Author's Note: I’ve had to take a break from my autobiography, some things didn’t like being stirred back up. I plan on returning to it and finishing one day, I just don’t see that day coming soon. In the meantime I wanted to share with you another story that has been bouncing around in my head for awhile. ~Rebecca
Sarah knew that she was running late as soon as she stepped inside of her house. She was mentally kicking herself for not skipping her Saturday Yoga class this morning, even knowing how important it had been for her to have gone. The stress of the last week had been getting to her, and even though she was now rushing, she was calmer and much more centered than she had been when she woke up this morning. While she had quit counting, she knew that she had spent a minimum of sixty hours working since Tuesday morning. Lack of sleep and the situation at work had resulted in her being extremely stressed.
She both loved and hated her job at moments like this. Even with the stress of so many people counting on her, she lived for the excitement, and yet another chance to prove herself. That was probably her biggest character flaw, her constant need to prove just how good she was at her job. For the last eleven years, she had worked for an engineering firm in the Pacific Northwest, ever since she earned her masters degree in mechanical engineering. She had overcome a lot of prejudices and peoples perceptions of her after she first started working there. With her dedication and work ethic, she had moved from a glorified secretary to now being a team lead. She had always demanded excellence from her team, but unlike some leads she had seen, she had demanded no less of herself. Her team always delivered results, consistently ahead of deadlines. That was one of the many reasons she had earned and held her current position, her constant drive for excellence. Her small group would work 24/7 for her if she asked, only because they knew she would be there every minute with them.
She, and her team, had spent the last eighteen months working on improving an existing gear system for a local aircraft manufacturer. Due to rising maintenance costs, their ultimate goal was to modify an existing design to make it as maintenance free as possible. They had been so very close to achieving the target of forty thousand cycles. They had been within six thousand cycles shy of that goal when a small link had failed. A small part, barely three by six inches in size had cracked, and that had caused her team to scramble to find out the cause.
It had first started as a section wide email sent late Tuesday morning, alerting everyone of the failure, followed shortly by the main partners voicing their displeasure with her and her team. Sarah knew their design shouldn’t have failed, they had run the simulations hundreds upon hundreds of times. The next few days had been spent investigating the cause of the failure. It was late Thursday evening when they found the problem. The schematics they had drawn up, specifically called for a certain alloy and then for heat treating the part to achieve the proper hardness and durability. The supplier for the machinist they contracted with, had evidently shipped improperly labeled stock. The Rockwell hardness was a bit higher than our design had specified, which only meant after so many cycles it had work hardened and became excessively brittle during the testing and cracked. With the alloy being so close in weight, it had been overlooked during the milling process.
On Friday, Sarah had spent approximately seven hours in the office, running through more simulations, showing all their results and findings to the members of the firm. Finally late last night they had given the go ahead to start the test over as soon as the equipment could be reset and the new part remanufactured. With the next test resting completely on her and her teams shoulders, she didn’t get home from the testing facility and the machine shop until almost midnight. She had spent the rest of that day ensuring the new testing rig was up to specs, and now she was only waiting on the machinist to finish the new link.
Ben had told her at the machine shop that it wouldn’t be ready until close to 3PM, she knew Ben well enough to know that she needed to be there a few hours early. Not because she didn’t trust him, it was because she knew he would have it finished by the time she got there. Ben was the production manager at the shop, and since the faulty part was on them, he had given her his word that he would ensure this was done right personally. The firm had been using that shop for well over a decade and Sarah had developed a strong trust with Ben and he likewise with her. She also knew that he wouldn’t sleep until the part was finished, which was why she was going in before his estimated time of delivery. She had to do the final inspection alongside Ben and then deliver it to the testing facility. The sooner she got there, the sooner the testing could resume, and that her friend could also get some much needed sleep.
She was hoping to leave her house no later than 11AM so she could get to the shop just before noon, which gave her just over an hour to eat, shower, and hit the road. With every minute counted to her, she didn’t want to waste a second. She was doing her best not to think about how much this setback was costing the firm with each hour of inactivity. She settled for a quick, serving of cottage cheese and fruit before she headed upstairs to get cleaned up after her workout.
Half an hour later after she had dried off, she did spend a few minutes admiring her reflection in her full length mirror. That was one of her guilty pleasures, admiring all the hard work she had put into her almost thirty-five year old body. She had one more day though, until she could properly claim that number. Even so, over a decade of proper diet, and exercise, had left her with a body many college girls would envy. Even though she had narrow hips, she wasn’t lacking in curves, and had a lithe athletic body most women would kill for.
Quickly shaking herself from her admiration, she donned a pair of jeans, tank top, light jacket, and a pair of flats. Noting that her shoulder length light brown hair was still damp from her shower, she put it in a quick ponytail to keep it manageable since she was taking her convertible today. Her and Ben had designed a new front end suspension for her replica car she and friends had built over the last few years, and he had been wanting to test it out for himself. Taking a last quick look in the mirror, she smiled knowing that she looked like she should still be in college and not helping run a multi million dollar engineering contract. With just a bit of mascara and a touch of lipstick she decided she was done, and went downstairs to get her stuff ready to leave.
As she was making sure she had everything together, she ran her hand lovingly over the worn out leather backpack she had been carrying for over a decade. Several of the girls in the office would often kid her about the dilapidated old bag, and how she refused to ever carry a purse. She knew she needed to retire the poor thing, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. Even if it had more hand stitched repairs on it than the original machine stitching it had when it was new. People just didn’t understand what it meant to her. April, her older sister, had given it to her right as she had started college. April had even given her a hard time about it the last time she had seen her, back when April had gotten really sick. She had told Sarah if she didn’t buy a new bag that she was going to be forced to buy another one for her… Unfortunately the cancer spread too fast for her to keep that promise.
Sarah slowly fell down to her couch clutching the old leather bag as the memories of April’s last few months filled her mind, with tears slowly falling on the soft and worn leather. April had stayed close to home in Florida, while Sarah had moved as far away from that place as possible while still staying in the continental United States. With the distance, Sarah had only been able to visit a few times, before April got too sick to stay by herself anymore. They had stayed in touch through Skype, and would aggravate each other with Snapchat filters till their stomachs hurt from laughing so hard. It had only been three months since she had flown back home to say her final goodbye to her sister, and sometimes it still hurt just as much as when she first got the news. There was no way she could ever get rid of the bag.
She was drawn out of her memories by a loud and sudden knocking on her front door. She hadn’t been expecting anyone, so she assumed it was someone wanting to sell something. She wiped the tears off her face and took a few seconds to try to regain her composure before she walked to her front door. Looking through the peephole it took her a few seconds to recognize the two people standing outside her door. When she realized who it was, she immediately felt her adrenaline kick in.
Within seconds she was angry, scared, and hurt all at the same time. What the hell could they want with her… Now? After all these years?! How dare they come here?!? She had only seen them once in the last nineteen years, and that one time had been almost more than she could take…
Standing outside her door were her parents. The same parents who had kicked her out of the house when she was still in high school. The same parents who disowned her when she had told them… When she had told them that she was really a girl…
To be continued.
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Author's Note: I had been able to write several chapters before I started posting, hopefully I’ll be able to keep a fairly quick posting schedule for this one. It’s writing itself fairly quickly ~Rebecca
Stepping back from the door, Sarah’s heart started racing and felt like it was going to jump right out of her chest. The last time she had seen them was at her sisters funeral just three months prior, and it didn’t affect her this bad. She realized that time, she had been able to mentally prepare herself. She then remembered how that time they hadn’t recognized her as their long lost son, maybe they still didn’t know… Then again what were they doing here now? She was taking long deep breaths trying to calm down, when another knock on the door caused her to jump.
Slowly, she opened the door, doing her absolute best to hide her fear and anger that was burning just under the surface. Staring at the last two people in the world she wanted to see, she noticed how much older they looked. Even older than they were at the funeral just a few months ago. Trying her best to smile, she said, “Can I help you?”
Her parents, Bill and Joan, looked up hopefully, then Joan spoke, “I’m sorry to bother you, but we were looking for a Sara Marks. She was a friend of our daughters and…” Her voice just stopped as recognition dawned on her face. “You were at her funeral, weren’t you?”
Sarah sighed, “April’s? Yes… I was there… She was a sorority sister of mine… I’m Sarah, I’m so sorry for your loss Mr. and Mrs. Richardson…” Her voice started cracking, so she cleared her throat in an attempt to hide her emotions. “I’m sorry but I’m running late for something, is there something I can do for you?” She asked, no longer being able to mask her frustration.
Joan gasped, as she looked directly at Sarah for several seconds. Finally she asked softly, “Brian? Is that you?” Sara couldn’t help but grimace at hearing that name, especially seeing who had uttered it. Then Sarah was caught off guard when the next thing she heard her mother say was, “You’re so beautiful….”
Still more angry than confused though, she said through clenched teeth, “I’m… Sarah… I haven’t been Brian in a long… A really long time… Now what do you want!?”
Joan started to take a step back, but bumped into Bill who was standing behind her. He gently said, “Sarah please, we have to… I mean… Can we please talk to you… It’s important… I promise…May we come in?”
Realizing they probably wouldn’t leave till they said whatever they had come to say, reluctantly she said, “Fine… I hope its important enough to be worth traveling twenty-five hundred miles…” She then stepped back to let the older couple in. After closing the door behind them, she led them to the kitchen table. The living room was meant for guests she actually wanted in her home. “Do you want something to drink? I have water, milk, and green tea… That’s it. I don’t want you to think I’m a bad host as well.”
They both shook their heads no, then looked at each other as if to figure out who was going to start. Several long moments later, Sara snapped, “Will you just say what you came to say for crying out loud? Let’s just get this out of the way! I do have someplace else I need to be! You both just remember something, if you came all this way to say anything you’ve already said to me before, I can just kick you out of my house this time! That’s something I learned how to do from the best!” She immediately cringed at the amount of venom she heard in her own voice… Also seeing the stricken look on her father’s face, along with the tears starting down her mother’s, didn’t do anything to make her feel any better either. Taking a deep breath, she said much more calmly, “That was... mean… I’m sorry…”Joan just started crying, which only made Sarah feel even worse.
Bill sadly said, “Don’t apologize… We deserved that… And then some…” as he looked down towards his feet.
Sarah was trying to figure out what was going on, these weren’t the same people from her youth, or let alone even at April’s funeral. They looked worn down, and beaten… Suddenly Joan looked up through her tear filled eyes at Sarah , and just barely got the words, “I’m so sorry”, out of her mouth, before she stepped closer and wrapped her arms around Sarah continuing to apologize.
Sarah started to return the embrace, after all this was what she had been praying for, the night she had come out… She didn’t realize how much she had missed her mom’s hugs. Then she remembered what had happened instead, and quickly shrugged off the hug, and said, “Look you can’t come and say you’re sorry and expect everything to be okay… It’s not okay, and I don’t know if you can ever make what you did okay!!!” She had started to cry again as well, confused and with her emotions constantly bouncing back and forth she whimpered, “Will you just please tell me why you are here…”
Joan started reaching into her purse to grab something, then paused to say, “I don’t know if you knew… You probably did since she stayed close to you… Our relationship with April had been strained for a long time… Ever since…” she paused trying to find the words.
“You kicked me out? Yes I knew that, she was angrier at times than I was at you…”, Sarah interjected. Joan just nodded, and wiped away the fresh tears on her cheeks.
“She had tried to talk to us about you… So many times… I can’t apologize enough…” Joan sobbed. “When she got sick… She started to talk to us again… We think she knew what was going to happen… After she died… Her nurse gave us this letter that April had written… She wrote it the evening before she passed away…” She pulled a well worn folded piece of paper out of her purse and handed it to Sarah. “I think it would be best if you read it, please…” Joan begged.
Sarah gently took the letter, and as she unfolded it she grimaced as she noticed it appeared to have been wadded up. Seeing her sisters handwriting made her smile, even though it was written the night before she died, the little hearts and smiley faces dotting the I’s were obvious. Sarah then read…
Dear Mom and Dad,
Since you’re reading this, I want to say I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to not still be there with you. Please know that I’m at peace now, and the cancer can’t hurt me ever again. I do want you to know, that even though I’ve been sick for awhile now the last few months since we started talking again I will cherish forever. I’ve been thinking about that a lot, being bedridden will do that I promise you.
I hope that now that you’re reading this we can have a conversation that we’ve both refused to have. That conversation is about your other daughter, the one you won’t acknowledge. If you truly want to honor my memory, reach out to her, for not only my sake but yours and hers as well. If I’ve learned one thing lying in this depressing bed, is that anger and resentment isn’t worth holding on to. When you reach out to Sarah, that is HER name by the way, I will promise you several things. Mom, Dad… Sarah is amazing… She’s someone you’d both be extremely proud to call daughter, only because I know how proud I am of being her sister. I also know how hard it will be, she’s just as hurt and angry as I had been. Just promise to try… For me… Make it a dying girls last request, I don’t care. Just try… After you read this and promise the nurse that you WILL try, she will give you another letter. This one isn’t for you, well directly. It’s for you to give to Sarah. It’s my last gift I can give to you, all three of you. Do not read the letter, unless Sarah agrees you can ONCE she reads it first. Mom… Dad… I know my time is close, I will love and miss you...
April.
PS Oh… If you don’t try, I’ll know… You thought I was bitchy before, just imagine how bitchy I can be in the afterlife if you don’t at least try…
Sarah started to giggle even amongst her tears from reading the letter. She could hear Aprils voice as she made that last threat in her letter. That was just like her to do something like that, and if anyone could carry it out, it’d be April.
Softly Sarah spoke, “So that’s why you’re both here? To honor her last wishes? Or is it because of her threat?” She looked at her parents with a small smile this time.
Joan nodded, “We’re wanting to respect her last wishes… She was right though… This anger and hurt… We need to try to heal this… As much as we possibly can… For all our sakes.”
Bill added, “Plus if anyone could follow through with that threat, you know it would be your sister.” That caused everyone to softly chuckle, they each remembering just how feisty she had been.
“So do you have her letter for me?” Sarah asked, and noticed her mom was already handed her a sealed envelope.
“We didn’t read it, I promise”, Joan said.
Sara carefully opened the envelope and unfolded the letter. She couldn’t help but chuckle upon reading the first line, but the further she read the tears started to flow.
To the bestest, most pain in the ass little sister, a girl like me could ever hope to have,
Hey Sarah, hopefully since you’re reading this that Mom and Dad are there with you. I can’t tell you how much I wish I could be there with you all in person and not just this letter. I will promise you if there is a way I can be there when they give this to you I will be. I know how hard this will be for you, only because how hard it was for me to make my own peace with them. Promise me that you’ll try though, and you better promise, I’m dead serious. You all need each other, a lot more than any of you are willing to admit.
I want you to know holding on to that anger only hurts you, and I love you too much for you to keep hurting Sis. I’m not saying it was to blame, but that anger had slowly poisoned me for years, it easily could have helped the cancer spread through my body as fast as it did. You deserve so much to be free, and even with being sick, no matter what happens to me I am truly free now. Even with the pain, I am already at peace just knowing I did everything I could to help you while I was alive. I will hopefully continue even though now I’m gone.
I also cant tell you how much it has meant to me to watch you blossom from that scrawny young kid to the beautiful strong person I’ve watched you become. I have been truly blessed to be your sister. You had always told everyone how lucky you were having me as your sister… Sarah, this entire time, I’ve been the lucky one from the day you were born.
Sarah I know you’re scared right now, only because I do know you, but you are strong. You are the strongest person I have ever known. If anyone can move past this it’s you, I have faith in you squirt, I always have, and always will.
The pain meds are starting to kick in, so I need to let you go. Please give them a hug from me, since I cant be there to do it myself.
Love you forever and ever,
your sister,
April.
Sarah was sobbing uncontrollably at this point, as her mom gently took the letter out of her hand. Joan quickly read her daughters letter, and smiled through her own tears. Softly she said to Sarah, “You’re sister was something else wasn’t she?”
Nodding Sarah whimpered, “I miss her so damn much!!! It’s not fair!!!”
Joan hesitantly slid closer to her sobbing daughter and gently wrapped her arms around her, “Baby so do we, so do we.”
This time Sarah didn’t shrug off the hug, instead she turned and fully embraced her mother as they both wept.
To be continued.
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Author's Note: First I would like to thank everyone that is reading this, and especially those that have commented. To those that have told me how it has move you, I cant thank you enough for those comments. All I hope for in sharing this story is to be able to make the reader ‘feel’ something, so thank you all so much. ~Rebecca
As Sarah started to regain her composure, she gently broke the hug this time, “Sorry about that…I didn’t mean for that to happen…” She softly told her mom.
Joan smiled, “It’s okay… I didn’t mind.”
Sarah nodded, “You know that if you both are serious about this, that we still have a lot more work to do… This doesn’t just wipe everything away.”
Both of her parents just nodded, her dad spoke, “I know it doesn’t Sarah. We are serious about this… Even before April passed away, we had started to realize… We had started to realize how badly we failed you… both of you…”
There was a moment of heavy silence as Bill’s words sunk in to everyone, Sarah eventually, “You said before she... umm… So what was it that made you realize that?”
Sighing, Bill said, “Ultimately it was the way Reverend… I mean… It was the way Tom blamed you for her being sick… All because she had stayed in contact with you… He had said it was God’s vengeance… ”
Sarah wasn’t surprised at hearing the accusations that self righteous asshole had made. It was the same ‘reverend’ that her parents had talked to right before they had kicked her out of the house. Her parents had always been deeply religious and had raised both her and April the same way. By the time they were both teenagers though, his sermons had changed from talking about ‘Love one another’ to something that always resulted in ‘repent or burn in Hell’. Maybe it had been gradual enough of a shift that the adults didn’t realize it was happening, or they weren’t paying attention to what they shouted “Amen” to. Sarah and April had noticed it though.
Sarah just scoffed, “That asshole is still running the church? I imagine April didn’t take to well to that…”
Joan took over, “Yeah he is… Hopefully not for much longer though. And no she didn’t take very kindly to that… You would have been proud of her though… She went off on him in the hospital room. The entire floor heard her defending her sister.”
Picturing her five foot nothing ‘big’ sister going off at that zealot made Sarah smile, chuckling she said, “I can see that happening… I’ve dealt with the brunt of her anger a few times… It was amazing how loud that tiny of a person could get.” Everyone laughed softly at the memory of how feisty April could get.
Everyone was quiet for a minute in their own reflection, when Sarah spoke up, “I wish she could be here to see this… You know, all of us just being able to talk finally.”
Her parents smiled sadly, before Joan stated, “You know, I think she just might be.” Sarah smiled at her mom hoping that she was right. Joan just reached over and gave Sarah’s hand a small squeeze returning her smile.
Never one to miss a chance to ruin a perfectly good moment, Bill stated, “I hate to bring this up, but its almost noon… Where would you two like to eat? My treat.”
Suddenly Sarah realized how much time had gotten away from her, “Shit, shit, SHIT!!! I’m late!” She exclaimed, jumping up from the kitchen table, glancing at her microwave she saw it was ten minutes until noon.
Startled at her outburst, Joan asked, “Wait, you really did have someplace to go?”
Sarah nodded quickly in a slight panic, “Did you think I was making it up to get rid of you?” Glancing at her reflection she saw what all the crying had done to her mascara, “Crap I need to fix this!”
Joan got up and saw she needed repairs on hers as well, “I honestly did… I’m sorry, but I also wouldn’t have blamed you… Sarah just calm down okay? How important is it?” She asked, wondering what had gotten her daughter so stressed so quickly.
Sarah paused for a second, not wanting to take the time to get too detailed in her explanation she said, “It’s a work thing. I know he said it wouldn’t be ready for a few more hours, but I know Ben… I’ve got to go, like now. Too many people are counting on me.”
Sighing Joan said, “Okay go clean your face up real quick, and is there a place I can do mine?”
Bill not wanting to get in the way of the ladies and their makeup just said, “I’ll just go wait outside while you two are preening.”
Sarah just gave him an odd look, but then smiled thinking what her Dad had just said about her like it was nothing out of the ordinary. She quickly directed her mom to the downstairs guest bathroom and then went straight upstairs to hers so she could repair the damage. A few minutes later they were locking the front door when she saw her dad admiring her Cobra replica in the drive way.
“This yours?” He asked with just a bit of awe in his voice. She nodded yes and he gave a low whistle. “Where’d you get this thing, shes gorgeous. Had to be a lot of money…”
“Not really, It cost me a lot less than most brand new sports cars… It’s a replica car Dad.” She told him with a smirk. Thinking that he had assumed that it was a real 427 roadster amused her to no end. “I only ordered the chassis and body from them, the rest I either got locally or built with a friends help.”
“Wait, you built this?” He asked. “How? I thought… umm…” He paused trying to think of a way to say what he was thinking without possibly insulting her.
“Don’t you remember how often you dragged me in on the weekends to help you on all the projects that were behind in the auto and building trade shops? A lot of what I know about cars is what you taught me…” She told him as she was putting her bags in the passenger seat. She thought she had convinced herself a long time ago that she didn’t care what they thought. Standing beside the car that she built and having her dad admire her work, made her realize that had been a lie. She still wanted him to be proud of her, both of them actually. Then she had an idea.
You guys want to keep talking?” She asked.
Of course we do… I thought that you said you had to go.” Joan said.
“I was going to ask if you two wanted to go with me… You can see what I do for a living, and meet some of my friends… Dad you’ll really like our first stop.” She told her parents.
Bill and Joan looked at each other expectantly, then Bill asked, “So do we follow you? Cause we aren’t all fitting in that car.”
Laughing with the visual of them trying to fit in the Cobra, Sarah responded, “No! No. We’ll take my truck, that way we can talk on the way… It’s an almost 45 minute drive there.”
Joan beat Bill to the punch and just blurted out, “Yes I’d love to see where you work.”
Smiling, Sarah pulled the Cobra keys off her key ring and sidearmed them to her Dad, which he caught excitedly.. “ You get to put her in the garage and I’ll get the truck out, Mom can you put your car where the Cobra sits? We need to hurry.” Sarah ordered.
Hitting the FOB on her keychain, the garage door started to open, and as she saw her mom headed to their Prius she heard the Cobra fire up. Looking at her Dad she couldn’t help but grin, he looked as excited as a 5 year old with a new toy. Once the garage door opened up they swapped all the cars around and for a second she thought she was going to have to pull her dad out of the Cobra. A few minutes later they were driving away from the house, with her dad in the seat beside her still grinning like a giddy school boy, and her mom in the back seat admiring Sarah’s vehicle.
Once she had gotten out of her neighborhood and onto the open streets, one thing had bothered her. Her parents had been die hard Ford fanatics, her dad always had an F150 and her mom always had a town car, and now they were driving a Prius. She would have thought it was a rental, but she had noticed the Florida plates on it. She had to ask, “So what’s up with the Prius? I thought both of you would die before not driving a Ford.”
Bill looked back at his wife and said, “It’s been hard to adjust to I’ll give you that… It’s a lot better to tow behind the RV than anything else we’ve ever driven.”
Surprised, Sarah asked, “An RV? When did you get an RV?”
Bill responded, “We bought it about 3 weeks ago… Right after we closed on the house.”
“Closed on the house?” Was the only thing she could think to say. Giving her parents a side glance she kept wondering what had happened. Other than a few small things, like her dad getting so excited about a cool car, they were nothing like the people she remembered growing up with. “What did you guys do?”, she asked.
Looking down at his hands, her Dad softly said, “We sold the house… Almost everything in it, along with all the cars and toys… Other than a storage building back in Ocala, everything we own is either in the RV or the Yota.”
“Why?”, was all she uttered.
Taking a deep breath he answered, “After April died… Then the fallout at the church… There wasn’t anything holding us in Ocala anymore other than our jobs…”
Joan interrupted him saying, “We’re both old enough and put enough time in at that school, so we turned in our retirement paperwork at the end of the school year.”
Bill resumed, “Then we started selling everything off. The RV and Prius are paid off, we have a nice nest egg from the house selling, and we both have decent retirement packages so… That’s why we took so long to get here after the funeral.”
Almost overwhelmed with everything she was hearing, “So… How long are you planning on staying here?”
Her dad looked over at her, and she though she saw his eyes glistening with the possibility of tears. Before he spoke, he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, “Sarah… I’m not sure the right way to say this… With April’s death, her letters, and her final wish made me realize something… We lost one daughter… We can’t change that, no matter how much we wish we could… I’ll be damned if we don’t try to get to know our other daughter…”
Seeing the emotion on his face shocked her. Here was a man who had always been a solid rock, like nothing ever phased him, almost in tears. She repeated, “So how long?”
Bill smiled at her, “We’re planning on staying as long as you want us to…”
Looking directly ahead, afraid of seeing her father on the verge of crying, she softly just said, “Oh…”
To be continued.
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Author's Note: I’m so glad so many are enjoying this story and can stomach my writings lol. Now that I’ve gotten the foundation set, I’m going to get to the purpose of the title… I’m hoping it works like I have it pictured in my head. Hope you enjoy, oh this is the last chapter I’ve finished so next ones will start being a few days apart.~Rebecca
Sarah drove on in silence for several minutes, while she was digesting the news she had just heard. Her parents had sold off everything so they could come here and try to make amends, seemingly for however long that would take. She thought that maybe they had gotten the RV to travel in their retirement, but growing up her parents hated traveling to even Disney World when it was only an hour and a half away. Could they really be the same people who had discarded her so easily all those years ago? Suddenly the memory of that night flooded her thoughts.
“Why did you do it?”, she asked, breaking the silence. “Why did you hate me so much?” Seeing her mother in the rear view mirror wince at those words caused Sarah to tense up. She didn’t mean for it to come out the way she had said it, after all they were obviously trying to make up for it. The hurt and anger from that night apparently was still there even after all those years.
Her father looked down and after a moment of thought, “Sarah… I swear we never hated you… When you told us… We were scared and confused. We didn’t know what to think or do… So we turned to someone we thought we could trust…”
“You mean HIM.” Sarah grimaced. She knew her parents would know who she meant.
From behind her she heard her mom softly say, “We thought we could trust him… We knew so little about… this kind of thing… What he advised made sense at the time… Or so we thought…”
“So HE told you to throw me out and that made sense to you enough to actually do it?” She exclaimed. She felt her eyes starting to tear up so she blinked and did her best to get her emotions in check. The last thing she wanted to do was break down again, especially since she was driving.
“I swear that’s not what we wanted. We thought you were just confused… When we told him what you had said… He agreed that you were confused and being influenced by something… He had said that if we cut you off, it would force you to start thinking straight… We really believed he was trying to help us…” Bill stated staring straight ahead, unable to meet her her eyes.
Sara just nodded slowly, “So that’s why you said I couldn’t come home till I came to my senses…”
Joan said softly in realization, “That’s why you never came home was it? You were never ‘out of your senses’ to begin with…”
Sarah responded, “I had been confused for a long time, but I wasn’t confused anymore when I told you…”
Her dad looked at her pleadingly, “We know that now…”
Sara just said, “Really? How?”
Joan reached her hand up and put it on Sarahs shoulder and said softly, “We finally read up about it, and we learned… I’m sorry it took us 20 years for us to finally come to our senses.”
Sarah wanted to tell her it was okay, but she knew that she wasn’t ready for everything to be okay just yet. She didn’t know if it would ever be totally okay. Knowing that they didn’t seem to act out of anger helped… Some… She just smiled at her mom and patted her hand. It was probably safer than saying anything at the moment.
They rode on in an awkward silence for a few minutes, until Joan asked her daughter, “What happened to you after that night?”
Thinking of it caused Sarah to frown, “Mom you really don’t want to know…”
Her dad reached over to clasp her hand gently, “You’re probably right we don’t want to know… We need to know… We need to know what we caused to happen to our son… err, daughter… I’m sorry…”
She saw it was an unintentional slip, but it had been so long since she had considered herself a son it still caused a slight shudder through her. She tried to smile at him to let him know it was okay, and hoped it wasn’t too obvious that it was forced. She said, “Okay, if you need to know…”
She thought for a minute to try to get the memories clear before she started, “ After you… well you know… I ended up walking a lot trying to decide what I was going to do… I had thought about trying to go back and tell you I was joking or I was mistaken… I couldn’t though… Everything was out in the open, and I couldn’t say I was mistaken anymore… So I just walked trying to think of where I could go. I ended up at McDonalds since I was starving… I hadn’t been able to eat all day from being so scared to tell you…I didn’t have any friends to turn to, everyone at school just thought I was gay and I got ridiculed… I couldn’t even go to the church for help after that… The only person I could think of was April. It wasn’t a weekend so I prayed she wasn’t on a date or anything, so I called her to ask her what I should do…
“Hey Brian, what’s up?” Brian heard his sister’s voice say through his phone.
“April I need help… I don’t know what to do…” He told her.
She heard his voice breaking and immediately was worried about him, she had actually worried about him for the last several years. He hadn’t been like any of the boys she had known, he had always seemed fragile to her in a way. “Brian what’s wrong? You can talk to me okay?”
“Sis, I don’t know where to start, everything’s so fucked up…”, he sobbed.
Hearing him like this broke April’s heart, she had been looking after him for so long. She hadn’t even finished her first year in college and she couldn’t help but feel somehow responsible that she hadn’t been there to protect him, from whatever this was. “Brian, calm down its okay. I’m here talk me.”
“April… Mom and Dad kicked me out of the house… I don’t have any friends, I don’t have anywhere to go… I don’t know what to do?” He said, his voice still breaking up but he wasn’t sobbing anymore.
“What? Why would they kick you out? You’ve been like the perfect son, always making straight A’s, always doing what they asked… What happened?” She blurted out. Whatever this was had to be bad, their parents loved Brian, sometimes she felt like they loved him more than her.
“I didn’t do anything bad I promise… I tried to tell them something…” Brian started to say, but the thought that April might turn on him as well, scared him into silence…”
“What could you have told them?” She asked, then it dawned on her… The way Brian had always been, she had questioned his sexuality more than once… No matter what, he was still her little brother, so she said, “You know what it doesn’t matter what you said. Look I’m going to hang up and call them and find out what’s going on. I promise I’ll call you right back okay?”
Afraid of what their parents might tell her, and how she might start ignoring him as well, he begged, “Promise you’ll call me back? Promise me April, please!!!”
As soon as he had hung up the phone he started praying, for her not to hate him if they told her what he had said, for her to be able to convince her parents he wasn’t confused. He continued praying until his phone rang again. Seeing it was April’s phone number he hesitantly answered, “So how bad is it?”
“Brian I don’t know what’s going on… They would only tell me that you had told them some foolishness and until you got your head straight they wouldn’t let you come back… They also told me to not help you, because you needed to learn a lesson…” She told him, still can’t believing they had told her all of that. She was more than convinced now that Brian had come out to them as gay… That was the only thing she could think of.
Brian paused for a moment, scared of what her answer was going to be. Finally he asked, “So what did you tell them?”
April heard the fear in his voice, and she was so angry at her parents for hurting him like this. It shouldn’t matter if he was gay or not, he was such a sweet and kind kid. “I told them, until they remembered that you were their son and started to act like parents again they can forget about their daughter too.”
“Holy Shit!!!” Was all he could think to say. He couldn’t ever imagine saying those things to his parents… Then he quickly realized he would if the roles had been reversed.
“Yeah Holy shit is right… What the hell are they thinking… Brian, I can’t come and get you, my car isn’t running. Dad was going to come up this weekend or next to fix it, but I guess I’m going to have to figure something else out… Is there anyway you can get here?” She asked.
“To Tallahassee? I don’t know… I guess I can get a bus ticket in the morning, I at least grabbed my savings.” He thought aloud.
“Okay, do you have anywhere you can stay overnight?” April asked him, she was very worried about him. She was thankful though he was sounding a bit better on the phone.
“It’ll take me a bit to get to the bus station, I can just camp out there till they open… April… I don’t know what to say…” He started to choke up again, but this time it wasn’t from fear. His sister was still looking out for him.
“Brian are you going to be okay?” She asked worriedly, after all she heard his voice starting to break again.
“I will be now… I love you April… Thank you…” He said softly.
“I love you too squirt, always will. I’m your big sister so it sorta comes with the job you know.” She joked. “Look, just call me when you get on the bus okay, so you can let me know when you are going to get here. I’ll make sure you have a ride to the house okay.”
“I promise, I’ll see you soon okay.” He told her with so much more relief in his voice.
“Alright talk to you in the morning. Brian its all going to be okay, I promise.” She told him.
It took Brian almost two hours to walk to the bus stop, and found a bench where he could curl up and nap some. Talking with April had alleviated so many fears, but he still rested fitfully.
Brian gave up trying to sleep about 5AM, at least he guess it was about that time. During the night his phone battery had died and he didn’t have a watch. Even though it was the middle of March, the night chill had been a bit too much without any way to cover up, and he had gotten too cold to sleep anymore. He had passed by a coffee shop the night before that was fairly close by so he went to buy a coffee and hopefully get his phone charged.
A little bit later he arrived at the coffee shop, walking in the door seeing the rainbow sticker stuck on the corner of the door made him feel a bit more relieved. Ever since he had told his parents, every time he caught a person looking at him he couldn’t help but feel like they could tell he was… well different.
Walking up to the counter a short haired lady behind the counter greeted him, and when she noticed his rumpled clothes and messed up hair, she asked, “Honey are you okay? Can I help you?”
Brian just smiled nervously, “I don’t know… Could I get a cup of really strong coffee, and make it strong? I didn’t sleep good last night… Oh and is there I place I could plug my phone in?”
Having seen young kids down on their luck, she figured the young man in front of her was not okay in the least. “I tell you what, the first cup of coffee is on the house since its just us in here. If you hand me your phone and charger I’ll plug it in behind the counter… Now why don’t you go to the bathroom and clean yourself up, I’ll have your cup ready for you when you get back.”
Brian couldn’t believe how nice she was being, but thanked her and went to do as she suggested. When he saw his reflection he was amazed she didn’t throw him out as soon as he walked in. He spent a few minutes washing his face and did his best to get his longish hair to lie down. Now that he didn’t have to worry about his parents noticing he had gotten his ears pierced he dug in his backpack that he had grabbed as he fled his house. After a brief search he pulled out the pair of gold studs he had hidden away and put them in. Still looking fairly rough, just seeing his earrings in made him feel a bit better.
The lady behind the counter greeted him with a smile when he came back out, “Oh by the way, my name is Bree.”
Her warm demeanor instantly made Brian feel more at ease. They talked for almost half an hour while his phone charged. She had finally gotten him to open up about being kicked out by his parents, but not about his gender identity. She was relieved when he had told her his sister was taking him in, and he was just waiting for the bus. When he left he felt human again, and was looking forward to the bus ride.
Several hours later all that hope he had had was almost completely gone, they wouldn’t sell him a ticket without a picture ID, and all he had was his SS card. His parents hadn’t taken him to get his driving permit yet. After a few minutes they had threatened to call the cops since they thought he was a runaway. After he had gotten far enough away he had then attempted to call his sister to let her know he couldn’t get on the bus. When he got the message “This number has been disconnected due to the customers request’ he threw his phone in rage.
He couldn’t go home, he didn’t know his sisters phone number since he had smashed his phone when he threw it, and he couldn’t even buy a bus ticket even though he had money. With no other options he had started walking, keeping as far from the interstate as possible. The last thing he wanted was to be picked up by a state trooper.
A day and a half later he had finally gotten on I10 and with a few rides from strangers that looked trustworthy he was now only about 75 miles from his sisters sorority, and hopefully April. Sitting at a truck stop eating some dried out chicken tenders and a Diet Coke he had been approached by two college girls.
“Honey are you okay? You look like you need help.” The tall brunette had asked him, accompanied by her shorter red headed friend.
Looking at them they looked sincere so Brian said, “I’m trying to get to my sister, she goes to school at FSU… The bus station wouldn’t sell me a ticket…”
The redhead asked, “Where are your parents Sweetie?”
A lump formed in his through as he tried to say, “They didn’t want me anymore… My sister April was going to take me in…” He felt tears starting to run down his dirty face, which the girls noticed.
The two girls gave a worried look to each other, the brunette sat down next to him and said softly, “My name is Audrey, and my girlfriend is named CeCe… Why don’t you think your parents don’t want you?”
Brian heard her say girlfriend and got his hopes up, thinking that maybe she might understand. “I had been struggling with… the way I felt about…” As much as he wanted to tell her, the fear wouldn’t let him actually say it.
A look of understanding came over the girls faces, CeCe asked, “You came out to them didn’t you?” Brian just nodded. Immediately both girls gave him a hug from both sides.
Audrey stood up and reached a hand down to help him up, “Looks like your guardian angels showed up sweetie. C’mon lets go.”
“You’re going to give me a ride? How far can you take me?” Brian said excitedly. The grungier he started to look the less ride offers he got.
They both grinned at him, CeCe said, “The rest of the way, we both go to FSU. You ready?”
For the next hour and a half CeCe drove and Audrey sat in the back with him, she had gotten some makeup wipes and had proceeded to give him a make do bath while they talked. They had finally gotten him to open up what he came out about. Both girls showed extreme sympathy to him, although they were quite surprised he hadn’t picked out a girls name yet. Saying he hadn’t had time to think about it wasn’t good enough for the girls. After a fifteen minute discussion they had decided that the name Sarah fit her. Brian, now Sarah, couldn’t help but smile at her new name.
Once they got into Tallahassee he realized that he didn’t know what sorority April belonged to, other than the Theta’s off campus… After a quick panic, the girls calmed him down saying they are pretty sure which house they are in. Since they had a few ‘friends’ that were in the Theta’s. According to the girls the Theta’s were off campus because they didn’t discriminate pledges based on orientation.
Sarah’s nerves were on high alert as she approached the front door, her new friends watching from their car to make sure everything was okay before they left. The wait for the door to be opened felt like an eternity.
Finally a really pretty brunette opened the door, she gave him a funny look when she asked, “Can I help you?”
Sarah smiled and nervously asked, “Is this the Theta house that April Richardson is in?”
The girl looked at him for a second before she blurted out, “Oh my god are you Brian?”
Wincing at hearing her old name, she nodded, “Yeah I got really delayed… They wouldn’t sell me a bus pass.
Still staring at her the girl excited yelled, “APRIL GET DOWN HERE NOW!!!”
Sarah looked behind her at her friends in the car and gave them two thumbs up, they waved and gave her huge smiles before they honked the horn and drove away. Then the girl at the door grabbed Sarah and forcibly yanked her inside the door.
Then she started babbling, “April has been so worried, she couldn’t get in touch with you… Why didn’t you call her? Are you okay?? APRIL!!! HE’S HERE!!! Come in and sit down… Holy crap you stink, don’t sit down…”
Suddenly Sarah heard her sisters voice shrilly yell, “Brian!!” Seconds before she was wrapped in a huge hug from her sister. “Oh my god I though something happened to you, why didn’t you call!” It took Sarah a few second to realize April was crying, which only set her off too.
“They wouldn’t sell me a pass without an ID, and my phone got turned off, then it got broken and I couldn’t remember your number…”
April pulled her into the common room and started introducing the girls to her ‘brother’ including the girl that had answered the door. Thankfully Dana had quit babbling nonstop once the commotion had died down. After about twenty minutes April had sent her ‘brother’ to get a shower and get cleaned up, when she said they only clothes she had were the ones that she was wearing. April said it wasn’t important and they would find something that she could wear.
It took Sarah a long time before she felt truly clean after her ordeal, thankfully at 15 she wasn’t hairy at all. Finding a razor she couldn’t help herself but to shave the peach fuzz off her face, legs and armpits. Once she got out of the shower she found what looked like sleepwear laid on the counter for her. Everything was either pink or lavender, she couldn’t help but wonder if the girls were trying to tease “Brian”, but she couldn’t help but smile with what she had.
A few minutes later she was sitting back down in the common room surrounded by a dozen girls, all pretty much in their sleepwear as well. Sarah thought she would feel self conscious wearing a tank top with yoga pants in their soft pastel colors, but she actually felt calm. Even though it was just sleepwear, it was only the second time she had ever had ‘girl’ clothes on and she felt strangely calm and confident as she sat down. The girls looked somewhat disappointed that she didn’t look embarrassed, but their looks changed to concern as April started her interrogation.
April said softly, as she was afraid to spook her brother, especially after everything she had just gone through over the last several days. “Brian I want you to know you’re safe here okay. Did you come out to mom and dad? Is that what this was all about?”
Surprised that April had figured it out, she just nodded her head, “Yeah… how did you know?”
April smiled, “You’d always been different I guess, you know softer than most guys. A bit more emotional… I had wondered a few times…”
Sarah looked at her sister and asked, “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” A bit of fear had crept into her voice.
“Brian look its okay, I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure… Look I don’t care if you’re gay, you’ll always be my brother.” She said trying to reassure her.
“Huh?” Sara said, obviously confused. “I’m not gay…”
All the girls now looked questioningly at Sarah, April said, “But I thought… When I saw your earrings… What did you come out about?”
Seeing how April had said she didn’t care, and CeCe and Audrey said the Theta’s didn’t discriminate, Sarah decided to go for broke, “April I’m not gay, I’m trans…”
All the girls looked shocked at that revelation, most of all April. She tried to remember everything she had read about transgender issues, but in her surprise she could barely think. The only thing she knew, was that her brother needed support. “Oh wow… I didn’t see that coming… Uh… I guess I need to take back that bit about you will always be my brother…”
Shocked Sarah looked at her sister, “You’re not upset? Mom and dad were so angry…I…”
April blurted out, “To hell with them if they can’t accept you… Uhh… I don’t know how to ask this… If you’re trans then Brian doesn’t really fit does it?” Sarah just shook her head no in disbelief that her sister could be so nonchalant about this. April then asked, “So what do I call my baby sister?”
The tears started to run down her cheeks from the overwhelming acceptance April was giving her, she started to speak and just barely said her name that she was given a couple hours ago. “I’m Sarah.” Then she started to tremble as the emotions got too much for her and she started sobbing.
April moved closer to her and said softly, “Sarah I’m so glad to finally meet my little sister… We’re going to have a lot of fun.” April then wrapped Sarah in her arms as she started to cry as well.
One by one all the other sisters moved in to join in the hug to show their support for Sarah, many mixing their own tears in group hug.
Suddenly her phone ringing snapped her out of her story, looking at her phone in the cradle she saw it was Steve, her boss and one of her best friends. Clearing her throat since she had been a bit emotional telling her parents the story, she told them, “Hang on this is my boss.” Since her truck was equipped with hands free, she pressed a button on the steering wheel, then spoke, “Hey Steve what’s going on?’
“Hey Sarah, I had just gotten a call from Ben. He hadn’t seen you yet and was wondering if everything was okay.” Steves voice said over the radio speakers.
“Yeah everything’s okay here, its only 12:40… He said it wouldn’t be ready till 3PM, I’m only about 10 more minutes away from the shop.” Sarah told him.
“That’s why he’s worried, its unlike you not to be there at least 3 hours before his estimates. Again is everything okay? You know you can talk to me.”
“Steve, yeah I’m fine… I just got some surprise visitors this morning, it threw me behind schedule a bit.” She answered. “Speaking of which… Could you call Ben back and see if its okay with him if I bring two guests?”
“Yeah I don’t mind, I just need their names to give him.”
“Uhh It’s Bill and Joan Richardson.” She spoke as clearly as possible.
There was a long pause before Steve responded, “Sarah, isn’t that the name of your parents?”
“Yeah that would be them.”
“Holy shit Sarah! What do they want? Are you okay? What the hell are they doing just showing up?”, he demanded, which made Sarah wince.
“Hey jackass, they are in the truck with me!” She exclaimed, which the way she just spoke to her boss made both of her parents give her a shocked disapproving look.
Another pause before he continued, “And since you’re driving, its on handsfree too isn’t it?”
Sarah just smirked and said, “What do you think?”
Yet after another long pause he answered, “Well I can check off my daily awkward moment… So… Hi Sarah’s Mom and Dad… Sarah seriously though, and I don’t care if they can hear me… Are you okay? Do I need to meet you at the shop?”
“I’m okay, or at least we’re getting there… After April… We’re talking things out… So stay at home and keep an eye on my girls okay? Or maybe you should let me talk to them so they can keep an eye on you, you big goof…” She told him, but smiling this time.
“You do know the girls are only 6 and 4 right?” He said, but you could hear the humor in his voice.
“Exactly, you need someone mature to keep you out of trouble…” She laughed.
More seriously he responded, “Hey joking aside, if you need me or Dana just give us a call okay. You know we’re here for you, anytime. Speaking about the girls though, you still coming over tonight, they are about to die to see you?”
“I know… I think I’m really not going to be able to make it, you do remember my parents are here now.” She said with a small frown. She hated to miss seeing the girls.
“No, you are not allowed to bypass tonight… There is no way the birthday girl can skip out on her pre-birthday party…uh… party… Look if things are going good, bring them along… I’m serious…” Steve told her, this time there was no jokes told.
“Steve… I don’t know…” Sara started to say then Joan spoke up.
“Steve is it? We just got in town yesterday evening. We can just go back to the campground, we aren’t trying to interrupt her life… We’ll make sure she goes okay?”
Shocked he replied, “No Mrs Sara’s Mom, I’m serious. I want to invite you both here, to my house, for her pre-birthday cookout… We have plenty of food, and honestly if you are making an honest attempt to reconcile with her… I want to meet you… Besides, are you going to skip out on your daughters birthday?” He couldn’t help but chuckle at that last comment.
Joan a bit surprised told him, “We’d love to meet her boss, and her friends… If its okay with Sarah we’ll be there.”
Sarah blurted out, “Wait don’t put this on me!”
Steve returned to his joking self, “Nope you’ve been overruled, you bring your ass here for your party or I’ll send Dana after you… Would you really want that? See you at 6 everyone, and bring your appetite. That’s an order Sarah.”
She just responded, “Bite me!”
Laughing, Steve said, “That’s a yes then, see ya tonight.” Then the call was disconnected.
Joan had a smirk listening to their banter, and she knew that their relationship wasn’t just as boss and employee. She looked at Sarah and stated, “Well he seems interesting.”
Sarah groaned, “You don’t know the half of it…”
To be continued.
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Author's Note: My apologies for this one taking a few days, my daughters have been interrupting the heck out of me and my Bluetooth keyboard for my iPad died half way through this chapter, so typed the last bit with the on screen keyboard. It might explain why I stopped the chapter as soon as I did, hopefully this weekend I’ll have a new keyboard. Hope you all are continuing to enjoy. ~Rebecca
After the phone call had ended, all three of them in the truck were contemplating, not only the prior conversation, but also the plans for the evening. Both of her parents had no idea what had transpired to their child between that fateful night and till now. Just the hardships that she had faced those few days on her trip to Tallahassee felt like a knife in their heart, but knowing that April had been there for her gave them some relief. Until now they had imagined almost every possible horror that could have befallen her.
Joan tried to apologize again, “Sarah we are so sorry for what we did… I promise that we didn’t mean for it to happen that way…”
Recounting those few days and then being interrupted by Steve, and then his insistence they she bring them to his house tonight had really caused her to tense up and she snapped, “Not now okay! We’re done talking about this for the moment!” She immediately regretted her words and the sting they carried. More calmly she said, “I’m sorry… Look were almost there, and I can’t be all emotional when we get there… I have a job to do…”
Bill nodded and said, “It’s okay… We understand, we’ve thrown your whole day off. Right Joan?” Joan just nodded in acknowledgment then he continued, “By the way… You haven’t exactly told us what you do…
A bit shocked that they weren’t aware of what she did for a living, she asked, “April never told you towards the end?” When they both shook their head no, she was surprised. Then again, April had told her over the years that her parents had never once asked about her, so she could see where April wouldn’t have brought it up before she wrote her letters. With that thought, and her parents seemingly interested, she spent the last few minutes of the drive filling them in on what she did, the role she now played, and what they were doing here today.
Her dad looked at her in awe, “Sarah, that is remarkable.”
Joan followed up with, “I’m so happy that you’ve done so well for yourself.”
She had to smile when she saw her dad’s head suddenly whip around as she pulled into a parking spot.
“That car looks just like yours other than the color!”, Bill exclaimed.
Sarah couldn’t help but laugh, “That’s Ben’s, that one is pretty much the reason I have mine. When I first started coming here to inspect the outsourced items we had them build, him and I started talking about it. Thanks to you always having me help you in the auto shop, I still have an interest in cars… Especially when they are as beautiful as that one.”
Her dad still eyeing the bright red 427 Cobra roadster as they walked towards the building, he noticed and said, “I see he has all the chrome badging on the car, I don’t remember yours having anything on it.”
Sarah smiled thinking at least they still had this in common, and told him, “Well for one thing Ben likes the old school muscle car and tried to keep it as authentic as possible. I don’t have the 427 badge on mine because it’s not a 427… I wanted a car I could afford to put gas in, so mine has a newer Boss 302. That and I’m not a flashy kind of person anyway. While its not that authentic, I just loved the sleek look of the plain midnight blue…”
As the reached the door she saw her dad give her a look of admiration as he stated, “Well they are both beautiful cars.” Sarah just smiled as she nodded, while she swiped her access badge.
They hadn’t made it but a few steps into the building, before this big bear of a man stepped around the corner and bellowed out a frustrated, “It’s about time young lady!” Then a smile creeped across his bearded face as he reached out his arms to give Sarah a hug, one which she readily returned.
“Hey big guy, sorry I was running late.”, Sarah said as she let go of him.
He just smiled and said, “Yeah Steve called and told me, you okay?”
She smiled and told him, “Yeah, at least we’re getting there. Oh Ben, this is Joan and Bill Richardson, my parents. This is Ben Duncan, master machinist and production manager here.”
Ben smiled and shook their hands, “It’s a pleasure to meet you both, welcome to the Toy Box.”
Bill looked confused and asked, “The toy box?”
Sarah gently laughed at her dad, “He’ll show you what he means by that, I’m sure. I just have to get started doing what I came here for.”
Ben then led them down a hallway and a few doors until they came into a room set up for her to do her inspection on the new part. Once making sure that Sarah had everything she needed, Ben directed her parents to follow him while she got to work. He led them to the large open area that was the main section of the shop, as soon as they walked in and Bill saw all the equipment, he started getting excited.
“Okay now I see what you meant by toy box, this place is incredible!” Bill exclaimed. Joan just rolled her eyes at her husband but she was obviously amused by his reaction.
Ben just laughed, “Sara had told me that you were a shop teacher, so I thought you’d appreciate this.”
Bill nodded, “Yeah I taught shop at the high school for almost forty years and also taught the auto shop class for twenty until they phased it out. Less and less kids wanted to take auto shop so they eventually did away with it.”
Ben replied, “Yeah we’re seeing less and less younger people showing interest in this kind of thing these days… I can see where Sarah took after you.”
Bill looked surprised, the big man obviously was friends with Sarah and both him and Joan had been surprised at how nice Ben was being to them. The compliment caught him off guard though, he softly muttered, “Well she probably wouldn’t like to hear that…”
Ben looked at him sadly and gently told him, “You’d be surprised about that… Since I’ve known her, she’s actually talked a good bit about you both.”
Joan spoke up, “She has? So she told you that we…”
“Kicked her out? Yeah she told me everything.”, Ben said.
They both look at each other for a moment before Bill asked, “Since you know and obviously care for her… Why are you being so… nice to us?”
Ben leaned back against the wall and with one hand rubbed his beard in thought, finally he said, “Look, I know what you two are trying to do… I commend you for trying to make amends with her. I’m actually rooting for you in this…”
Joan questioned, “Really? Why?”
Ben just smiled at her before saying, “Look, I’m a parent too. I’ve made mistakes, quite a few of them… Probably not quite as epic as you two, but still… I have two daughters, Carly is 17 and Bree is 15. A few years ago, Carly was in a really bad place. I wasn’t listening to her, and kept telling her to toughen up, and quit letting things bother her so much… Then about 3 years ago we had found out she had started hurting herself, and was spiraling down pretty fast…” Ben paused to wipe his eyes with the back of his hand before continuing, “I was helping Sarah put the engine in her car, you know doing the heavy lifting and such. She noticed that something was bothering me, and it took her almost half an hour to pry it out. When I told her about Carly and what was going on, Sarah immediately wanted to talk to her… At first I refused and told Sarah she couldn’t help, we didn’t think anyone could…”
Joan noticed the mans eyes misting up, she gently squeezed his hand,“Was she able to help?”
Ben nodded, “And then some… I kept telling her no, until Sarah told me what she had gone through… and why… I’ll admit I never saw that coming… I had never once thought she had ever been anything but Sarah… That kind of threw me for a loop, but knowing what she had been through… Maybe with her experiences with overcoming her depression I thought she possibly could help. It was just a risk I was willing to take… So we drove back to my house and Sarah marched herself up to Carly’s room and she stayed up there for almost 3 hours talking… Since then both of my girls look up to her sort of like a big sister, and Dawn and I consider her our third daughter pretty much now.” He paused to clear his throat and resumed, “Sarah has a huge heart, with a capacity to care about people that you rarely see… She truly is a special lady, doesn’t matter even if she wasn’t born a girl…”
Bill and Joan both smiled, then Joan asked, “So how is Carly doing now?”
Ben smiled and said, “She still has her good days and bad days but her most recent cutting scar is now over two years old… Most importantly though she’s still here, that’s directly due to Sarah…”
To be continued.
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Author's Note: Well my muse was desperate to write last night so I tore apart my Bluetooth keyboard (even though it wasn’t supposed to come apart) and now ‘most’ of the keys work... One more short chapter leading up to Sarah’s preparty, hopefully I caught all the keyboard issue gaffs. ~Rebecca
Once the small group had composed themselves, Ben continued on the rest of the tour. Sarah was just finishing up when they all came back into the room with her.
Sarah smiled at Ben, “Everything looks great Ben, I can’t thank you… ooof.” Sarah grunted, as her mom enveloped her in a tight hug. “Mom what’s that for?”
Joan let her go and smiled, “Sorry, Ben was just telling us some things… I’m just really proud of who you’ve become… I just couldn’t help it…”
Confused, Sarah told her, “It’s okay, I didn’t mind… It just surprised me is all…” Sarah then looked at Ben and asked, “Just what the heck did you tell them?”
Ben replied, “I just told her how you helped Carly, and also helped us too.” He then went over and hugged her and whispered in her ear, “I didn’t tell them the detailed part, you told me to respect Carly’s privacy on that, okay.”
At the mention of Carly, that reminded her of something that she had completely forgotten about with the way the day had transpired. Reaching into her backpack she pulled out a thick envelope, and handed it to Ben.
“What’s this? You didn’t…”, He stated, then opened up the envelope to find 4 tickets to the upcoming Taylor Swift concert. “Sarah… You didn’t have to do this.”, he started to complain.
“Ben, just hush okay… I appreciate that you took care of this yourself, and made sure everything was done as perfectly as possible. You could have easily waited till Monday but you didn’t. Just take them, I know the girls are wanting to go. Thank you for what you’ve done.”, she told him firmly.
“Look Sarah…”, he started to say before she scolded him.
“Say thank you Ben…”
Seeing the determination on her face, he just sighed, “Thank you.”
Grinning with the win, she teased, “See now that wasn’t that hard.” Then she reached up and hugged him one more time and said, “It will mean the world to the girls for you all to go, okay.”
Knowing that she was right, about how much the girls and the family would enjoy the concert, he gently shook his head and told her, “Girl you are something else… “
Laughing, she said, “and you better not forget it. See you all tomorrow for my party right?”
Ben laughed heartily, “If we didn’t go the girls would hitchhike to be there.”
With the part in hand, she waved once more to Ben and then she and her parents left. With only a minute or two delay so her Dad could get a better look at Ben’s car, they were on their way.
Sarah made the last stop to deliver the part, and after half an hour insuring it was installed correctly they headed back to her house. Her parents had hoped to hear more of her life, but after the day she had already had, Sarah refused to talk anymore about it. Instead she focused on talking about pretty meaningless topics, she was just too emotionally drained for anymore right now.
When they arrived at Sarah’s, it was just past 4PM, which left them not quite two hours till they were due to arrive at Steve and Dana’s for Sarah’s pre-party. Sarah had claimed she needed to get cleaned up, but in reality she needed some alone time to try to process everything before whatever was going to happen tonight. Trying to be nice, she offered for them to meet back here and she could drive them over, but her parents unsure as well of what was going to happen tonight, told her they would just meet her there. That honestly suited her just fine, in actuality she wanted to get there early so she could give Steve the third degree to find out why he had invited them. So just a few minutes later Bill and Joan had gone back to their RV, while Sarah ran herself a quick bath.
Sarah rarely took a bath, due to her busy life she normally opted for the speed and efficiency of a shower. The ups and downs she had gone through today though, made her think a nice soak would relax her. Unfortunately instead of relaxing as she had hoped, she ended up thinking and overthinking what had transpired earlier. There had been moments during the day where she had felt like her parents did truly love her, but those thoughts were soon replaced by others. If her parents did love her, then why had they gone almost 20 years without attempting contact once? Nothing made sense, they seemed to accept her, but then remembered the last time she had talked to them they had kicked her out of the house for being ‘out of her mind’. An act that was suggest by an evil man masquerading as a minister, an evil man that they had trusted more than her. The only family member who had always been there for her, supported, and protected her, was now gone and just relegated to a memory. After half an hour of the mental gymnastics she gave up and climbed out of the tub feeling no better off than when she started.
As she was getting ready, she almost slipped back into her comfort clothes, jeans and a tee shirt, when something made her pause. Even though her parents had seen her most of the day and treated her as a daughter, they had only seen ‘practical’ Sarah, and not ‘girly’ Sarah… She started questioning since she was in her comfort clothes that they might not have fully rationalized that she was all girl now… Thinking that maybe if they saw her completely dressed up and in her feminine best, it might shock them into being the parents she remembered… That thought was easier for her to accept then that they had really changed. Besides, even if tonight was a pre-party, it was a party nonetheless, which would be okay to get dressed up for. If Bill and Joan reverted back into the parents of old, she could then kick them out of her life forever. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it?
With more questions forming in her mind than answers, she diverted her attention to her appearance. She opted for her LBD, one that was sexy, but not too sexy. She considered it her flirty dress, not that she ever really got a chance to wear it anymore. After doing her makeup, in a slightly muted nighttime look that complimented her blue eyes, and then donning her 3 inch black heels she took stock of her appearance once again in the full length mirror.
She gasped as she saw herself, she didn’t remember the last time she had worn something like this and had forgotten just how good she could look when she tried. She hadn’t really been out on a night on the town since Dana had married Steve. Once her best friend had gotten married, the girls night out slowed down, and once she got pregnant those nights had stopped completely. Girl’s night now for her and Dana usually consisted of a trip to Toys-R-Us for the girls. She admired herself for a few more minutes, just to make sure everything was as perfect as possible before she finally walked out the door.
Arriving at Steve and Dana’s about half an hour early, she found her parents Prius already parked on the side of the road. She had completely forgotten Bill’s hyper-punctuality, he had always said that if he wasn’t half an hour early to an appointment he was running late. Silently cursing herself, she quickly tried to prepare herself for her parents, and how she expected them to act.
She noticed her parents had recognized her truck so had gotten out of the car and was walking up the driveway towards her. Taking a deep breath she grabbed her bag and opened the door to step out.
Bill said, “I see you still like to be early too…” His mouth dropped open ever so slightly when he saw Sarah step out of the Tundra. “Oh my god!”
Both relieved and a bit upset at his exclamation she grimaced, and asked, “What?” She was expecting Bill and Joan of old to suddenly show up, but was completely unprepared for what she head next.
Bill saw she was upset, unsure of what he had done to cause it. Bill had been married long enough though to know, if a woman is mad at you and you don’t know why, start apologizing anyway. “I’m sorry Sarah, I was just shocked… You look so much like your Mother did when she was younger… You’re so beautiful.” Bill had to admit he was pretty good, an apology followed up immediately with a compliment. He hoped that would be enough to calm his daughter down, he was worried enough about meeting her friends without her starting the night with her already mad at them.
Completely caught off guard by his response, she just looked blankly at them both for a moment, before she came to her sense and said, “Thanks… I just though since it was a party, even a pre party, I might get dressed up… I don’t really do this often…”
Joan came up and with a huge smile and tried to reassure her, “Sweetie that’s a shame, because you do look absolutely radiant… Although I don’t think I ever looked quite as stunning… Or tall…”
That actually got Sarah laughing a little bit, after all Sarah had gotten her height from her Dad. While he wasn’t a big man, he was still 5’10 and only 2 inches taller than Sarah, while April had apparently taken after their mom on that aspect since they were both 5’3.
Both of her parents seemed at ease now that she had started to laugh, the mood had lightened considerably in just the last few seconds. Joan then said, “Shall we? I’d really like to meet these friends of yours.”
Nodding Sarah just said, “After you two…” As her parents walked in front of her Sarah looked skywards as she blew a stray lock of hair from her face and thought, April just what in the hell have you gotten me into now?
To be continued.
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Author's Note: Sorry for the delay in this chapter, work and daughters have kept me super busy. Hopefully this chapter was one that was worth waiting for. Thank you all so much for reading my story. ~Rebecca
Sarah’s parents got to the door first and were waiting for Sarah to knock, to their surprise she just opened the door and stepped in.
Grinning, she just said, “I’m family so I don’t have to knock.” As she sat her bag down and hung her keys up in the foyer, she yelled, “Steve! Dana! Girls! We’re early!”
From down the hallway they heard a male voice, “I’m in the kitchen!”
Sarah just said, “That’s Steve, this way.” Then she led her parents down the hallway into a large dining room, with a large open kitchen on the far side.
As they walked into the kitchen they found Steve squatting down digging in the bottom of the refrigerator. As he stood up and turned around, Joan immediately noticed how attractive he was. Other than the flecks of gray in his dark hair, Joan would have sworn he was only in his mid 20’s, tall and athletic, but his most striking feature was his devilishly charming smile. That was made apparent when he saw Sarah and how nice she looked.
“Well hey there you!” He said as he gave Sarah a hug. Her parents noticed that they both gave each other a kiss on the cheek.
As she hugged him, she asked, “So where are Dana and the girls?”
Letting her go, Steve stepped back and gave a low whistle and grinned, “Wow, you clean up good Sarah… So gorgeous, where have you been my whole life?”
Sarah shook her head in frustration, “You’re awful… By the way, the first 4 years of your life I wasn’t even born so there… Now where’s Dana and the girls?”
Steve just smirked devilishly at her, “So Ben called me… He said everything went well… What are you doing giving him and his family concert tickets? Are you trying to make me look like an asshole since I never did that when I had your job?”
Both Ben and Joan couldn’t help be amused, and started to chuckle. Sarah just glared at them, “Don’t you go encouraging him, he doesn’t need it.” Then turning back to Steve whose smirk was just taunting her, “No you look like you’re an asshole because you are one! I don’t need to help on that! Now where’s the girls?”
Turning to her parents Steve smiled and said, “Since she wont introduce you, let me guess… I’m really good at this, hang on just a second.” He paused and rubbed his chin in deep thought for a moment before blurting out, “I got it! You’re Sarah’s parents!”
Sarah was definitely showing her frustration, and her parents were trying really hard not to laugh, so they just nodded yes.
Steve stepped back with a look of amazement, “See I told you… I know most people don’t believe me, but its almost like I have ESPN or something!” That caused Ben and Joan to start laughing in earnest.
Sarah had enough of his clowning around and quickly grabbed his head and covering up his mouth, sternly she ordered, “Enough! Are Dana and the girls here? Nod or shake your head.” Looking like a 5 year old being scolded, he gently shook his head. Sarah continued, “Will they be back soon?” He then nodded his head. Triumphantly Sarah asked, “See that wasn’t so hard.”
Steve started to shake his head no, but then Joan caught the mischievous twinkle in his eye about the time Sarah jumped back in surprise. She had moved beyond frustration, and exclaimed, “You… You!!! You licked me!” Both Joan and Bill were surprised by her next action, as she punched Steve in the arm hard.
Steve jumped back rubbing his arm, but still laughing, “Owww!!! You know what nobody is ever going to complain that you hit like a girl!!!”
Sarah just groaned, “Ugh!!! I’ve got to go find some disinfectant for my hand!!!” She then stormed off towards the bathroom.
Steve then turned to her parents, much more seriously and stuck his hand out, “It’s Ben and Joan right? I’m Steve McMasters, I’m glad you two could come.”
They both shook his hand, surprised by the sudden change in character. Joan asked, “Was all…that… for our benefit or hers?”
Grinning, Steve told her, “I know she’s probably been stressed out today with… well her surprise visit and everything… She just needed to blow off some steam… She’ll be fine… You know, she actually hits me pretty often.” He laughed at his last comment.
Joan still surprised by their behavior couldn’t help but comment, “I have a feeling a lot of it is deserved.”
Smiling Steve answered, “You’re probably not wrong with that statement.”
Joan started to laugh but then a sad expression crossed her face, “You know that reminded me a lot of when Sarah… well when her and April were younger… They fought like cats and dogs, but…” She started to tear up, and just grabbed Bill’s hand and sniffed away the tears trying to force a smile.
Steve just nodded slowly, “I know its been hard for you, and her… I’m so sorry… I had met April several times… Her and Sarah together were something else…” Both of Sarah’s parents just nodded, afraid of saying anything. Trying to change the subject Steve asked, “Oh where’s my manners, would you two care for a drink? We have beer and wine, your choice.”
Bill opted for a beer and Joan for a glass of wine, they had just sat around the counter in the kitchen when Sarah came back in wiping her hands, they heard her mutter “asshole” when she walked by Steve. For a moment they thought she was still mad, but then noticed the grin on her face.
Sarah grabbed her a beer and using a towel twisted the top off, as she sat down she asked once again, “So are you going to tell me where Dana and my girls are?”
Laughing heartily Steve said, “Okay, Okay Xena… We ran out of cream for the casserole so Dana and the girls went to the store, we didn’t think you’d both be here this soon…”
Sarah looked surprised, “What are you doing letting her go with the girls?! You know this one has been really rough on her! She needs to take it easy, and not push herself so hard!”
Steve replied, “Look she has been having a really good past few days, she wanted to go and spend time out with Larissa and Ally… Would you be able to stop her once she sets her mind to something?”
Leaning back in her chair, Sarah said, “Okay… You have a point there… She just really needs to be careful is all…I’ll fuss at her later, its okay when shes mad at me, I don’t get all whiney or mopey unlike when shes mad at someone else…”
Steve grinned, “Thanks I appreciate that…”
While they were curious about why Sarah was worried about Steve’s wife, they were afraid of overstepping any bounds, so they didn’t ask. Ben and Joan had been enjoying watching the back and forth commentary from the two friends, and that’s what they both were she could tell. She had known that Steve was technically her boss, but it made her feel good that her and her boss had this kind of relationship. With her curiosity getting the best of her she had to ask, “So how long have you two known each other?”
Steve and Sarah glanced at each other, Sarah was the first to respond, “It was when I flew out here for my interview. He’s actually the person I interviewed with.”
Steve laughed, “Yeah that was an interesting interview…”
Sarah laughed in response, “Yeah bet you never knew what you were getting yourself into right?”
Steve smirked, “You could say that again… But please don’t…”
Curious, Joan asked Steve, “Had you ever met a transgender person before?”
Steve thought about her question for a moment before answering, “Well no, I hadn’t… Honestly wasn’t sure she was though… I mean I had my suspicions, but I thought she was going the other way…”
At her parents confused expressions Sarah giggled, “I hadn’t officially become Sarah at that point, so Steve interviewed Brian… Well sort of…”
Joan asked, “I thought you had started your transition not too long after…” She paused, not really wanted to say the words.
Sarah smiled sadly, understanding her mothers pause, “It’s okay mom, its in the past right?” Joan returned her smile and nodded. Sarah continued, “I started living as Sarah almost immediately once I got to the Theta house… I wasn’t able to do anything but get hormone blockers though until I turned 18, and that’s when I started hormone therapy…”
Steve again laughed, “Yeah that threw me for quite a loop. Here comes this young kid named Brian and I could swear that he was a girl trying to become a boy. I kept thinking, this poor kid will never look like a guy…”
Sarah fussed, “Dude, you make it sound like I was a child, you do remember you’re only four years older right?”
With mock indignation, Steve said, “Do you mind?!? This is my story!”
Smirking Sarah told him, “Oh sorry Grandpa, you may continue.”
Trying to hide his amusement he kept going, “So anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted… So this… Young adult… Is that better? Anyway… I had just gotten a promotion and was actually going to run my own team, so I was able to hire my own replacement… So I had received all these portfolios and resumes, but one distinctly stuck out. Here was a kid that had emancipated himself at fifteen, then homeschooled two and a half years of high school in sixteen months, and then completed his masters at twenty-two. Not only that, but he had graduated within the top five percent of his class. Brian Richardson was highly impressive on paper, so you can imagine my surprise when she walked in with a guys name.”
Both Ben and Joan looked at Sarah obviously impressed with their daughter. “So was that when you found out?”
Steve laughed and shook his head no, “I didn’t find out till almost two years later… Her records didn’t ever indicate there was a gender change, so I couldn’t ask…”
Bill finally spoke up, “Even if you had the direction she was headed wrong, you still hired her though? That says a lot about you Steve, I wish we had been… uh… better…”
Steve just nodded solemnly, “Well Sarah… err Brian… Dammit this is confusing even for me to try to tell this… Anyway, SHE was leaps and bounds ahead of any competition in the applicants… So I hired her… Besides it didn’t really matter if she was trans or not, this is Seattle.”
Joan was really enjoying hearing about how well Sarah had done, and asked, “So how did you two hit it off as friends?”
Sarah laughed, “It was awkward at first to say the least…”
Steve smiled, “Just a bit… Sarah had such a drive at work… She was making me look bad so it forced me to step up my game… When we started our first project she was logging way more hours that I was for the first week or two, then afraid that she was going to take my job I started to try to log in at least as much as she did… I thought it was the right thing to do seeing that I was supposed to be in charge…”
Sara teased, “You were just afraid of the newbie making you look bad.”
Grinning he replied, “Maybe… Anyway… We started working a lot of hours together… The other two senior members of the team… They just weren’t as dedicated… So we ended up finding we had a lot of different things in common, we had a similar sense of humor, and other than the gender issue, we had a lot of similar life experiences, and our friendship just took off… Before the end of the first project the two other members of the team had quit…”
Sarah uttered, “Because they were weirded out by me…”
Steve exclaimed, “Stop going there okay… That was their problem, besides I wouldn’t trade a hundred of them for one of you… You worked circles around both of them…”
About that time the garage door started to open, startling them from the conversation. Steve grinned and said, “That will mean Dana and the girls are back.” He stood up and went to the side door that was attached to the kitchen to surprise his daughters.
A few short moments later the door burst open and two small blonde bundles of energy burst in and ran completely around Steve, both of them yelling, “SARAH!!!”
By the time he spun around he saw both young girls already in Sarahs lap, doing his best to look hurt he uttered, “Hey!!!”
Sarah laughed as she was listening to the girls who hadn’t stopped trying to both tell her everything at once, she said, “I’ve got this, go tend to your wife.” Steve just shook his head as he turned to go to the garage.
Joan’s heart began to melt watching the two young girls chattering on Sarahs lap. Both her and Bill noticed that the stress that had been apparent within her quickly melting away as she paying attention to the girls.
The bigger of the two, Larissa, whined, “We missed you, we haven’t seen you in forever!!!”
Smiling at her Sarah responded, “Baby I was here just last Monday…”
Larissa just agreed with her, sort of, “I know!!! Forever!!!”
Ally started in next, and both young girls were so excited they were talking a million miles an hour. Joan was impressed how Sarah seemed to pay attention to both of them and continue in both conversations as well as she was. As the chattering was going on, both of Sarah’s parents noticed a very tired, and very pregnant brunette walking into the kitchen with Steve carrying some bags and simultaneously helping her to a chair. Before she sat down she leaned over and gave Sarah a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
Dana asked her softly, “You doing okay?” Sarah just smiled and nodded.
With Sarah completely engaged with the girls conversation Steve took over introductions of Bill and Joan. Dana was polite, which actually surprised both Sarah and Steve. She had been every bit as angry as April had been, at least before she had gotten sick.
After several minutes of small talk, Dana looked at Larissa and asked, “Rissa have you told Sarah about your new comforter?” Little Larissa’s eyes lit up, as well as Ally’s.
Larissa stood up and grabbed Sarah’s hand and just said, “Cmon you have to see!!! It’s Ariel!!!”
Sarah tried to politely refuse but at this point both Larissa and Ally each had a hand and was tugging, both pleaded, “Please come and see, please!!!” Everyone else was trying to hide their amusement at Sarah’s feeble attempts to dissuade the girls.
She told the group “Okay guess I have to go, Ill be back in a few minutes… Play nice Dana okay…” Dana just smiled and nodded.
No sooner did Sarah get out of earshot did Dana look at Bill and Joan, “She’s gone for a minimum of fifteen minutes… First off I want to tell you how sorry I am about April… She was a very close friend.” She paused for a second to wipe her eyes. “I do want to say that I’m actually pleasantly surprised you are here… I honestly didn’t think you’d come…”
Bill looking confused, “Wait you knew we were supposed to come? How?”
Joan just uttered, “April… She told you… You were her friend that she told us about…”
Grimly Dana nodded, “I take it April told you about what had happened the night she was supposed to meet you.”
Both Bill and Joan nodded, Bill sadly said, “Yeah she did… It was only the second weekend since you all had rescued her…”
Dana nodded, “That sounds right… April was so angry at you two she was going to let you stew for awhile before letting you know what was going on… By the way, I haven’t told Sarah yet… I know I was supposed to, but I honestly didn’t expect you to show… Sorry… I will tell her before she goes home tonight though…
Joan and Bill both echoed, “Thank you…”
To be continued.
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Author's Note: Well after a hellacious work week, I finally got time to write some more… This is a semi short chapter, but it has a few more hints, and probably another few questions, which will be resolved very soon… The next chapter will end up covering a lot, I promise. Thank you everyone for reading. ~Rebecca
Sarah was afraid of what she would find, as she finally made her way back downstairs after getting Larissa and Ally calmed down enough for her to rejoin the adults. Almost twenty five minutes had passed since she had been dragged away by the two small girls. Over the years Dana had shared the same anger as April towards her parents, so World War III was a possibility. Even though she hadn’t heard any commotion from downstairs, a part of her was hoping that Dana had exploded at them, then another part of her was hoping they were getting along. The mixed emotions had Sarah extremely confused, especially the latter of the two. These were the people that had discarded her and had spent the last twenty years seemingly not caring about her, so why was she still kind of hoping that they stuck around…
Walking into the kitchen she had prepared herself to find just Steve and Dana after they had upset her parents enough to leave. Finding her mother preparing the broccoli casserole with Dana sitting in one of the stools by the island was the last thing she had expected.
Glancing up at her, Dana smiled, “So I see that you finally escaped the girls?”
Sarah couldn’t help but giggle, “That’s probably an accurate way to put it, they had to show me all their new stuff as well as things they’ve shown me before. So where’s Steve and Dad?”
Joan started laughing, while Dana grinned and said, “Your Dad was going to go out and help Steve with the grill… When he found out that we were out of charcoal and that Steve was just going to use the gas grill it sparked a small argument… He complained that you couldn’t properly grill ribeyes with gas, or without a proper marinade, so he sort of took over. So he made up something the steaks are sitting in and him and Steve took off to the store for some charcoals…”
Worried that her dad had overstepped being a guest, Sarah asked, “So is Steve mad?”
Dana laughed, “Not at all, he’s getting out of grill duties and just lets him watch and drink more beer. Besides that marinade smells pretty good, I’m looking forward to seeing how they turn out.”
Sarah smiled, “Well Dad always made the best steaks…” Then she trailed off remembering how long it had been since she had eaten any of either of her parents cooking…”
Joan spoke up, “Sarah are you okay?”
Realizing she had gotten lost in her thoughts she looked up at Dana and Joan and tried to smile, “Yeah, I’m okay… I just remembered how I thought I’d never be able to have one of Dad’s steaks again… It just caught me off guard I guess.” Both Joan and Dana gave Sarah some sad smiles, Sarah instead tried to changed the subject, “So what can I do to help out?”
Dana told her that Joan was doing the broccoli casserole and directed Sarah to start on the scalloped potatoes, and shortly Sarah was side by side with her mother as they started preparing the two side dishes. Sarah had just finished slicing the potatoes when Bill and Steve walked in with a large bag of charcoal and were both in a good mood and appeared to be joking around with each other. The boys only stayed in the kitchen long enough for Steve to grab two fresh beers from the fridge and headed outside to ‘start’ the grill.
The preparation had only taken about fifteen minutes and then the girls soon found themselves sitting around the kitchen table, Sarah and her Mom each with a glass of wine with Dana and her green tea looking wistfully at the wine. They had spent that time with small talk, but maybe after her second glass Joan couldn’t help her curiosity.
“Sarah… I hope you don’t mind… Would you mind telling me what… I mean how you… I’m sorry I don’t know how to ask this…”, Joan stumbled.
“You mean how I transitioned?” Sarah asked slightly amused. The mix of emotions were still bothering her, she was both glad her mom was uncomfortable, but also felt some remorse for feeling that way.
Joan nodded, “Yes, I just didn’t want to broach the subject in case you were uncomfortable talking about it.”
The remorse Sarah was feeling intensified, here she was partially enjoying watching her mother squirm, while it appeared Joan was still worrying about upsetting her. She smiled slightly, “I’m okay talking about it… I mean I don’t yell it off the rooftops, but almost everyone in my life knows I used to be a… Well that I was Brian.”
Joan smiled and reached over the table to gently squeeze Sarah’s hand, “I’m just so amazed how well you’ve done… I don’t mean becoming a girl… Well that is amazing, but…” Joan stopped to take a few deep breaths to straighten out her thoughts and to try to keep from looking like a bumbling idiot. “Everything that you’ve done, your job, friends, and yes becoming a girl is amazing… You are a beautiful young lady…”
Slightly blushing from the compliment, Sarah responded, “Thank you… I don’t really know where to start… I mean I quit being Brian that night in the Sorority, legally I was still Brian, but there with the support of the girls I became Sarah pretty much full time. The first few weeks I felt like their grown up Barbie doll…” Sarah couldn’t help but laugh at that memory.
Dana joined in the laughter, “That’s a good way to put it, you were slender enough about half the house were giving you their old clothes that they had quit wearing. The girls who weren’t a close enough size to you even went out and started bringing you a bunch of stuff from their thrift store sprees.”
Giggling Sarah said, “I think by the second month we had to convince them to stop, I had more clothes than most of the other sisters.”
Surprised Sarah had stayed so long at the sorority, “Second month? How long did you stay there?”
Dana took over, “Well at first we kind of had to hide her, being off campus gave us a bit of leeway… None of us wanted to kick Sarah out, but after the third week of her living on the couch of the common room April had started looking for a part time job and a small apartment… Sarah had even offered to forgo school so she could work to support them, which April chewed her out for… It was also that time that one of the professors in the Psychology building agreed to see her pro-bono after April had pled her case…”
Joan just nodded sadly, being reminded of their actions. Softly she said, “So once you got the official diagnosis you were able to stay?”
Sarah squeezed her mothers hand trying to let her know it was okay, “That took a few months of sessions, but no… They had been hiding me out for almost a full month, when they offered me a job… That’s what let me stay there.”
Surprised Joan asked, “What kind of a job?”
Dana replied, “We offered her a position of a live in handyman… Our house was old and constantly needing repairs so we had actually had that in our monthly budget… By the time we got the alumni informed of our intentions, Sarah had actually saved us several hundred dollars in just a few weeks…”
Looking at Sarah, Joan asked, “What were you doing?”
Sarah answered, “Well the first week I was there, the shower drain got plugged… Imagine 18 girls in one house, with most having long hair… That was a normal job for me… Then I replaced a few electrical outlets and switches… I guess growing up with a shop, and auto shop instructor and also a Home Ec teacher paid off…”
Dana took over, “So after the house agreed, we used the repair budget to pay her. While it wasn’t a big room, we even cleaned out a storage room and gave her a bedroom… It wasn’t much, after all the budget was $500 a month, but not bad for a fifteen year old including lodging… Once we found out she could cook, she didn’t even have to chip in for the weekly grocery bill…”
Sarah smiled, “It was better than anything else I could have hoped for… My room wasn’t that big, but definitely cozy. That and you all helped me finish my high school diploma in record time… That and all the help you all gave me on my ACT and SAT’s…”
Joan asked, “So you lived in the sorority the whole time?” Sarah just smiled and nodded. Joan continued, “We were led to believe that a family took you in…”
Glancing over at Dana, Sarah just said, “A family did take me in Mom… Every single Theta became my sister…”
Dana smiled, “You are the best little sister I could have ever hoped for Sarah.”
Joan asked, “So when did you start, I guess actively transitioning?”
Sarah thought for a moment, “Well I didn’t get my diagnosis for like three months, but even though Dr. Summers was seeing me pro bono, I couldn’t get any medicines until after Dana and her mom helped me get emancipated. Even then until I was eighteen the best I could do was blockers to limit the effects of the testosterone… Even with a full academic scholarship, I took a few student loans out, to get a car, and for my meds… I was twenty one when I was able to get my orchiectomy…”
Joan just sadly said, “Oh… You had them removed? I’ve read that some trans people elect to not have… that surgery…”
Wondering why that had upset her mother, Sarahs first thought was one of frustration. She was thinking that her mother was about to disapprove of her being whole, so was a bit snippy when she responded, “Yes I did Mother… I had my final surgery nine years ago also…”
Not understanding how she had upset Sarah, Joan tried to apologize, “Sarah I’m sorry I wasn’t trying to upset you… I just didn’t know… With April gone, and then watching you with Dana’s daughters I just thought…”
Sarah still slightly upset, “What did you think?”
Joan did her best not to cry, the last thing she was trying to do was to anger her daughter anymore than she had already today. “I was thinking of how wonderful of a mother you would be… Please don’t be mad at an old woman still hoping for grandchildren one day…”
Understanding now why her mother was curious did soften her anger a bit, Sarah glanced nervously at Dana not really wanted to go down this line of questioning. Trying not to give away anything she wasn’t ready for her mother to know she said, “Oh… Well if I ever meet someone, or even if I don’t I can still adopt…”
Dana feeling slightly guilty at both Sarah’s and Joan’s frustration, she decided to try to alleviate Joan’s worry and told her, “Before she had that done though, I was able to talk about storing her sperm… So there still might be hope for you…” That caused Sarah to glare at her friend. Grimacing Dana continued, “Besides shes already the Godmother of our girls… They love her just as much as us, even Ben’s girls love her… You’re right though, she will make a great mother one day.”
That had alleviated some of the worry from Joan, even though Sarah was still slightly upset that Dana had volunteered that much information. Before they could change the subject to something else, Steve and Bill came in to get the steaks out of the refrigerator when they noticed the tense expressions on the three ladies.
Steve asked, “Is everything okay in here? Bill was just schooling me on the proper way to cook a steak… Why didn’t you ever tell me I didn’t know what I was doing?”
That caused Sarah to laugh at her friend, “You dork, I tell you that almost every day, its just you never listen…”
Clutching his hand over his heart, he said with as much indignation as he could, “That just hurt young lady… Besides that’s what you say at work, you’ve never said it about my cooking before…”
Giggling at his antics, Sarah said, “Hey free food is free food… I’m going to go upstairs and check on the girls for a bit, I be back down in a few.” She didn’t wait for anyone’s confirmation, she actually needed some time away from all of this. Spending time with her Goddaughters always helped put things into perspective.
Dana knowing she upset Sarah, just looked worriedly at her husband trying to convey her concern. Steve just nodded, then looked at Bill and said, “Hey why don’t you show Joan the back yard a bit, the fresh air might do you some good.”
Bill wanting to talk to his wife to figure out what had happened agreed and gently took her hand as he led her outside.
Steve softly asked his wife, “What the hell happened? I thought things were going pretty good.”
Dana shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t exactly know… There’s so much that neither of them know… I think I told Joan some information that Sarah didn’t want her to know… Joan was worried about having grandkids… So I told her that I had convinced Sarah to have her sperm stored…”
Steve understanding now why Sarah was upset, asked, “Did you tell them everything?”
Dana shook her head, “No I didn’t… But I really want to… They deserve to know the truth…”
Steve sighed, “You’re right, they do… Sarah is not going to be happy with us if we do tell them…”
Dana slightly bowed her head and muttered, “I know… She’s already going to hate me for what April and I did, but it’s some thing I have to do… I’ve wronged all three of them…”
Steve just gently gave his wife a hug as she softly cried on his shoulder, he gently told her, “Look I know Sarah, she’ll forgive you… You both thought you were doing the right thing, she’ll understand that…”
To be continued.
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Author's Note: I’m truly sorry the chapters have started slowing down. I figured it up that with the two work trips in the last two weeks, that I have travelled just over 5000 miles and worked just over 115 hour… I’m truly surprised I was able to get as much done as I have. I hope the quality of this and the last chapter hasn’t suffered too terribly much. I hope you all enjoy this next installment. ~Rebecca
After Dana had composed herself, Steve suggested they go outside to talk to Sarah’s parents. He also remembered the steaks and the reason he and Bill had initially come inside, so he grabbed the container and they both walked outside to find Bill hugging his wife.
Joan was still crying as they heard her say, “I’m trying so hard, but I feel like I keep hurting her all over again…”
Dana felt extremely guilty at that moment. Maybe if she had more faith that April’s plan would work, and she had already told Sarah the full truth, that things might be going better than they were. As it was, she had only found out the full truth from April shortly after she had passed away. Still holding on to the anger she had felt for so long, was extremely hard to let go of, and she had been afraid of telling Sarah in case April’s plan hadn’t succeeded. If she had gotten her hopes up and her parents never showing had been her main concern. She might not have been fully to blame this whole time, but Sarah and her parent’s pain right now rested entirely on her shoulders, at least some of it. That, she had every intention of rectifying.
Steve announced their presence by saying, “We forgot about these babies still in the fridge.” He was smiling, but everyone there knew it was forced.
Bill half heartedly smiled, “Oh right… Can’t forget those…” Then much more solemnly he looked at Steve and Dana and softly said, “Thank you for trying…” Bill took the steaks and started arranging them on the grill, in an effort to at least not feel helpless at the moment.
Dana moved over and Joan readily grabbed her in a hug and said to Dana, “I’m sorry that you and Steve have been put in this position… If you think it would be best… If it would be better for Sarah… We’ll leave right now…”
Dana softly tried to reassure her, “No… Please don’t leave… I know it’s hard for… well, everyone… I’m sorry I didn’t tell Sarah before you got here… I just didn’t want to get her hopes and then you not show…”
Joan just nodded as she wiped her eyes, “April told us that it was you that had found her that night… When she tried to… Thank you so much for being there for her… not only that but looking out for her all this time… We had never meant for this to have gotten so… fucked…”
At that exclamation Bill looked at his wife and exclaimed, “Joan!!!” He didn’t think of one time that he had ever heard her cuss, at least use the F word…
Joan looked at him and said, “I’m sorry… But that is what it is, had we not been so blinded by that asshole we’d have still been in our daughters life… Had we only listened sooner… I hate him only slightly less than I hate myself for listening to him…”
Still amazed at hearing his wife of almost forty years cuss, not once but twice in a row, he said, “I know… I wish we had stood up to the church sooner… It might have saved the families he wrecked after ours… There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t blame myself too… At least we know now that ‘he’ wont be able to use his pulpit to ruin anymore young lives or families again…”
Steve asked, “I’ve heard about the ‘reverend’,” they could hear the air quotes in his voice, “We haven’t heard what happened though… What did you do?”
Bill sighed, “We quit going to that church shortly after Sarah emancipated herself, we would visit from time to time simply because we had friends there. But we had started seeing just how wrong everything was with what he was preaching after we lost both our children… It was like our eyes were finally opened, but it was too late... Then when April got hospitalized, somehow he heard about it and came to voice his hatred and try to lay blame… April went off but I…” He paused, ashamed of how he reacted in anger.
Joan smiled, “He knocked the hell out of him, or at least we could hope the hell actually got knocked out of him at least… Unfortunately due to the aggravated assault charges, Bill was arrested, and the school forced him to retire. The last thing the district wanted as a teacher with anger issues and wouldn’t listen to us… So I retired as well… We did go back to the church before the restraining order on Bill was served, but we stood up and told the congregation what he had done to our family… Turns out other families started standing up too… Only about a quarter of the people that attended still go, and it looks like unless he is removed, the church is going to have to close…”
Dana just uttered, “Good… Give Sarah time okay, I promise I’ll talk to her tonight… I’ll do my best to get her to understand okay.”
Joan looked like she was about to start to cry again, “I just don’t know what I’m doing to keep making her so upset…”
Dana softly said, “I made her upset this time, by telling you about her storing her…”
Joan interrupted, “Why would that make her upset? It’s not like it’s a big deal, I’ve read that’s pretty common for male to female transitions…” Then a look of surprise crossed her face as a thought crossed her mind, “She’s already found someone and used them hasn’t she?!”
Dana glanced at her husband, and he could see from her expression that she didn’t know what to say. Steve tried to come to her rescue, so he told Joan, “No that’s not it, Sarah hasn’t found someone... That’s not it…”
Perplexed, Joan asked, “Then what could the reason be?”
Steve not knowing what to do looked at Dana and she just softly nodded and softly told him, “Go ahead and tell them…”
Taking a deep breath he rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, “Oh boy… Okay… For heaven’s sake what I’m about to tell you, please don’t let her know we told you until after we talk to her tonight… Please…” They both nodded in agreement, so Steve continued. “I’m not sure how to even start this conversation… I guess I should tell you I was injured in college playing sports.”
Bill asked, “Football?”
Steve answered, “No, while I played football in high school some, I couldn’t cut it for college… I thought it would be bad ass to join a intramural rugby league… It was my second year when I took a really hard blow… well down there… I never thought anything was wrong, once the swelling and soreness went away everything worked just fine…. Well until we started trying to have kids…”
Joan gasped, “You mean you aren’t the girls Dad?!”
Smirking at how she phrased the question, her responded, “Oh I am definitely their Dad… I guess you could say that Sarah is their… Father?!” Looking at Dana as he scrunched up his face and asked her, “Did that sound as weird to you as it felt to say for me?!”
Dana couldn’t help giggle at her husband, but nodded. Then she noticed the looks of surprise on the older couples face. Then Joan looked and pointed to Dana’s belly and raised her eyebrows. Dana smiled and told her, “Yes this one too, this was actually the last try for us… Due to the cost she couldn’t afford to store much… She was only able store five samples, and one of them didn’t take…”
Joan slowly stepped closer to Dana and started to reach out her hand before she paused and asked, “May I?” Dana just nodded, so Joan gently placed her hand on Dana’s swollen belly. Dana immediately felt the baby shift to Joan’s touch, which from the smile on Joan’s face it was obvious that she had felt it too. Joan just softly said, “Oh wow!”
Dana tried to reassure the older couple, “I promise I will talk to Sarah when you both go back to your RV… Right now I don’t know if she would really listen to me since she is still uncomfortable with you both…”
Bill had left the grill and had let Steve take over, he had put his arm around his wife and staring at the woman who was carrying their grandchild. He told her appreciatively, “Thank you so much for this… For everything…”
After a few moments of Joan feeling the baby moving Steve spoke up, “Not to change the subject, or that I’m quite the expert as you are Bill, but I think these are done…”
Bill stepped over and checked, then they started pulling the steaks and setting them on the plate. “Guess we need to go let Sarah and the girls know supper is ready as soon as the stuff in the oven are done.”
As both couples started inside the house so the ladies could check on the oven, they heard a guitar playing and a lovely alto voice singing the first verse of “Puff the Magic Dragon”. Both Joan and Bill looked at Dana questioningly.
Dana spoke up, “Looks like Larissa talked her into playing, both of them love to listen and sing along with Sarah. Steve, here take the steaks and lets go check on the oven, while they go and listen to Sarah as she finishes up the song. Just tell the girls to clean up for supper.”
As they both walked into the living room, they saw their daughter sitting on the ottoman with both girls sitting on the floor staring at her. Sarah’s eyes were closed as she was singing, Ally was sitting there rocking and humming to the rhythm, while Larissa was actually singing along. Joan and Ben just sat and watched in awe.
As Sarah starting singing the last verse, her voice started to crack as she sung the line “Dragons live forever, not so little boys.” As she continued the verse about Jackie Paper abandoning Puff, the pain in her face was evident, as tears started to flow down her cheek.
Joan started to move towards Sarah, all she wanted to do was to console her daughter, but Bill stopped her while shaking his head. Instead the both watched the scene unfold in front of them. Larissa just creeped closer to Sarah as she was finishing the song, being careful not to interrupt her. As Sarah finished the song she looked down and took the guitar she had been playing and leaned over to put it into its stand. No sooner did she let go of the guitar Larissa immediately grabbed her in a hug. Sarah closed her eyes and hugged the small blonde child for all she was worth.
Sarah softly said, “Why do you always want me to sing that song, you know it makes me cry.”
Larissa just pulled back far enough so she could look Sarah in the eyes and said, “I know… When you cry I can hug you to make you feel better…” She then gave the sweetest smile she could to Sarah.
Sarah then pulled Larissa in for another hug and told her, “Sweetie, your hugs always make me feel better.”
Joan felt her eyes starting to moisten at the tenderness of the moment watching Sarah and the small girl, Ally stood up and got into the hug as well. It was then that Sarah looked up and saw her parents standing there watching them. She immediately pulled back and started to wipe the tears off her face, then asked, “So how long have you two been there?”
Bill replied, “We came in about half way through the song, Sarah that was amazing…”
Sarah gave a half-hearted smile, “Thanks… So what do you guys need?”
Joan trying to be nonchalant now that she knew that those were their granddaughters, said, “Dana and Steve said dinner was just about ready and for the girls to clean up.”
Both girls hopped up and squealed as they bolted to go wash their hands, leaving Sarah alone with her parents. Both Joan and Ben watched the girls take off running, and were unaware that Sarah was staring at them. When they returned to look back at their daughter they immediately realized the look of anger on her face.
Sarah had been caught off guard when she realized her parents had been listening to her sing, and then the moment she had with the girls. The looks they had given them didn’t immediately set off any warnings. When the girls took off though she noticed how her parents were staring adoringly at the girls and how their gaze followed them out of the room. Immediately she knew why… In a very flat tone she stated, “They told you…”
Caught off guard, her parents started stumbling over their words. They had promised they wouldn’t tell her they knew, but they couldn’t help how their expressions had given them away. Joan tried to say, “Told us what?”
Sarah said with much more force, “Do not play stupid with me. They told you about the girls, I know it! I could read it in your faces that you know!” She glared at them a few moments, daring them to say something. Neither of them dared to speak, afraid of upsetting her any worse. Finally she spoke again, “Just don’t start getting too comfortable with that bit of news…”
Joan said, barely audible, “What do you mean?”
Again in a flat emotionless tone, Sarah stated, “It just means that I haven’t decided yet if you two will be staying here much longer…”
To be continued.
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Author's Note:The end of this one has taken me several revisions to get the end of this one be somewhat close to what I was hoping… Apologies for it taking me so long to get it out. Thanks for y’all patience, and thank you all so much for reading. ~Rebecca
No sooner did the words come out of Sarahs mouth, she regretted them. She knew that her parents were trying, and trying really hard. She knew she was being difficult, but she had that right didn’t she? She didn’t know if the reason they were here were only to honor a dead child’s last request, or if they truly wanted to reconcile. The entire day had been an emotional rollercoaster, one that she couldn’t seem to get off of or have any control of either. The one thing she did know was just how much those words had hurt her parents, the look on both of their faces turned her anger instantly into remorse. She covered her mouth with one hand, and mumbled, “I’m so sorry…” Then the tears started to flow yet again. She uttered I’m so sorry…” Then she turned and bolted to the bathroom, she just had to be alone long enough to recollect her thoughts.
Steve had walked in to the living room to see how things were going to witness Sarah’s outburst. He was stunned at how cruel she had been, but also saw how much saying that had hurt not only her parents but Sarah as well.
Bill looked up and saw Steve right after Sarah had gone down the hallway. He softly said, “I appreciate all this… I think we should go… It’s just too much for her…” Joan just held on to her husband tightly.
Steve tried to console them for a moment, but he was also worried about Sarah. He had seen her angry, but she had never been cruel. He looked at Bill and Joan and told them, “No… You two go get your plates and sit down… I’ll go talk to Sarah. It’s going to be okay…“ He mentally added the words ‘I hope’, but refused to say those words to them… The older couple nodded and moved on towards the dining room, then Steve made his way to the bathroom.
As he was about to knock on the bathroom door, he stopped and listened to see if Sarah might be okay. He could hear her crying through the doorway, even though it sounded like she was trying to muffle it. He said gently, “Sarah, its Steve… Open up please.” He listened some more, and it sounded like she had stopped crying, or at least loud enough to hear. He repeated his plea.
“Go away, I’m Fine” came through the door.
“No you’re not fine, c’mon and open the door. Talk to me.”, he told her.
A muffled, “It’s not locked,” came from the other side of the door.
Opening the door he saw a distraught Sarah sitting on the lid of the commode and wiping her eyes with tissue. The look on her face crushed him, seeing his best friend like this made him wish he could just take her in a hug and hold her till she was okay. Trying to console her he squatted down so he could look her in the eyes and softly said, “Sarah, it’s going to be okay…”
Sarah slowly nodded, “I want it to be… I keep lashing out at them… I know they’re trying… What the hell is wrong with me? I don’t want to be this angry person…”
Taking her hand in his and giving it a soft squeeze of encouragement, he told her, “Sarah… You’ve been through a lot… We all know that. They’ll forgive you for your outbursts, I know that… Look, let’s get through dinner and when they leave why don’t you stay so we can talk. We actually need to talk.”
Still upset that he and Dana had told her parents the truth about the girls, she nodded and replied, “Yeah we do need to talk…” Giving his hand a squeeze, she then said, “We just have to get through dinner right? I guess I need to straighten up my makeup…”
Giving her one of his patented mischievous grins, he said, “Well I wasn’t going to say anything…”
Giving him a ‘go to hell’ look before her lips started to curl up in a small grin, she told him, “You’re such an ass…”
Shrugging her comment off, he joked, “Yeah, but that’s probably one of my redeeming qualities.” He then stood up and helped her up, where he gently gave her a hug.
“You’re probably right.” She told him softly laughing in his embrace. This was one of the things she both loved and hated about him. No matter how mad he made her, she could never stay mad at him for long, even if she wanted to stay angry with him.
Releasing her from the hug, he asked, “So you going to be okay?”
Nodding she told him, “Yeah, at least for the next few minutes…”
That brought a chuckle from him, “Well we can’t ask for more than that. See you in a few minutes while you do… You know, your face stuff.” Sarah playfully slapped him on the arm and shooed him out of the bathroom, so she could clean up her tears.
A few minutes she walked into the dining room where everyone was seated. Her parents looked up hopefully at her, hoping she wasn’t still so upset. Still regretting how she had snapped at them, she smiled slightly and apologized softly to them.
Then Larissa spoke up, “Sarah! We saved you a seat!!!” While little Ally just kept saying, “Sarah, here. Sarah, here..” Seeing the two empty seats, with one of them in between the two girls, she giggled at their enthusiasm.
Dana spoke up, “They had to have you next to them, if you want just sit at the other side it’s okay.” Both girls groaned at that, which only brought more giggles from Sarah.
She said, “It’s okay, I’ve missed them almost as much as they missed me it seems.” She sat down in between the girls, and facing her parents. Ally was to her left, and on the other side of Ally sat Dana, with Steve at the head of the table. All the food was already placed in the center of the table, and shortly everyone had helped themselves to the food, with Sarah helping both Ally and Larissa with theirs.
Before they dug in Steve spoke up, “First things first, ‘Rissa do you want to say the blessing?” Larissa just nodded vigorously.
As they bowed their heads the young girl started the prayer, “God bless Daddy and Mommy and Sarah and her Mommy and Daddy, and bless Ally too… She needs it the most…”
Ally interrupted, “Heyyyy… Nuh uhhh!!” Which then made it difficult for the adults to silence their soft chuckles.
Larissa continued without missing a beat, “Thank you for all the yummy food the Daddies and Mommies made, and God thank you for helping Sarah find her mommy and daddy… that’s it… Amen…” She then looked up at the adults seeing if they liked her prayer, all the adults were smiling at her, but her eyes rested on Sarah. Seeing that Sarah was wiping a few tears away, she asked her, “Do you need a hug?” She then held her arms up to hug her.
Sarah gently leaned over and gave the small girl a hug and told her, “I’ll always need your hugs sweetie…”
The tender moment was broken up by little Ally speaking up, “Me too, me too!” Which made Sarah laugh in earnest, but she still leaned over and hugged the four year old, who also gave her a sloppy kiss on the cheek.
Once everyone recovered from Sarah’s expression when she wiped the slobber off her cheek, everyone started eating, well at least everyone other than Sarah. Both girls slid their plate towards her with hopeful expressions that she would help them cut up their food into bite size pieces. Dana tried to help Ally but she was insistent that she wanted Sarah to do it.
Sarah laughed, “It’s okay Dana, I don’t mind… You do this all the time anyway…” Looking at her parents she saw them looking at her with, what she though was pride on their faces. For a moment she felt the anger starting to boil up, she was able to stifle it quickly though. Trying to change her mood, she looked at Bill and Joan and told them, “I guess you see now how I stay so thin, I call it the ‘Rissa and Ally diet plan…” Everyone laughed, other than the six and four year old, they just didn’t get the joke.
The rest of the dinner was actually pleasant, the conversation was directed away from Sarah’s transition or the twenty year gap in their history. Before Sarah realized it, it was approaching 9PM, which was way past the girls bedtimes. Everyone looked exhausted, the stress from the day had taken its toll on everyone present. Sarah volunteered to put the girls to bed, while Steve and her parents cleared the table, so Dana could sit and rest.
When Sarah came back downstairs after getting the girls to sleep, Steve and her parents had been finished cleaning for awhile and were just finishing a cup of coffee around the dining room table. Sarah sat down and they talked for a few more minutes before both Bill and Joan stood up saying they needed to get some rest. After making sure that they knew she wanted them to come to her birthday party, Steve volunteered to walk them out to their car so Sarah could sit and rest with Dana.
While walking them out, Steve asked them, “So do you two have any plans for in the morning?”
Bill replied, “Not really, since we are in a new place we were thinking about trying to find a church to go to… One that isn’t so… I guess ‘old fashioned’…” Steve immediately understood what he meant, with what their old church had caused.
Steve grinned, “Well that is why I was asking, I wanted to see if you two wanted to join Dana and I at our church. It’s a really good place, one that welcomes everyone.”
Bill and Joan looked at each other for a moment, then Joan said, “I think we’d like that… Will Sarah be there?”
Steve smiled, and for a quick second Joan could have sworn a mischievous look crossed his face. He said, “She normally sits with us, but tomorrow she has other obligations. So it’ll just be us in the pew.”
Disappointed that they wouldn’t be with Sarah, they both eagerly agreed though. It had been so long since they had been to a church after what had happened with their old ‘Reverend’. Their faith had been shaken to the core with how much hate they had witnessed in their old church, but it was still there. Bill shook Steve’s hand, while Joan grabbed him in a big hug and thanked him before they got in their Prius and drove away.
Steve walked back into the house and found that Dana and Sarah had moved to the kitchen table where they both sat, with a frustrated looking Sarah nursing her own cup of coffee. As he sat down, Sarah stated, “Okay now will you two tell me what the hell is going on? Why are you two being so insufferably nice to them? You know what they did, and what they put me through.”
Steve started to say, “Sarah, trust me we are just trying to help…”
Sarah accused, “Help who? Them or me?!”
He just stated, “All three of you…” He then glanced over to his wife and then back at Sarah who was glaring at him.
Dana trying to calm her down, softly said, “Sarah… Things aren’t exactly what we thought…”
Sarah exclaimed, “What do you mean its not what we thought? They kicked me out, disowned me and only regretting their actions twenty years later, only because April died and wrote us those letters!”
Dana tried to reach across the table to grasp Sarah’s hand, but Sarah pulled it away. Dana looked down at her hands and said, “It wasn’t twenty years later that they regretted it, it was less than twenty-four hours later…”
Sarah gave her a confused expression, “Twenty-four hours? They didn’t want anything to do with me! April told me that…”
Dana interrupted her, “Sarah, she lied… She lied because she thought she was protecting you… She lied to us both… I had believed April the same way you had…”
The accusation completely caught Sarah off guard, she just stared at Dana in shock. Finally she asked in a very cold tone, “What do you mean she lied?!”
Dana softly stated, “I mean she lied… Your parents regretted their actions the day after you left… They tried to search for you, and you were nowhere to be found… When you showed up at the sorority, April called let them know you were safe… All they wanted was for you to come home. It was April that didn’t let it happen…”
That was a hard statement for Sarah to believe, especially since April had been there for her for as long as she could remember. “No! She wouldn’t have done that! You’re the one that’s lying… She had always been there for me! For you too! How dare you!”
Dana appeared to be on the verge of tears, “Sarah… She got it all twisted up somehow… She thought the best way to protect you was to keep you away from them, anyway she could…”
Sarah blurted out, “Why are you telling me this?!? Did they tell you all this?!? They just show up and tell you all that crap to try to get on your good side?”
Dana started to cry at this point, seeing her best friend so angry at her. Even though she had expected it, but she couldn’t prepare for it actually happening. Softly she sobbed, “No… they didn’t tell me anything…”
Sarah exclaimed, “Then how do you know all this crap?!”
Reaching into her purse, Dana pulled out several folded pieces of paper and told her, “You’re not the only one that got a letter…
To be continued.
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Author's Note:I apologize in my delay on this one, we’ve been super busy at work. That and this chapter was extremely hard to write, and also to get it how I wanted it. Beware the caution in the tag, this chapter covers one of the worst experiences in Sarah’s life. Thank you all again for reading, and all your comments. They really do make it worth it. ~Rebecca
Sarah stared at the papers in Dana’s outstretched hand, knowing what they meant. She knew that Dana wasn’t lying now, but if she took the letter and it confirmed everything that had just been said, that meant everything that she had known and felt had been a complete lie. It would also mean that all the anger that she had felt towards her parents, most of it at least, was misplaced. Yes, her parents had kicked her out, but she had thought that it had been permanent. All this time she had thought they hadn’t wanted anything to do with her, but that seems to have not been the case. She just continued to stare at the letter, frozen and unable to do anything.
Dana finally shook the letter at Sarah trying to snap her out of her daze, and said, “Here take it, she wanted you to read it…”
Sarah shook her head, “I don’t want it… Why? Why did she do it Dana?”
Dana smiled sadly, “Because she loved you… She thought she was making the best decision… It’s all in the letter… Here take it…” Dana then took Sarah’s hand in hers and placed the letter directly in her palm, and then squeezed her hand slightly so her hand would close on the letter.
After a moment Sarah gently opened up the letter, she immediately recognized her sisters handwriting, plus the date she had put on the top. Seeing it was the same date as the one on both her and her parent’s letters, she knew it was written the same day as theirs. Quickly she closed the letter back, and looked up at Dana, “How long have you known? How long have you had this?” She asked accusingly.
Those questions caused Dana to wince slightly, “It was postmarked a couple of days after she died…”
Sarah blurted out, “You’ve had it for three months?! So you decide to let me know AFTER they show up?!”
Dana whimpered, “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know if they’d ever come... I kept thinking that if I told you, and they didn’t want to reconnect, how that would affect you… What if you got your hopes up and they didn’t want to connect after all this time… It would also change what you thought about April, like it did for me… I didn’t want any of that to happen… Not unless I had to…”
Sarah sat there fuming for a few seconds before she said, “That should have been left up to me Dana, they are almost as much a victim in this as I am… You know what? I wish you’d all quit trying to protect me, I’m not that fragile, broken teenage anymore, and I haven’t been in a long damn time!!! How dare all of you keep deciding what’s best for me?!?”
Dana fully broke down in tears trying to apologize, Steve put his arm around her protectively. He looked at Sarah and she could tell that he was pissed, he exclaimed, “That’s it Sarah, ENOUGH! Dana doesn’t deserve that shit from you, so how dare YOU treat her like that!”
That caught Sarah completely off guard, while Steve had been angry at her before he had never raised his voice to her like that. Unfortunately her anger had worked up too much momentum for her to stop, “How dare I? You’re actually going to go there Steve?! I’ve been thrown out, lied to, not only by my sister, but my supposedly best friend, and you… You… YOU decide to tell my parents about the girls without even asking me what I thought about it first! Every one keeps telling me how they’re protecting me but all I feel like is that I’ve been played like a fiddle my entire life, so you can get off your damn high horse right now!!!”, she yelled out, almost screaming at him.
Steve stood up facing her, but she refused to back down and stood up to her full 5’8” height to his 6’0 stature. He was about to yell back, but then Dana doubled over clutching her belly, pain etched on her face. The stress and the tension of the evening, coupled with an already difficult pregnancy, had overwhelmed her and the baby. She whimpered out, “Oh god that hurts!!!”
The anger that had been fueling Sarah’s rage was quickly overcome by concern for her friend, that and the realization that whatever was happening to her pregnant friend was directly the result of all the stress and tension of the moment. Sarah quickly moved to Dana, “What’s wrong? Dana I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”
Steve was already by her side with his arm around her shoulder trying to console her the best he could. Looking at Sarah he told her, “Just give her some space okay…”
Distraught Sarah feebly asked, “What’s wrong?”
After a few tense moments passed, Dana visibly relaxed enough to answer, “Being almost 40 and pregnant is most of it…” Dana paused as a momentary look of sadness passed over her face, she quickly recovered and gave Sarah a pained smile, “That and she isn’t a fan of all this excitement…”
Sarah covered her mouth with one hand in surprise, “She?!?! You found out it’s a girl?!? I thought you didn’t want to know…”
Dana replied softly, “We didn’t at first… Things changed though, but yes it’s a girl.”
Sarah wanted to go and hug her, and place her hand to see if she could feel her newest goddaughter moving, but she was afraid. With everything that had happened, the last thing she wanted was to cause her anymore pain. “Dana I’m so sorry… Are you going to be okay?”, she asked.
Steve was gently rubbing Dana’s back, he suddenly looked really tired when he looked back to Sarah, “Yeah she’ll be fine, she’s just really tired… Today was just too much… Look why don’t you just go home and get some rest, I’ll get her upstairs to bed and let her rest.”
Sarah nodded, “Steve… I’m sorry for what I said…”
He stood up and placed his hand on her shoulder and gently told her, “Look its just been a long day for all of us, more-so for you… Just go home okay, we’ll see you tomorrow.”
She was actually a bit surprised, “You still want me to come over? Even after all this?” She looked at Dana, who was still obviously in discomfort. With a tear starting to run down her cheek, she repeated, “I’m sorry…”
Steve gently pulled her into a hug, where she started weeping on his shoulder. He softly whispered to her, “Hey friends fight, it’s fine… I’m sorry too…”
When she finally broke from the hug, she did feel more relieved that things were actually going to be okay between them. After saying her goodbyes, and triple checking that Dana was going to be okay, she finally climbed into her truck for the drive home. She was about half way there when she realized she was still clutching April’s letter to Dana. She quickly threw it into the passenger floorboard, wanting nothing to do with whatever April had written.
Once home and cleaned up, Sarah climbed into bed. The more she tried to forget the letter, the more she kept focusing on it. She didn’t want to read, in April’s own handwriting, how her sister had deceived her for all those years. After half an hour of tossing and turning, the question she couldn’t answer and that she had to know was why… Why did she do it? So she threw on a tee shirt and shorts and went back to get the letter out of the truck. Fifteen minutes later she was back in her bed with the letter in hand. After taking a few deep breaths she started to read…
Dana, I hope and pray this gets to you and if you’re reading it, that means my crazy plan has a chance of working… I need to come clean to you, and to Sarah and Mom and Dad… I had hinted to you the last few months that I had been struggling with something and that I was going to need your help with… Then they found the cyst that has led me to being bedridden waiting for whatever fate has in store for me… I have been wanting to do this for a few years, but I’ve just been too afraid. I’m afraid though my time has run out, and this is my last ditch effort to atone for what I’ve done to Sara and our parents… And you as well…
It all started the day that she was kicked out and called me, then her phone and bus problems which led to us not knowing where she was, till she showed up on our doorstep. I was so angry at Mom and Dad for what they did, but I had every intention of trying to get them to reconsider what they did, well right up until Sarah came out to us… For the first time in my life I had seen such a sense of happiness in her that I had never seen in ‘Brian’, and I knew I couldn’t let her go back until I got our parents to accept her… There was no way I was going to make her go back to being him, I couldn’t do that to her. It broke my heart to finally know why she had struggled so hard when we were younger. All I ever wanted was to keep seeing that smile on her face that she had sitting with us at the Theta house that night.
I did actually call them that night after she had fallen asleep, I know I had always told you that we had quit talking after that night… I’m sorry for lying to you… I just thought that you would have tried to make her go back, and I couldn’t risk that until I was sure they would accept her. So I told you and Sarah that I had cut them out of our life, I had also told them that Sarah didn’t want to talk to them either, and would only relay messages through me… I was so angry at them, I wanted them to feel the pain that Sarah was feeling. I thought that dealing with that they might start to listen and realize that Brian had never truly been their son…
To my surprise it started actually working though, while they were still upset and not happy with the idea, they had agreed to meet and talk with me. They wanted ‘Brian’ to come, but I refused, keeping up the ruse that any messages were to come through me. I was half way to Lake City to meet them the night you found her and called me… I immediately turned around and when I walked in and saw her so broken in your arms… Something changed in me, I thought that they had caused her to feel that that was her only choice… I decided then my job was to protect her, totally and completely… That night I shut our parents out of both of our lives, I occasionally would talk to them, maybe 3-4 times a year, but I kept up the lie that ‘Brian’ wanted nothing to do with them, and likewise with Sarah… That lie was easier I thought for everyone… I never even told them her name…
Dana, I swear to you that I thought I was doing the right thing… My entire life up to that point I had appointed myself as my siblings protector, and I got so mixed up… I want to make excuses because I wasn’t even nineteen yet and blame it on youth, but I can’t. I know now just how wrong I was, and I can’t blame that night solely on my parents… Had she known that they wanted her to come home, even if they weren’t open to her being Sarah, it might have changed everything… She might not have attempted what she did. I don’t know. They say that your life flashes before your eyes in the end, and it might be right. I know my end is close, and these last few months that’s all that has crossed my mind. I started to see so many things differently, like my eyes were finally opened…
I’m too sick to get everyone together at once, so this is my last hurrah, so to speak. I’m writing Mom and Dad a letter, and one to Sarah, explaining some things… I don’t know if Mom and Dad will get the letter or since its been so long if they will try, but I’m hoping they will. They have to… If they do, I need you to tell Sarah all this… This is another reason I’m writing, I know shes going to be hurt, but she needs to understand that its all my fault and not yours. Show her this letter if you have to. I hate to ask you to do this, but ultimately its for Sarah… She needs Mom and Dad, and they need her… They just don’t realize it yet.
I’m getting tired, and I have two more letters to write, so I’m going to say one last thing before I end this. Dana, I’ve had everything so wrong for so long, I’m thankful that I got sick so I could finally see things clearly. My entire life I had thought I was the strong one, and it was my job to protect Sarah. I know now, that I was never the strong one, Sarah is the one that had always been there when I needed her, and for you as well. She has always been the bravest of us all. I can’t believe that I ever thought she was weak, especially when she came out to our parents at 15 years old. I’m 38 and on my deathbed, and I’m terrified to tell them why I never found ‘Mr Right’. Sarah never needed us, at least not near as much as we needed her.
I love you, my sister from a different mister, I always have. Dana, I hope one day I’ll see you again. Until we do, please keep an eye on the squirt for me.
Love,
April Leanne Richardson
Sara read and reread the letter several times, unaware that she was crying the whole time. When she couldn’t read it anymore, she sat there clutching it to her chest thinking about all the things that had happened since that night when she told her parents her secret. Even though she had read the words, and even heard them from Dana, she was still struggling to understand why she lied. Why she kept it a secret for so long. Then she thought about how everyone kept referring to that one night that she had tried so hard to forget. It was the one night in her life she had been at her absolute lowest and weakest. She didn’t even like to acknowledge that it ever happened, so her memories over the years had grown hazy. She put the letter on her nightstand and turned the lights off hopefully to get some sleep for the busy day tomorrow she had planned. As she lied there trying to go to sleep, her mind kept drifting back to that one night…
The last few weeks since she had arrived and been taken in by the Theta’s had been her dream come true, sort of. She was finally free to be herself, but the cost had been too great. She had lost her parents, the look of disappointment on their face haunted her memories. The first week at the sorority, the girls had been so nice and protective of her, it had felt amazing. Then all her self doubts started kicking in.
Even with the niceties the girls all had been showing, Sarah had started feeling self conscious and started to doubt their motives. Feeling like their own life size Barbie had been fun at first, then she started mistaking their enthusiasm for something darker. She started to feel like each time they complimented her that they were just teasing her, after all when she looked in the mirror all she saw was Brian in a skirt. She didn’t think that it would ever be possible for her to fully transition and she’d be stuck, looking like a guy in a dress…
Then there was April, she had been so great and protective of Sarah, but Sarah being here was jeopardizing April’s school and possible future. Sarah didn’t want to risk hurting April’s life by being here. She had even offered to sacrifice her school so it wouldn’t impact April, that had caused one of their biggest fights that they had ever had.
Between her self doubts and misconceptions of everyones motives, Sarah had sunk into a really bad depression for the last week. The girls had been occupying so much of her time she hadn’t had time to think, and constantly putting on her happy face was draining her more quickly than she could have imagined.
She had been in the sorority now for just over two weeks and it had been the first time since she had arrived that she was by herself. April had ended up going on a date, and with it being Saturday night all the girls were out for the night. That left Sarah time to think. Unfortunately with the fatigue and depression her mind could only focus solely on the negatives. She felt lost, and empty, and that she was a burden to anyone around her. Those were the thoughts that permeated her mind for the next few hours, until she couldn’t take it anymore.
Since she had been doing some of the handyman duties for the house, she knew where some rope and a small stepladder was, and in her darkened state she was convinced that this was the best thing for everyone. So she quickly set out to collect what she needed, and went outside to the back yard to the only tree out there.
It took her almost thirty minutes to get everything in place, with the stepladder she had, she couldn’t reach the lowest limb so it took several throws and knot attempts to get it secure. Then trying to get the noose high enough took her several attempts at tying it. Finally she had everything just how she thought she needed. She wrapped the noose around her neck, and praying that it would hopefully be quick, she stepped off the ladder and immediately felt the noose swing and tighten around her neck.
Then to her horror, her feet drug the ground for a split second, then she was pulled back into the air, it was at that moment she realized that the limb wasn’t as rigid as she had thought. As she started bouncing, she started to panic and realized seconds too late, that she truly didn’t want to die. She managed to get one hand worked under the noose on one of the bounces which allowed to to get a tiny breath each time her toes touched the ground. She started trying to get the limb to break by pushing up with her toes each time she touched the ground to try to get the limb to bend more with each decent. Each jump though she started feeling weaker and weaker, at the thought of her sister and friends finding her hanging from the tree, she renewed her efforts even though her vision was starting to blur.
It was when she knew she had only a few bounces left in her, she heard what sounded like someone yelling from the bottom of a well. Her vision was blurred enough she could only see light and dark shapes, her body was feeling numb so she didn’t feel the arms wrapping around her legs. She did feel that she had quit bouncing, and when she started to move upwards, she had just enough conscious thought left to rip the noose from around her neck before everything when dark…
She had only been surrounded in darkness for what felt like a split second before she heard a voice, it was indistinct and she couldn’t place who it was or what it was saying. It was something for her to focus on though, and the more she focused on it the clearer it became until she realized it was Dana’s voice calling to her in the dark. She focused even more trying to understand what Dana was trying to tell her, and why was Dana even here. She knew that she had died when everything went dark, so why was she hearing Dana? She concentrated on her voice, and then the words starting coming into focus.
“Don’t you dare die on me, don’t you fucking die…”
She tried to call out to Dana, but no sounds came out.
“She’s breathing… She’s making sounds… Please hurry… C’mon Sarah stay with me, don’t you fucking die… Please God don’t let her die!”
Sarah tried again to call out, but again nothing… She noticed that she started feeling warmth around her, now that she could understand Dana’s words she started focusing on the warmth she felt.
“Get your ass here now, call everyone else… She fucking tried to hang herself… I’m calling her sister… Get everyone here NOW!!! Dammit stay with me Sarah… Please!!!”
She again tried to call out, this time she heard herself moan, the warmth she was feeling she could tell that it was wrapped around her shoulders and chest. Focusing on that she reached out and tried to touch it.
“That’s it Sarah, stay with me… I’m here…”
As feeling started returning she realized the warmth was coming from arms wrapped around her, she tried to reach and touch them again and then felt a hand clasp hers.
“That’s it squeeze my hand Sarah, I’m not letting you go anywhere!!!”
As her senses started returning to her she noticed light colored blobs in her vision, then she started hearing other voices, some familiar and one that wasn’t.
“Dana relax, let me check her out… It’s okay… She’s breathing on her own.” Then a bright flash appeared in her vision which made her try to turn her head but she was too weak right now to move it. “Pupils have a good reaction. She’s moving her limbs on her own… Dana, I think shes going to be okay. Lets get her inside, everyone help lift her”
Sarah felt many hands on her arms and legs, then a feeling of floating. A few moments later she found herself sinking down onto the couch she had been sleeping on. As her vision started returning, everything else had returned to almost normal. As she looked around she saw Dana who was only sitting a foot away from her and refused to let go, and she was surrounded by other Theta’s with more coming in with each passing moment. All of them were crying and staring at Sarah, they all kept coming up and hugging her.
The strange voice she had heard, was coming from an older woman, who had a stethoscope and a penlight in her hand, and she was checking all of Sarah’s vitals. She looked at Dana and said, “All her vitals are good, If you had been a minute later… It was a miracle you found her when you did… You need to get her to see someone tomorrow, here is a friends number, she’s also an alumni. I guarantee you that she will take her in. Whatever you do though, do NOT leave her alone...”
Dana nodded, “Yes ma’am, thank you so much… I don’t know what I would have done… Had I not…” Her voice caught, and she broke down sobbing. Some of the other girls started to console her.
The older lady continued to observe and check on Sarah, and other than her voice being raspy she soon had most of her faculties back. The older woman had just finished packing up her things when the door burst open, and Aprils voice filled the house.
“Is she okay?!?! Where is she?!?” Sarah heard April exclaim, and before anyone could answer, Sarah felt her sister wrap her arms around her tightly. “Sarah what were you thinking?!? I’d never be able to live with myself if something had happened…”
Sarah apologized the best she could, but held on to her sister with everything she had. They held on to each other while the Dr. woman observed her a bit longer before she finally left. All the girls had gone and gotten blankets and had filled the floor with pallets so they could all stay down there with Sarah.
It wasn’t long before the fatigue from the stress of the night impacted Sarah and she started to fall asleep. April and Dana had been talking, but Sarah hadn’t really been paying much attention to their conversation. Right before she passed out she distinctly remembered hearing April tell Dana, “I swear to God and everything holy, they will NEVER get a chance to hurt her ever again.”
To be continued.
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Author's Note:Okay, this is one of the chapters that I have been waiting to write from the very beginning. I hope that you find this one has made the journey I’ve taken you on so far worth it. Hope you all enjoy. ~Rebecca
Dana and Steve were sound asleep when two bundles of energy burst into their bedroom in the early morning, both young girls were acting like it was Christmas morning. They had remembered that today was Sarah’s birthday, well at least Larissa remembered and had reminded her sister.
Larissa pleaded with them, “C’mon get up! We have to get ready for church!”
Steve groaned, but looked at the clock and saw it was over an hour before the family had to be awake. He mumbled, “Rissa it’s still early, we’ve got plenty of time. Just let us lie here a bit longer.”
The small girl wasn’t having any of that though, “ But it’s Sarah’s birthday… The sooner we go to church, the sooner we can start her party…”
Dana giggled, “Baby, church will start the same time as it always does, no matter how early we get there.”
Larissa groaned, “But mooooom, it’s Sarah’s birthday!!!”
Steve shook his head, “It will be her birthday all day, we have plenty of time.”
Undeterred, the stubborn six year old said, “Okay fine… C’ mon Ally, I’m gonna give you your bath.” She then grabbed her little sister and started to pull her out of the bedroom.
Steve quickly remembered the last time she was going to help and bathe her sister, and the flood that occurred. He sat straight up in bed, “No!”
Dana chuckled again, “She’s just excited, and wants to help.”
Steve slid his legs out from under the covers, “Fine, Ally I’ll give you your bath. Rissa stay here with Mommy.” Ally just squealed and ran towards the bathroom, while Larissa just smiled at her victory and nodded at her Dad.
Dana looked to her daughter and asked her, “Sweetie come up here and snuggle with mommy, okay.” Larissa just grinned and hopped up in the bed with her, and as she snuggled up to her she felt the baby move.
She exclaimed, “Momma the baby kicked me!!!”
Dana smiled at the wonder in the young girls face, “She’s just excited to meet her big sister.”
The little girls eyes grew wide, “It’s a baby girl?” Dana nodded, then Larissa bent over with her face right up to her mothers belly button and said, “I wanna meet you too, but quit kicking Mommy okay…” She then felt the baby move again, and looked towards her mother and stated, “She doesn’t listen, just like Ally…”
They laid there for a few minutes, Dana staying tickled at how Larissa kept scolding her belly. After a few minutes, she noticed how Larissa’s face had scrunched up, so she asked, “Whatcha thinking sweetie?”
Larissa looked up at her mom, still in deep thought, “I was thinking whats her name gonna be…”
Dana realized they hadn’t even talked about it yet, she had an idea but hadn’t voiced it to her husband. She smiled, “Daddy and I haven’t decided yet, what do you think we should name her?”
Larissa’s face scrunched up for a moment before she said, “I was thinking…. You know how sad Sarah gets when she thinks about Aunt April since she went to heaven?” Dana nodded, and the girl continued, “I was thinking that if we named her April, that anytime Sarah missed Aunt April she could hug baby April and she’d be happy again…”
The sweetness of her daughters comment made her eyes start to water, she told her, “That’s a really good idea… We’ll have to ask Sarah what she thinks about that okay?” Larissa nodded excitedly as Dana motioned her in for a hug.
In another neighborhood about twenty minutes away, Sarah had already been up for a while. She had had a very restless night, so she had gotten up very early and started her yoga routine. While she rarely did yoga on consecutive days, she really needed to clear her head so she could prepare for the day. While she knew why April had done what she did, knowing didn’t make it any easier to accept. That and now she could only imagine what her parents had gone through on their own, she imagined that they shared the same loss that she had felt for the last two decades. The revelations that her parents had wanted her back had drained most of the anger she had felt towards them, now she was feeling remorse at what could have been.
When she had first given up trying to sleep any longer, she had strongly considered to call today off and just stay at home alone. While that’s what she wanted to do, she knew how many people were counting on her showing up today. Her fear of letting anyone down, quickly overrode that idea. Thankfully her morning yoga exercise had helped clear her mind enough to focus on her day and what she had to do. With her mind in a much healthier place that the previous night she started preparing for the first part of her day.
Bill and Joan had also woken up early, they too had had a rough night. When they had gotten to the RV from the pre-party, they both were emotionally wiped out. Joan had been crying the entire drive back to the RV and Bill tried his best to console her while driving and also dealing with his own emotions. Once they had gotten into the motor home, they had both collapsed in each other’s arms.
They both had been amazed at being able to meet their child that they had thought had been lost to them forever. While Sarah had been so different than the son that they remembered, those things about Brian that were the best parts of him were still apparent in Sarah, even more so. They both knew the meeting would be difficult and that Sarah would be angry at them, but they had been willing to do anything to get to know their child again.
Sarah had exceeded any expectations they had ever had for Brian, her dedication to her school, work, but most importantly the amount of people she had in her life, and how much those people thought of their daughter. It was if the best parts of the son that they remembered, had been multiplied exponentially into something so much greater.
Bill had been the first to wake up that morning, to find his wife snuggled up to him with her head on his chest, and his arm around her. While they had never intended for it to happen, they hadn’t had that closeness with each other for years. He had laid there for about half an hour before he had to disturb her so they could start getting ready to meet the McMasters’s for church.
The Richardsons were about ten minutes early arriving at the Unity Church that Steve had given them the address to. With Bill’s incessant idea to always be thirty minutes early to everything, that meant they had almost forty minutes till the service was to start. Being as early as they were, they decided to wait in their car until they saw Steve, Dana, or the kids. They spent their time waiting in the small Prius talking and holding hands with each other, something else they hadn’t really done in a long while.
By the time Steve and the girls arrived, the Richardsons had only been waiting about fifteen minutes. They had been so caught up in their conversation, they both jumped when Steve knocked on the window. After a few laughs and hugs between the couples they walked together to the entrance of the church.
Bill and Joan both were surprised at how friendly everyone they had met were, they had forgotten how a church was supposed to feel. They had tried multiple different churches back home but had stayed within the fundamentalist churches, and had never felt as welcomed as they were right now.
Once inside the main building Steve spilt off from them carrying Ally to her Sunday school class, and Dana and Larissa showed them all to their pew. They had barely gotten settled in before Steve had returned and taken his seat with his family.
Curious, Joan asked him, “Does Larissa not have a school here?”
Steve chuckled softly, “She does but she’s got something she’s going to help with at the beginning of the service.”
Joan looked at the small girl, and had to stifle a bit of laughter. She hadn’t been sure what she was doing, but she realized that she was telling Dana’s belly to behave for church to her mothers amusement. Joan then looked around at the sanctuary, amazed at how beautiful the scene was. There were huge picture windows on two sides of the large room, and the view of the church grounds gave the impression that you were almost in an outside service. She then started to take notice of the people filing in, there were many couples holding hands, and quite a few same-sex couples holding hands. She was amazed at how everyone was greeting them with hugs and smiles all around. She couldn’t help but utter, “You would never see that at our old church…” The sight almost brought a tear to the older woman’s eyes.
Dana didn’t quite hear her, and asked, “What was that?”
Joan had blotted her eye’s carefully as to not damage her makeup and softly said, “I just said you would never see couples like that being welcomed like that at any of the other churches we’d been to…” She smiled and blotted her eyes again before saying, “It’s beautiful… I wish Sarah was here… They’d accept her here right?”
Dana saw the worry on Joan’s face so she tenderly grasped her hand in hers and reassured her, “They do accept her, completely… Like Steve told you, she normally sits with us… She just had something else to do this morning so could sit here with us today.”
Joan looked at her husband, and saw that him and Steve were in a conversation about work. She went back to happily watching her grandchild talk to her unborn baby sibling through her mothers belly.
About five minutes before the service was to start, a man in his late thirties came out and sat at the piano and started to play. Dana leaned over to Joan and whispered, “That’s Jason, the music director, he’s another friend of ours, and Sarah’s. He’ll be coming this afternoon as well so you’ll get to talk to him at the party.”
Jason finished playing a couple of minutes before the service was to start, then he swung the mic that was on the piano over and spoke into it, “Good Morning Unity, I hope you all are having a great morning. I wanted you all to know that we’re all in for a treat this morning.” At that time a lady, probably in her early fifties, came out of the side door and following her was Sarah. Jason continued, “Our very own prayer chaplain is going to sing us our call to worship, so lets wish a great Unity blessing for her before she starts.”
At the sight of Sarah walking in behind the minister, Joan reached over and squeezed her husbands hand, which he returned just as much. As the minister moved on towards her seat, just to the right of the pulpit, Sarah went up on picked up a guitar that was sitting in its stand, and wrapped the strap around her. She was beaming as she walked up to the microphone as she glanced around to everyone. She paused just a second when she saw her parents sitting with her friends. Her parents noticed her pause and flinched, wondering if Steve had done the right thing by inviting them. Then she broke into a sincere smile as she nodded to them, that caused them to breathe a small sight of relief.
Looking back over the congregation she smiled as she spoke into the mic, “Good morning everyone!!! I hope everyones in a great mood today… If not, you’re going to be.”
Then Jason interrupted her on his mic, “Oh and everyone I have it on good authority that its also her birthday today. You’re what twenty four today right?” He said smiling, while the whole congregation yelled out happy birthday.
Smirking at him, she said, “Thank you everyone, and don’t listen to him… I’m glad to announce that I’m thirty five today, and I’m good with that… Just as long as I still look twenty five.” The congregation laughed along with her joke, then she continued, “I’m going to play an older contemporary song, it’s Open The Eye’s of My Heart. It’s a pretty easy song to sing, so once you all get the words down please help me by singing along… Speaking of help… Is there anyone out there that would like to come up here and help me out, I have a microphone right…”
A shrill young voice shouted out, “Me! Me!” As Larissa bolted out of the pew and sprinted up to Sarah. Everyone was chuckling at the young girls enthusiasm.
Grinning at her as she was making a beeline to her, Sarah said, “Let’s give a warm welcome to my good helper Larissa.” The young girl immediately wrapped Sarah in a hug, and then eagerly took the microphone from her as the congregation clapped.
Both of Sarah’s parents were amazed at seeing their daughter up on stage, and how confident and at ease she was. This was something they would never have imagined of their child, at least the she one they had known. They just sat there in awe, still clutching each other’s hands tightly. Dana and Steve both glanced over at the older couple and smiled.
It had only taken Sarah a few seconds to get Larissa situated, and as she got her guitar ready she asked through the microphone, “Okay are you all set?”
Larissa nodded excitedly and not realizing she still had the microphone up to her face, she told Sarah, “Yup, just try and keep up okay…” The entire congregation started chuckling, they had seen this before from the two ladies.
Sarah just gave her a sideways grin, and joked “You have been spending way too much time with your daddy.”
Everyone heard Steve say, just loud enough to be heard, “Hey!!!”
Larissa just nodded, and said, “I’m ready…”
With that, Sarah started the opening, with Jason accompanying her with the piano, and started singing the words. She had been so unsure of herself when she had arrived this morning, and had contemplated calling off performing due to how conflicted she had been. Reverend Kathleen, or Kate as she preferred, had been there and had seen how troubled she had been. That had been why neither of them had been out earlier, after a long talk with Kate, Sarah decided to perform. While still conflicted, she was much more at peace than she had been since her parents had shown up the day before. As always, once she started playing, and Larissa started singing, all her conflicts went away and she joined the young girl.
“Open the eyes of my heart Lord, Open the eyes of my heart, I want to see you, I want to see you…” While she had sung those words countless times, in that moment they suddenly struck home… She had kept her heart so closed off towards her parents for so long, it had been so hard for her to let them in again. The more she played, the more resentment she was able to let go of. As she looked around at everyone here eyes locked onto her parents, and when she saw them singing along it almost brought tears to her eyes. Her voice caught for a split second, not enough for anyone to catch it, but she continued to sing. When she started the last verse she quit singing to let the little girls high soprano carry the song to the end. Once they finished the whole congregation stood and applauded, which only caused Larissa to ham it up and start bowing dramatically. Which only caused the adults to giggle.
Sarah stepped away from the mic and shouted, “Give Larissa a hand everyone.” She then bent over and gave her daughter a hug before shooing her back to her parents. She ran up to Steve who scooped her up and started to take her to her class. Sarah then spoke again, “Ok, now everyone lets stand and sing the first hymn, I’m going to stay and accompany Jason if he doesn’t mind.”
Right before Jason started to play, Steve had gotten to the side door and he paused as he leaned his back up to the door. He then nodded to Larissa, so she then yelled out, “Rock on Sarah!!! Rock on!!!” The crowd again burst into chuckles, Sarah’s squinted her eyes to her friend.
Sarah then spoke back into the mic, “Yeah, definitely too much time with your Dad…” She was still smiling, and the congregation continued to laugh at their shenanigans.
Steve just looked hurt for a split second before he nodded to his daughter and as he backed out of the door, they both shouted, “Rock on Sarah!!!”
Sarah just shook her head laughing, “Okay now that the troublemakers are gone lets get started.”
Jason then started playing a jazzed up version of This Little Light of Mine, while Sarah switched to playing a lead guitar along with him. Joan and Bill were amazed at the energy that was in the church, then again they were initially taken back by the behavior, but realized that that was contributing to the amazing feeling that resonated throughout the building.
Once the hymn was finished, Sarah put the guitar down and went to sit next to Reverend Kate, while another person came up for the announcements. Right after those were finished, they then moved to welcoming newcomers to the church. There were about half a dozen people who stood up, including Bill and Joan after they were nudged by Dana.
Everyone was asked to stand and sing the next hymn, and once it was finished Sarah was looking for her Daily Word book. She knew she had it earlier, but it wasn’t anywhere by her seat or in her backpack.
After a few seconds of looking Kate reached to her small stack of books and grabbed hers to hand to Sarah, “Here take mine, I have a post it stuck to todays page.” Sarah thankfully took the book and as she made her way to the podium, no one noticed Kate reaching behind her to put Sarah’s book back with her things.
When Sarah got to the podium she said, “Hi everyone, I’m Sara Marks and I’m your prayer chaplain for the day. I, and the other chaplains, are here for anyone that needs private prayer or someone to listen. We will all be here after the service for anyone that needs us, just come find anyone of us and we’ll be there.”
She started to open the book to where the post it note was stuck, then she read what was written on the note.
I think there should be a change for today, I want you to read yesterdays word. I think its highly appropriate for you right now. Also the lesson afterwards, don’t you think that should go both ways?
K.
Confused as to why Kate would want her to read yesterdays lesson, she pulled the note off and the Word for yesterday make her heart skip a beat. She then looked towards her minister, who just smiled kindly and nodded her head. Sarah spoke, “Okay, wow… Today I’ve been asked to read the word for yesterday, I hadn’t prepared to read this one so please bear with me…” She then quickly scanned the page and immediately got choked up at the thought of what it said.
She cleared her through, and started to speak, her voice cracking slightly, “The word for yesterday was Family… Our expanded concept of family includes all people… The people we call family are united by birth, like minds, or spiritual connectivity. We are all children of God, linked in spiritual oneness with each other and kindred souls regardless of our perceived differences…”
She had to pause to wipe her eyes, before she continued, “As with immediate and extended family, we may not always see eye to eye or connect heart to heart. During those times, let’s remember that those who may be the hardest to relate to as family could very well be the people needing our compassion and prayers the most…”
She looked out into the congregation, and once again locked eyes with her parents. She was doing her best to hold back the tears, but seeing both of her parents wiping their own eyes caused the damn to break. She then looked at the bottom of the page and saw the lesson, and with the message Kate had written, it took her about a minute to compose herself. She wasn’t aware that Kate had come up until she placed a hand on her shoulder.
Kate asked her gently, “Are you okay? I can finish this.”
Sarah shook her head no. “No I’m okay, just give me a second.” She cleared her throat and blotted her eyes again, she then said to the crowd, “I’ve got a confession to make to everyone… I almost couldn’t be here today… I know that it’s one of my responsibilities to be here and help anyone in need… Today I didn’t think I could do that… I’m sorry…”
She glanced at Kate, who nodded her head for her to continue and gave her a supportive smile. Sarah started up again, “The lesson I was supposed to read was about the prodigal son… But Reverend Kate brought it to my attention that it should go both ways… The story talks about a son who decided to take what was his and walk away from his family… When he realized what he threw away, once he had nothing, his father took him back without question…”
She smiled through her tears, glancing around she saw how everyone was transfixed with what was going on, finally she focused on her parents. She then said, “I’ve failed that teaching… Most of you know my story, to those that don’t… I wasn’t born Sarah Marks… My parents named me Brian… Due to some severe miscommunications we split our ways almost twenty years ago… I had never thought I’d see them again… I don’t think they thought they would see me again either… Well yesterday they walked back into my life… I let anger win… I couldn’t let it go… I behaved and said some cruel things…”
Sarah started crying in earnest now, which made it hard for her to continue, but she did her best, “I couldn’t forgive them… Mommy… Daddy… I’ve missed you so much... I’m so so sorry for all the things I said… Can you forgive me?”
Bill and Joan stood up and started to walk towards her, they were both motioning her towards them. Sarah quickly glanced at Kate, who smiled again and nodded to her. Sarah quickly stepped down from the pulpit and raced to her parents, where they all three embraced.
Bill spoke, “We’re sorry too, for everything… We love you Sarah… We never stopped.” Joan just nodded, she was unable to speak from the tears.
Sarah smiled and returned their embrace, “I love you too… I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed telling you that…”
With Kate looking down at Sarah and her parents, she noticed almost everyone in the congregation was wiping their own tears. She just smiled and took over at the pulpit, but not before wiping her own eyes.
Author's afterword:I have a bit of a confession for this part of the story. The word of the day is an actual thing at a Unity Church. I’ve attended one for a bit over 5 years, and it was honestly the very first place I felt unconditional acceptance early on in my transition. More acceptance than I even found in support group, or LGBT establishments. This word of the day (while I streamlined it a bit) was an actual one I received in my subscription. While this story was still a concept, I was trying to figure out how to have Sarah have her aha moment… The day I was trying to figure that out, I got this update… Anyway, thank you all for reading and all the comments you’ve left. Much love, and many hugs to you all. ~Rebecca
To be continued.
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