to bed. I tossed and turned, checking for texts every half hour or so whether I’d heard my phone chirp or not, and finally got a little fitful sleep around one in the morning, after getting a text saying Dad’s second transfusion was finished and his blood pressure was up to normal. I kept waking up every hour or two and felt like I hadn’t gotten any sleep at all when I dragged myself to breakfast.
“Do you want to stay longer?” Grandma asked me and Nathan when he came in to breakfast, looking like he hadn’t slept any more than I had. “You’re welcome to, of course.” Our return flight was supposed to be the following day, Tuesday.
“I’d like to wait and see how Dad’s doing later in the day before I decide,” Nathan said, “but I guess if we’re going to change or cancel our ticket, we’d better do it quickly.” He looked at me.
“I’ll stay,” I said. “I need to call the Ramseys and my boss and let them know.”
“Let’s talk to Mom before we call the airline,” Nathan said, and got out his phone. The last text we’d gotten had been about three in the morning, with Dad’s latest blood pressure numbers.
“Hey, Mom... How’s Dad doing...? Okay, that sounds good... Yeah, we’ll swing by after we eat breakfast and make some phone calls. No, I didn’t sleep much either. Thanks... Hey, Dad. You feeling any better? That’s good. Do you know what they’re planning for today...? Huh. I guess now that you’re stable it’s not that urgent, but it’s still annoying... Okay, yeah, I’ll bring it when we come. I guess it’ll be an hour or so. Bye.”
Nathan hung up and turned to me. “It sounds like they might not do any procedures today. Dad’s blood counts aren’t normal yet, but they’re not getting worse, either, so they don’t think he’s actively bleeding. And apparently they’re under-staffed because of the holiday, so they’re only doing urgent procedures today. We probably won’t find out anything about what caused the bleeding until tomorrow — or even later, I guess, if the first procedure they try doesn’t tell them anything.”
“That’s good,” I said distractedly. “That he’s stable, I mean. Does that mean you want to fly home tomorrow?”
“No, I’m going to call my boss and ask for a few more days off. I wouldn’t be surprised if he started bleeding again at any moment, and who knows if it might be worse next time. I’m going to stick around until we know more.” He looked over at Grandma and Grandpa. “If that’s okay, I mean.”
“Y’all can stay as long as you need,” Grandpa said.
“Thanks,” Nathan said. “Oh, and help me remember: Dad asked me to bring the book he was reading, his toiletry bag, and the charger for his phone.”
We ate breakfast, and talked about whether to cancel or reschedule our flight, but we didn’t know when to reschedule it for yet, so we canceled it. On the way to the hospital (Grandpa was driving), I called Mr. Buckholtz and texted my girlfriends with an update.
“Stay as long as your dad needs you,” Mr. Buckholtz said. “Just keep me posted every few days.”
“Thanks.”
Dad was looking much better when I saw him a while later. They only allowed one visitor in the ICU at a time, so Mom came out and let Nathan and me take turns visiting him for a few minutes.
“They said they’re gonna move me out of the ICU pretty soon,” Dad said. “Otherwise they’re not going to do anything today except more blood tests.”
“I’m glad your blood counts are getting better,” I said. “I was really scared last night.”
“So was I.”
We didn’t say anything for a bit. After a couple of minutes, someone came in to draw blood, and I excused myself, going out to the waiting area where Mom, Nathan, Desiree, Grandma and Grandpa were sitting.
“I need to go back to the house and get some sleep,” Mom said. “If I can. Could one of you stay with him for the next few hours?”
Nathan said “Of course,” and I said, “Sure,” at about the same time. We looked at each other.
“I guess he’d be more comfortable with you there?” I hazarded.
Nathan nodded glumly, but Mom put in: “If you’re willing to stay, Lauren, I think it would do both of you good. You don’t have to sit with him every minute, but I don’t want him to be alone for too long.”
“All right,” I said. “I want to check if it’s okay with Dad first, though.”
“If this turns into a several days’ ordeal, we’ll all be taking turns,” Mom said. “The doctor said the bleeding could be anywhere in his digestive tract, from his esophagus to his colon, and they might need to do multiple procedures to narrow it down to the right place and stop it.”
I went back into the room with Dad. “Hey,” I said. “If it’s okay with you, Mom and Nathan are gonna go home, and I’ll stay with you for a few hours.”
Dad looked surprised, but didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “That’s all right. I expect we’ll be bored together — the excitement’s over for now.”
“Would you mind if Desiree stays with us?”
Dad pursed his lips. “I would rather not, if you don’t mind. I would kind of like to use this chance to get to know you better, without your friend present.” Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought Dad had hesitated and decided against saying “to know my daughter” or “without your girlfriend.” Whatever, even this was progress over the bare civility of the last few days, or the angry ranting back in April.
“That’s fine, I understand. I’m gonna go talk to Mom and Nathan; I’ll be back in a minute.”
I went back to the waiting room. “Dad says it’s fine for me to stay,” I said. “Desiree, you’ll need to go back to the house for now. I’ll see you tonight.” I gave her a hug and a nuzzle and handed her gently to Nathan, who held her awkwardly.
“When they move him to a regular patient room, make sure you get all his stuff and bring it with you to the room,” Mom said. “I think that’s his phone, his charger, his toiletries, and his book? His wallet is in my purse.”
“Brenda and I will shuttle my truck over here for you in case you need it,” Grandpa said. “We’ll stop by and give you the keys and let you know where we parked it.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But I guess I won’t be going anywhere until someone relieves me in the evening.”
“Keep us posted about what the doctors say,” Mom said. “Actually, if they come by again today, could you call and put me on speakerphone so I can hear directly?”
“Sure,” I said.
“And I guess we’ll be back after supper... I love you, Lauren.” She hugged me, and then Nathan and Grandma and Grandpa did, and they left.
I went back into Dad’s ICU room.
“They said they’d be back after suppertime,” I said. “Are they letting you eat?”
“Just broth and jello,” Dad said. “They want to clean me out for the tests they’re going to do in the next couple of days.”
“That sucks. We’ll have to cook something special for your first meal after you get out of the hospital.”
Dad smiled slightly. “That would be nice. Let’s not talk about it now, though, it’ll just make me hungrier.”
“Got it.”
Another silence followed, which didn’t feel quite as awkward as the last one. Eventually I worked up the nerve to say, “You said you wanted a chance to get to know me better. And I guess I want to know more about what you’ve been going through the last couple of years, too.”
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “I made a mistake when we met back at Easter. I hadn’t seen you in so long, and we’d been so worried about you, that I fell into treating you like a child, instead of the adult you already were. I don’t agree with what you did, but I don’t have the authority to just tell you what to do anymore. And I shouldn’t have lost my temper, in any case. I’m sorry about that. I don’t understand why you... changed the way you did, and I can’t find out by issuing an ultimatum.”
That was... slight progress. It sounded like he still wanted to talk me out of being trans, which wasn’t going to happen, but at least he was willing to talk and not monologue at me?
“When you understand why I used the Venn machine to fix my body, you’ll understand that this is who I am. I’d still be a girl if I were living in your house in a boy body, I’d just be a girl who was miserably putting up with the wrong body for the sake of not upsetting the people I care about. Probably in the old days, when the Venn machines didn’t exist, I’d have waited until I could afford my own place before I started transitioning the old-fashioned way. Or even longer. I’d figure that it might take a year or more to see major results from transition, and I might as well do it after college rather than get in a fight with you over it.
“But with the Venn machine, what I needed was so close. Nothing except you forbidding us to use the Venn machine was stopping me from having the body I needed. By moving out, and living on my own without asking you for financial support, I could have the body I need right away, instead of starting on a gradual path to having the body I want in a few years. So that changed the pros and cons.”
“But why run away? That was so dangerous! You said something about being afraid of us — but why?”
“It was what you said after you had that fight with Mr. Ramsey at the restaurant. You were talking about how Meredith’s parents should send her to conversion therapy. I didn’t know what that meant, but I looked it up online, and —”
“Where did you look it up?”
“I don’t remember; it was three years ago. Several different articles on different sites, I think. Anyway, it sounded horrifying. Like I told you and Mom back in April, it made me scared to come out to you. And when Tim was threatening to out me to everybody at school, I couldn’t face coming home and maybe being sent off to a camp where they’d try to torture me into being cis.”
“Sis?”
“Cisgender,” I said. “The opposite of transgender. People who are happy with the gender people assumed they were when they were born are cisgender, people who aren’t are transgender — that’s kind of an oversimplification, but I think it’s basically right.”
He shook his head. “Where did you get that idea? That’s not what conversion therapy is at all. It’s a prayer retreat, like the youth retreats you used to go on but probably with less socializing and more prayer time.”
“Maybe different people mean different things when they sell you conversion therapy,” I said. “But I kind of doubt, based on the articles I read, that the people who were torturing kids actually told their parents they were going to do that. They just promised they could make their kids straight and cis.”
“So... you were afraid of being sent to one of those abusive conversion therapy places, so you didn’t want to come home?”
“Yeah. Looking back, maybe the risks of running away were higher than the risks of whatever conversion therapy place you would use being one of the ones that use electric shocks to condition people, but it turned out okay. I’m here. I’m safe.”
“I’m glad you didn’t get hurt when you ran away. I wish I’d told you that first thing when you came back, instead of insisting right away on your changing back into your original body. And I wish you’d trusted your mother and me, to talk to us about your concerns with those articles you read.”
“I’m glad we can talk now. I wish it didn’t have to be because you’re sick.”
After a few moments, he said: “But I still don’t understand why you felt you wanted to change into a girl. Can you explain that to me?”
“It’s who I am,” I said. “The body I used to have didn’t fit. It was sort of okay before puberty, but then it got gradually worse, and then a lot worse after I realized that being a girl was a real alternative. And not just my body, but the social role of acting as a boy and being treated like a boy, or a man — I never fit in there, and I’m so much happier as a girl I can’t begin to describe it.”
He still looked mystified. “Maybe you aren’t the most stereotypical boy,” he said. “But there are a number of good ways to be a man. You don’t have to be a football player like your brother. I never gave you that impression, did I?”
“No,” I said. “This isn’t about that. I know men and women can both do just about anything. One of my best friends works in her dad’s mechanic shop and she’s studying to be an automotive engineer; it doesn’t mean she’s a trans boy. I’m not trans because you or Mom messed up when you were raising me. It’s just how some people are.”
Dad seemed like he was suffering from information overload on the gender stuff; after a few moments of thought, he said: “Tell me more about this friend — about the friends you’ve been hanging out with since you left home.”
“Well,” I said, “Britt, the girl I mentioned, is probably my closest friend in Brocksboro now that Meredith and Jada are off at college. I met her at Eastern Mynatt High when I finished up my last few weeks of high school there...”
I told Dad a judicious amount about Britt, Lily, Poppy, and Lisette, as well as what the Ramseys had been up to since they’d quit going to Crossroads three years ago, and I asked him about his new job and the church he and Mom were going to in Durham. That occupied us until someone from the kitchen brought him a tray, which had nothing better on it than chicken broth, apple juice and green jello. That made me realize I was getting hungry myself.
“I guess I’d better go get myself something to eat,” I said. “Do you want me to get something to go and bring it back here, or would you rather I didn’t eat in front of you when you can’t have real food?”
“Might be better to eat in the cafeteria,” he said with a forlorn look at the bowl of jello. “I’ll call you if I need you.”
Now BigCloset is caught up with the chapters that have been posted to Scribblehub. Chapter 59 will go up on Scribblehub on Wednesday evening (EDT), and here hopefully a day or two later, followed by the last couple of chapters at one-week intervals.
My new short fiction collection, Gender Panic and Other Stories, contains 253,948 words of transgender fiction: seven short stories, seven novelettes, one novella, and two short novels. Six of the stories (including both novels), 163,318 words, have never appeared online before. It can be found at:
- Smashwords (epub)
- itch.io (epub, pdf, and mobi)
- Amazon (Kindle)
You can find my other ebook novels and short fiction collections here:
Comments
Great chapter
Looks like dad and daughter are making progress to come to mutual understanding.