Chapter 1
She couldn't help but wonder where this turn of her life would lead as she sat across the table from the brown-headed boy with dark eyes who was munching on the dinner she had prepared.
Her 11-year-old nephew was a kindred spirit.
She was in her young 30s and had seen her life turned upside down. She married her college sweetheart, had a beautful daughter. She passed up a promising career as a college professor to become a stay at home mom.
Then a little more than five years ago, her husband's car skidding off an icy highway during a snow storm. The car hit a tree. He was killed instantly.
She barely had time to grieve when she found out her daughter had a terminal form of cancer. She passed away a little more than two years later.
She slowly began to pick her life back together, She moved to the family's summer home on the lake after accepting a professor's position at State University.
But just as things were beginning to come together in her life again, it fell apart in her sister's life. A victim of abuse for most of her married life, her sister finally divorced her husband. But she turned to drugs and alcohol, neglecting her young son.
"I need you to take care of Brandon for a little while, Karen," her sister told her before voluntarily entering a mental hospital after being diagnosed with a severe case of depression.
"How long, Dianne?" she asked her sister the night she got the frantic phone call.
Months? Years? Forever, perhaps?
She never got a straight answer.
All she got was a young refuge who needed her help.
Her heart melted as soon as her nephew walked in the door. She showed him around the farm. She showed him the horses she promised to teach him to ride. She showed him the trampoline, the swing set, and the faithful family dog, Spike, a lab mix.
As she cooked supper that night, she thought how wonderful it felt to have another child in the house, another child in her life. As much as she loved her career, she'd forgotten how much she enjoyed being a mother.
"I don't know how long he'll be with me, Bob," she told her boss, the dean of the English department. She asked for a summer sabbatical, which was granted. "If he's with me in the fall, I'll enroll in the middle school right off campus. It shouldn't be a problem."
"This room was Caroline's," she said of her daughter when she led Brandon to the room where he would be staying. "But it's your room now. We'll decorate it any way you want. It still has a lot of her stuff. I haven't been in a hurry to put it away."
"That's okay," Brandon said. "She sure has pretty dolls," he said, pointing out a row of American Girl Dolls on the dresser.
"That she did," his aunt said. "But I'm sure you can replace them with action figures and video games if you want."
He didn't say a word.
After dinner, she popped Toy Story 3 into the DVD player, and they both shared laughs, along with some ice cream before Brandon went upstairs to take a bath.
"Is that all you're wearing," she asked her nephew as he returned from his bath wearing a t-shirt and a pair of briefs.
"It's all I wore at home," he said on the way to his room.
"Maybe I need to get you some PJs," she said as she pulled the bed covers for him.
"That's ok," Brandon replied. "I'm good."
Just as she was about to turn out the light and walk out, her young nephew stopped her.
"Aunt Karen?"
"What is it, sweetie?" she replied.
"Well, I don't know, you might think I'm too big," he said.
"What is it?" she said.
"Everyonce in a while, mom would read me a bedtime story, even though I'm probably too big," he said.
"Oh, I don't know," she said. "You don't look too big to me."
She walked over to the book shelf. Most of the stories were girls stories.
"Let me see," she said as she browsed the shelf. There were the American Girl stories, Little House books, Charlotte's Web. She picked out Charlotte's Web.
"You know, when I read to Caroline, she would always grab Janice Libby," she said of a doll sitting in a chair on the corner of the dresser.
"Can I hold her?" he asked.
"Sure, you can," his aunt replied.
He kissed the doll on the forehead before tucking her under his arm.
"You're a sweet baby," he said.
It brought a smile to his aunt's face before she started into reading the book.
Brandon hung on every word as she went through quite a few chapters.
"I think you're a lot like Charlotte," he said with a yawn as began to tire.
"Why thank you," she said. "Anybody in the book remind you of you?"
She expected to perhaps hear Wilbur.
"Fern," he said.
"Really?" she asked. "How come?"
"Because she seems really nice," he said. "She loves Wilbur. She's really cool."
"What an amazing kid you are," Karen said.
It didn't take long for him to doze off to sleep.
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He was still well asleep, with Janice Libby in his arms. when she woke the next morning and started cooking breakfast. When the meal was almost done, peeked in the room and noticed him sitting up in bed, cradling the doll and holding a toy bottle to its mouth.
"Drink for momma," he said. "That's a good girl."
Then he started singing "hush little baby don't you cry, momma's going to buy you a diamond ring..."
She slowly shut the door, not wanting him to hear. But she was really curious.
She remembered her sister telling her that he liked dressing in girls clothes. Her sister allowed him to do so at one point, but soon, it became a reason for some of the physical abuse she and her son endured at the hands of her ex-husband.
"Well, did you enjoy playing with Janice Libby," she asked him when he entered the kitchen for breakfast.
"Yes ma'am, I did," he said.
She played ignorant. "I guess she was a good girl for her daddy?"
"No, not her daddy," he said. "I'm her momma."
"You're her momma?" she asked as she gave him a hug. "Well, I think she's lucky to have a good momma like you."
He quickly gobbled up the eggs, bacon and biscuit.
"Wow, you're really hungry," she said.
He nodded his head yes.
"Sweetie, I've got some planning to do on the computer for a couple of hours," she said. "What do you say we go to the pool after I'm done. I'll lay out and you can swim."
He smiled, nodded his head and went back into the room. She peeked on him again when she took a break from work. He didn't seem interested at all in playing with any of the toys he brought. He played with some of her daughter's Barbies.
"Time to put on your swim suit," she said when she completed her work.
Just then she had a thought.
"I don't know why I'm thinking this," she said as she accidently walked in on Brandon just as he was about to pull up his swim suit.
"Oops, excuse me," she said.
"It's OK," he said, covering his private parts with the shorts.
She opened a drawer and pulled out one of her daughter's pink bikinis.
"You could wear this," she said. "But it might leave you with a girl's bikini tan..."
Before she could finish, he quickly tossed his swim trunks in the floor and grabbed the bikini right out of her hands.
She reached into the drawer again and pulled out a head band.
"This might look good with that," she said as she put it in his hair.
She was amazed how much he looked like a girl.
"Am I pretty, Aunt Karen" he asked.
"Yes, sweetie, just like a pretty angel," she said.
Once they walked out to the pool, she pulled out some sun screen.
"I've got to spray some part of you that aren't used to seeing sun," she said, applying sun screen to the upper part of his legs and his rear end that was exposed.
She expected him to spend much of his time in the pool. But instead, he laid down beside her. He noticed her pink toenails.
"I wished mine were that color," he said.
She smiled, reached into her purse and pulled out nail polish. She applied them to his toes and then asked him if he wanted his finger nails painted, too.
He smiled and nodded.
They laid out at the pool for a couple of hours before going in for lunch. She was amazed how talkative her nephew was.
"I hear Janice Libby crying," he said after he finished his sandwich. "Momma's coming."
Karen walked into the room and found her nephew seated on the bed. Half of his bikini top was pulled up. He held doll up to his exposed nipple as if he was breast feeding her.
"She really is hungry," he said.
"Ok, I can see that," she said, not knowing what else to say.
But then she told her nephew they needed to get dressed and go to the store. Before he could reach into his drawer, she pulled out one of Caroline's tops and capris pants.
"These will probably fit you," she said. She also threw him a pair of sandals she thought would fit.
"Gives you a chance to show off those tootsies," she said.
Brandon smiled.
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She loaded up her basket with several household items when she passed the girls' clothing section.
"Look over there, pick you out a pack of panties," she told her nephew.
He eagerly went and picked out a pack. He returned just as his aunt was talking to a lady at checkout.
"What a pretty girl you are," the woman said. "Who is this with you. Karen?"
"She's my niece," she replied. "She's going to be staying with me for a few months."
"Well, what's your name, small one," the lady asked.
Karen paused for a second not knowing what to say.
"Chloe," her nephew said without hesitating.
"Chloe?" his aunt asked as they walked to the car.
"Mom used to call me that when she left me dress up," he said.
"It suits you," she said.
Chloe, Chapter 2
It had been a few weeks since her nephew dressed up.
She decided not to press the issue, but she wondered what was going on in his head.
He still played with dolls. He seemed to enjoy Caroline's American Dolls the best, and still mothered Janice Libby.
She enjoyed the story time they had before bed. Despite her sister's many problems, Karen was amazed at her nephew's intelligence and his natural ability with music. She taught him a few simple songs on the piano and he gradually worked his way up to more complicated songs.
He loved playing her flute, the one she played in the high school band, and even could play a few tunes on her violin.
"It's funny Carla," she told a colleague. "He seems to want to play all of the instruments I played. His mother never took interest in music. Neither did Caroline. I've been tempted to bring out my old cello."
He did share one passion with her daughter, horses. He fit nicely into Caroline's riding clothes when his aunt took him riding on Caroline's horse, Buttercup.
"I may have to sign you up for riding lessons," she told him one afternoon at the stable.
"I would love riding, Aunt Karen!" he chimed in.
He painted. He read. He didn't have a problem keeping busy when Karen worked on projects getting ready for another semester at the university, and as the semster approached, she spent many long hours at night working on those projects, lesson plans, tests.
But she didn't complain. She spent as much time doting on the new child around the house. And he seemed to appreciate the effort...or she.
It was a card Brandon made for her think again about the gender battle that seemed to be going on in his head.
She had fallen asleep, slumped over her computer table after another long night of work. She awoke to find the card and a flower lying next to her.
"I love you Aunt K. Love, Chloe."
She looked at the clock. It was 2 a.m. She had forgotten to put him to bed.
She rushed upstairs to find him sound asleep in bed, snuggling with Janice Libby. He looked angelic, and very much like the girl he at times had a longing to be.
She kissed him on the forehead.
"My darling baby girl, what have I done so wonderful to deserve you?
#####
Bewildered. That's how she looked as she looked at the khaki pants and four pairs of shirts sitting on the bed.
"What do you think, which shirt to you like best?"
"I dunno," her nephew said. He was almost amused.
Good ole Aunt K seemed to be multi-tasking about the picking out of the wardrobe, running back-and-forth between her room and his, trying to find the right clothes for both to wear to the University Women's luncheon. There she was standing in his room in a slip and curlers trying to figure out what they both were going to wear at the first function where he would first meet some of her colleagues.
Nothing she picked out seemed to satisfy her.
Then she came up with an idea.
"You're either going to love me for this or hate me," she said as she made one more trip to her room.
She came back with a dress from her closet. She then pulled a dress out of Caroline's closet.
They were a matched set. She then pulled a slip out of a box and a pair of sandles.
"Get you a pair of undies we bought a that store and come to my room," she said.
Brandon smiled and did exactly as his aunt said.
He marched into her room wearing a pair of panties under his T-shirt. She pulled the T-shirt over his head and replaced it with a slip. She did their nails, dabbed a little makeup on his face and did his hair while she also did the same to hers.
"I think it's a Chloe-kind of day," she said to him. "What do you think?"
"I love Chloe days!" he said.
This should be an interesting afternoon, she thought. Her colleagues knew her nephew was staying with her this summer, and possibly beyond that.
"They're going to know you're really a boy," she said as they walked to the car. "Does that bother you?"
He shook his no.
She gave him one last look over. No one would know he was really a boy if they hadn't been told.
He wasn't the only child at the function. Two more professors brought their daughters.
And while his presence in a dress came as a surprise to some, it wasn't shocking, at least not at this luncheon.
"Oh my God, look at you!" said a woman his Aunt Karen introduced as "Zia."
Zia Zanderia, or "Dr. Z" as his aunt called her, was the dean of women's studies. She was, his aunt said, an advocate of "gender neutral" parenting. Her daughter, Lex, was one of the two daughters in attendance. And her appearance offered an interesting contrast to his.
She wore a striped boys' dress shirt and slacks.
"I've got to get a photo of them together," Zia said. "Karen, I'm glad you're one that actually gets it."
Gender neutrality wasn't what his aunt had in mind, even though she took the remarks as a compliment. She wondered if her nephew were a gender-varient child.
"You know, you two have Ashley confused," said Carla Phillips, who was a fellow English professor. Her daughter was the other child in attendance, and one who wore a dress similar to Brandon's.
"She's really pretty, mom," the girl whispered. "It is ok if I call her a she?"
"It is ok if she calls Brandon a she, isn't it? her mother asked Karen.
"Yes," Aunt Karen said. "And you can call her Chloe, if you want to."
Brandon nodded.
"You can call me Ashley!" the girl said. "And you've alread met Lex!"
"It's something we take day-by-day," his aunt told her colleagues. "I'm thinking about getting him a therapist."
"Do you really think he might be transgendered?" asked another colleague.
"I don't know," she said. "This is way beyond my field of study. Whatever the course, he or she has my support along the way."
"Well, I admire you about being out in the open about it," Zia said. "You wouldn't believe the flak I catch about how I'm bringing up Lex."
Part of the battle, Karen explained to her colleagues, was the custody question.
"What happens if a therapist recommends I let Brandon live as Chloe, then Dianne gets custody back?" she asked. "What if she doesn't support me on this."
"Perhaps you need to make her aware of what's going on," said a silver-haired women eavesdropping at the next table.
"Oh, Dr. Ambrose, I didn't know you were listening," Karen said.
The woman was the recently retired university president. And deep down she knew the advice was the right choice to make.
#####
Her instructions to Brandon were clear as they pulled into the hospital parking lot. He wasn't to tell his mother he had been dressing as Chloe.
"I'll do my best to let her in on things," his Aunt Karen said. "No need to shock her right at once."
She wanted her nephew to enjoy his time with his mother. It was a once-a-month allowed visit.
He told his mother about how he loved spending time at Aunt Karen's house, about playing music, painting and horseback riding.
"Wow, you two seem to be enjoying your time together," his mother said.
"Momma, when are you going to come home?" he asked.
"Not for a long time," she said. She held back her problems with her withdrawals, and even a suicide attempt. She put her best face forward during the visit.
"Sweetie, would you like to keep living with Aunt Karen," she asked.
He shook his head. He loved his mother. But the time at his aunt's had been the most stable in his young life.
"I love her a lot, Momma," he said. "Is that okay?"
"Oh sweetie, that is perfectly okay," she said before she gave him a hug. "Sweetie, I guess I need to talk to your Aunt Karen for a few minutes, okay?"
He shook his head yes and left the room.
"Wow, Di, how are you doing?," Karen said, wiping tears from her eyes as she came through the door.
"He seems really enamored with you, K," her sister said.
"The feeling is mutual," she said.
"I'm glad," Dianne said before telling her sister everything that had been going.
"I'm medicated half the time to battle the depression," she said. "Even if I get out of this place, I really don't know how I'll be able to function."
"Don't say that, Di," Karen said. "You'll get better."
"I don't know if I will, K," her sister said. "And we've got to face facts. You are a better mom that I'll ever be. I'm thinking about giving you permanent custody."
Karen sat for a second, not knowing what to say.
"I'd be flattered, Di," she said. "But I still have hope you'll recover. And I wouldn't want to stand in the way."
"He needs stability, K" her sister said. "It's not in his best interest to play 'what if's.'"
Her sister had a point.
"Before we go any further, there is something you ought to know," Karen said to her sister.
She then informed her over Brandon's "Chloe feelings." And about Brandon being allowed to dress as Chloe.
Dianne cried.
"I'm glad he's with you, then," she said. "There were times when I wanted to let him live as Chloe, but I didn't know if it was best for him. And I feared what his dad would do. But I know it tortured him for a long time. One night, when he was crying, I was drunk and almost pulled a pair of scissors to cut it off."
Karen sat stunned.
"But I know that was the alcohol talking," her sister continued. "And I know I'm not emotionally well enough to handle it right now. He...she's in good hands."
The two sisters embraced.
"Can I say goodbye to our child?" her sister asked, letting Karen know she did not fear the role her sister now had in our son, or daughter's life.
Karen called for Brandon after the two sisters regain their composure.
Dianne held her child one final time.
"I want you to be a big girl for momma," she said.
Brandon was stunned by his mother's words.
"I want your Aunt K to pick out a very pretty dress for you for the next time you come," she continued. "I don't want my daughter dressed like a boy when she comes to see her momma."
He nodded.
"Well, Chloe, I guess it's time to say goodbye to your mom," his Aunt Karen said.
He..she was in tears.
"Love you, momma," she said.
"I love you, to," her mother replied as the two embraced.