Janet watched in tears as her father pulled every item of feminine attire out of it’s hiding spot. “Son, this is for your own good.” Her heart began to race as he boxed up every dress, skirt, blouse, and undergarment that lay atop the her bed. She worked all summer to afford her fledgling wardrobe. “Can’t imagine why you would want all this stuff. It’s not like you'll wear it anywhere.”

“What do you do? Jerk yourself off with these?” The thought horrified her. She could barely look at her ‘deformity’ much less think of it as a source of pleasure. She couldn’t bring herself to speak. “Honestly, Jeremy, do you know how much money this was? Do you know what you could have done with all that money? You worked tirelessly. How could you spend it so... frivolously?” She tried to recount the hours, the nights she barely had enough energy to march up the stairs to collapse on to her bed. What as Dad going to do with all of this?

I can’t trust you to spend your money wisely, I going to have to move your money into a Certificate of Deposit to keep you from spending it all. She tried to recall how much money she had left in her account. Five maybe six thousand? All that money locked away for five years? But she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. Instead, she continued to cry. She wanted to beg her dad to stop. She wanted to plead with him to allow him to keep what little she had.

“Don’t you touch any of that Jeremy, Do you hear me?” She nodded. Torn between disobeying her father and betraying herself. A few moments later, her dad returns with a box cutter and duct tape. He stretches the tape over the opening in the box and seals the top. Janet felt her heart sink. She watched helplessly as he loaded another box. Not even bothering to fold any of it. Her silent crying didn’t phase him. “Son, you really should be more of a man.” She couldn’t she was no more a man than her mother or her older sister. As the box neared capacity her father shook his head. “Damn, son I can’t believe how much of this stuff you have. What possessed you to buy all of this?” He drops the last of her clothing into it.

Again, the duct tape is unraveled and stretched over the opening. Another drop of her heart. “I don’t know why you're making such a fuss over it.” He set the box on top of the other box when he decides to stop and look at his son. “You know, you haven’t moved from that spot.”

Her pulse began to race. “What else are you hiding?” She didn’t want to move. What she hid was worth more that the clothes in the box. The clothes could be replaced. “Come on, move.” She stood there defiantly. “Jeremy, I told you to move.” She wasn’t going to move. He was going to take her clothes, but she would be damn if he got his hands on it.

Her father got more and more anxious at what his son was hiding. He debated about laying a hand on his son. It wasn’t something he was willing to do. His wife made him a promise years ago, that he wouldn’t lay a hand on him. His promise to her was one of the hardest ones to keep. Even when Jeremy was at his most defiant. He never laid a finger on him. His promise to his wife had brought her memory back to him. It had been 2 long years since the accident that claimed her life. He didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.

Their daughter had left home not long after. He had grown overprotective of her because, she reminded him so much of his wife that he couldn’t bare to see anything happen to his only daughter. Her last words before leaving the house was, "I hate you and I’m never coming back.” The thanks for a father’s love. Now his son was equally defiant. What was he protecting? “Son, I want you to move now!” He demanded. His son didn’t move an inch. “Did you hear what I said?” Again his son did nothing.

She was defiant. She knew she was. She couldn’t help but be defiant. Her father was going to throw away all that she had worked for; he was not going to get his hands on what she held so dear. Her father snapped again. “I said move! NOW!” Her father was so angry. He had never raised his voice to her like that. It scared her. Was this what drove Veronica out? Was it possible for her father to strike her? She was not going to back down. In a burst of anger, her father grabs her by the shirt and throws her to the floor; She's stunned. Barely able process that her father had just thrown her to the ground like a rag doll. She sat there in complete and utter shock.

He proceeded to search the desk beginning with the hunch. Pulling book after book and throwing it on the bed. The top shelf held no secrets. He moved to the second shelf. He search book after book. There was something he was hiding he was sure of it. What else could there be? What more could there be than a stack of women's clothes. His frustration grew as book after book flew to the bed. Reaching the desk he methodically went over each item. He was a madman possessed to find what deep, dark secret his son was hiding. His mind raced through all the possibilities. Could his son have a gay lover? Was he hiding something more deviant? His motions became more aggressive as swiped at the items on the desk. The desk clear, he moved to the drawers.

She watched on as he pulled the first drawer out from the desk and laid on the table. An assortment of pens, pencils, rulers and erasers. Her anxiety grew. He was getting closer. She watched as he pulled the second drawer and dumped it on the bed makeup and jewelry. “Is this what you didn't want me to find? Or is there more?” Her father was twitching with anger. She felt something that she never felt from her father. Fear. Absolute Fear. Turns from her and grab the third drawer. Her wig and breastforms. “What the hell is this?” He looks at her. “TELL ME! WHAT IS THIS? WHY DO YOU HAVE ALL THIS!!!” She couldn’t answer. She just stared at the last drawer.

He looked at his son. Rage ran through his body and mind. He had pulled out a wig and breast out of a drawer. That got no reaction from his son. His son just sat unmoving on the floor where he tossed him. He couldn’t believe what he was finding in his only son’s room. He couldn’t fathom why his son would have such things. Why he would buy such things. All his son had worked for was spent on… A perversion… A perversion that was worth openly defying him. It made no sense. His son was looking at the final drawer. Whatever he was protecting it was there. Whatever it was it was beyond makeup and jewelry, beyond a wig and breast. What was it? He gives a sigh and slides open the drawer gently. Almost not wanting to know what he would find.

She stared at him sliding the last drawer open. Her image of her father was destroyed in his violence and his cruelty. He had done everything and crossed every line. There was nothing left. She just stared at the drawer. The tears just kept pouring out. In the drawer, lay a pink album. She watched as her father pulled the book from the drawer almost reverently. His tenderness with the book was a contrast to the violent treatment everything else received. Her heart was beating out of her chest. He puts the album on the table and begins to flip through the pages. Photos of her mom growing up followed by photos of her father growing up.

He was familiar with this book but, had not seen it for so many years. He flipped through more pages, photo of him, his wife and his daughter. The two women in his life that had left him so suddenly. He felt his heart sink. Was this what his son was protecting? It made no sense. He continued silently turning the page. Photos of his son. He flips the page a photo of him, his wife, daughter and son. More of the same from the next photo. Then a photo of a young woman. He knew it wasn’t his daughter. The young woman looked just like his wife. He turns the photo. Three women, to the left was his daughter in the center his wife and finally the other woman smiling happily with the other two. The final page, a photo of his wife and the young girl, the caption Happy Birthday my baby girl. Love, Mommy.

He turned to look at the daughter he had seen every day but had never met. The look of betrayal on her face. He turns back slowly closing the photo album and setting it back into the drawer. He felt ashamed at what he had done. What he just put his youngest and last remaining daughter through. “I’m so sorry honey, please forgive your old man.” He knew she had no reason to trust him, no reason to forgive him. If his wife could accept their youngest daughter for the woman she was, why couldn’t he. He looked at her pleading for forgiveness.

She stared back at her father, stunned at his apology. It was sincere and heart felt. She was just too hurt and betrayed. He was ready to reject her at the drop of a hat. What could she do?

By morning, her room was empty and her car was gone. She had finished what her father started; she packed everything she owned and left. The only thing remaining was the pink photo album on the table in her room and a note.

I forgive you Daddy, but I’m not coming back.

I love you,
Janet.

I sat there standing in my daughter’s now vacant and empty room, staring at the pink photo album and the note above it. My daughter's room a stark contrast to the disheveled state I had left it in; the state I left her in. I knew nothing of my youngest daughter, the note was the only thing I had that bears her name. Janet.

How? How on earth could I be so blind? Was she so good at pretending? Pretending to be a boy? Then there was the discovery that my eldest daughter and my wife knew. They kept it from me? They kept HER from me? Why? What was it that they saw in me that made them do it? Made them afraid to show me my youngest daughter. I thought we were happy. I worked so hard to keep food on the table, a roof over their heads. I wanted to make sure they became responsible adults.

I tucked her in at night. When she was too tired to pull the covers over her. Her room was that of your typical teenage boy. The only thing that would have been odd about her, was all the books on her shelves. She likes to read. She always had a book in her hand or in her backpack. I open the album, and I looked at the photos I saw yesterday. My wife, Vanessa, Janet's mother, kept the album, it was something sentimental to her. She was going to put photos of the kids growing up in there. After my wife put the first photos of Veronica in the album, I never saw it again. I figured that since we both were working and raising two kids, the album took a back seat, much like everything else in our lives. Page by page, I flipped through it. I finally stopped at the photo of Janet. She looked… happy? I had not seen a smile on her face since she was a child, a young child at that. There was never a smile on her face. Just, sadness. Perpetual sadness. I tried to reach out to her a few times. The boy, never opened up. Was I relating to her wrong? I must have.

My daughter, my youngest daughter, Janet's smile was bright. Her hazel eyes seemed to shine so invitingly. How was it that this beautiful young girl was the same sad boy that wouldn't let anyone in? How could she not share herself with me? Why? I did nothing to warrant such deception. She has her mother smile. Her mother was... just as beautiful. Seeing Janet's photo, I see a trace of the woman I fell so madly in love with. The woman I wanted to start a family with. The woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. It was the ‘rest of her life’ that I got. Her time came before mine. Sadness crosses my mind that she had a hand in keeping all this from me. Were they ever going to introduce Janet to me? Did my wife’s passing cause Janet to go further into hiding or compel her to keep hiding? How long had they been hiding her from me? Were they afraid of what I might say? What I might do?

I flip to the next page, the one with my two daughters and my wife. “The three women in my life now gone. One gone yesterday, one gone for long, and one gone forever.” The house never felt more empty. I can’t understand why all that I had was gone. All that was left was the photo album and the note. I forgive you Daddy, but I’m not coming back. I love you, Janet. The handwriting was so delicate, cursive… artful even. The same handwriting on any other letter would have been less bittersweet. Ironic, that the last thing she would write to me was her introduction. How much pain and anguish had she been under? How much control she must have had to write that so… Serenely? The lettering had a light touch to them-faint, but distinct. This was not the work of a son in anguish, but a daughter in her most angelic light.

How? How could I have missed this? Were there signs? So much I never knew, never would know. It wretched inside me. What was worse? Never seeing the woman, you loved again or never getting to meet the daughter you never knew existed? No, what was worse was that given the chance to meet her, you drove her away. Ransacking her room, throwing her aside. Casting her aside? Guilt and anguish wrought over me as it did when I saw the album and then the photos of Janet. Where had I gone wrong? What could I have done?

Her room was empty, but the garbage cans in the yard were full. Full of the what she had left behind. The telltale artifacts of a young man casting off youth and innocence. Or was it casting off the disguise? The cocoon shed, leaving no trace of the butterfly that emerged from within. Where are you? Where did you fly off to? Her room is so empty. Like her sister's. I hadn’t done a thing with her sister’s room from the day she left. I was hoping she would come back. I take the album walk towards the door and close it behind me.

Years later a letter in a maroon colored envelope arrives, the return address says, "Janet Carson and Harold Lopes." It's in that familiar cursive. Its contents has the weight of cardstock.