~o~O~o~

CHAPTER ONE

“Pour mon âme, quel design!”
– Donizetti, La Fille du Régiment, Pour mon âme, quel design! (Aria)

New York, December 31

My brother Iain was not looking happy. I couldn’t actually remember the last time I had seen him look happy, so that wasn’t unusual. It was strange to see him neither angry or mulish, though, and while that change was largely welcome his sudden lack of fire was worrisome as well.

We were standing uncomfortably close together; his room at the Otterburg Clinic – an in-patient rehab facility in the Bronx – was not spacious. Normally Iain loomed over me; he was four inches taller, he had the substantially heavier Savin build (Fi and I favored the Ross side of the family), and considerably more muscle mass. We had both lost weight, but Iain seemed to have somehow shrunk, become less than himself.

“You okay?” I asked him quietly.

“It’ll do.” He sounded resigned.

“Anything you need?”

He shook his head.

It was time for me to go, but I felt like I still hadn’t reached him. “Iain . . . Can you tell me what’s wrong? What happened?”

He sighed. “Drugs, Spam. If you don’t know, you don’t know. That’s why I agreed to come here. I’m not getting high anymore. I’m just keeping myself from falling through the floor.”

I wanted to give him a hug, but I knew better. Iain would never accept comfort from his little brother. I couldn’t do much more than say, “I’m so glad you were willing to give this a try.”

He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Thanks. For . . . setting this up. And everything.”

I got ready to leave, but he stopped me. “Fi said she gave the folks an ultimatum about bringing me back in the fold. Tell me you didn’t do that, too. I don’t want their money, or their piety, or their hypocrisy. But that’s my fight, not yours. Understand?”

I was happy to see some signs of life back in him, even if it felt like he was only really alive when he was angry about something. I gave it two second’s thought and decided it was time. “I’ve got my own issues with the ‘rents, Iain, so I’m not just walking away from them over you.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Spam,” he said. “You were always the peacemaker. Drove me nuts, too.”

I looked at him, exasperated. “Yeah, I’d probably still be trying to get you all to be singing Kumbaya if it were an option, but it’s not. Dad and Mom would never accept that one of their children was trans.”

He did a double take. “You?!” He sounded both incredulous and amused.

I nodded.

He just started laughing, and it wasn’t a nice laugh. “Dude, when you try that joke, it’s gotta be plausible. Dad had no trouble imagining that I’d sleep with a guy. But you? Trans? Keep it real, Spammy.”

I could feel my face turning red. Through clenched teeth, I said, “Being trans has nothing to do with whether you can look the part convincingly, you idiot!”

He just laughed harder. “Who said anything about looks? You probably could pass, with your small hands and all that hair.”

“Then what makes you so God-damned certain I’m not trans?”

He stopped laughing, and looked completely serious. It wasn’t an improvement. “Spam, in that sheltered, normie bubble you live in, you don’t even know transwomen. I do. And I’ll tell you this, little brother. It takes more guts to be trans than you’ll ever have!”

There were a million things I wanted to say, but I suddenly realized that I didn’t have the energy. I was past caring what he thought of me. “Sixty days, big brother. Try not to fuck it up.”

I turned and walked out, the sound of his derisive laughter following me down the linoleum-floored hallway.

~o~O~o~

College Park, Maryland, December 31, eight hours later

I was finally home in my cozy garage apartment. I closed the door behind me, dropped my bags, and just stood for a moment, taking in the familiarity of it – the safety and security.

I had only been gone eleven days, but I had been on quite the roller-coaster, dealing with one challenge after another. Meeting my brother-in-law to be. Handling my sister’s grief over her alienation from our parents. Getting assaulted at a Christmas Party. Cleaning up the legal mess from the assault. Dealing with my brother’s arrest. Having an old friend find out I was trans and turn his back.

There had been many, many high points too. Christmas with Fi and Henry. My madcap New York adventure with the incredible Nicole. Making my first argument in court. But on the whole, I thought, what I need right now is some peace and quiet. Time to sit still, to process, to put the pieces of my life back into some sort of recognizable order.

It was New Year’s Eve; there would be parties and dancing, toasting in the New Year. I was content to be right where I was.

But not as I was. Because I had to deal with New York officialdom, I had been dressed and acting as Cameron Savin for the past five days, with the time spent with Nicole as my sole escape. Tomorrow was a holiday, and I could put away all of that for a day and two nights. What a blessing!

All of the Cameron clothes I had taken with me would need to be washed or dry cleaned; I had only brought enough male attire for two days, thinking I would just need it for New Haven. I had stretched everything out to last longer, and it showed. So rather than carefully hanging it all, I dropped it on the back of the couch for later bagging. Socks, underwear and shirts into the hamper.

I went naked into the bathroom and did not emerge for forty-five minutes, by which time I was washed, shaved, shampooed, conditioned, and properly padded. I could be Cami once again.

I could be me.

I slipped into the only nightie I had not taken with me on my travels – a pale blush charmeuse nightgown Liz had given me in Philadelphia. It felt wonderful to the touch and silky on my freshly-showered body. I stepped into a clean pair of panties, pulled them into place, made myself a cup of tea and sat in my comfortable chair, legs tucked up, a fleece throw wrapped around my shoulders.

On a whim, I ran a search on my streaming service and found a performance of Tosca. I hit play and closed my eyes, letting my mind wander.

I hadn’t even been dating Liz a year ago. We were working together on her employer’s case, but everything was still very professional. I imagined what it would be like, if I could go back in time twelve months and talk to my only slightly younger self. To tell that assured young man what was in store for him. Would he have been able to handle it?

He might guess the cost of the incredible transformation I had undergone this past year – the loss of friendships, the rejection by parents.

But could he possibly understand or appreciate what I had gained? The experiences that I had shared with Liz? The amazing closeness of my new relationship with Fiona? My friendships – Al and Javi, Sarah, Nicole – that would never have occurred in the ordered, regulated world Cameron Savin had occupied?

Not a chance.

Cameron had been insufficient for the world that had opened before me over the past year. As Cami, I had managed. Hopefully, I would continue to. The one thing I was sure of, as I sat and drank my tea and listened with dawning interest to the world of opera, was that 2020 would be filled with even more challenges.

Ready or not, here they come.

~o~O~o~

CHAPTER TWO
“risplenda un di seren”
– Verdi, Les vêpres siciliennes, Merce dilette amiche (Aria)

College Park Maryland, New Year’s Day

I was still having terror dreams. I had only had one night – the night of my frolic with Nicole – that I had managed an uninterrupted night’s sleep. When I woke up at 4:30, I decided it was close enough to my usual wake-up time that I should just get on with it.

If they continued, I was going to have to talk to someone about these dreams, residue from the assault a week ago. I would normally wait; I optimistically hoped that they would start to fade given some time. But I was scheduled to see a psychiatrist on Saturday morning anyway.

Per Sarah’s and Fiona’s suggestions, I had gotten in touch with specialists in transgender health to assist me in transitioning to my new life as a woman. Fi’s contacts had gotten me straight through to a clinical psychiatrist who would be be able to coordinate and oversee fairly comprehensive care. I thought I might as well raise the dreams then, too.

A new year should begin with good habits. My resolution to be better about sleep had not survived a day, but there was still a chance for my exercise-related resolution. So I got out of bed, changed into yoga pants and a sports bra, had a big glass of water and got busy.

Ten minutes of stretches. Twenty-five minutes of intense aerobic cheerleading routines. Ten more minutes of stretches. I pushed myself hard and by the end of the session I was hot, sweaty, and seriously virtuous. Back to the shower!

By 7:00 am, I was doing laundry, and had a lot to do. I was wearing a simple dress with capped sleeves and a pretty bra and panty set; my hair was set in the over-the-shoulder loose braid I had adopted for daily wear, and I was wearing light makeup and a dash of perfume.

This despite the fact that I was not, not, not going to leave the apartment today. I was going to do laundry, and listen to music, and do some reading. And make some calls. But I was staying home, even if that meant that I would be eating something from the freezer.

Which it did.

No, I was nicely dressed because I like dressing nicely. I feel better, more connected. Like the song says, I enjoy being a girl. Sometimes it’s no more complicated than that.

By noon my laundry was mostly done and I had caught up on both news and opinions concerning the world and the nation. The House of Representatives would be sending articles of impeachment to the Senate at some point in the next two weeks, and there was a great deal of discussion about that. The facts were mostly all known, though, so most of the chatter was just rehashing the same things people had been writing for weeks.

I had some work that I could do in advance of tomorrow. I had worked out of Curt’s apartment on Monday and Tuesday when I wasn’t dealing with Iain’s issues, but inflow had kept up with the outflow. Still, I was in pretty good shape. I decided to wait on that and make some calls first.

My first call was to Fiona. She tended to use Skype from her home computer, so I tried that first.

I got a pick-up after four rings, but it was Henry whose image showed up on my screen. “Hey Cami! A very happy New Year! How are you?” Henry, who would be a charming prince if America had royalty and if New England had charm, was looking very cheerful.

“I’m doing great, Henry. How about the two of you?”

He said, “We’re good. Things settled down very quickly after Christmas, given the way you managed things concerning Jonathan. Fi . . . well, she took a while to calm down, but she’s mostly there.”

He gave my image a close look. “You look dazzling as always, Cami, but if I may presume on our almost in-law status, you also look tired. Are you sure everything’s okay?”

Like I say, “charming.” Also, he cooks. Really, really well.

I sighed. “There’s been trouble with Iain. I dealt with it, but I need to bring Fi up to speed.”

“Oh! I’d get her right away, but she got called into work. Is it an emergency?”

I was surprised. Fiona’s a doctor and works at MassGeneral, but she’s in the infectious disease division, not the ER. “On New Year’s Day?” I queried.

“Yeah. They’ve got information on an outbreak of something in China that they called her in for; I gather it’s an ‘all hands’ kind of thing.”

“Seems pretty far afield for an emergency.”

“I hear ya,” Henry replied, “but it’s not all that unusual. Fi’s always telling me that in her line of work, it really is a ‘small world after all.’”

“Well, my call’s not urgent. Like I said, I think I’ve got things under control. But if you could ask her to give me a jingle when she gets in, I’d appreciate it.”

My next call was to Liz. She’s an iOS kind of person, so I shot her a text and asked if she had time to do a FaceTime so I could wish her a happy New Year. Rather than responding, she just used FT to video call me.

I had clearly caught her at the end of an exercise session of her own; her skin was gleaming, her face and chest were flushed, her sweat-dampened hair was in a headband and she was wearing a tightfitting rayon top. All of which is to say, she looked healthy, happy, and generally wonderful.

“Happy New Year, Cami!” She was still breathing hard but grinning like the joyful predator she is. “Don’t you look cool and pampered!”

I laughed. “Way ahead of you, sleepyhead. I finished my exercise six hours ago.”

She shook her head in disgust. “Only one type of exercise I’d even consider at that hour of the morning.” She stopped. “I don’t suppose . . . .”

I laughed and told her not to be silly.

We caught up. I told her about Christmas, but decided for some reason not to tell her about the assault. Maybe I had gotten that out of my system talking to Nicole. However, I did tell her about meeting Nicole and about our wild adventure in New York, which made her laugh hard.

“I can just see you dancing on table tops, mooning the Met . . . . Oh, my God! But seriously, Cami . . . Opera?”

I told her about what had happened with Iain. And about our last encounter.

“Are you shitting me?” she said. “He thinks you don’t have the guts? Does he know you at all?”

I shook my head. “Not really. He left home right after high school and disappeared into the New York art scene; I was, what? Fourteen, maybe fifteen when he left? I’ve . . . .”

I paused, trying to find the right words. “Even before this last year, I had changed a lot. Grew up a lot. I pretty much remade myself in Law School because I didn’t like the person I had always been. But Iain and I never saw each other often enough, or for long enough, for him to get any of that. In his mind, I’m still the snotty younger brother he was happy to leave behind.”

“You know, Cami, I try . . . I really do. But I will never understand your family. How did you turn out so good?”

I asked her about her own Christmas, and she was glowing. Lots of family, all of them getting along. Dinner with her best friends from work on Friday.

She said, “I did what you suggested. I let them know that you were coming out as transgendered, though not yet at work. And I asked them about getting together on MLK weekend.”

“And?” I asked, thinking about Curt.

“I told you, I know these guys. They were all completely okay with it. Janet was a bit startled, I think, but she just wanted to see pictures. Then Tish did, then the guys did too. They couldn’t believe it, but they’re all really eager to see you.”

“Liiiiiz!” I drew her name out like a threat. “Which pictures?”

She grinned at me evilly, but very quickly said, “The G-Rated ones. Only those. You know you can trust me.”

I did, and said so. And every time someone who knew me as Cam was willing to accept me as Cami, I felt a surge of . . . what? Relief, of course, but more than that. Rightness? Joy? Something special, anyway.

I asked about her weekend.

She hesitated and gave me a sideways look.

“Derek?”

She nodded, still looking uncertain. This was dangerous ground for us.

I thought to myself, Cami girl, it’s past time. Do the right thing.

So I looked straight at the camera and gently said, “Liz. It’s okay. I’m okay. Really. And I want, want, want you to be happy. Derek is making you happy. Or at least,” I said with a sly look, “satisfied.”

That got a smile.

I continued, “So let me put down a marker. We’re girlfriends now, alright? And you don’t hold back on your girlfriends. Dish!!!”

It still hurt, some. Maybe more than some; my attraction to Liz was powerful.

But we hadn’t been a “couple” since last August, and our decision to continue a form of sex play had been contingent on neither of us getting involved in a serious relationship. Although that hadn’t been the triggering event, it was clear to me at Thanksgiving that our intimate relationship would need to come to an end, for both of our sakes.

For myself, I had gradually awakened to the realization that, while I was more comfortable in a supporting role in sex, I didn’t want to be a passive participant. I might want Fred Astair as my dance partner, but I wanted to be Ginger Rogers, not the hat rack.

For Liz, though, our sex play had been potentially more destructive. She recreated, in exaggerated form, the warped power dynamic that had brought her so much pain during her ten-year marriage, just with her in the role of her dominant ex-husband and me in the position of the perfectly submissive plaything. She could never break free of the trauma of her failed marriage while reenacting it.

She needed to move on. Because we were so emotionally close, she knew I still had romantic feelings for her and wanted to shield me from the pain of watching her do it. But that would only serve, over time, to create a wider gulf between us.

I had to convince her that I was alright – indeed, that I was cheering for her. Fake it ’til you make it, Cami. And I would.

She was quiet for almost a full minute, staring at my image on her screen, as if she could see into my heart. Maybe she could; Cami would never even have been born but for Liz. She had a very direct gaze, her stunning green eyes almost unblinking.

I stared back projecting calm, sincerity, and honest curiosity. When I need it to, my face shows exactly what I choose to show. I may not be Cameron anymore, but I still know his tricks.

I won, I guess.

She finally said, “Okay, girl, I’ll dish. But only ’cuz you made me.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said contritely, an echo of Candi in my voice.

She stuck out her tongue. “Derek and I had a great time Saturday afternoon. He, umm, had a couple of new ideas, you know?”

One of the things Liz really liked about Derek was that he was eager to try new things in bed. Like me, Liz had a fairly conventional background and had, throughout her marriage and her sexual experiences both before and after it, a fairly conventional sex life. We had disrupted that pattern, and she discovered that she liked exploration. She just liked doing it with a guy. A real guy.

I smiled. “What new? Hanging from the chandeliers?”

Her smile had a distracted quality. “No. Well, but . . . .” And then she got quiet and, if anything, even more tentative than she had been before. “The important thing is, he spent the night.”

“And . . . . ?”

“Cami, all of those one-night stands I’ve had, I’ve never had them here. When Derek became a – ah – repeat player, I had him over here a couple of times. But, we would have sex, it would be great, we might do it again, then out he goes. Or, we would meet somewhere else. We would have sex. And off we’d both go.”

“Cameron slept over.” I made it a simple observation.

“I know, but that was different. Or, I hoped it would be.” She gave me a sad-sweet smile. “I was trying for something real, something long-term. Like – well, better than – what I’d had when I was married.”

I’d known that, of course, but hearing her say it still made my throat tighten. So I just nodded, as if to say, “Go on.”

“So, waking up and finding Derek in my bed, I realized . . . . maybe this is something real, too. Maybe we aren’t just playing around. Maybe I need to take this seriously.”

I leaned forward and used a tone I had never used with her before. “Liz, honey . . . . can you tell me why that’s a bad thing?”

She was startled; throughout our relationship – our multiple relationships, as I traveled the twisting road from Cam to Candi to Cami – Liz had always been in the driver’s seat, the dominant partner. But she needed something else right now, and just maybe my last incarnation could give it to her.

She nodded as if in recognition, and whispered, “Because I’m scared.”

Liz had somehow emerged from the breakdown of her marriage a strong, exceptionally good-looking woman who was always perfectly put together. Confident, competent, and unapologetically strong-willed, she knows her own mind and likes it. That Liz would be scared was hard enough to imagine; that she would admit it to me, six years her junior and a novice at the whole being a girl thing, told me that this was really serious.

But I had seen Liz weep over her marriage, three years after she had ended it. In fact, I’d kind of been the precipitating cause of her weeping over it, which might be why she was opening up to me and not to one of her other, older and more experienced, friends. She carried a lot of baggage, and a lot of scars, from ten years of trying to be the perfect little wifey that she thought she was supposed to be.

If Derek was getting close – especially if it happened without Liz having meticulously planned for it in detail and in advance, leaving herself prepared fall-back positions and clear and unobstructed lines of retreat – I could definitely see that it might cause her to freak out.

“It’s Jack, isn’t it?” I asked quietly.

She nodded once, looking miserable, then shook her head almost angrily. “It’s Jack, but it’s more me than Jack. We tried so hard. And it wasn’t enough. I know we had something. We were so certain on our wedding day. And it all just trickled away, until one day I woke up and found I was sharing a bed with a complete stranger. But he hadn’t changed. Jack was always the same guy.

“It was me. I changed. God, I can’t go through that again!”

I wished so badly that I could just hold her, and found myself thinking, irrelevantly, that Cami’s first instinct when someone was in pain was to rely on touch, where Cam’s never had been. That tool was unavailable in this circumstance. Dammit.

I also knew that Liz hated to cry and was trying very hard not to. I flashed back to how Nicole had managed me in a similar state, just a couple days before. I put all of my love, all of my compassion and concern, into my eyes, the set of my mouth, the entire expression of my face.

But I kept my voice light, conversational, just touching the outer boundary of levity. “Liz, have you considered the possibility that you didn’t have any idea who you really were at eighteen? Or, the likelihood that, at thirty-three, you’ve overcome that handicap? Most people do, you know.”

The cat-green eyes blinked, then narrowed. A ghost of a smile – the one that says, “I know what your game is, girl!” – danced around her lips. But her anguished look eased and she took a long breath. “Yes, I have actually considered those things, oh Great Swami!”

“And . . . you’re right, obviously. I know it up here,” she tapped her head. “It’s my gut that gives me trouble. I had a pretty visceral reaction when I woke up Sunday morning, I can tell you. And enough of my freak-out bled through that I felt I had to offer to join him for dinner to make up for it.” Her voice sounded much more normal.

I kept my tone easy, unthreatening. “Was it a good dinner? Did you feel like you had a connection, even outside the bedroom?”

The question surprised her and she had to think about it. “It was a nice dinner,” she concluded after a moment. “Really nice. We had a good time. He’s actually pretty funny, in an easygoing way . . . . as you know, my own sense of humor tends to have a bit of a bite. But yeah, I’d say we connected.”

“Okay, Liz,” I said. “Why don’t you just take it a step at a time? You don’t need to decide if it’s serious, or if he’s Mr. Right. You just need to see whether there are other parts of your lives where you seem to fit. You kind of came into this relationship backward, starting with the sex. So you know the engine works, you just don’t know much about the rest of the car.”

She looked thoughtful.

I smiled. “I know it’s hard to believe after the two of you spent a couple of months trying out half the beds in Pittsburgh, but you kind of just had your first date with the guy. Try a few more.”

This time she laughed easily. “God, I love you, Cami!” Then she sobered and said, quietly and sincerely, “Thank you.”

We ended our call a bit later, after chatting idly about this and that and making plans for MLK weekend. I had to sit for a few minutes afterward and recover. And tell myself I was doing the right thing.

I worked for a couple hours, expecting to hear from Fi. Along about 4:00 I wrapped up and logged my time. I decided I needed to do something completely frivolous and hunted down a movie based on a line Sarah had deliberately misquoted the last time I’d seen her.

I had never seen The Princess Bride, but I discovered that some of the lines were so iconic they had filtered into the broader culture. I spent a wonderful couple of hours in the company of Westley and Buttercup, Inigo Montoya and Miracle Max, and ended up feeling “mostly” better.

I was cooking a stir-fry from chicken and vegetables I had pulled from the freezer when I got a text from Fi. “Heard you need to talk. I’ll be home by 7:30. That okay?”

I confirmed.

I punched up her Skype account at the scheduled time, a cup of tea at my side. Fi looked a bit distracted, but otherwise good.

“Hey kid,” she said, “Happy New Year!”

I smiled warmly. “To you too, Fi. Miss you guys!”

She got right to business. “So . . . trouble with Iain?”

I explained.

Her reaction was fairly clinical. “I agree he’s never been physically violent before, far as I know. But the temper’s always been there — I should know, since I have it too.” She flashed a smile, but it disappeared quickly. ''Of course, depending on what he’s gotten into, drugs can wear away your inhibitions.”

She sighed. “Iain and I were never close. Not like you and I were when you were little and I was looking after you. He was always so . . . .” she searched for the right word and couldn’t find it.

I decided to be helpful. “Angry? Oppositional? Surly?”

My litany made her laugh. “Yeah, all that. And moody, and dramatic . . . . I never figured him out. Mom and Dad never figured him out. No wonder they buried themselves in church; it was cheaper than booze.”

But he had also, always, been the big, strong brother, the natural athlete, the guy who could and would go toe-to-toe with Dad.

As a child, I had learned to navigate the dangerous waters that divided my parents and my brother, and occasionally found words to calm the tempests between them.

Useful skills, though they had earned me Iain’s contempt. Useful for an attorney, and, I was finding, useful for a woman, too. Maybe even natural for a woman.

“So it sounds like you managed to bail him out of jail, sweet-talk the DA, buy off his roommates and get him into a rehab facility. For which, I’m sure, you received no thanks at all from Iain.” Fi gave me a look. “But I’m grateful, even if he isn’t. I don’t know how long it would have taken me to get all of that worked out, or even if I could. At least, let me pay for it.”

She saw my gathering protest and stopped me. “Don’t be silly, Cami. You know what my situation is here. I’m not hurting for money, and that would be true even if I wasn’t engaged to Croesus.”

“Fi, this isn’t Hutchinson family business, it’s Savin family business. Besides, you and Henry haven’t even set a date.”

She smiled smugly. “Ummm . . . well, about that . . . .”

All thoughts of money and idiot brothers momentarily vanished and I practically squealed, “You DID?!!!”

She nodded happily.

“I am so happy for you! You are perfect for each other!”

She smiled at me fondly. “January 16, 2021, little sister. Got anything on your calendar?”

I teased, “I think I can free up the date. But you’ll owe me.”

She replied, grinning wickedly, “Oh, I’ll repay you, ’cuz I get to choose your Maid of Honor dress!”

I laughed so hard my eyes watered, but when I got myself under control I said, very firmly, “Fi, you told me that Cassie Johnson was going to be your Matron of Honor. She should be.”

She looked exasperated. “She was, but that’s before I even knew I had a little sister.” She paused and added softly, “who I happen to love very much.”

That made me tear up. “Thank you. It means so much to me that you would offer. I can’t tell you how much. But Cassie’s been there for you all through med school, through thick and thin. You were her Maid of Honor, and she should be yours. . . . I’d really like to be a bridesmaid though, if you’ll have me.”

She glowered. “Where did all of this stubborn come from?”

I looked innocent.

“All right,” she conceded. “You win. But only if you let me pay for Iain’s nonsense.”

That set off another round of arguments, wherein I was beaten back from my starting position of “You don’t have to pay anything” to “Fifty-fifty, and no more arguments,” to my covering the cost of restitution to the roommates and Fi covering the far costlier rehab. I was also out the bail money, but I would get that back after Iain completed rehab and the charges were dropped.

In the end, she had persuaded me by pointing out that our parents had helped her with the cost of med school and she’d been paying down her loans longer, while I had to cover law school myself and my outstanding debt was higher.

“Besides,” she said, “you are going to have some new expenses yourself. I don’t know what your insurance situation is, but it’s a fair bet that at least some of the gender affirmation treatment you will want isn’t going to be covered.”

That, I expected, was only too true. I conceded – I hope with good grace.

As I got myself ready for an early bed an hour or so later, I decided it had been a very good day. I had needed to just recharge my batteries a little. I smiled sleepily and thought I should do it more often.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER THREE
“Hör ich nur diese Weise”
– Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Liebestod (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, January 4

“Cameron Savin? Please come this way.” The receptionist led me out of the waiting room, which looked like every waiting room in every medical services building in every city I had ever lived in. We walked down a carpeted hallway – at least they had avoided the institutional white linoleum – and stopped at a door that bore the name plaque “Kiara Chun, M.D.”

Fiona had talked to colleagues and gotten several recommendations for me, and I had researched each of them, read their biographies and reviews on sites that aggregate them.

I had chosen Dr. Chun mostly because her life story spoke to me: raised in Thailand, educated in the United States, she was the daughter of a Hindu woman and a Korean man – neither society being known for being especially tolerant of mixed-race children. If anyone could understand this new and strange world I was in, it would be the woman who survived such an amazing journey.
I had positively agonized about what to wear for this appointment. It was unseasonably warm and foggy, so I didn’t need to dress for winter. Should I wear a dress? Would that be too obvious? Skirt and blouse? Jacket? How should I do my hair?

Ugggh!!! I wanted to look confident in my femininity, but confidence eschews exaggeration. I wanted to be taken seriously. I wanted to be relatable. Above all, I wanted to be believed.

I wanted too damned many things!

In the end, I went with a simple sky-blue A-Line dress with a U-neck coupled with a navy-blue jacket I had just purchased. The combination would be suitable to wear at work. Someday. I wore nude pantyhose and my black pumps, kept the makeup morning light and discrete, and stuck with my tried-and-true over-the shoulder loose braid.

Hopefully, the package would say, “I’m a professional woman who has a medical issue to raise with her doctor,” rather than, “I’m a guy who desperately wants to be accepted as a woman.”

Damn, I thought. This is going to be hard.

The receptionist knocked on Dr. Chun’s door and opened it. A woman got up from behind the desk to walk to the door and greeted me with a warm smile.

She was petite – scarcely surprising given her heritage. Her features seemed very Korean, but her skin was darker, with reddish undertones. It was an unusual combination. I would never have been able to guess her age, but as it happened, I didn’t need to. I had found in my search that she was thirty-seven. A decade older than me.

“Please come in,” she said in a pleasant contralto. I crossed the threshold . . . a big step . . . and the receptionist closed the door behind me.

Rather than shaking my hand, she took me by the elbow and guided me to a pair of arm-chairs.

No couches, thank God.

“I’m Dr. Chun. Please have a seat.”

“I’m Cameron Savin, but informally I’m using Cami.”

“Would you like me to call you Cami?”

I was actually conflicted. Cami is a bit informal, while Cameron can be a girl’s name as well as a boy’s, it’s just less common. Still, I’d put the name out there, so I had better use it. “That would be fine.”

“Okay, Cami. You made an appointment to see me about Gender Affirmation Services. But why don’t you start by telling me in your own words why you’re here and what you are looking to accomplish.”

This is it.

“I’ve come to realize that I am a woman. Here,” I said, touching my chest, “where it counts. Although I’m currently dressing as a male for work, that’s temporary, and the rest of the time I am dressing and interacting with others as a woman. What I want . . . .”

I paused, trying to remember how Sarah had put it. “What I want is to look in the mirror and see the woman that I know myself to be. I don’t want to wear padding, I want to be padded. I want to hear my voice and know that it’s a woman talking. I want people who interact with me to simply think of me as a woman, not a trans woman.

“I don’t know what I will need to do, to make all of that a reality. Whether I need hormone therapy, or surgery, or what. But that’s the goal.”

This was Dr. Chun’s specialty; she had heard lots of wishes, hopes and dreams, so she didn’t look surprised at anything I had said.

“We can absolutely help you with all of that. We have relationships with otolaryngologists for voice therapy. With endocrinologists for hormone therapy and dermatologists for hair removal. Finally, we have relationships with surgeons who perform cosmetic surgery, breast augmentation surgery, and vaginoplasties if you decide to go that route, though there are some constraints that mostly relate to what can happen when, and in what sequence.”

She paused, making sure I was following her, then added, “But you don’t need to make any of those decisions today. Instead, I’d like to engage in a process that will help you decide which, if any, of those services makes sense for you.”

“If any?” I asked, a bit surprised.

“That’s right. You must know that you already present well as a woman – and I’d like to talk to you more about that later. If your primary goal was simply to be able to pass as a woman when dressed, you’re already well on your way. Which is not to say you can’t make refinements. If that doesn’t meet your goals, you can decide to use additional services. But every part of it, each step, is your decision. Okay?”

“Perfect.”

Next up was my life story, or at least those elements that had a bearing on my feelings about gender and gender identity. It wasn’t easy for me to open up about any of it. It was – is – deeply personal, and much of it is as embarrassing as hell.

But Dr. Chun is really, really good at her job. By asking questions in an easy, nonjudgmental and routine way, she got me to discuss difficult subjects like dressing up in party dresses when I was young, or learning to masturbate while wearing my sister’s outgrown swimsuit. She made me realize that these are background questions she commonly asks clients seeking gender affirmation care, and my responses weren’t necessarily out of the norm for that population.

Some of her questions kind of surprised me. Like, “How do you feel about having a penis?”

“It’s an appendage. I don’t love or hate it, but that’s like saying I don’t love or hate my big toe. Why would I?”

“Some transwomen report feelings of disgust concerning their penis; it’s not unusual. But we’re just trying to get the lay of the land here.”

“Well . . . I guess my penis is small relative to other adult males. So, I suppose that means it might not be optimally designed for one of its two functions. For my own purposes, it also gets in the way when I’m wearing clothes designed for women, and that can be annoying. But it doesn’t bother me. I really don’t give it much thought.”

She wanted to know about my experience of puberty. I said there wasn’t much to tell, since not that much happened. My voice dropped, but not that much. Shoulders, feet, penis, all got bigger . . . but not by much. Minimal face and body hair growth. No issues with acne. I do recall thinking for a period that I kind of smelled bad. But on the whole, it had been a non-event.

“How did that make you feel? Were you . . . disappointed? Relieved? Did you experience feelings of inadequacy?”

I had to really think about those questions. “I suppose I was disappointed. My older brother ended up tall – about 6’2” – as well as strong and athletic. I guess maybe I assumed I would look like him, and when puberty sort of passed me by I realized I’d always be the runt.”

She asked me if I had been dressing since high school, and I shook my head.

“No; that was a pretty brief thing, really wrapped up with exploring masturbation – though I didn’t even know that’s what it was called at the time, if you can believe it.”

"When did you start dressing again, and why?”

And that, of course, was where the rubber met the road. Explaining my relationship with Liz was hard. But it had to be done. I decided I would try to be as clinical, as detached and impersonal, as possible.

“A woman I was dating broke up with me because I wasn’t satisfying her sexually. I was very invested in the relationship and pushed to continue it in some form. We discovered that we were both erotically stimulated by sex play that involved her in a variety of dominant roles and me in submissive ones.

“The primary tool she employed was to feminize me, at first by giving me specific things to wear. But later, she had me select, purchase, and model outfits for specific hypothetical occasions, like a dinner with friends or a beach party. To do it well, I had to really try to think about how I presented myself, in ways that women do and guys just don’t.

“And . . . I loved it. I had an increasing sense that the ‘real me’ was actually expressed when I was thinking, acting and dressing as a woman. I realized that it wasn’t a game for me, and that I’m transgendered. That’s when Liz and I ended our role-playing. With the temporary exception of work, I’ve been living as a woman since then.”

I expected at least a look of surprise – the story sounded crazy even to me, and I had lived it. I expect my face was flaming.

But she looked unperturbed, just taking a few notes. as she had throughout. “Can you give me a timeline on these events? How long ago did all of this happen?”

“The first time she had me wear panties was, I think, August of last year. We continued our sex play through Thanksgiving, which is when I concluded for certain that I’m transgendered, though I probably began to suspect it in early October.”

That, oddly enough, was the first thing to surprise her. The delicate brow over her right eye might have inched upward half an inch. “Then this must all be very new to you. A great deal to handle all at once. Yet, I get the sense that you are deeply certain. Can you tell me about that?”

Her voice was warm and understanding, but she touched one of the fears I agonized about when I made my appointment: that she might think, because of how quickly this change had come over me, that it was a passing idea, almost like a fad or something. I had already given my answer a lot of thought.

“I know I haven’t always felt I should have been a girl,” I said, probably a bit defensively. “And I know a lot of trans girls and women have had that experience. But every step I’ve taken on this journey, I’ve just been overwhelmed by a sense of rightness. That I’ve suddenly discovered what I was meant to be.”

Searching for an analogy, I said, “It’s like that movie scene when Dorothy lands in Oz and discovers what color looks like. She wouldn’t have ever noticed that her world was colorless before, because all she ever knew was black and white.”

She cocked her head. “But Dorothy spends the rest of the movie trying to get back to her black and white world. You don’t think that might happen to you. Why not?”

It was interesting that she hadn’t asked whether I thought it might.

Reassuring, too. “Dorothy was a child, and she missed her home. Her Aunty Em. I left home when I was twenty-one, and I don’t think I’ll even return for a visit now. It’s certainly not home anymore. And I’ll be honest: I’ve always thought Dorothy was an idiot for going back.”

She cocked an eyebrow in question.

“Have you been to Kansas?”

Dr. Chun, I discovered, had a very musical laugh. Nicole would love it.

“Seriously, though,” I said, “I can’t imagine accepting a black-and white existence after discovering color is an alternative, or a world without sound when you were given the gift of hearing. It’s like that for me.

“When I dress as Cami, interact with people as Cami, I feel like I have access to a whole range of experiences that were closed to me. And most important, my relationships with people – men and women – are just so much deeper, more meaningful, more fulfilling. I feel like I’m completely alive for the first time. I’ll never go back.”

She asked me to expand on that, and I talked about the relationships I had formed, or had renewed. With Liz, but also with Al and Javi, with Sarah.

I talked about my connecting with Nicole on the train, and how that never would have happened to Cam. I talked about our dinner and our midnight adventure, singing and dancing our way through New York.

She wanted to know who else I had told, and who I hadn’t and why.

I told her those stories too – about my parents, and Fi, and Curt. I told her about Iain’s reaction.

“So you will prove him wrong?” she asked.

“I suppose so, but that’s just a byproduct. I don’t have anything to prove to Iain.”

We discussed the things that I had done to try to present myself more credibly as a woman, from the obvious – my prosthetic breasts and my padded panty gaff – to the purely cosmetic (hair, nails, makeup) to my careful observation and study of how women communicate with both men and other women, including both verbal and non-verbal forms. I also mentioned getting detailed feedback from Liz through the initial part of my transition.

We discussed issues concerning sexual orientation, and I explained that, as Cami, I had found myself to be sexually attracted to men, although I was still attracted to at least one woman. She asked whether I had any romantic or sexual encounters with men. I explained about my kiss with Steve.

And then I stopped.

She waited.

I took a deep breath. “There is another event, and I was meaning to talk to you about it as well, for other reasons. I was assaulted at a Christmas Party by a man who had discovered that I was trans, and who wanted me to” – here I thought of Cornelius’ dry prose – “perform fellatio on him. Which I didn’t.”

She put her pen down and asked me whether I had reported the assault to the police.

“No,” I responded. “He was related to my sister’s fiancé, so I felt compelled to come up with a resolution that didn’t involve criminal charges and prison. It’s hard to explain, but he was a threat to my sister – to the family that she is going to be joining. And, I wake up at night, almost every night, having terror dreams about danger to Fiona.”

“Not danger to you?”

I shook my head. “No. From the moment the attack started, I was just overwhelmed by fear for Fiona. I’d say it was irrational, but it wasn’t – the danger to Fi was real. But, it’s certainly irrational to still be afraid. It’s like feeling aftershocks from an earthquake.”

She took some more notes, asked some more questions. At the end of our session, she said, “I think we’ve made a good start today. I’m really amazed at the progress you’ve made already in presenting as a woman. You have had many teachers, but you must also be a very good – and very motivated – student.

“There are a couple things I would like to suggest as next steps. I have some materials I want you to review that describe treatment options. What they might accomplish, what their benefits and limitations are. When we have our next session I’d like to discuss some of them with you in more detail.
“I also think it would be helpful to get some bloodwork, to get a baseline of your existing hormone balance. Finally, I’m going to give you a prescription for your terror dreams. But, I don’t want you to start taking it until you get the blood drawn for the lab work.”

That all made sense to me, so we set it up.

I left the office feeling emotionally drained by the two-hour session, but very hopeful. I was starting to take real steps toward my future, and I felt very good about that.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER FOUR
“mi vagan nello spirto”
– Puccini, Manon Lescaut, Donna non vidi mai (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, January 4, immediately following

It was only late morning, and I needed some quiet time to think. Normally I get that at home, but I decided to take advantage of the weather and have a look around the Inner Harbor.

I saw that there was a walking tour that might take an hour or so. I was sorry that it did not include the famous Fort McHenry (“O Say, Can You See?”), but otherwise it sounded perfect.

So I strolled along, seeing the sights. A Civil War era sloop; a WWII era submarine. The morning fog had lifted and the waves sparkled in the harbor.

My mind, turned inward, still took it in and spun it back to me – the story of a city, once a front-line in defense of an infant nation, once one of the young country’s most important ports and commercial centers, now remaking itself. Sometimes growing, sometimes shrinking. Always adapting, evolving. So much history here, in such a small space of time.

The cries of seagulls took me back to the quiet of my own room, listening to recorded sounds of the seashore . . . the smell of chamomile . . . the finality of a text. “I’m sorry Cami, I can’t go there . . . .” A lot of history there, too, in a small space of time.

My history.

Was my desire to express myself as a woman simply a result of external stimuli? A desire to please Liz, in some way to keep her, that just got out of hand? I forced myself to consider the question objectively, as Dr. Chun must have been doing during our interview.

It didn’t ring true to me. Almost as soon as I began the process of self-feminization, the sex play with Liz had become a secondary thing. Wonderful in its own way, and . . . well. The sex had been mind-blowing for me. But still, secondary. As I had told Dr. Chun, each step I had taken had felt more right, more liberating.

The harder question, the one I had avoided thinking about, and that Dr. Chun hadn’t asked, was whether I desired to become a woman because I was simply inadequate as a man.

I was standing on the harbor walk, gazing at the majestic masts and spars of the Constellation, but my brain was no longer processing external stimuli. Was I a failure as a man?

I thought about my physical make up, reversing the objective scrutiny I had given myself when Liz first challenged me to think of my body as female.

I was neither tall nor short; my face was neither strong nor pretty; I had no feature that stood out as being particularly masculine or feminine, save maybe my hands (which, as Iain had remarked, were on the small side – at least the palms; my fingers were longer and tapered). I had body hair (when I didn’t shave), but not much of it.

It had been relatively easy to make myself look like a woman, though women have more tools at their disposal than men. Could I have made myself look more like a man? Would I have wanted to?

“Excuse me, love. Are you okay? You’re looking a bit lost.”

I turned at the sound of a kind voice, saw an older woman standing a couple of feet from me. Pleasant face. Silver hair. Like me, enjoying the unusually warm weather. Unlike me, I thought, she probably isn’t questioning the foundation of her existence.

I smiled warmly. “I’ve just got a lot to think about, that’s all. But it was kind of you to stop. Thank you.”

She returned the smile and gave my arm a pat. “I’ll let you get back to your thinking then. Take care.”

As I watched her walk away I thought how, as Cam, I would never have walked up to a young woman, lost in thought on a Baltimore dockside, and asked her if she was okay. I would have been concerned that I would be perceived as a threat, simply because of my maleness. And, there is an excellent chance that the young woman would at very least have seen such an approach as an unwelcome imposition or a pick-up attempt.

Cam would have held back. Stayed back. Not engaged. But I didn’t want to live like that, and Cami wouldn’t need to.

I hadn’t been a failure as a man. I did okay at it. You don’t have to look like Chris Hemsworth to be a man. But in our society, males do have to think, act, communicate, and relate in ways that I find deeply unsatisfying.

A man is expected to be strong, but in a forceful, dominant way that has no appeal to me. I’m not weak, but my strength simply flows in ways that are not recognized as masculine. I’m a shield, a bulwark, a home port. I have no will to dominate, no desire to control. No urge for aggression.

I can act hard and tough, and when necessary I had done so. But for me it’s an act. Like an introvert who can be the life of a party, I know how to do it. It just drains me. Being a loving and supportive sister, being a caring and compassionate friend . . . these things are the fullest, truest, most life-affirming expressions of my deepest self.

If there’s a secret to men’s relationships I had never gotten the memo, and in that sense maybe I had simply failed as a man. But I didn’t think it was all on me. There are limits to how far men want to open themselves up, and be open to others. At least in my society, in the Year of Our Lord 2020.

I had male friends, especially in law school. Like Curt. We had been close – or what I had thought of as close. But I could never, ever, have had as meaningful a conversation with Curt as I had had with Nicole, whom I had only known for a few hours.

And I wanted that. I wanted all of it.

And I love all the rest, too, though I realized now it was less important to me. I love the pure sensuality of womanhood. The feel of silk against my smooth skin; the moist touch of creamy gloss on my lips; the movement of air against bare legs. The smell of flowers, of perfume. The quiet swish that nylons make when I’m walking in a skirt . . . I revel in it.

Maybe I have gender dysphoria, maybe I don’t. I suppose Dr. Chun will tell me her view about that when the time comes. But I wasn’t running from a life I couldn’t endure. I was running toward one that I could see unfolding before me, as beautiful as a morning glory that opens to greet the dawn.

When it comes to being a woman, I have gender euphoria. That is the pole star that was guiding my steps.

I finally stopped looking blindly at the old sloop and really saw her. She had been designed as a weapon of war, but for those who sailed her she had been hope in the storm, a place of companionship and shared endeavor, a shield against those who would harm them. And in the end, she had brought them safely home. Ships really are women, I thought.

And so am I.

To be continued . . . .

IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE: Dr. Chun is a fictional character, and the description of her session with Cami is not necessarily indicative of what would happen at such a session at any particular institution and for any individual patient. As they say in car commercials, actual mileage may vary. What they mean is, it always does. -- Emma T.

~o~O~o~

CHAPTER FIVE
“Non vado sempre a messa, ma prego assai il Signore”
– Puccini, La Bohème, Sì. Mi chiamano Mimì (Aria)

Beltsville Maryland, January 4

The clerk behind the desk had a studiously neutral expression on his face. “Just step over to station three and they’ll take your photo.” He had reviewed all of my papers, including the certified copy of my birth certificate. Everything was in order, naturally.

But the birth certificate indicated that Cameron Ross Savin was born male and the person in front of the clerk did not look especially male. My application for a Maryland Driver’s License allowed me not to identify a gender, and I had chosen not to do so.

Maybe the clerk didn’t approve; certainly he seemed stiff and formal. But, I told myself, he also works for the DMV. Warm and fuzzy isn’t in their mission statement.

I walked over to station three, my pumps click-click-clicking on the drab linoleum. Following my doctor’s appointment in the morning, I had gone home and changed before running this particular errand. Javier and Al, my landlords, had left me their car to use while they went visiting Javi’s family in Colombia.

My favorite red skirt and a white dress shirt made a statement, but one that wouldn’t show in the official photo. A portrait shot would capture the collar and just the beginning of the shoulders, but wouldn’t reach either my (prosthetic) breasts or the bra straps that could be seen through the light fabric of the shirt.

I wore only the very lightest makeup – foundation, nearly invisible blush, a touch of lip gloss roughly the same color as my natural lips – and my hair was in a ponytail that was gathered mid-way between the low and tight setting I used when dressed as Cam and the high point where I would wear it to affect a pert, “girl next door” vibe.

The photo needed to be ambiguous, because I wanted to be able to use it whether I was dressed naturally or was wearing my Cam-o-flage.

I longed to be able to proudly list my gender as “F” and take a picture that reflected what I knew inside. Part of me felt that what I was doing was an act of betrayal. But I was where I was in my life, caught between being my old self at work, and my new self outside of it. Like most half-measures, it was unsatisfactory.

The woman taking the photos showed me my image. I looked calm and cool and completely sexless. I hated it.

Perfect.

~o~O~o~
Greenbelt, Maryland, 45 minutes later

The bells over the door jingled as I entered the boutique, and Sarah looked up from her reading. “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” she said, giving me her usual once-over. As I walked up to her stool behind the check-out counter, she said, “Cami, either you’re up to something nefarious or you’ve lost your touch. You looked better the first time I saw you. What gives?”

“Let me guess,” I said, “they didn’t teach diplomacy in nun school, either.”

She grinned. “I skipped that class.”

I grinned back. “Really? Well, I knew you’d chew me out for looking like this, but I had to get a Maryland driver’s license since I moved out of the District, and I decided I needed one that I could use regardless of how I’m dressed. I’ll fix my hair and my face before I go. Honest!”

Sarah wasn’t giving me a hard time for aesthetic reasons. She preached the importance of safety for trans people, and especially for transwomen. And in her view, nothing provided more safety than blending in. If people would only see a woman when they looked at me, they wouldn’t give me trouble for being trans.

It was good advice and I had taken it very much to heart. Blending in is easier for me, since I have a build and features that are not overtly masculine. But it still required constant mindfulness and significant effort; Sarah was entirely correct that my current look fell short of my capabilities.

She nodded. “Huh. Let me see the photo.”

I showed her the new ID.

“Yeah, okay. I guess that’s mission accomplished. Definitely ugly enough for a driver’s license.” She handed the photo back. “How long are you going to keep it up? All this jumping back and forth has got to be wearing on you.”

“I’m hoping I only have to make it through the very beginning of April. Three months.”

She made a noncommittal noise, but she followed it with a mischievous smile. “I’ve got a present for you, then. Well, a treat, anyway. Seeing as how you’re a lawyer and all, you can pay for it.”

She walked me down an aisle, stopped, and pulled a garment off a rack. It appeared to be a smallish white tank top with wide shoulder straps and a high U neck, but it was designed as a body suit, with the bottom looking like a leotard. The front had what was clearly recognizable as a men’s fly.

I gave her a sideways look. “Okaaaay . . .”

She laughed. “You don’t get it, do you? It looks small because it’s a Rayon-spandex blend. Stretchy. Under a dress shirt, it’ll look just like a men’s undershirt. But it’ll feel like you’re still a girly girl. How’s that for clever?”

I busted a gut. “Okay, you got me. Gotta have it. Make it two. I don’t know which is more funny – that you thought of me when you saw this, or that a nun shops for kinky underwear!”

She grinned. “I can get you a good bargain on vibrators while you’re here, too. After Christmas special, just for you!”

I giggled. A lot. “You kill me!”

We went back to the counter and she rang up my new underwear. When she was finished, she said, “So what brings you here today? Since you didn’t come to take advantage of my latest sales.”

“Mostly just to see you. I had my first appointment with Dr. Chun this morning. It went well. I’ve got stuff to read, and they need to take some blood work and such. But I’m making a start.”

“Good!”

We chatted about transitioning for a bit. What she had seen, what she thought I might expect.

I managed to get her to talk a bit about how she was doing as well. I’d been in the shop for half an hour and there weren’t any other customers.

“It’s a niche market. I sell enough to keep the doors open and pay a few bills of my own, and I don’t need more than that. Most of my sales are online these days. I get by.”

She asked me about Christmas, and I told her about how I had prevailed upon my sister and brother-in-law to come with me to a midnight service at Boston's Episcopal Cathedral. “I don’t know if it’s the right place for me, but it was sure right that night. I really needed it. I do miss belonging to a faith community.”

“I assume you’ve belonged to one before?” When I nodded, she said, “Let me guess . . . . Evangelical; some variation of Reformed. Right?”

“Yes . . . what, is it tattooed on my forehead, or something?”

“Or something,” she said dryly. “Cami, I’m a professional, or I was. You’d be amazed at the tells everyone has with respect to their religious background. But anyway, you said you miss it. Why not go back?”

“Well, they aren’t wild about LGBTQ+ folks, so there’s that. But I left a long time ago.” I thought for a minute. “I know you were – are? Catholic. So maybe you haven’t been taught that God elects a few for salvation, and the rest are destined for damnation from before they were even born?”

She rattled off the catch-phrases. “Double predestination; unconditional election and reprobation. You’re right. Not in our catechism, but comparative theology was covered in nun school. Amazingly enough.” But then she just looked at me, not giving me any help.

“Well, that is what I was taught,” I explained. “But once I was old enough to really understand the idea . . . I just couldn’t accept it. I can’t. It’s like God is this mad potter who makes a million plates that he fully intends to smash, except for ten that he’ll pull out completely at random.”

I paused and added, quietly, “Except it’s worse than that. Because we’re not talking about ceramics. We’re talking about people. Billions and billions of people. Each made in God's own image. What kind of God would do that?”

Sarah cocked her head. “I do believe I have witnessed a miracle. Somebody left a church because they don’t agree with its theology? I was starting to wonder if anybody took theology seriously anymore.” She was being funny, in a Sarah sort of way, but it was clear she wasn’t making fun of what I had said.

I asked, a bit uncertainly, “You think I shouldn’t?”

“I didn’t say that. I just said almost no one does. Not here, anyway. They choose their church based on whether it’s close to their home, or if they have friends there, or if they like the preacher. Or maybe the choir. Maybe if they have good parking, for all I know.

“And it’s not just Protestants, so don’t think I’m finding fault. If you want to see real ignorance, ask Catholics what the feast of the Immaculate Conception celebrates. Virtually none of them know. Or care.”

“You take it seriously.”

“Sure. But again, I’m a professional. You probably take pleadings and writs and all that seriously; doesn’t mean plain Jane Sarah needs to. But look, if theology matters to you, it matters. If you want a faith community that agrees with your personal theology up and down the line, though, you might have a long hunt.”

I thought about that for a minute. “No, I don’t think I need that. But, I don’t want a faith community that’s built around an idea of God, or of people, that just seems wrong to me.” I was speaking slowly, feeling my way.

Sarah just waited, watching me.

I tried to bring some order to the thoughts swirling in my head. “When I was younger, I was sure I had all the answers. And I wanted everyone to know it, too. But when I got older, I decided I wanted to be the type of person who was quicker to ask questions. More willing to listen. Less likely to force my views on others.”

I smiled ruefully. “Some days I manage better than others, but I do work at it. I guess I’d like to find a community that’s more like that. Less like the way I used to be. Does that make any sense?”

She looked skeptical. “Sounds like a debating society, not a church. Though, there are denominations that exist to have rip-roaring debates about the nature of God, if that’s your jam.”

I shook my head. “Not debating, no. I don’t need more of that. Just . . .” I paused, thought, and came up dry, ending with a sound of disgust. “Gaaaaah! I don’t know.”

Sarah gave me a long, measuring look. “How about a community that gathers to pray together, for each other and for this broken world. Where they share their stories and their struggles, put each other back together and lift each other up. Would that be what you’re looking for?”

“YES!!! Where do I sign up?”

“Don’t be so quick, Cami,” she warned. “I’m talking about a group of transwomen who gather for prayer every month. When I suggested you should talk with other women like you, you didn’t exactly leap on the idea. I didn’t press it. Not my place. I know you want to be seen as just another woman, without any modifier. I get that a hundred percent. Maybe they aren’t your people.”

I’ll confess that I was conflicted, and for exactly the reason Sarah had identified. But I knew that these were Sarah’s people. The flock she poured her heart and soul and vocation out for, every day. Sarah had said she went where the wounded and broken people were, and that few people were as hard-pressed today as the trangendered community.

I knew myself to be privileged in many, many ways. And, I didn’t like to think of myself as “broken.” I’m strong. I’m independent.

I’m arrogant.

I thought of my night terrors. Of my feelings of inadequacy. Of how much it hurt when I was rejected by old friends. By family.

And I’m not broken? I don’t need prayers, and healing? I don’t need the support, the wisdom, of women – of transwomen, dammit! -- who had walked this crazy path before me?

Who do I think I am?

My throat was tight when I tried to give an answer. I managed to husk out, “I would love to join them, Sarah. If they’d have me.”

Sarah dropped her pose of ironic detachment and said softly, “Good. Good. Because no one else can really understand what you’re going through, Cami, even if they’re in your corner. Not family, not friends. Not me. And you can understand what they are going through like no one else. You have a unique ability to lift each other up. Don’t waste it.”

I got myself back under control and thanked her. We talked some more, and I pressed her on details so that I would have some idea what to expect. There were seven transwomen in the group, all with faith backgrounds that were different flavors of Christianity.

Each no longer felt welcome in their “home” church, for a variety of reasons (Though none, according to Sarah, had done anything so bizarre as to leave over a theological dispute!). But, like Sarah herself, their faith had survived the loss of their religious affiliation. They met in a private home belonging to one of the older members.

I asked lots of questions and got answers to some.

Finally, Sarah stopped me. “Christ, Cami, you think too much! Just come and meet them. Be yourself. You’ll figure it out.”

A customer wandered in, and I left so that Sarah could get back to her secular work.

~o~O~o~
Baltimore-Washington International Airport, January 4, late evening

There are few better places to people watch than an airport. Almost everyone is there because they are either going somewhere, coming from somewhere, or dropping off or meeting one of the above. There is a feeling of movement, of purpose.

There are eager people, tired people, bewildered people. There are people making hard good-byes. There are joyous reunions. Brisk men and women of affairs, striding confidently. Wide-eyed children, watching jets take off and land. Overworked flight crews. Every size, race, ethnicity, and style of dress.

The flight from Bogotá had landed minutes ago, and I was in a throng of people waiting for the newly arrived passengers. A college-age girl I had chatted with briefly was standing nearby, waiting for her boyfriend to arrive. Nice girl; very pleasant.

Suddenly she looked radiant, and so did the dark young man who was pushing his way toward her. I felt a lump in my throat as they reunited, joyous, tender, passionate, all rolled together.

“That,” said a humorous voice near my ear, “is why you need to find a Colombian man!”

I spun around, having been distracted from my task. “Javi!!!” I gave him a big hug then gave Al one too. “Welcome back, you two!” I cheerfully took each man by an arm, and, steering toward baggage claim, peppered them with questions about their holiday.

When we got to the car I said, “Let me chauffeur; you’ve been traveling all day. Besides, I’m all legal now.” I told them about my new license, and my meeting with Doctor Chun.

They asked about my own holiday, and I said it had been eventful. We arrived back at the homestead. “I got some staples for your fridge for the morning. Now go get some sleep!”

They laughed, and Al said, “I don’t remember when we had such a nice homecoming. It’s good to see you!”

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER SIX
“Ma raison et mon coeur”
– Donizetti, La Fille du Régiment, Ah! mes amis (Aria)

Washington, D.C., January 6-10

“Good morning,” Eileen said warmly as she walked into the conference room. Unusually, she was the last person to arrive, though she was still right on time.

David, Daviana, Greg, and I were already sitting, the sensible among us (me, Daviana) with a cup of coffee. We all said our good mornings and Eileen got down to business.

“Okay,” she said. “We’ve got just over ten weeks before jury selection. So, we’re going to need folders for each witness – ours and theirs – with outlines of questions, the documents that we’re planning to get in through that witness and the other documents that we want to ask them about. For direct, I’m going to take Jacoby. Dave, can you take Dr. Silverman?”

David Parr nodded; Sam Jacoby was the principal witness for the company and Dr. Richard Silverman was our liability expert.

Eileen continued, “Daviana, I’d like you to handle our damages witnesses, Marcuccio and Wilensky.”

Daviana looked enthusiastic, nodding with a smile.

“Cam, ready to take a witness?” Eileen asked with a grin.

“Absolutely!” I said, matching Daviana’s enthusiasm.

“Great,” she responded. “Thune and Sanchez for you.”

I nodded. These were fairly minor fact witnesses whose testimony was limited – perfect assignments for a second-year associate. I was thrilled.

Eileen divided up the five people on Defendant’s witness list as well so that we could start preparing for cross examination. “I’ve prepared an annotated outline of what I anticipate the closing argument will look like. You’ll see the documents and witnesses I’m using to make the case. Use this as your road-map when you’re preparing your outlines and your folders. If you see something that should be in the outline but isn’t, or is in the outline but lacks support, flag it.”

She next explained that we were using a jury consultant to do a mock trial exercise in mid-February, where we would present summaries of our case to a “panel” of regular people, paid to act as mock jurors for the day. It was an opportunity to shop arguments and see what worked and what didn’t.

It was also a very expensive exercise; the client had to pay for the lawyers’ time, including travel, the consultant’s time, the mock jurors’ time, not to mention all the preparation. But when a case involves a lot of money, clients with the resources understand that there aren’t too many better ways to prepare for trial.

Eileen made the assignments. “David and Cam, I want you to present our case in the exercise; Daviana and I will be the ‘red team.’ We’ll get more details when we meet with the consultant on Thursday.” The team breakdown made sense; David and Daviana had been working on the case from the beginning; Eileen and I were the trial reserves.

The meeting went on in this vein for some time. I watched Eileen with keen interest. She’s like a master craftsman, I thought.

She exuded the sense that she knew her business and took real joy in it. Our questions, comments, and concerns didn't distract her. Rather, she viewed them as teaching opportunities (here’s why we need to do this thing, or do it this way rather than that), and also as opportunities for her to look at issues with a different perspective. She made each of us feel valued and all of us feel like a team.

It was one of our longer meetings. As I walked back to my office, I reflected, bemused, on how I had just stumbled into this job. I went to a big firm because I had a pile of debt and I didn’t want to be paying it off forever. But it had been such a great fit for me. I was learning so much, and had such great people to work with.

I felt a shiver of apprehension. Would it be such a perfect fit, I wondered, when they find out I’m Cami? Will I still feel welcome here? Or will I feel, instead, grudging acceptance? Will I see stiffness and formality, I thought, remembering the face of the DMV clerk, rather than Daviana’s warm cheerfulness, or Eileen’s approval?

I didn’t think so, but then, I had also thought better of Curt, who had been both a good friend and something of an intellectual sparring-partner when we were in law school.

Sitting down at my desk, my pinpoint Oxford shirt slid over the rayon and spandex of Sarah’s hysterical present, and the bottom stretched and tugged against my crotch. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, I decided.
In heels.

~o~O~o~
The remainder of the week passed in a complete blur. I was wholly absorbed in my work and had almost no time to think about anything else. I tried to be in bed by 11:00 and mostly succeeded; invariably I was up by 5:00 and doing my workout.

Each day, I was getting a little bit closer to a challenge that I had set for myself: I wanted to be able to do splits. I worked on this during the stretching phases of my exercises, and generally got closer after the aerobic portion than before. I could get my pelvis as close as three inches from the floor, but I hadn’t achieved my goal . . . yet.

I was at work by 7:30 and often stayed until 9:00 or 10:00. But I didn’t have an instant when I thought I was wasting time or engaged in make-work, which made each day pass very quickly.

I had a call during the week on my “Cami App,” and I took it behind closed doors.

“Good morning, Cami,” an unfamiliar female voice said. “I’m Jill Lavery from Dr. Chun’s office. The doctor asked me to give you a call to let you know that the results of your bloodwork came in. After looking them over, she’d like you to get a physical examination as well. If you have a GP you prefer that’s fine, or we can get you an appointment with one of our affiliates.”

I was a bit surprised and asked if anything was wrong.

“No,” she quickly reassured me. “The doctor just wants a more complete baseline picture. She told me you really preferred Saturdays when possible, and we do have an affiliate who is open and has a cancellation this Saturday – Doctor Sheppard up here in Baltimore. Will that work?”

“I hate to ask this, Jill. But . . . is Dr. Sheppard a man or a woman?”

“It’s Doctor Theresa Sheppard.”

I exhaled, thinking that I really don’t want to have a man examine me anymore. If anyone has to see me in my current, in-between state, let it be a woman. “Okay,” I agreed, and we set it up.

I sat for a moment, thought about what I had going on, and sent a text to my friend Nicole, a very New York City girl who was living in exile in the Baltimore area. “Hey crazy girl. I’ve got a doctors’ appointment in Baltimore Saturday AM. Want to get together after?”

A minute later I got back an enthusiastic “Hell Yeah!”

I was working on a response when I got another text.

“Do U know how to ice skate?”

I had to send back a regretful “No,” but what I got back was “Ha!!! Mags doesn’t either! You girls are getting a lesson!!!”

I could only laugh. Nicole is such a fireball. “Sounds great,” I wrote. “Call you later to coordinate?”

She responded, “I’m home. Call whenev. Love ya!”

I sent her a text hug in return and went back to work, feeling much better.

~o~O~o~
Baltimore, Maryland, January 11

Another morning, another doctor’s office. This one came with linoleum. More paperwork. More signatures. “C.R. Savin,” equivocal.

A nurse taking my blood pressure (110 over 75) and pulse (52); numbers meaningless to me. Height (still 5’10,” just), weight (only 136 pounds – yikes!). An examination room. “Please remove all your clothes and put on this gown, opening to the back. Dr. Sheppard will be in in just a few minutes.”

I removed my sweater, skirt, shoes, panties, and tights. My camisole. Each item came off more slowly as my reluctance increased. I stood for a moment in my bra and panty gaff, then finally sighed and got on with it. I had simply placed my prosthetic breasts into the cups of my bra without attaching them, and as I unhooked myself I felt strangely naked. Finally, I pulled off my panty gaff and freed my penis.

I folded my clothes like they were treasures and carefully set them on a chair. Within sight. Within reach. Here I am, I thought. No disguise, no defense. Except a stupid hospital gown that tied in the back.

It would have to do.

Dr. Sheppard was a willowy woman, about my height, with medium-brown shoulder-length permed hair, hazel eyes, and a clipboard. I thanked her for fitting me in on a Saturday.

She smiled and explained that shifting to a Tuesday-Saturday schedule had allowed her to expand her practice, while giving her staff a weekday off when more things were open.

She went through the usual examination. I hadn’t had all that many; growing up, you went to the doctor when you were sick, not when you were well. But I knew the drill. Tapping the chest, the back. Looking into eyes and down the throat. Reflex tests. The usual.

When she was done with those, she said, “Doctor Chun asked for a set of baseline measurements, so let me do that.” Out came a tape measure. The good doctor was very thorough. My skull, my neck; shoulders, arms, chest, waist, hips, legs, hands, feet. Testicles. Penis. I felt like a prize heifer.

As she was doing her tests and measurements, she kept up a stream of questions covering my medical history, some family history. She asked me about my siblings and my parents. Asked me, as had Dr. Chun, about puberty. She asked about my diet and exercise. How much sleep I was getting. Medications and allergies. Alcohol and drugs. Was I sexually active? What were my work habits?

Answering questions kept me occupied while I was being poked, prodded, and measured.

She wrapped up. “Great. Well, Cami, you seem to be in very good shape from a general health perspective. You need to be better about eating and sleeping. I know, I know. You are super busy. And I get that. I really do; doctors don’t tend to be good at practicing what they preach, especially when it comes to sleep habits.”

She talked a bit about my bloodwork – various markers were low or on the low end of normal – again, the numbers meant nothing to me. She wanted me to start taking a multivitamin every day.

“And,” she said, looking at me sternly, “I know you want to appear more feminine, too. But you can’t starve yourself into the right shape.”

At that, I looked a bit guilty.

“I’m serious, Cami. I’m not saying you need to gain weight, though it wouldn’t hurt you. But I don’t want to see any more weight loss. And I would be interested in knowing what amount of variability you are seeing, so get a scale and track your results daily.”

I asked her whether anything in what she had seen might be an impediment to hormone therapy.

She shook her head. “No, from a general health perspective you’re in good shape. I don’t see any issues that would cause me concerns that way.” Then she was off.

I let out a deep breath. Dr. Sheppard had been very pleasant, very professional and very thorough. But I felt an intense desire to be somewhere else.

I pulled off the hospital gown and, before I proceeded further, pulled the necessary vials from my purse and re-attached my prosthetic breasts, sighing as their familiar weight once again pulled at the skin of my chest and caused me to arch my back slightly, adjusting my posture to compensate for the additional weight. I applied makeup to the seams and hooked myself into my bra, nesting each breast in its lacy bed.

Feeling much more presentable, I tucked, slipped into my panty gaff, and then got dressed again.

Praise be!

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Ed assaporo allor la bramosia”
– Puccini, La Bohème, Quando m'en vo (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, January 11, afternoon

“Cami!! Over here!”

I had just entered a restaurant that was one of the surviving bastions of Baltimore’s old Greektown, and immediately saw Nicole enthusiastically waving to me from further inside. She was sitting next to another woman who I assumed was her roommate Maggie.

I returned Nicole’s wave with equal enthusiasm, a huge smile breaking across my face just at the sight of her, and quickly worked my way back to her table.

She jumped up and gave me a quick hug. “Cami, this is Maggie; Maggie, Cami.”

Maggie was blonde and blue, average height, and had a warm smile. “Just want you to know I’m officially jealous about your New York adventures, Cami – I’m so bummed I wasn’t there!”

I laughed as we all sat down. “It was a riot, that’s for sure. I don’t think I’ve ever had that much fun! But wait – isn’t it like that every night at your place?”

Maggie pulled a face. “Not hardly; it’s work, work, work at ‘Opera House.’”

Nicole giggled and explained. “That’s what we call the row house we live in, because it’s where we do our vocal exercises and our practices, study scores, learn our parts. Give voice lessons. We sleep there, too, but it’s kind of secondary, you know?”

I shook my head. “No place to get away from work?”

They were both wearing the same goofy smile, but Maggie was the one that answered, “Crazy, right? But . . . it’s hard to describe. Nicole said you’re a lawyer?”

I nodded.

She flashed a smile. “Awesome! But . . . is law what you do, or is it what you live for?”

I had to think about that a moment before responding. “I really love what I do, but . . . I guess I’d still say it’s what I do. It’s my craft. It’s not who I am.”

Nicole broke in. “Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. Mags and I talk about this. We really do live for music, for singing. Doesn’t mean I don’t like to go out and have fun.” She shot me a smile full of shared memory. “But I’d just be lost without music.”

Maggie nodded in firm agreement and added, “Yeah. So I bitch and moan about the hours and all – but I have to do it. Can’t stop myself.”

She looked at me shyly. “Nickie told me about that song you sang in Rockefeller Center. ‘How Can I Keep from Singing?’ I know I can’t. I know she can’t. It’s how we both feel – who we are. So it’s work, work, work at ‘Opera House,’ but we’re a happy workforce.”

“Hi ho, hi ho!” Nicole sang, smiling like Happy.

We talked about where they had met and how they came to be roommates, what they thought of Baltimore (“It ain’t New York,” was Nicole’s short take), where they were singing next. Maggie made me feel very comfortable by asking how I was dealing with my transition, in a way that made it completely clear that it was a non-issue for her.

I decided to treat it with the same nonchalance, mentioning that I was now working with a team of medical professionals and hoped to begin hormone treatment in a couple of months.

“Are you excited? Or, is it scary?” she asked, curious.

“Excited. Thrilled. I’m really looking forward to it.”

“You know,” Nicole said, “our voice coach might be able to help you. A lot of what we do in our exercises has to do with learning better vocal control, working to expand our range – that’s pitch control – and learning how to properly support the voice and keep from straining it. If you had a broader vocal range, you could work to reset the pitch where you center your speaking voice.”

I asked who their voice coach was, and chuckled when they told me. “She’s one of the people my medical group uses; I was going over materials they wanted me to study just yesterday. I suppose it’s not surprising since they’re based in Baltimore. You’d recommend her, then?”

They both did, with their signature enthusiasm.

It was a great lunch. So refreshing to be treated as “just folks.” But Nicole, bless her, nixed dessert. “Okay, you two. No more stalling. Let’s find some ice!!!”

So we piled into Nicole’s car and she drove us to a rink. “Mags said she’s done some in-line skating,” Nicole said. “You?”

I had done some rollerblading, though it had been some years. Like, fourteen. Gulp!

“No problem, then!” she said. “It’s the same thing, mostly. It’ll be a blast.”

I was sure that Nicole’s boundless enthusiasm was papering over an entire host of potentially lethal problems, but I was very pleased to discover that she was actually right on the money.

I was still pretty shaky at first, and Maggie was a bit more so.

But Nicole patiently worked us through our initial wobbliness. The main difference is how you stop, and again, Nicole’s instructions were clear and simple, she gave easy to understand demos and displayed no impatience. Within a half an hour we were skating comfortably and having fun, though we were keeping it very simple.

I skated over to Nicole. “Woman, you have a real gift for teaching!”

She grinned. “I’d better; it’s part of how we make a living!”

She said they give voice lessons. Evidently teaching skills are pretty transferable.

Around ten minutes later, the rink’s sound system had a hiccup and cut out. A voice came over the intercom. “Sorry folks. Technical issue. We’ve made a call but it’ll be silent skate for a bit.”

Nicole got her crazy grin on. “Oh, no it won’t!!”

Maggie skated to the other side of Nicole and looked across her. “Right, Cami. Nickie says you’ve got a nice voice. Pick a song – a show tune – and lead us off with the melody. We’ll improvise!”

If I wasn’t skating, I might have been paralyzed. I’m supposed to sing with THESE two! But I had sung with Nicole, and it had been perfect. And the chance that I knew a piece of music these two didn’t was essentially nil.

On a sudden inspiration, a show tune from my youth jumped to the front of my mind, and I sang, “Meet me in St. Louie, Louie, meet me at the fair!”

Nicole linked arms with me on her left and Maggie on her right, and began improvising a high harmony on “Don’t tell me the lights are shining, anywhere but there.”

Maggie figured out where Nicole was going and joined another harmony for, “We will dance the Hoochee Koochee, I will be your tootsie wootsie; Meet me in St. Louie, I’ll be waiting there!” Maggie’s voice was lower than Nicole’s, but I didn’t have the background to know if she was a second soprano or an alto, or possibly something else I hadn’t heard of. But, like Nicole, she was superb.

People were applauding and shouting, “More, more!!!”

We laughed, and Nicole said, “Pick another one,” and we sang, and we skated, and other skaters clapped along, laughing and smiling. As we finished our third, we glided off the ice, faces cherry-red from the chill of the ice, the exertion, and the sheer fun of it. The girls laughed and took a bow to acknowledge the cheers, and we clumped off to grab a seat and catch our breath.

A middle-aged guy came over and gave each of us a cup of hot cider. “Thanks, ladies. That was awesome! I think we’ll have the music back in a couple minutes, but that was really special. Like a flash mob or something. Anyhow, thanks!” Clearly he worked there.

Some younger guys who had been on the ice came over to say how much they enjoyed it. We were seated, so they seemed to loom over us, but I was pretty sure they were big guys, anyway.

We chatted for a couple minutes, but were interrupted by the sound of our benefactor’s voice over the intercom announcing that their sound system was fixed and apologizing for the issue. The music resumed, and one of the guys invited us to couples’ skate.

Nicole looked at me and Maggie and said, “Nothing to it – no different than what we were just doing together.” So we agreed.

I found myself partnered with a guy who must have been 6’4” and outweighed me by a hundred pounds – I felt tiny beside him, which was actually kind of nice. I said, “Hi, I’m Cami. I haven’t ice skated before, so I’m afraid I’ll have to keep it pretty basic.”

He smiled. “I’m Tom. Don’t worry, Cami. I’ve been skating since I was six – Bruce, Trey, and I used to have hockey practice right here when we were kids. I won’t let anything happen to you. And, I’ll walk you through it as we go, okay?”

“Sounds good,” I said, working hard to keep any hint of nervousness out of my voice.

He took us out onto the ice smoothly, first just holding my right hand in his left. “So, here’s what we’re going to do. I want you to match my leg movements, okay? So our right legs move together then our left legs move together. Ready?”

I nodded and focused on the slow, powerful thrusts of his legs, then matched my own to them.

Once we had completed a circuit that way, he said, “Okay, now, we’re going to keep doing exactly the same thing, but I’m going to shift your hand from my left to my right hand, and put my left hand behind you. On three – one, two three.”

He effortlessly made the exchange, and I found that we were now skating much closer together, more like a pair, and his left palm rested lightly below my shoulder blades, just over the clasp of my bra.

“That feel okay?” he asked.

In fact, it felt wonderful, but he was asking if I was feeling wobbly. I shot him a grin. “Let’s go!”

We skated like that for a while. He would say, “Okay, on three, let’s do six hard kicks, then just glide for a bit. One, two, three,” and I would follow his lead. He used his hand on my back to provide a bit of guidance.

It was really an amazing feeling, sailing over the ice, blades of my skates in a perfect line, feeling completely secure in Tom’s very competent hands. With his help I was going much faster, and much more smoothly, than I had gone before.

The music wasn’t so loud that we couldn’t hear each other, so we were able to talk in between his giving directions. Apparently the three guys had known each other for almost twenty years. They had all played hockey together through high school and Bruce – the one who was skating with Nicole – had even played in college on a scholarship until he had gotten injured one too many times.

“Now,” Tom said, “we just come down here from time to time to play around on the ice.” He added, with a cheerful grin, “And, check out the pretty girls, of course!”

I laughed.

Given that I hadn’t skated in almost fifteen years and I’d never skated on ice, I thought I did very well. We didn’t do anything complicated – nothing like the intricate maneuvers that Nicole and Bruce were executing – and I only got wobbly once, when one of my skates caught a bit.

But Tom just got a little lower and brought his left hand down to my hip to pull me back in and steady me. We skated through three songs, then headed for the sidelines.

I saw that Maggie and . . . “Trey,” was it? . . . were already off the ice as well. We joined them and watched Bruce and Nicole do one more song. There were only a couple of people on the ice, and they used the freedom to really cut loose.

They made an impressive pair. Nicole is, in any setting, absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. On the ice, she looked fluid and graceful – practically serene. While Bruce lacked her natural grace and . . . presence, for lack of a better word . . . like Tom, he was a strong, powerful skater and his impressive hockey player’s physique was striking.

They both looked like they were enjoying the chance to skate with someone who really knew what they were doing. On their last pass, Bruce provided extra locomotion while Nicole balanced on one skate, her left leg high behind her, her back arched and her arms extended.

They were still on the ice when Tom said, “Guys, I’m sorry to be a party pooper, but I’ve got a shift tonight. It’s been a lot of fun!”

Maggie and I told him how much we had enjoyed ourselves, and said our farewells. So it was just Trey, Maggie, and me waiting when Nicole and Bruce glided off the ice. Maggie and I gave them hearty applause as they came up to us.

“You guys looked fabulous!” I enthused.

“Wow,” Maggie said, “You said you knew how to skate, Nicole, but I had no idea you were that good!”

Nicole laughed. “Mom had Olympic fantasies for me when I was little. Before I got better ideas!”

We were all skated out, so we got back into street footwear and Maggie and I returned our rented skates. Bruce suggested that we all go out to dinner.

The rest of the crew were enthusiastic, but I begged off. “I’ve got an early day tomorrow, too,” I said with regret. “You guys have fun. Nicole, this was a great idea! And Maggie, it was so good to meet you!”

Nicole said, “Oh, do you have to?” and Maggie pulled a face. When I said I really did, Nicole said, “You’re taking the MARC train back, right? Let us drop you off at the station, at least.” Since the station was close to where they were going for dinner, I accepted with thanks.

Maggie and I piled into Nicole’s car and got underway; Bruce and Trey had come in separate cars and were going to the restaurant to get a table.

When we were underway, Nicole said, “Is everything okay, Cami? I didn’t know you had to get back?” She’s a sensitive soul.

“I’m fine,” I assured her. “I had a great time. That was incredible – I had no idea what I was missing.”

I quizzed Maggie, who thought it was much better than she had expected, but was not as enthusiastic as I was. We got to the MARC station and I hopped out, stopping by the driver's window to stoop down and give Nicole a kiss on the cheek. “You have the best ideas, girlfriend!” To both of them, I said, “Have fun!!!”

Soon I was on the platform waiting for the train that would take me back to College Park. It really had been a wonderful time, though I could not hide from the touch of sadness I had felt when Tom departed. I had seen the brief look of surprise on Trey’s face when Tom said he had to work, and I was fairly certain Tom was just giving an excuse.

I was likewise pretty sure I knew the reason for it. If I had felt Tom’s steadying hand on my hip when I wobbled, then Tom had certainly felt the padding there that gave me some shape. It looked convincing under a skirt, but it didn’t feel like a woman’s hip.

He had, I thought, handled it very well. No fuss, no accusations, no sudden coldness. We had even continued to skate for another song. Had we been maybe a touch less close? Had he talked a bit less? Maybe. But also, maybe not. Any pulling away, any distancing, had been so subtle that I might well have been imagining things.

My gut, however, told me that I wasn’t.

Certainly, he had not asked for my number, or shown any interest in getting together again. I expected that would not happen with Maggie and Nicole. Of course, I thought with a smile, if Bruce didn’t try to get Nicole’s number he was either blind or insane.

But that’s different. Any girl, trans or cis, who wanted to hang out with Nicole would have to be able to deal with being overshadowed. It would be annoying, if Nicole weren’t such an amazingly decent person.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Oh! quante volte”
– Bellini, I Capuletti ed I Montecchi, Oh! quante volte (Aria)

College Park, Maryland, January 12

Following my morning exercises – still not quite there on the splits! – and my shower, I got dressed and went to join Al and Javier for breakfast in their apartment above the salon.

Their work was picking back up; the holiday rush to look perfect giving way to the post-holiday lull, followed by a return to normality. Al said, “We actually did a brisk business in Bogotá – would have made a pile, too, if they weren’t all family!”

Javi laughed. “My nieces all wanted to look perfect for Three Kings’ Day. We left on the fourth, so I couldn’t do their makeup for them. But Al here was a popular man with the scissors!”

We talked about Javi’s family a bit. He was one of seven and had seventeen nieces and nephews – so far. I asked, cautiously, about how accepting his family had been when he came out. We have the kind of relationship where we can ask each other those questions, thankfully.

“It was hard. Colombia is not a bad place to be gay. Same-sex couples have had legal protections longer than they have here, and Bogotá has a great gay community. But that doesn’t mean coming out is easy. You lose some friends. Sometimes even family.

“My father was the kindest, gentlest man. He never said a bad word about my decision, but I knew – I could tell – he was hurt. Momma rules the roost back home, and so none of the family ever gave me grief. I’m closer to some of them than I was before. I think Al had more trouble than I did, coming from Michigan.”

Al related his experience, which sounded closer to mine. Uncompromising parents, better luck with siblings. Friendships that survived. Others that didn’t. He agreed with Javi that Bogotá had probably been more welcoming than Roseville.

“I met Javi in Bogotá,” he said. “I wanted to get away, far away, from where I grew up. Everything that was hemming me in. I knew I was gay, and I wanted to explore that far from the eyes of my family.”

“Everyone back home thought I was nuts, thinking I was going down to some third-world slum where I’d get killed by drug lords.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Almost like they’d never even been to Detroit. But I loved it. And,” he looked fondly at Javier, “it worked out well for us.”

I always love talking to my landlords, and we kept going well after we had finished eating. But I had work to do, so I finally got up, stretched, and got ready to face the day.

Al stopped me. “Cami, I almost forgot. We got a letter in the mail for you; looks like it was forwarded from your place in DC. Let me go get it.”

It was a card-sized envelope, addressed by a familiar hand that I generally saw only twice a year, at Christmas and my birthday. The sender was identified in the upper left corner as “CC Campbell.”

“Gammy Campbell!” I said. “My mom’s mother. This must be her annual Christmas card. I’m glad they forwarded it. Gammy was always my favorite. And seeing her on Christmas Eve was part of what made the season complete!”

Javi asked, “Does she know about your transition?”

I shook my head. “No, I’ve only told Fi and Iain. Fi wouldn’t tell anyone. Neither would Iain, since he doesn’t talk to anyone. And he didn’t believe me, anyway.”

I took the letter back to my apartment and opened it. The front of the card was a stylized image of the Magi bearing gifts, and the inside had the usual Christmas greetings.

But on the facing side, Gammy wrote, “Dear Cameron – I hope you are well and keeping out of trouble. Especially given where you live. Anyhow, your mother told me she is no longer speaking to any of you and doesn’t intend to ever, ever. I’d like to blame her pig-headedness on her Ross blood, but God knows the Campbells have their share.

“Anyhow, my daughter, who drives me crazy even if I love her, won’t tell me what all of this is about. I was hoping you might. Maybe – who knows? – I can help. She’s miserable, so I’d like to. Even if it is her own fault.” It was simply signed “Gammy.”

Oh my, I thought. Where to even begin? I can tell her the proximate cause of Mom’s outburst, but that wouldn’t really be honest. The real reason that reconciliation isn’t possible isn’t Iain, as probably even my parents believed. It’s me. Should I tell Gammy?

I made myself a cup of tea and put on some think music – in this case, a collection of Chopin’s piano etudes. I sat at my desk, staring at my blank screen. What should I say? Anything? Yes, I owe Gammy that. The truth? Do I owe her that? Or, is she happier not knowing?

I thought about my grandmother. What did I know about her – /em>really know? I smiled, recalling my exhortation to a young man shopping for a Christmas present. Stop thinking of her as the nice old lady who helped make Christmases special. Think of her as a person, as a woman. What would Catriona Cameron Campbell want?

I decided I didn’t really know her all that well – at least, I didn’t know her nearly as well as I’d always assumed I did. She had grown up in Morgantown, West Virginia during the great depression and World War II, the youngest of three daughters.

Her father, the Campbell, was from Scotland, but even her mother was of solid Scots-American stock. Her Cameron ancestors were among the flood of refugees who had come to Appalachia during the Highland clearings that followed the Stewart’s defeat at Culloden.

She had divorced Grandpa Ross before I was born, I wasn’t sure when, and had lived in an apartment in St. Louis so that she could still be part of her daughter’s life. She had done a lot of babysitting for Mom when Fi and Iain were young; less when I was (after all, I did have older siblings to look after me).

When I was in high school, she moved back to Morgantown to be near her sister (who was ill), as well as her mother’s family. Some years ago, she had moved into an assisted living facility there, firmly declining Mom’s offer to move back to St. Louis where her daughter could look after her properly.

So, what did I know, really? She was stubborn, for certain (as her letter acknowledged). She had grown up in tough times, knew the reality of a hardscrabble existence. She had lived for decades with Grampa Ross, who I recalled as being pretty grim.

Would she have any frame of reference for understanding who I was and what I was doing? Would she see me as simply a frivolous child of privilege, acting out on a whim?

I just didn’t know.
But in my memory, she had been a kind woman. I didn’t recall a single instance when she had given me anything but love and acceptance. She had been warm and generous, and her apartment at Christmas had always been filled with music (“Mister Bing Croooooosby . . . !”) and the enticing smells of baked cinnamon. I owed her a response, at the least.

No, I decided. I owed her the truth. And a woman who had grown up West Virginia poor during the great depression would be able to handle it, if anyone could. Even if she didn’t understand.

Then another thought occurred to me. Morgantown isn’t all that far from Pittsburgh, where I was going next weekend. Rather than sending a letter, I could actually talk to her. Try to get her to see me as I am, accept me for what I had become.

She could be no help with Mom; she would know that. But our relationship wasn’t entirely derivative. Perhaps it would survive, even though my relationship with her daughter was beyond repair.

I would need to think about it some more. But I decided I’d get some work done while that idea percolated in the back of my mind.

~o~O~o~
It was after 2:00 and I was watching a videotape of our liability expert’s deposition testimony, taking notes as I went. My “Cami App” started ringing so I hit pause on the computer and found my phone.

“Hey Nicole!” I said, happy for the interruption. “How was dinner?”

“It was fantastic!” she gushed. “We had such a good time; I just wish you could have been there with us!”

With very little prompting, she launched into a discussion of all things Bruce. His virtues apparently extended well beyond being handsome and knowing how to ice skate, and Nicole was positively bubbly. It was, in all honesty, adorable.

When she was done extolling the wonders of Bruce, she said, “He asked if we all wanted to get together Friday night for a movie. Maggie dragged her feet a bit, but I’ve talked her into it. Can you come? I’m . . . . Well. It’s . . . .”

She stopped, then tried again. “I think it might be a bit soon for a one-on-one, you know? I think he’s trying to keep this from being too much like a ‘first date,’ and I kind of think that’s right. Will you come?”

“Of course I will, silly. But . . . you should let them know I’m trans.”

“Why?” She sounded surprised. “We’re not hauling them back to our lair to jump their bones!”

I laughed. “I get that. But I think Tom already knows, or suspects. Best to get it out of the way. If it’s an issue, I won’t go, that’s all.”

Nicole was indignant. “If it’s an issue, I've got a problem! What did Tom do?”

“He didn’t do anything, and he couldn’t have been nicer. But he kept me from falling at one point, and in the process touched some padding. He didn’t say anything or give a hint that anything was wrong, but he left quickly after we got off the ice, and I suspect he was uncomfortable with the situation.”

“That’s so stupid!” she said, still indignant. “You were just skating!”

“Not really, Nicole. I mean, yes, we were just skating. But guys don’t skate together like that. Girls, maybe. Guys, no. And . . . you know what it felt like, out there on the ice, skating in sync with a strong, good-looking guy?”

“Yeah,” she said, drawing out the word.

“Well, I felt that too – that sexual frisson that made it more than just skating. And I suspect Tom did too. When he discovered that the woman he was skating with might not be what she seemed, I think it disturbed him. And that’s perfectly normal. Something I have to deal with.”

She tried one more time. “Cami, I swear! You’re as much a woman as I am!”

“Sweetie, no one is as much a woman as you are! But thank you. It means a lot to me. . . . Still, much as I don’t like to admit it, physically, I’m missing some parts that cis women have, and those parts tend to be very interesting to men. That’s just part of my reality. I can’t blame guys who aren’t attracted to me for how they feel – or don’t feel. Attraction doesn’t work that way.”

Nicole was quiet for a minute, then she sighed. “You’re being a lot more mature about it than I would be.”

And that was likely true. Unlike me, Nicole had probably never faced rejection. “Just talk to Bruce, tell him that you would love for me to come, but that I asked you to raise this issue to make sure it wasn’t going to freak anyone out. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said quietly. “I’ll do it. But I still think it sucks. Big time.”

I got her on to happier topics, and by the time we ended our call, ten or fifteen minutes later, she was her usual bubbly self.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER NINE
“la mia preghiera ai santi tabernacoli salì”
– Puccini, Tosca, Vissi d’Arte, Vissi d’Amore (Aria)

Suburban Maryland, Later that Day

“Here we are,” Sarah said, as she parked her 2004 Corolla in front of a nondescript ranch house on a quiet street. I got out, keeping my head down and my coat loose. Sarah joined me and we walked to the front door.

“Nervous?” she asked.

“Scared,” I admitted.

“Huh. I think you’ll manage. Never seen them bite.”

But I was scared. My nervousness had manifested in third- or fourth-order issues, like what I should wear. Did the women try to look their best? Or, would that be rude? Formal? Not formal? The only thing Sarah had said that might even theoretically be useful was, “Be yourself.”

But what, for me, did that even mean? Was I the woman I aspired to be? Or, was I something else, something unformed, unfinished?

“Fake it ’til you make it” was practically my mantra. Feeling like I might not be good enough at work? Fake it. Assume it’ll come. Recovering from a break-up? Don’t let ‘em see you cry.

I had been pursuing my gender identity the same way. I knew I was a woman where it mattered, and as far as my nonconforming body was concerned, I would just fake it. Use padding and prosthetics and cosmetics as a bridge, hoping that someday my body would look feminine without such assistance.

And I had been pleased with how well I had managed. How good I was at looking and acting like the woman I knew myself to be. Liz, Al, Javier, Sarah, Fiona, even Dr. Chun – everyone told me so. I had patted myself on the back about it. I could just be a woman.

But Tom had demonstrated that it wasn’t that simple.

And I knew what Dr. Sheppard saw, when I had to set aside my prosthetics and my padding. When she got out a tape and took my measurements, piece by piece.

A pale, thin, male body.

And however much I might wish it were otherwise, that, too, was a part of who I am. I could fool the outside world, usually – the eye is easily fooled; the ear, the sense of touch, less so. But it was past time that I was honest with myself, at least.

And, I decided, I should also be honest with Sarah’s flock. If I couldn’t show them who I am, warts and all, could I show anyone? Would I need to keep the world at a distance until I “made it,” whatever that might mean?

What if I never did?

Sarah had said nothing about my outfit when she picked me up, but she was sharp enough to understand. I was wearing a skirt and blouse over a plain white bra and panty set, but for once I had left my prosthetic breasts and my padded panty gaff at home. I wore no jewelry. No makeup. It was just me, naked and vulnerable once more.

Sarah rang the bell and an older woman opened it. Probably mid-fifties to mid-sixties. She was around six feet tall and possessed strong features and a calm expression. She was wearing a plain, but nice, calf-length dress with a crew neck and long sleeves; she showed a full figure, but no one who saw her would think she was born female. If that still bothered her, she hid it well.

She greeted me with a warm smile. “I’m so glad to meet you, Cami. Any friend of Sarah’s is always welcome here.”

To my surprise, Sarah said, “Jacqui, you’ll introduce her?”

Our hostess smiled. “Of course.”

“Then I’ll go get to work.” Sarah turned to walk away.

I was a bit panicked at the thought of navigating the evening without anyone I knew, and blurted out, “You're not staying?”

Sarah turned back. “I told you, this community is run by transwomen, for transwomen. I’ll be around afterwards for fellowship, but I have to make the potstickers.”

I hid my dismay with a quip – “Saints in heaven preserve us, you’ve become the frying nun!” – then waved Sally Field off.

I don’t know how much of my inner turmoil was evident to Jacqui as I watched Sarah walk away. But she touched my shoulder lightly in sympathy. “It’s okay. Everyone here has walked in that door with the same stomach full of butterflies. But I can promise, this is a safe place for you. For all of us. Let me introduce you to the others.”

She gently drew me in and took me into the living room, where a grouping of chairs was arranged in a broken circle. I must have been the last to arrive, since there were already seven women in the room.

Jacqui was clearly the oldest, but three were my age or younger, and the remaining three looked like they were in their mid-thirties to their late forties. Some would easily pass as cis-gendered women, others would not.

Interestingly, I was not the only one there who wore no makeup. Everyone else had feminine curves, but I had no way of knowing how far each had gone in the transition process.

After spending a few minutes introducing me to the other women (oldest to youngest, Jacqui, Angela, Jenny, Sam, Traci, Steph, and Marta), we all sat. Jacqui lit a single candle, then offered her hands to the women on her right and left.

As we all held hands, Jacqui said, “Sisters, will you pray with me?”

I bowed my head and thought, “Hello, God. I’ve missed you!”

To be continued. . . .

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TEN
“Apostrophes, cris et tapage poussés jusques à la fureur”
– Bizet, Carmen, Votre toast (Aria)

Washington DC, January 13

“Hey David – got a minute?” I was standing at the door to David Parr’s office, and it was another Monday in the trenches. Suit, dress shirt, tie, hair in a club – I had my work mask firmly in place.

David looked up from his screen and waved me in. “Sure Cam, what’s up?”

“I spent some time this weekend trying to find a few clips from Dr. Silverman’s deposition testimony to use in our presentation to the mock jury. Just some highlights. I had only read the transcript before. Listening to him . . . I just don’t think he’s going to come across well. Their expert sounds better.”

At that last comment, David’s eyebrows shot up. “Trotter is a complete idiot! He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Richard Siverman was our expert witness on liability; Caleb Trotter was the Defendant’s opposing expert.

“I agree. But . . . I’ve read their reports, I’ve read the sources they site . . . . the jury won’t have. And Trotter just sounds credible. Silverman . . . he mostly seems pompous.”

David had defended Silverman’s depo and had taken Trotter’s. But it had been over a year ago, and he had never watched the video. “Pompous, huh? Ouch. I’d better go back and watch the tape. We can definitely work on style issues when we prepare him for his trial testimony, and that’s what really matters.”

I went back to my office, one worry less on my plate, a whole lot more waiting for me. Getting a case ready for trial is just an incredibly intensive endeavor. It was lots of long days, and detail work, and meetings. With clients, witnesses, experts, and technicians. And, of course, with the other attorneys. The work rolled on and never stopped.

~o~O~o~

College Park, Maryland and Baltimore Maryland, January 17

For the first time in a long while I had actually rented a car – a Rav4 – for the weekend. I had cut out early from work (far from the only one doing so the day before a three-day weekend), and I did not need to be in Baltimore until 7:00. But I had spent the long week looking like Cameron Savin, and Cami needed a bit of fluffing before she faced the world.

Nair. Shower. Shampoo. Conditioner. Mousse. Curlers. Turban. Moisturizer. Reattach prosthetic breasts and nail extensions. Polish.

This was always my favorite moment in my transition back. While my hair and especially nails were setting I couldn’t really do anything. So I would often just sit in my comfy chair, wearing my silky bottle-green dressing gown, absorbing the sensual feel of the fabric against my skin, the peculiarly feminine smells of moisturizer and nail polish, and whatever music I chose. I was invariably calmer when the interlude ended; more ready to face whatever followed.

The day was clear and cold, with the temperature just above freezing. I was meeting Nicole, Maggie, Nicole’s maybe boyfriend and Maggie’s . . . double date, perhaps? . . . to go to a movie, so the right play was tight jeans tucked into my high boots. I wore a more-conservative-than-usual, heavier than usual wool sweater over a camisole. I wanted to look good, but I didn’t want anyone to think I might be trawling.

The evening might well be awkward. Nicole reported that she had spoken to Bruce about my being trans and everyone was chill. But who knows?

For the same reason I was very careful with my makeup, and I did my hair in my go-to casual style (loose braid tumbling over one shoulder). Feminine, but simple. Just a girl hanging out with friends on a Friday night. I added plain stud earrings and the lovely watch that Liz had given me for Christmas, wrapped a patterned wool scarf around my neck, shrugged into my winter coat, and then headed out.

We had agreed to meet at the theater since everyone was coming from different places and several were coming from work. Nicole, Maggie and Bruce were already there when I arrived. I gave hugs to the girls and said a cheerful, “Hi Bruce!”

His response was equally easygoing. We were chatting for just a couple minutes when Trey came around the corner. I was surprised to see Tom with him. Any potential awkwardness was avoided with generic “Hey guys!” greetings from Nicole, Maggie and me.

The price the guys had to pay for fair company was that Nicole and Maggie were anxious to see Coda, a movie about a musician, played by Patrick Stewart, who tries a late-in-life return to giving live performances, only to suffer from stage fright and instability. The guys were good sports about it.

We went into the theater to sit down. Tom picked a row and was followed immediately by Bruce, then Nicole. That, I decided, was my cue. I followed Nicole and was followed by Maggie, then Trey. So I was neatly bracketed by my girlfriends. No awkwardness there.

Except that the whole “Let’s avoid any awkwardness” thing was pretty awkward. I kept my sigh silent.

The theater was a new design which served food during the movie; there was a long, bar-style table in front of each row of seats. While we were waiting for the show a server walked down the aisle in front of us and took our order. Generally I wouldn’t be a fan, but I was pretty hungry and I hadn’t had a chance to eat. Our food even came before the previews were over, so someone in the kitchen was hustling.

Then the feature started and I let myself get lost in the movie. It was a tight story – the movie only went an hour-and-a-half – and I enjoyed it. Like the main character, I have found solace and peace in Beethoven’s sonatas.

Nicole and Maggie were more deeply touched, unsurprisingly. They both had such boundless joy in their music that the idea that debilitating performance anxiety can occur later in a career was a scary one.

The guys didn’t have a lot to say about it.

Trey suggested we should all grab a drink at The Tornado, a bar the guys knew that was not too far away. It was only a bit after 9:00 so everyone was game. We decided to condense to two cars since The Tornado didn’t have a big parking lot, and I drove Nicole and Maggie in my rental. They were still talking animatedly about the movie.

I was getting quiet as I noticed that we were driving to an area that looked darker, grittier, and possibly less safe.

We pulled into a poorly-lit parking lot and I found a spot to park near the dumpsters in the back. At my suggestion we left our coats in the car since it might be tight quarters indoors.

Inside, The Tornado was pretty full, with a mix of people at the bar and at high tops. I pulled Nicole and Maggie back to a table near the kitchen, the guys following in our wake.

Trey said, “I’ll get us a pitcher.” He waded into the crowd near the bar. Bruce and Tom were saying something, but I couldn’t make out much through the noise. Nicole and Maggie were looking a little lost.

Trey came back juggling a pitcher of beer and six glasses. I begged off on the grounds that I had to do more driving. That was true as far as it went, but I would have passed on the drink even if I wasn’t driving. I didn’t feel comfortable.

Everyone was talking loudly, struggling to be heard. The Bucs/Saints playoff game was blaring on the TVs over the bar, drawing an enthusiastic crowd. The sharp “crack” of cue balls breaking filled the area on the other side of the bar.

The beer flowed. The noise got louder. Wilder. I didn’t need to look at my watch – my beautiful, delicate, lady’s watch, so very out of place in this place, to know the time. It’s time to get out of here.

Suddenly there were other faces pressing toward us. Hungry faces. “Hey babe – come home with me. I’ll show you a good time!” This was, naturally, directed at Nicole.

More faces behind that one. Angry faces. Drunken faces. Bruce was rearing up, furious. Trey and Tom surged to his support. There was shoving. Voices getting angrier. Someone threw a punch. The sound of glass breaking. Red, furious faces. Uncontrolled. I saw someone start to approach us – Maggie, Nicole, and me – from the side, while our “gallant” gentlemen were otherwise engaged.

Time to pull the ripcord.

“C’mon!” I shouted. I grabbed Maggie’s hand – she was closest to the new threat – and pulled her forward, put my other hand on Nicole’s shoulder, leaned in and barked, “Follow me!”

Then I plunged through the swinging door into the kitchen, pulling my friends with me and dashing to the back. Red tile. Stainless steel. Sounds and smells of cooking, frying. Bar food. Cooks and dishwashers. Surprised faces.

“You’re not allowed in here,” a large Black woman said as we barreled through.

“Just leaving!” I said, and opened the door that led to the dumpsters in the back – as well as the parking lot. The freezing, cleansing air hit us like a slap, filling our lungs.

My car was close. Nicole and Maggie were now racing behind me. I had the keys jammed in my fist with one protruding through my fingers – a tip I’d heard in a self-defense class ages ago that I’d never thought I’d have to use.

It also meant I wasn’t fumbling for the car keys, so we were inside in a flash. I was out of the parking lot and turning up the street just as people began spilling out the front door, the fight still very much in progress.

“What the fuck!!!” Maggie exploded.

Nicole was shaking.

I just drove. Out. Away. Somewhere that looked safe. When we hit an area that was quiet and well-lit, I slowly pulled over to the curb.

Nicole was in the passenger’s seat, crying quietly.

Maggie was still sputtering.

I put a hand on Nicole’s shoulder and said softly, “Nicole, honey, it’ll be okay. It’s alright. We’re safe. Let me take you home; we can get your car tomorrow.”

She nodded but couldn’t speak. I looked in the back seat.

“Maggie? Maggie?” I managed to get her attention. “Could you tell me your address?”

She gave it to me, I fed it into my phone, and got us moving.

Their row house was maybe fifteen minute’s drive. By the time we got there everyone had calmed down some, but they were clearly shaken. Nicole – always graceful Nicole – fumbled with her keys and dropped them.

I swooped down, picked them up, and unlocked the door. Got them both inside. Locked the door behind us.

They stood like they weren’t sure what to do.

There was a small, inhumanly tidy living room to the left of the entryway; I pulled them in. “Sit a minute.” I got them off their feet. Then I went back to the hallway and followed it past the staircase to where I assumed – correctly – the kitchen would be.

Nicole and Maggie were musicians and neatniks, so they had what I was looking for and it took no time at all to find it. In short order, I was going back to the living room with three steaming mugs of green tea.

They were talking, thank God; the shock was wearing off. Nicole was saying, “How could he do that? He just charged into a fight and forgot all about us!”

I handed her one of the cups, gave the other to Maggie, and then sat down. “He’s a hockey player, Nicole. His go-to response is to drop his gloves and throw punches.”

Maggie said, “God, I felt so unsafe. What were we even doing there?”

It was a good question. It had been clear to me walking in that we were out of place. Given how each of us were dressed, how our hair and makeup were done, we blended in perfectly at the nice theater and would have looked right at home in a trendy bistro or wine bar.

The Tornado, however, was just a working-class bar in a working-class neighborhood. It would be perfectly safe for locals. It probably would have been safe enough, but rough, if we had dressed to go there. The guys, being guys, hadn’t thought anything of it, but the three of us had stood out like suits in a biker bar.

I thought of Sarah’s advice, so critical for transwomen: You are safest if you blend in. It was good advice for cis women too.

They talked for a bit. Really just venting more than talking.

When they wound down, I asked, “Will you be okay?”

Maggie sighed and said, “Yeah. I’m . . . upset, but mostly I’m mad. I’ll be okay.” She looked at Nicole.

So did I.

Nicole looked down, as if she could pull an answer from the dregs in her tea cup. Her eyes were bright with tears she refused to shed.

“Oh, I’ll be fine,” she said, though her voice still shook. “Mags will tell you, I have a bad habit of getting all enthusiastic about guys before I really know them. And then something like this happens. Well. Not like this exactly. But something. I’ll get over it. Him. I always do.”

I said, “He made a mistake Nicole. Well, two. Are you sure you want to write him off so quickly?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t just put me at risk, Cami. He put my friends at risk, too. And then took it as some challenge to his ego when . . . when . . . .”

She stopped and took a deep breath. “I’m not some damned battle prize. He acted like someone was challenging his manhood, not like someone was threatening me. If you hadn’t been there, I don’t know what would have happened to us. Either of us.”

“Too right,” Maggie fumed. “I was so mad I was about to start scratching and clawing at people. And that wouldn’t have ended well.”

We sat for a minute, lost in our own thoughts.

Nicole looked at me. “I know you’ve got places to be tomorrow, but I can’t imagine you want to drive right now. Will you stay the night? We’ve got a couch in the spare room upstairs. I think we could all use some rest. And . . . I’d feel better with you here.”

“We both would,” Maggie agreed.

Nicole was right. Now that the emergency was over, the adrenaline had dissipated and reaction set in. I wasn’t tired, I was exhausted. I accepted gratefully.

She loaned me a flannel nightdress and brought me into the spare room upstairs that they used as a TV room. She came in after I had changed with a big poofy comforter, which she insisted on tucking around me. “Thank you for what you did tonight. I couldn’t even think straight. When everything started to happen, I just froze. It was like a bad dream.”

I held her right hand in both of mine. “You’re safe now, Nicole. Safe. Okay?”

She nodded, but her eyes looked less certain.

~o~O~o~
I woke up some indeterminate amount of time later, my heart pounding, my breath short, my body bathed in familiar cold sweat.

Nicole was kneeling next to me, worry lining her angel’s face. “Cami? Cami?”

I grabbed her hand, tried to anchor myself back in the present. To remember that I was here, that I was safe. I was not on my knees. There was no monster above me. Just me, and my friend, who was distressed.

Breathe. Ragged. Try again. Breathe.

Nicole was saying something. What? Listen! Breathe.

“Cami, I couldn’t sleep, then I heard you calling out. Calling for Fiona. Are you okay? CAMI!?”

Fiona! Fiona in danger!!! Breathe, dammit! Think!

I finally pulled myself out of the nightmare. Got my lungs to start working. Felt the fear, the terror, begin to recede.

I squeezed Nicole’s hand. “I’m sorry. Bad dream. From . . . from Christmas.” I remembered that I had told Nicole about the attack. About Jonathan.

She understood immediately. “Does this happen every night?”

I shook my head. “At first. Not now. I did get some medication. But . . . . oh, Jesus, that was bad.”

She just held my hand in both of hers while my pulse and breathing slowed. After a few minutes, she said, “Cami, you’ve got your nightmares and tonight I’ve got mine. Why don’t you join me in my bed, and maybe we can both sleep?”

And that is how I woke up, spooning with the Most Beautiful Woman I Had Ever Personally Met, who was my very dear friend. I had slept the rest of the night peacefully, dreamlessly, and so, to all appearances, had she. Her heart-shaped face looked calm, peaceful, untroubled.

I gently extracted myself, tucked the comforter close against her back, and tiptoed downstairs.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Et songe bien . . . .”
– Bizet, Carmen, Votre toast (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, January 18

I got a much later start than I had hoped.

While Nicole and Maggie slept, I found that the house contained only tea (sadness!), though at least some of it was black. There were eggs, onions, mushrooms, and gruyere cheese. No luck on tomatoes. No bread of any sort. They had a frying pan suitable for omelets. Bueno.

After chopping the onions, slicing the mushrooms, and shredding the cheese, I heated some water and made myself a cup. Still no sound from upstairs.

I decided to grab a shower. Afterward, I gave myself a careful examination and didn’t see any untoward hair growth overnight. Not surprising since my face- and body- hair is sparse and grows slowly at the best of times. I changed back into my clothes from yesterday, then used my makeup mirror to add just a touch of lipstick and eyeshadow.

Maggie emerged from her bedroom just as I was about to go back downstairs. She gave me a smile, walked over, and gave me a long hug. “Thank you for yesterday. You’re a lifesaver.”

I let go and gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Go do your business; I’ll have some breakfast ready for you in a couple of minutes.”

She raised her right hand, squeezed my left shoulder, and then disappeared into the bathroom.

Her omelet was coming off the stove just as she came downstairs, hair in order, wrapped in a long bathrobe and her feet swaddled in fuzzy slippers. I put her plate and a mug of tea on the kitchen table for her.

She blew me a kiss and sat down while I started making the next omelet.

“How did you sleep?” I asked her.

She grinned. “Great, but I always sleep great. If I have dreams, I never remember them. How about you?”

I had to confess that I’d had a bad night and Nicole had undoubtedly had a worse one. “I got the sense she’d been awake the whole time before I woke up, and I have no idea when my night terrors hit. Might have been 3:30 for all I know. So I’m glad she’s sleeping in.”

Maggie said, “I had a text exchange with Trey last night.”

I raised an inquisitorial eyebrow.

“Apparently Bruce had been frantically trying to get in touch with Nickie and she was ignoring him. Probably shut her phone off; she usually does.”

“Usually?”

“Yeah, she wasn’t kidding when she said she gets ahead of herself with guys. But impulsiveness works both ways. When she gets pissed, she doesn’t hesitate to swipe left.”

She returned to her earlier point. “Anyway, I told Trey we were fine, no thanks to them. He was still making excuses by text when I said we should all remember having a nice time skating and leave it at that. He didn’t get the hint, so I told him that he and Bruce should lose our numbers. Fortunately we never said where we live.”

I sat down to join her when my omelet was ready. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out with you and Trey.”

“Meh. I wasn't really interested. Bruce was the pick of that litter and – don’t tell Nickie I said this – I wasn’t all that sold on Bruce either.”

“Oh?”

She shrugged. “Trey was a nice enough guy. Good-looking, sure. Likes hockey, football, basketball, in that order. Likes country western music. Oh, and beer. He really likes beer. Brews it, I think. Anyhow, not a great deal of overlap. I just went along last night because Nickie wanted some cover. Like you did, I expect?”

“Yes, though . . . I really enjoyed skating with Tom. It was . . . .” I found myself blushing.

Maggie smiled at me wickedly. “Oh, was it?”

I laughed. “Yeah. But like I told Nicole, I think he guessed I wasn’t all that I seemed to be when he grabbed my hip to keep me from tumbling, and he bugged out after that. I was surprised to see him last night.”

“Do you think maybe you were imagining things?”

I shook my head. “He made sure we weren’t sitting together at the movie – and thank you, by the way, for running interference for me when it came to seating! Anyway, I wasn’t any happier about how the guys behaved last night than you or Nicole."

I paused, considered, and added, "I think you had it just right. We had a lovely time skating; it’s a great memory. But I’m not spending more time on him than that.”

She made a small, dismissive wave. “Bye, Felicia.”

“Exactly!”

We finished our omelets and rinsed off our plates, then sat down to finish our tea.

Maggie said, “For what it’s worth, I think you’re more than you seem to be. You couldn’t have gotten us out of that jam last night any quicker if you had planned it in advance.”

I shot her a surprised look and shook my head in disbelief. “Of course, I planned it in advance, Maggie.”

She wouldn’t have looked more surprised if I had said I’d been hatched by space lizards.

I leaned forward and grabbed her hands for emphasis. “I wanted to talk to you about that this morning. To both of you, but you’ll pass it on. I don’t know Baltimore, but I know enough to have been aware we left the nicer parts of town within blocks of the theater. Then we pull up and the parking lot isn’t lit properly. We walk in and we stand out like circus clowns. We. Weren’t. Safe.”

“I should have just driven on, and that’s on me,” I said, giving her hands a squeeze. “I didn’t want to rain on Nicole’s budding romance. But at least I was able to get us a table by the back exit, and make sure we left our coats in the car, so we didn’t have to go looking for them if we needed to leave in a hurry.”

She nodded and looked both thoughtful and sheepish. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. Nick and I were just merrily talking away. I guess we figured we were with three hulking hockey dudes, so no one would hassle us. We both know better. In a rough place, big guys with girls can be magnets for a brawl.”

She paused, then gave me a quizzical look. “I guess I’m surprised you know all that. I mean, I know you’re trans, but . . . you didn’t have to go through your teens and twenties thinking about personal safety the way a girl does. Did you?”

I agreed, I hadn’t. “But, as a transwoman, I really have to be even more careful, and that’s something that’s been firmly impressed on me. If a guy who is thinking about a little fun finds out I’m not built the way he expects, there’s a decent chance I end up dead. The good ones – like Tom, for example – just walk away.”

Maggie looked pale. She thought a minute, then opened her mouth to say something, only to close it again.

I gave her a fond look. “Whatever it is, I won’t be offended. Go ahead.”

She blushed and said in a rush, “Why do it? Why put yourself through all that, subject yourself to all that . . . all that hatred. All that danger. Was being a man so bad?”

“It wasn’t ‘bad.’ But I discovered it wasn't who I am. On top of which, I really, really love being a woman. I could never go back.”

She sipped the last of her tea and sat for a moment. “My little sister had a classmate who was trans and we’d talked some, back when she was transitioning. But I’d always been comfortable in my birth gender and I’ve never envied guys much. Other than thinking they don’t have to deal with periods and bad hair days and catty friends and worrying about what to wear.”

“Yeah, there’s that, I guess!” I chuckled.

“You know, I've tried, and I just can’t see you as a guy. When Nickie came back from New York, she was all bubbling over with enthusiasm – you know how she is! – about this new friend she had met on the train, and how I just had to meet you. She said you were the most thoughtful, caring woman she had ever met. ‘Cuz it was Nick, I discounted it for the enthusiasm effect. But I shouldn’t have. I’m so glad we get to be friends.”

Well, if she was trying to make me tear up, she couldn’t have come up with a better way. So when Nicole stuck her head in the kitchen and asked, “Did I hear my name being taken in vain,” she caught me with eyes full of tears. Again.

But I dabbed them dry just as Maggie said, “Yup, as usual!”

I got up and gave Nicole a hug. “Hey sleepyhead. How are you doing?”

She hugged me back. “Much, much better!” Then she gave Maggie a hug too.

“Hey!” Maggie joked, “what did I do to earn that?”

Nicole held her at arm’s-length and said, “I’m just feeling really grateful for you this morning. I’m sure I’ll get over it!”

I sat her down where I had been. “Sit still for a minute and I’ll get you breakfast.”

She laughed. “Damn, girl. Will you marry me?”

We laughed and I whipped her up an omelet, which turned out looking the best of the three, though that said less than I would have liked. Henry’s omelets, I thought, are delicious AND look good. Even the magnificent Fiona didn’t deserve him.

We talked a bit more while Nicole ate her breakfast and had her tea. Maggie had a second cup, but I was wanting my coffee. When they were finished Nicole hopped upstairs and changed into casual clothes. Maggie was going to wait for a shower. So I gave her a good-bye hug, then drove off to the theater with Nicole to get her car.

She was quiet for a bit, then said, “Thanks for joining me last night. I just couldn’t get to sleep no matter how hard I tried.”

I reached over and touched her leg – about all that was within easy reach while I was driving. “I was touched that you felt comfortable asking me.”

“Why? Because you’re trans?”

I nodded.

“Cami, I’ll say this as often as you need me to, but you’re as much of a woman as I am. More important, you’re my friend and I trust you. Most important – because I can get carried away, as Bruce demonstrated, again – Mags trusts you, too.”

I thanked her for the compliment, but added, “Don’t let the world snuff out your enthusiasm, Nicole. Much less some guy!”

We arrived at the parking lot and I circled it carefully before pulling up next to Nicole’s car – at 9:30 on a Saturday morning, the only one in the lot. It had been the one place Bruce might have found her since she had to go back for it, but there was no sign of other people.

She threw me a smile. “Thanks, girl!” She popped out, once again graceful and vibrant.

Once she was in her car and moving, I pulled out of the lot and drove back to College Park.

~o~O~o~
Hagerstown, Maryland, 1:00 the same day

It was almost noon before I had left my apartment – three or four hours later than I had planned. I had no regrets about staying overnight at what Nicole and Maggie fondly referred to as “Opera House.” I felt very close to them both and whatever else it had done, yesterday’s experience brought the three of us closer together.

But I was starting to wonder whether I was trying to fit too much into a day. And, I was getting cold feet about stopping to visit Gammy Campbell. It would be after three before I could even get there. After hemming and hawing, I decided to get a second opinion and called Fiona over the car’s speakerphone.

After four rings, I got her message; when it was done, I said, “Hi Fi, it’s Cami. Hope you’re well. I got a card from Gammy Campbell asking what was up between Mom and the three of us, and I thought I might see her since I was driving to Pittsburgh, to fill her in. But I’m running late and I’m having cold feet. Any thoughts?”

While I was leaving the message I got a standard Apple text – the type you send with one click – saying “Sorry, I can’t talk right now.”
Cumberland, Maryland, 1:40 the same day

My phone gave a “ding” and I saw another text had come in. I pulled off to the shoulder to read, “Tied up but got your vmail. Talk to her, she might surprise you. Text how it goes.”

Text how it goes? I wonder what emergency had Fi so tied up on a Saturday. But, I guess I had her advice.

I got back on the road and made a second call, this time to Liz. She picked right up. “Cami! How’s travelin’?”

“Hey Liz! I’m on my way, but I’m going to be later than I’d hoped – maybe too late for dinner.”

She asked whether everything was okay, and I explained about my late start and the stop I was planning in Morgantown.

“She doesn’t know?” Liz asked.

“No. But, I’m not hiding from family, so she’ll find out eventually.”

“Given that you haven’t told your parents, I’m not sure how you figure ‘not hiding from family,’ but I’m sure you’ve got some convoluted explanation for that.”

I laughed. “Well of course I do. I’d tell my parents if we were still speaking to each other, which, after Thanksgiving, we’re not.”

“Lawyer!”

“Yup!” More seriously, I added, “She doesn’t know what’s going on, and she wants to help. Help Mom, mostly, I guess. But all of us. No one’s going to tell her anything if I don’t. Mom doesn’t know, Iain doesn’t care, and Fiona won’t because it’s my story to tell.”

She was quiet for a minute; I wondered if we had lost the connection. But then she said, “She probably won’t accept you, Cami. She’s got to be in her eighties or nineties now. They grew up in a very different world. Are you ready for it?”

It was my turn to be silent for a minute. “I hope so. I steeled myself for it, but as you know, I’m never really ready for rejection when it matters.”

“And she matters?”

“I think she does. Yes. Of my blood relations, she’s the only one other than Fi and maybe Iain who might accept me. The Savins never would; that’s where the fundamentalist strain in my family comes from. And Grandpa Ross has been gone a long time.”

“Be careful then, Cami. Will you?”

I promised I would.

“Listen,” she said, “while I’ve got you . . . I’ve got a bit of turbulence on my end, too. I was hoping we’d have tonight and tomorrow morning to catch up, but my brother – Thor, the youngest – asked if I could look after my niece overnight; he and my sister-in-law really needed a night off. I couldn’t say no, so I’m afraid I’ll have some company when you show up. But he’ll pick her up in plenty of time for us to get ready for tomorrow’s shoot.”

I laughed. “I am trying to picture you dealing with a baby, and my mind boggles.”

“Laugh it up, girlfriend,” she growled, “I’m going to volunteer you to help!”

We wrapped up the call and I promised I would let her know when I left Morgantown. I settled down and concentrated on driving, watching the thin, winter sun light the hills and woods of Western Maryland.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Себя на суд Вам отдаю”
– Tchaikovsky, Eugene Onegin, Onegin’s Aria

Morgantown, West Virginia, 3:30, later the same day

“Good afternoon, I’m here to visit Catriona Campbell.”

The pleasant-looking woman behind the desk smiled. “You’re here to see Cat? Oh good! One of my favorite people! She’s in room 203. Up the stairs, turn left, down the corridor.”

I thanked her and walked up the stairs, trying to still the butterflies in my stomach. How many times will I have to do this?

How many times will I have to face family, old friends, and put my truth before them. How many times would I feel the weight of their judgment? A line from an old movie leaped into my mind: “You have been weighed. You have been measured. And you have been found wanting.”
How many times?

Her door was closed. I stood before it, uncertain, and smoothed the skirt of my shirtdress. Tugged on the white cardigan I was wearing against the cold. Maybe she was sleeping. Maybe I shouldn’t bother her. Maybe ignorance is bliss.

Eventually I tired of my internal debate, raised my hand, and then knocked.

A surprisingly strong voice answered. “Come on in. You will anyway.”

I’m not sure what I was expecting. It had been a lot of years since I had seen her and she had been in assisted living for a while. Perhaps she was spending most of her time in bed, plugged into the TV, watching reruns of Turner Classics.

No. She was sitting in a recliner that looked comfortable. She had a book on her lap and was dressed in stretch pants and a knit top. Her eyes, blue as my own, were still sharp as she looked over her glasses at the latest intruder. Though her once iron gray hair was now wispy and ivory white and her formerly stocky frame had thinned, it was still Gammy Campbell.

“Yes?” she asked, politely enough.

I stood there, not sure what to say.

She looked at me, beginning to show some annoyance. Then her eyes narrowed and she cocked her head. “You aren’t my granddaughter, but you look like her. I’m fairly certain I haven’t forgotten someone. So suppose you tell me who you are and why you’re here.”

I closed the door behind me and stepped into the room. “I am your granddaughter, Gammy. But you’ve always known me as your grandson.”

She just stared at me, pretty much like I assume owls stare at field mice.

I thought, You have been weighed . . . .

She said, heavily, “Cameron.”

You have been measured . . . .

I just stood, feet and knees together, an errant schoolgirl before a stern principal, waiting for judgment.

Finally, she waved to a chair that looked like it had come from her old kitchen table. “Oh, sit down. I won’t eat you. Tell me what this is all about.”

I walked to the indicated chair, where young Cameron had no doubt sat numerous times, eating Gammy’s cookies and chatting like a magpie. I smoothed my dress behind me and sat down, catching Gammy’s glint at the feminine gesture.

“Gammy, I got your card. And I thought I owed you the truth. This is the real reason no one’s talking to each other. Although,” I added wryly, “Fi and I are the only ones who actually know that.”

Gammy shifted in her seat. “I’m not typically slow, but you’re going to spell that out for me. Your mom’s not speaking to you because you dress like a woman, except she doesn’t know it?”

So I told her how Mom and Dad had disowned Iain at Thanksgiving when he said he was gay; how they had locked me out and refused to speak to me when I went after Iain; how Fiona had canceled her plans to come home for Christmas and introduce her fiancé to the family, and had insisted they apologize to Iain and me if they wanted to attend her wedding.

How they had disowned her instead.

She listened silently until I finished. “All that sounds . . . well, it sounds like Howard and Aileen. And like Fi and Iain for that matter. Though I noticed that you didn’t actually say he was gay.” She got a gleam in her eye when she saw that she’d scored on that point. “But I’m still not seeing what it has to do with you wearing a dress and looking like a co-ed.”

“Fiona only gave them her ultimatum after I told her that I couldn’t join her for Christmas in St. Louis because I had come out as transgendered.”

Gammy thought about that. “She’d have gone otherwise, even though they’d disowned Iain?”

I looked away and said softly, “That was me, Gammy. She wasn’t going to, but I knew how much it would mean to her for Mom and Dad to be at her wedding. For Dad – for her daddy – to walk her down the aisle. I tried to talk her into going out there with Henry, but she wanted me to agree to come, too. And that’s when I told her why I couldn’t.”

Gammy was quiet a long time, lost in thought. In memories. “Well. I guess you finally found that the price tag for keeping the peace in our family was too steep even for you.”

I looked down, not sure what to say.

“Still,” she said, “you picked a strange place to make your stand. Tell me why.”

I opened my mouth to answer but she added, with a sharpness indicative of a competent woman too long surrounded by patronizing youngsters, “And kindly assume that I did not stop paying attention to what was going on in my country or my world in the 1950s.”

I nodded in acknowledgement. “I don’t actually know if it helps if you’ve read about transgendered people, or watched anything on TV. That 'what' is easy to describe, but you asked ‘why.’ That’s hard. But I’ll try."

I paused, trying to think of how to bridge the gap between her world, her experiences, and my own. I had thought about little else during the long drive from College Park, but still I struggled for the right words.

"I know in my heart, I know with every fiber of my being, that I’m a woman. This is what I was meant to be. It’s not about enjoying wearing a dress, though I do. It’s about feeling a completeness, a rightness, when I express myself as a woman, when I relate to other people as a woman.

“I can still look and dress like a man, but when I do, it feels phony. Fake. I feel as out of place as you would if you wore a man’s clothes and tried to live and interact as a man. And I don’t want to live a fake life. A half life. I won’t.”

She chewed on that for a bit before responding. “Well, you’ve got a nice way with words, so you didn’t waste money on your schooling. But I’ll be honest with you. In my life, I’ve never had much patience with people who talk about living 'authentically.' Whether it's artists or musicians or whatever. Authenticity’s a luxury most folks can’t afford.

“My pappy played a mean hornpipe; he’da loved to be a wandering musician. But there was work to do, and mouths to feed. There was a wife to care for. Bills to pay. He was a good man. The best. If he’d followed his dreams, I wouldn’t be alive. Nor would you.”

You have been found wanting.
“You say that your decision to be transgendered is why you and Fiona can’t reconcile with my daughter. The reason the woman who gave you life will go through her life, go to her grave, without the children who should be there for her. Without seeing her grandchildren, if she ever has any.”

She looked at me with hard eyes. “So tell me: Is your ‘authenticity' worth that price?”

That finally got my ire up. I would be damned if I was going to bear the sins of the world, or even of my parents. I raised my head and said, in an even, clinical tone, “I don’t agree with your premise, so I can’t answer your question.”

“Explain,” she challenged.

“I’m perfectly willing to reconcile with your daughter,” I continued in the same tone. “As would Fi. I think you would agree, however, that under these circumstances,” I gave a gesture indicating my feminine look, “she would not reconcile with me?”

“I certainly agree with that,” she growled.

“Then the key to escape the fate you paint so poignantly is in her own hand, not mine, isn't it? If I am willing to accept her as she is, without conditions, is it unreasonable of me to ask that she do the same?”

She glowered at me. She had a daunting glower. “If you decide your happiness requires you to be an ax murderer, is it your mom’s fault if she stops talking to you?”

My eyes got as hard as her own. “Her decision, certainly. But if you think that’s an analogous case, we don’t have anything else to say to each other.”

She glowered another moment, but then she chuckled. It was a spare, dry laugh and not very merry. “Give that school of yours some money. You finally learned how to fight.”

She leaned forward. “All right. I don’t like it. It’s unnatural, and it’s self-indulgent. But that’s all I’m going to say on the subject. It’s your life and I’m not about to stop speaking to my kin just because they make choices I don’t approve of. Or, I would have stopped talking to your mom a long time ago.”

I looked at her warily, reluctant to lower my guard. This time her chuckle sounded more natural. “Not the sweet Gammy Campbell you remember?”

I gave Cam’s half smile and shook my head. “No.”

“Well, remember what I said about ‘authenticity’ being a luxury. When you were a child I gave you what you seemed to need. And Fi and that rascal Iain. And Aileen for that matter. But you’re all grown up now, and I’m eighty-six and have the luxury of being myself.”

“Which,” she added, “doesn’t mean I don’t still love all of you, even if Fi’s the only one who seems to have the sense she was born with. I’d be tickled if you were all happy, and over the moon delighted if you were even remotely capable of getting along. But if even you gave up on peacemaking, Cameron, what good can I do?”

“Me?” I said, stupidly.

“You,” she responded. “Always trying to get along. Trying to keep Howard and Iain from killing each other. Trying to keep Fiona and Aileen from sniping. I thought it was admirable. Futile, of course. But admirable.”

Whatever I had expected from Gammy Campbell, it wasn’t this. Fiona had said she might surprise me. I wondered if Fi had a clue.

Finally, I braved her fierce glower. “Can you tell me why, Gammy? Why was it futile? Why is my family so . . . .”

“So broken?” she finished.

I nodded.

She sat back, sunk in thought. “You look like a co-ed, but you reason like an adult. I guess you ought to know some of it. Some parts aren’t mine to tell."

I nodded in understanding.

"You know that your parents had a child between you and Iain?”

“They WHAT?”

“Huh,” she said. “I guess they didn’t mention that? And Fi would have been three. So she might not have remembered. Anyhow, yes. A little girl. Heather. I held her in my own hand. But she was premature, underdeveloped. She would have lived today, probably. But she didn’t make it; died after two days.”

I must have looked horrified. Sweet Gammy Campbell gave me another hard look. “It happens, Cameron. I buried two of my own, to have just one survive. It happens.” Her tone softened and she added, “Less now than when I was young, praise be. But it happens.”

“Anyhow,” she continued, “Heather’s death really cut them both. Howard was bad, Aileen was worse. I was looking after Fiona and Iain for a while so they could pull themselves together. I couldn’t do anything else. Eventually they found a way. Howard went back to his father’s church. Aileen went with him. It was pretty . . . well. . . . "

She seemed reluctant to continue, but eventually she brought herself to. "Look. I grew up Scots Presbyterian and we were God-fearing, full-Bible Christians. But mostly I grew up poor. Survival was our first religion. Howard and Aileen . . . it was different. They became very devout. Very committed to their church, their pastor. I couldn’t complain. They got back on their feet. They brought the kids home. Cared for them. But . . . .”

It was my turn to finish her sentence. “ . . . but they just kept getting crazier?”

She nodded reluctantly. “It was like a drug, I guess. Helped a lot at first, but then it just started to take and take. It was all rules and ‘thou shalts’ and ‘shalt nots’ and who’s in God’s good graces and who’s on the outs. All fear and fire. There was no joy, no life in it. Just pie-in-the-sky when you die. And then there was politics, and guns, and what all that seemed to come from the same dark place."

She spent a moment lost in memories; the bleak look on her face attesting that they were not good ones. "I did what I could for you kids, to show you a different way. But I wasn’t your momma. Then Fiona moved away, and Iain moved away, and you were getting almost old enough to move away, too. So when Jill needed me back here in Morgantown, I leaped at the chance.

“I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. I keep in touch, and God knows, I love her. He knows that I do. But I can’t save her, and I can’t keep watching her eat herself alive.”

I couldn’t believe it, but tears were streaming down her weathered cheeks. I found myself kneeling by her chair, her hands in my own. I didn’t say anything; I didn’t have anything to say. I could no more fix what ailed our family than she could.

I could only join her in weeping for it. For Gammy’s bitter, broken heart. For my parent’s guilt. For Fiona and all the love she had felt, and had lost. Even for Iain, reacting in spasms of anger to a world turned dark.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that. But Gammy disengaged a hand and laid it against my wet cheek, half benediction, half acknowledgment of our shared grief.

“Ye make a convincing enough lass, Cameron,” she said wryly, a bit of her father’s western highlands lilt creeping into her voice. “But ye see why I was over you so hard. I’ve never been able to get your mother to bend. If you’re committed to this – and you’ve convinced me you are – there’s nothing I can do. Aileen will have to deal with being alone. At least she has Howard.”

She said the last sentence as an afterthought, with an obvious tinge of distaste. My expression must have asked a question; she said, “Never you mind. He was a good man, once. A hard man, now. Not my favorite person, but I wasn’t married to him.”

I got to my feet, slowly. She looked up at me. “You’ll have to tell them yourself; I’ll not be sparing you that.”

I nodded.

She added, tartly, “Assuming, of course, that you all get to the point where you’re speaking to each other for just long enough to explain why you really shouldn’t be.”

“I’m sure the day will come. And, I will tell them.”

“You know about hell, I suppose?”

I thought of my upbringing. “It’s been mentioned.”

“I expect they’ll give you a refresher course.”

I could only nod. “Thank you . . . for trying, all those years. You made Christmas so special. And thank you for hearing me out, at least.”

She looked at me, eyes dry and clear once more. “And thank you, Cameron. For having the guts to tell me in person. Keep in touch.”

I bent, gave her a kiss goodbye, and then left her.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Così l'effluvio del desìo tutta m'aggira”
– Puccini, La Bohème, Quando m'en vo (Aria)

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, later the same day

I arrived at Liz's house around 6:30, which was better than I had feared earlier in the day. She was uncharacteristically flustered, but I wasn’t surprised. Liz had oodles of nieces and nephews and I had none. But she was just not a baby person. Never would be.

I kissed her cheek, dropped my stuff in the guest bedroom, and took baby Ingrid out of her hands. Ingrid, I thought, was adorable.

So Liz got some food together, which – while not her favorite thing – was well within her comfort zone.

I bounced Ingrid gently while we talked and I told Liz about my strange encounter with my grandmother. She managed to serve something that I could eat one-handed, which meant that I didn’t have to put Ingrid down. I didn’t want to.

By 9:00, Ingrid needed more in her stomach. I sat in the comfortable chair by the fire, held Ingrid against my body, and gave her a bottle. I found myself wishing I could give her my breast instead, that I could feel this beautiful infant taking nourishment from me.

I became aware, peripherally, that Liz was taking pictures. I might like copies of those.

~o~O~o~
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, January 19

I was, as usual, up early. Ingrid had gotten up twice during the night and I’d handled it both times, having finally convinced Liz to leave the Pack ‘n Play crib in my room. Ingrid and I got along well. And, I had gotten to bed early, so my total sleep quotient was still okay. Well, no worse than usual, anyhow.

By the time Liz’s brother Thor (honestly, that’s his name) came to pick up Ingrid at 8:00 that morning, she was cleaned, fed, and in a fresh onesie. I had handed her back to Liz, who handed her to Thor.

Thor was a big man, though he looked enough like Liz to make their relationship plausible, if not obvious. He was effusive in his gratitude.

Liz said, “Thor, really. Any time. That is, any time Cami’s here!”

We all laughed.

He got his daughter and all of the paraphernalia that traveled with her loaded into his car, then he drove off, waving.

I looked at Liz.
She looked at me.

I said, “So . . . got time for a little workout before we have to do the primping stuff?”

“Is that a challenge?”

I laughed. “Maybe . . . . Give me a minute.”

I popped into the guest bedroom and re-emerged, minutes later, dressed in a crop-top red sweater with capped sleeves, a ridiculously short white skirt, and sneakers. ‘I’ve got my uniform; where’s yours?”

This time she laughed even louder. “It is a challenge!” She disappeared into her own bedroom. When she came out, she was dressed in her old cheerleading outfit – the one I had worn when I pretended to “try out” for her squad.

We went downstairs to her exercise area and she put on some up-beat electronic music. Then we challenged each other.

She would do a series of cheer exercises. I would try to duplicate them, then I would do a set and she would try. Unlike our last session, where she was playing the coach, we were just two women bouncing around, challenging each other to kick higher, to jump higher, to move better.

She finally threw in a split and I just managed it.

Success!!!

After thirty minutes we were hot, sweaty, and cheerful. I was nowhere near as good as Liz, the former queen bee of her high school cheerleading squad, and never would be, but we both had fun.

I said, “So, did I make the team?”

“Keep tryin’, kid!”

We went upstairs and took showers. I took a blow-dryer to my hair right away to get it dry. Since Liz wanted these pictures for her website, I had decided my picture should look a bit less recognizable. So the folks at the salon were going to attach a wig and do something dramatic and different for my makeup.

Liz emerged a bit later, dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a crisp white shirt. As usual, she looked perfect, since she very much looked like a photographer.

Liz drove to her salon, which had been told the same story about a photoshoot as last time, but this time it was even true. They finished my nails and makeup in about forty-five minutes, then came out with the wig. My own hair was pulled back and put in a tight bun against the back of my head and they fussed with a wig for a few minutes before letting me see it.

“Your own mother wouldn’t recognize you,” Liz said.

Since my mother doesn’t even know that I’m a woman, I thought Liz was probably correct.

Nevertheless, I was flabbergasted. My makeup was dramatic, with peach undertones I don’t usually have, and false eyelashes that actually looked good (normally, I don’t like how they look on anyone).

The hair was an effusion of honey-gold that flowed half-way down my back as well as over my shoulders and down my chest. It was abundant, and very, very girly. I could pass for eighteen. Well, twenty, anyhow. Maybe Dolly Parton had been onto something all those years with her wigs!

We thanked the ladies at the salon, then went off to the next destination. Liz had worked a deal with a local bridal shop where they gave her a discount on rentals for the day in exchange for advertising and credit on her website. She picked up a wedding dress, two bridesmaids’ dresses, three tuxes, and the necessary accessories. We loaded them into her car and brought them back to the house.

It was about 12:30; the rest of her crew wasn’t showing up until 3:00. We had a quick bite to eat – some premade soup and toast – then got to work. I helped her set up her greenscreen and re-do the bridal trellis she had put together last time, decorating it with artificial flowers. Once it was up, a couple of people could move it around without too much trouble. Then we set up Liz’s camera gear and lights.

I went back into the guest bedroom and stripped down to my padded panty gaff and my prosthetic breasts. Liz, who had seen it all before, came in with me and started handing me items, one by one. First, a white, boned corset, which she proceeded to tighten mercilessly after I put it in place. Then a pair of snow white panties with a gorgeous lace pattern. Then, once again, she gave me a petticoat in crinoline.

She stopped to admire her handiwork. “I like you better with your own hair, but the blonde is certainly dramatic!”

We went into the main room and I sat in front of the green screen and was once again photographed rolling my stockings up my legs. Liz gave me artistic direction throughout. “A little more bend in your right elbow. No! Too much! Keep it a nice, curved line. Curve your back a bit more as you bend down. Point your toe . . . .” All the while, she was snapping photos like a madwoman.

Eventually she finished that series of photos. “Okay, Sweetie. It’s time. Are you ready?”

I nodded, and she brought out the dress. Surprisingly, Liz had gone with a dress that was both sleeveless and strapless.

She unzipped it, arranged it, and had me step into the middle of it. Then she brought it up until it was in the right place, carefully zipped it back up, then fussed with the satiny fabric until it lay shimmering atop my crinolines.

“Wow,” she said.

“Let me see!” I didn’t even know how the bodice was held up, except that it was remarkably stiff. Probably it stayed up because it didn’t want to disappoint Liz.

We went into her bedroom and I looked in her full-length mirror. She brought one of her cameras and took pictures of me admiring myself in the dress. I was captivated by the image, able to imagine myself as a bride – lovely, fresh, and perfect as any girl on any wedding day. I would have wept, but I couldn’t ruin all of the makeup.

We added shoes, and a thin gold necklace with a striking pendant. She put a ring on the long tapered fingers of my left hand, and then she gave me a bouquet of artificial flowers.

We went back to the area where the green screen was set up, and she started taking lots of bride shots. The bride standing. Sitting. Smelling her flowers. Looking dreamy . . . . You’ve seen the poses in any number of wedding albums. She used them all.

The last time I was here, I had not gotten into a wedding dress, but I had worn the corset, the stockings, and the crinolines. And she had laid me gently on my back, raised my legs high, and slowly, inexorably, fulfilled my wish by popping my cherry with the aid of a strap-on.

I realized I hadn’t had any sex since that day. Hadn’t even masturbated. And here I was again, this time fully a bride. And Liz was close.

So very close.

The bride closed her eyes, unbidden, and bent her nose to delicately sniff the non-existent aroma of the artificial flowers. Liz kept taking photos; it was a pose, after all, even if she hadn’t called it. But I was just getting myself back under command. I had an overwhelming desire to be held, and kissed, caressed, petted, fondled, loved . . . .

I drew a long, deep breath through my nose, feeling the air fill my lungs, expand my chest, push against the corset. I thought of Nicole, getting ready to sing, and I slowly, slowly, exhaled through my slightly parted lips. Again.

“Cami? You still with me?” I suddenly realized Liz had been giving instructions, and I turned my attention back to them.

Her friends Fernando and Tish were the first to arrive. Tish was probably her closest friend, unless I was. But they were very close. She looked up at me – Tish isn’t very tall – and extended her hands, palms up.

I took them lightly in my own.

“Cami. It’s good to meet you. And, it’s good to see you again.”

It was an odd greeting, but it was an odder circumstance. They had never met Cami, but they had hiked, kayaked and rock climbed with Cameron.

Fernando just stood back and said, “Wow. Just wow. You look fantastic, Cami!”

Her friend Tim Jackson arrived next; he actually gave me a two-handed hand-shake. “So good to meet you, Cami!”

Janet Talmage was the last of the crew that I knew, though Liz had expanded her circle a bit since last August. Janet gave me a gentle hug. “You make a lovely bride.”

The two new editions, Bob and Carla, arrived together and were apparently an item. With everyone there, Liz had them get changed, disbursing them to various parts of the house for that purpose.

The bridesmaids wore pale blue satin; the guys wore classic tuxes, but the groomsmen had vests in the same material as the bridesmaid’s dresses. Tim was wearing a white brocade vest; he would be playing the groom.

Liz went into maestro mode. She organized different groupings. Under the trellis. Away from the trellis. Talking to each other. Laughing. Sitting at a table. She took shots of Fernando pretending to give a toast. Of me pretending to throw the bouquet.

She took lots of shots of me with Tim. By his side. Looking at him. Looking down demurely while he bent his head toward the crown of my hair. Laughing with each other.

It was fun and funny. Liz kept it all moving as she snapped millions of pictures. Finally, she assessed that she had enough raw footage. Everyone disbursed again to get out of their wedding attire and back into street clothes.

Liz came in with me, since she didn’t need to change and knew that I would need help. Not without regret, I stepped out of the beautiful wedding dress, which Liz hung with appropriate care. Then she was behind me, working on the laces of my corset while I took careful breaths and tried not to imagine her hands wandering, just a bit.

To here, or maybe here . . . .

Finally I was free of the corset. The rest was easy enough, and soon done. I switched into a pretty A-line dress, as the crew was going out to celebrate the successful shoot at a nearby restaurant.

I also removed the wig, placing it on the loaned wig stand, brushed out my own hair, and returned it to my preferred over-the-shoulder loose braid. The bridal makeup also had to go, replaced by a more casual look.

The dinner was lovely. Everyone was friendly and nothing seemed at all awkward. I guess it stood to reason. These were Liz’s friends, doing this as a favor for Liz. I was no threat. They had known me before, and they had been friendly, but ours had not been the type of friendship that would have survived the end of my relationship with Liz.

As the evening wore on I slipped out, needing a moment with my own thoughts. I felt a shiver as I stepped to the railing on the patio and looked into the darkness. In nice weather, they had tables on the patio, and wine, and laughter. But tonight it was clear and cold, and I was alone with the stars and my thoughts.

I felt Liz’s presence in the darkness at my back. A light, soft touch where my neck meets my shoulder. And a whispered voice saying, “I want you, Cami.”

Neither the voice, nor the presence, were Liz. It was Tim, my “groom for the day.” He stepped closer. I could feel the warmth of his body. His fingers slid down my shoulder, touched the bare skin of my upper arm, while his other hand reached up and cupped my opposite shoulder. His voice was low, urgent, at my ear.

“Please, Cami. I want you so bad.” I felt the touch of warm lips, a kiss at the base of my neck.

I said nothing.

“You know you want it too, Cami. You know you do.”

And it was true. Oh, it was so true! I wanted “it,” and I wanted it bad. I wanted it now. I wanted to be held, and loved. I wanted kisses and sweetness and power and urgency. I wanted heart racing and blood pounding. I wanted . . . . Oh, I wanted!!!

But I didn't want it like this. I barely knew Tim. He was Liz’s friend, not mine. He and Cameron had gotten along fine when Liz and Cameron were an item, but I couldn’t tell you three interesting things about him. I had never felt any spark, any sexual tension, with Tim. I wanted it alright. But not with him. Not tonight.

I raised my right hand and gently stilled his wandering fingers. Keeping my tone light, I said, “Not on the first date, Timmy! I’m not that kind of girl!”

His hands stopped moving and he was still.

My heart beat slowly in my chest. One beat. Two.

“We have tonight, Cami. Who knows what tomorrow brings?”

Three beats. Four. Five.

“We can choose what it brings,” I suggested. Six. Seven. Eight.

“Okay, Cami.”

The hands withdrew and he walked away.

I stared into the dark, the cold seeping into my bones. Wasn’t I worth a little romance? Or was that too much for a transwoman to ask? Should I be grateful that any man would want me?

I thought of Steve, the first man to kiss me. Of Tom, his strong arms around me as we skated around the rink. Both gone, vanished, as soon as they knew what I was.

The night had no answers, but I had my own. How many times had I said it, when I faced rejection? The heart goes where the heart goes. I had never had sex, as either Cameron or Cami, without being in love with my partner.

The loves had been few and, with one exception, had not lasted. But in the moment, they had been real. Liz was cheerfully willing to have sex to give release to her body’s wants and needs, but I was not Liz.

I would have love, or nothing at all.

In the meantime, I thought, I should probably break down and talk to Sarah about a vibrator.

To be continued . . . .

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Tu fis avec l’amour épanouir la femme”
– Gounod, Faust, Salut demeure chaste et pure (Aria)

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, January 20

Liz and I sat in the comfortable chairs by her fire, watching as snowflakes swirled around her back deck, where they settled briefly before disappearing. It was quiet and beautiful and peaceful, even if the weather would somewhat lengthen my drive home.

We finally had a bit of time to relax – the first calm moments since I had arrived Saturday evening. It had been two months since I had been here last, at Thanksgiving. Half a year since Liz had broken up with Cameron, in these very chairs. Almost a year since our first date. Such a short amount of time!

We had both been up early. Normal for me; less so for Liz. She knew I would have to leave well before noon, and wanted to squeeze in as much time as possible before I did. So we had showered and dressed, had a bite, and were settled in, warmed and cheered by her gas fire, having thirds on coffee.

I finally told her the full story behind my Christmas in Boston, including the attack that I was still reliving in nightmares. I told her about shopping with, and getting kissed by, Steve; about skating with Tom. About Nicole and Maggie, about Fiona and Henry. About Sarah and the faith community she built and nourished.

We talked about the prior evening. “Tim took a shot at you, didn’t he?” Liz asked.

I looked at her cautiously. Tim was her friend, and I didn’t want to cause any issues.

She correctly interpreted my look and waved it off. “I saw him follow you out on the patio. Was tempted to intervene, but I decided you were more than capable of handling Tim. Besides,” she said, watching me, “I didn’t know whether you might be interested.”

I shook my head. “It’s nothing against Tim. But I don’t really know him. Haven’t ever felt anything for him.”

“Yeah, that’s not the sort of thing that would worry Tim,” Liz agreed. “He made a pass at me when we first met, too. But I don’t screw around at work, literally, and told him so. He backed off. I assume he did yesterday, too?”

“He did.” I fell silent.

Liz looked at me with a degree of compassion she rarely shows the world. “You’re wondering if there’s someone out there for you, someone who will treat you right?”

I looked into my coffee. “Sure, of course. I mean, I know life’s not fair that way. And I knew in my head I might have to give up on romantic relationships if I wanted to live my life as the woman I know I am. If that’s the price – even if it’s just part of the price – I’ll pay it. But it does hurt, Liz. I try not to let it, but it does.”

She was quiet in response, finally stirring to say, “I wish I could tell you it'll all work out. That just because you’re a wonderful person – and you are, Cami, the best I know – you’ll live happily ever after. But it would sound pretty stupid coming from me, since I let you go myself. Still, I hope you find what you’re looking for. Who you’re looking for. And that he turns out to be right for you.”

We talked about my work, and hers. How she was finally getting her team to work together properly, after she had to bring a couple engineers to heel. We talked about her plans for doing side gigs as a photographer.

We talked about her old friends and her new ones, so much a part of the life she had woven for herself when she came back to Pittsburgh. When we had first started dating, I really didn’t have a life of my own, living in a new city myself, fresh out of law school. I had eagerly latched on to Liz’ friends, just as I had adapted myself to her interests and hobbies.

I was building my own life, now.

We talked about Derek, and the budding romance that was slowly, carefully, adding color and texture to the vibrant sexual relationship they already enjoyed. She was finally taking him seriously, and it seemed he was treating her like a serious prospect as well.

One stone, one brick at a time, she was dismantling the moat and glacis, the bastions and batteries and hardened defenses that she had constructed since the end of her marriage to stand guard over her inmost thoughts and feelings. An open and vulnerable heart, protected by nothing more than trust in its own resilience, nurtures and husbands a different kind of strength.

We talked about our shared archive of eye-popping images and video, and decided it was time to delete all of the compromising material. We had the memories, and they would be enough.

We talked for hours. Memories, hopes, fears . . . a fitting bookend to our first magical conversation in an Ethiopian restaurant in Adams Morgan. And through it all, unspoken, I felt a shared realization that I was finally letting Liz go. We would remain friends forever, I was sure of it. But the duet we had sung together this past year was finally resolved, the last notes of the diminuendo fading into memory.

It was time to leave. I loaded up my rental car, closed the trunk and moved to give Liz a farewell hug. Instead, one last time, she pulled me in and kissed me deeply, gloss-red lips to gloss red lips, a passionate and lingering kiss suffused with love and longing, gratitude and grace.

The fingers of my right hand brushed her cheek, light as the falling snow, a wordless parting. God go with you, dear one.

As I turned at the end of her street, I saw her in my rear-view mirror, small but as vivid as my first memory of her, always and forever a cardinal in a field of dusty heather. She raised her arm in farewell and was lost to my sight.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Che risolvi, o turbata anima mia?”
– Verdi, La Traviata, E strano! e strano! (Aria)

College Park, Maryland, January 21

“Hi Henry,” I said to the image of Fiona’s husband-to-be on my computer screen. “I don’t suppose my sister is home?”

He shook his head. “Sorry Cami. I’d say your timing was unlucky, but she’s barely had a moment since you left after Christmas.”

“I saw articles in the Times this morning, about the Coronavirus case in Washington state, and what that Chinese doctor was saying about person-to-person transmission. That’s what she’s been working on, isn’t it?” Fiona worked at the infectious disease division of MassGeneral.

Henry nodded. “Yeah, pretty much non-stop, around her normal clinical duties. Conference calls to discuss logistics, preparing protocols. Trying to make sure they have supplies where they need them. Just in case.”

“So it's bad?”

Henry waggled his fingers. “Probably too soon to tell. Could be like SARS; lots of localized problems, but nothing that gets out of control. But it also could be worse. A lot worse. Right now, there’s too many unknowns to make good predictions.”

“That must make your job hell, too.”

“It hasn’t yet. But I think it will. We’ve been quietly taking profits for the past week, ten days, just to reduce exposure. And making some hedges in the pharma sector, naturally; Robbo’s been busy. It’s a delicate balancing act. No one wants to spook the markets, but no one wants to be left holding the bag if this breaks the wrong way, either.”

I thought, this is one of the few times when I’m happy that I have no assets to invest. One less thing to worry about.

I told him to let Fi know that I had visited our maternal grandmother and had what I described as a “full and frank exchange of views,” but that we parted on good terms. I said I had also learned a few things about my family that I hadn’t known, and that I would talk with Fi about them sometime when she wasn’t saving the planet. It could all wait.

He promised to pass on my message and we signed off.

~o~O~o~
Washington, D.C., January 23

“Hey Cam, did you hear this?”

I was in Daviana Narvaez’ office, going over some inconsistencies in the exhibit labels for the documents we planned to introduce at trial. The senior associate on our trial team, she could teach a nuclear engineer a thing or two about being detail oriented.

A news alert had just popped up on her screen. “China just placed all of Wuhan under quarantine. That’s . . . .” she paused a moment to run a quick search, then looked ill. “Dios. That’s like twelve million people!”

Daviana and I finished what we were working on, but attempting to concentrate on something as trivial as exhibit labels was difficult.

I thought, What does this mean? Who even knows?

~o~O~o~

Baltimore, Maryland, January 24

“Please come in, Cami. I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Karpedian, our endocrinologist.” Dr. Chun, my clinical psychiatrist, walked me into her office where a middle-aged man with a high forehead, intelligent eyes, and silver at his temples rose to greet me.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “May I call you ‘Cami?’”

“Please do, Doctor. I’m glad to meet you.”

We sat in comfortable chairs around a small, round coffee table.

Dr. Chun started the conversation. “We’ve gone through the results of your bloodwork and the report from Dr. Sheppard.” Dr. Theresa Sheppard was the GP who had poked, prodded, and measured every conceivable appendage of mine a couple of weeks ago. “We wanted to discuss the results with you and let you know what we’re seeing.”

What they were seeing, apparently, was a condition called “hypogonadism.”

Dr. Karpedian said, “You don’t meet every criterion, but you meet enough of them. Your testosterone level is abnormally low for a man. And, based on the experience of puberty that you described to Doctor Chun and Doctor Sheppard, coupled with the measurements that Dr. Sheppard took, it appears likely that you had the condition at least as early as your teens.

“It would explain why your secondary sex characteristics – things like upper body muscle mass, face and body hair, the depth of your voice, and your Adam’s apple – are less pronounced then in most adult males. And, as you reported to Doctor Chun, and Doctor Sheppard confirmed, your testes and penis are also smaller than we would expect to see in a post-pubescent male.”

They waited while I took that in.

“So, my physical appearance was pretty significantly affected by this condition?”

“That’s what the evidence points toward, yes,” Dr. Karpedian answered.

“I just assumed I was small.”

“Do you know if you had any testing done when you were going through puberty?” he asked. “It would provide us with a lot of useful information.”

I shook my head. “I’m positive I didn’t. We really only went to the doctors’ office if we were seriously ill. We didn’t do wellness visits. And I was pretty healthy.”

“I see.” He sounded both disappointed and disapproving.

While I could definitely see his point, I pulled the conversation back to the present. “I suppose it’s nice to know how I got the way I am. And I’ll need to process that a bit, I expect. But what does this mean for me now, today?”

“A lot of that’s up to you,” Dr. Chun said. “But we’ll tell you what we think the options are, at least.”

Doctor Karpedian took the lead. “In the ordinary course, once we developed a better understanding of the type of hypogonadism you have, we would recommend testosterone replacement treatment. If you’d received this treatment in your teens it might have kick-started puberty and you might have developed in a way that is more consistent with the male average.

“But even today, testosterone replacement therapy can help you develop more typically male secondary sex characteristics. That wouldn’t be the only reason we would recommend it, though. Hypogonadism can result in additional negative symptoms if it isn’t treated. Put another way, the treatment would fall under the category of ‘medically necessary,’ rather than merely elective or cosmetic. Which typically matters for insurance purposes.”

“You said ‘in the ordinary course?’” I asked.

Dr. Chun answered, “Right. Because that may not be what you want, if you want to pursue treatments to assist in gender affirmation.”

"I see,” I said. “Will this diagnosis preclude the estrogen treatments that we discussed in our last session?”

“I don’t think so,” Dr. Karpedian replied. “Not if that’s what you want to do. But I’d like to run a couple of additional tests to determine the nature and source of the underproduction of testosterone before clearing you for any hormone treatment – whether estrogen or testosterone.”

“Would the hypogonadism have an effect on my body’s response to estrogen therapy?”

Dr. Karpedian made a noncommittal gesture. “Possibly. You might see a more pronounced effect from the treatment. Not as much as someone who has never experienced male puberty. But possibly more. Hard to say for sure.”

Dr. Chun added, “What I recommend right now is that you do the additional tests that Dr. Karpedian mentioned, just so we have a better sense of what’s going on. Assuming the tests come back clear, you will need to make a choice. Do you want hormone therapy that will make you appear more masculine . . . or more feminine?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Dr. Chun held up her hand. “You absolutely don’t have to decide today, and even if you’re positive I would recommend that you take some time to think it over. It’ll take a week for the additional test results to come in. We can talk about it then, and you can decide what you want to do.”

Reluctantly, I nodded.

She continued, “You don’t need a diagnosis of gender dysphoria to begin hormone treatments, but the diagnosis is usually required if the treatment is going to be considered ‘medically necessary’ for insurance purposes. You meet all six of the recognized characteristics to one degree or another, and only two are required for me to make the diagnosis.”

“However,” she said, “the symptoms must have persisted for at least six months. Based on what you’ve told me I’m only comfortable saying two months, though I could stretch the point to three.”

“So hormone treatment to make me more male would be considered ‘medically necessary,’ but treatment to make me appear more female would be ‘elective?’”

“That’s about the size of it,” Dr. Chun confirmed, “although obviously that changes if your dysphoria continues.”

My heart ached for all the transwomen who lacked my financial options. The quirkiness of our healthcare delivery system bordered on institutionalized cruelty in this circumstance – and so many others besides.

I took the tests.

~o~O~o~
I walked out of the lab buildings and found a coffee shop. So many thoughts were whirling through my mind.

My condition was a blessing. I was able to pass as a woman much more easily precisely because my “secondary sex characteristics” were “underdeveloped.” I knew it, and I truly was grateful for it. There were transwomen in my faith community who would have thanked God for my condition.

I also had no doubts about my choice. The absolute last thing I wanted was to have testosterone coursing through my blood, coarsening my skin, making me hairy, bulky. Deepening my voice.

No! I wanted just the opposite. I was not even tempted by the chance to be a “normal” guy. Like Tom, Steve, Tim, or Curt. Or Iain. Or my father. I didn’t even want to be a wonderful guy like Henry. Not anymore.

And yet, part of me was grieving for the boy I had been, for everything he had endured. All the pain, the anguish. The bullying. So many memories.

I remembered myself in middle school, watching Iain working out, wondering if I would be as strong as he was when I got my growth. The growth that never happened. I remembered the taunts of the jocks in high school.

I remembered Liz, sitting on her back deck in the morning sunshine, trying to explain, in a way that didn’t tear me apart, that I wasn’t able to satisfy her during sex, and wondered whether my underdeveloped penis played a role in that. All because my body had failed to produce sufficient quantities of a hormone.

Blessings notwithstanding, the force of my memories left me with an overwhelming desire to weep. And a wish – stupid, selfish – for a shoulder to weep on.

I shook my head, angrily. Gammy Campbell was right; I am self-indulgent. I needed to stop my wallowing. Maybe I would have had an easier time in life if I’d developed more in puberty. But maybe having an easier time would have made me less patient, less able to feel empathy for friends who were hurting. More callous.

Those bad years had left scars, and they were smarting right at the moment. But they had also driven internal growth, made me who I am. Everything happens for a reason.

Do I really want to be someone else? Seriously?

I put my phone back in my purse, surprised to find it in my hand. I won’t mourn for Cameron Savin, but if I do, I’ll do it alone.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Je le veux!”
– Bizet, Carmen, La fleur que tu m'avais jetée (Aria)

College Park, Maryland, January 25

I took special pleasure in my exercises, making a point of doing my cheer routines – something I did because it was both fun and a great aerobic workout – wearing the cheerleader outfit I had bought for my challenge with Liz the prior weekend. I should, I thought fiercely, get myself some pom poms.

No, I’m not going to take testosterone!

I Naired and treated myself to a long and sensual shower, sliding the creamy moisturizing soap down the long, smooth length of my legs, feeling the hot water sluice over my skin, massaging sweet-smelling conditioner into my scalp.

Emerging refreshed, I reapplied my prosthetic breasts, tucked and slipped into a clean panty gaff, and went about making myself pretty, for no one but myself and no reason but whimsy. I had to work today, but it was a Saturday and Cami was going to work from home.

I made myself a light breakfast and opened my iPad to catch up on the headlines. In the normal course, the upcoming Iowa caucuses would be the focus of all news coverage, but the impeachment trial in the Senate, now underway, had pushed it to the second rank.

More ominously, the Coronavirus was all over the news. A second case in Washington State. Spooked investors were starting to exit the market, causing broad declines. More bad news out of China.

I felt a chill deep in my bones that had nothing to do with the winter outside. How bad would it get? Nobody knew. And there wasn’t anything I, or almost anyone, could do about it, other than to get on with life, and hope for the best.

And, there was a lot of work in my in box.

~o~O~o~
Baltimore, Maryland, January 31

It was the end of a long week, but once again I had to leave work early for a medical appointment.

Eileen had asked, casually, “Is everything all right?”

I told her that some issues had come up during my physical; I had to do some follow-up tests but it wasn’t anything serious. Which was truthful enough after a fashion, if incomplete. And the issues, while very serious to me personally, would not interfere with my work on the fast-approaching trial.

I was back in Dr. Chun’s waiting room, reading about the declaration of a world health emergency by the WHO, when her assistant brought me back to her office. Dr. Karpedian was not with her; he had sent us both copies of the test results, his analysis, and a green light to begin hormone therapy late yesterday. Either testosterone replacement therapy or estrogen therapy.

My choice.

Dr. Chun smiled as she came to the door. “Cami, given the care you have taken with your appearance, I assume you have made your decision?”

I laughed. It was a fair point. I had bought myself a jewel-toned red dress with a crew neck, three quarter sleeves, a tight bodice and a full, flaring skirt that fell to just below my knees in a heavy material that looked like velvet but wasn’t.

It was dramatic – not something a woman would wear to either the office or a doctor’s appointment – and I had done both my hair and makeup to match. Oh, yes, I was making a statement, from the flowing curls on my head to the tips of my three-inch heels!

“I’m dressed up because I’m meeting some friends for dinner. But yeah, it’s also my answer. This is who I am. Who I’m meant to be.”

She gave my arm a squeeze and led me to her chairs. “Tell me about it.”

So I did.

When I was done relating my thought processes and how I had reached my decision, she talked to me about her treatment recommendations, what to expect at each stage and an idea of the timeline.

Although I was cleared for the hormone treatment and eager to begin it, I would need to hold off on it until the trial was done. While changes in appearance would be gradual, they might be noticeable by the two-month mark. Moreover, the possibility that hormonal changes would lead to mood swings at the beginning of treatment meant that they would be a bad fit for a time of high stress when I would need to be functioning at my absolute best.

Nonetheless, I asked if she would write the prescription now.

She raised an eyebrow. “Why, Cami?”

“I can’t take them yet, but I want to have them. It’s like, one step closer. Something I can touch. A token, or a promise.”

She smiled again. “Okay. But I want you to let me know before you start taking them. We’ll need to monitor your progress.”

We discussed laser hair removal, but decided to hold off on that until the hormone therapy was well underway. I didn’t have all that much face and body hair, and the estrogen therapy might make it even less of an issue.

What I would be able to start immediately was the voice therapy. “Especially at the beginning,” Dr. Chun explained, “the therapy is really about expanding your vocal range, giving you access to a more convincing high register and more control over your pitch. No reason to delay any of that.”

I was excited by the prospect of taking concrete action, and happy to have an opportunity to work with the voice coach who trained both Nicole and Maggie. Whether I would take steps beyond these was something I could, and should, decide later.

Dr. Chun recommended taking things slowly, waiting until we saw the results of the hormone treatments before deciding about additional steps.

I left her office on cloud nine, overjoyed to be moving forward. I was going to take an Uber to the restaurant where I would be meeting Nicole and Maggie, but first I got a ride to a CVS.

I had a prescription to fill.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête!”
Donizetti, La Fille du Régiment, Ah! mes amis (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, January 31, later that evening

The Uber dropped me off at Tio Pepe’s in downtown Baltimore. I had reserved a nice table, both because I wanted to splurge on a celebration and because I wanted to give my friends a bit of a treat.

They lived pretty frugally. Like me, they had student loans to pay off, but the arts don’t pay as well as BigLaw, especially when you’re starting out.

Tio Pepe’s is a Spanish restaurant with low ceilings and painted brick walls, providing a warm and cozy space in the middle of a Baltimore winter. I was a couple minutes early, so I ordered a pitcher of their apparently famous and authentic sangria and a couple of apps. The drinks and starters arrived just as Nicole and Maggie swept in from the cold.

Maggie’s dress was a medium blue that highlighted her blonde hair and blue eyes, a flowing design with trumpet sleeves, an asymmetrical hem and a plunging neckline. Nicole, of course, was stunning in a long-sleeved bodycon dress in hunter green, her waist-length hair cascading down the back. They drew every eye in the restaurant as they entered.

Opera singers know how to make an entrance!

I gave them both big hugs and we sat, deep in conversation before I had even poured the sangria.

“So,” Nicole said, “dish, girl! What’s going on?”

I had told them I was celebrating, but I said I’d tell them why when I saw them. Instead, I pulled the prescription bottle from my purse and rattled it enticingly. “I got it! I was cleared!”

They knew immediately what I was talking about, and why it was so important to me. They were beaming.

The conversation flowed, burbled; it eddied when the waiter came by to take orders and again when he delivered our seafood paella, but found its flow again immediately. I told them about the photoshoot and I shared a couple of the images Liz had finished working on and had sent off to me to look at.

“Oh my God!” Maggie said. “That’s you?” It was a picture of me in bridal splendor, laughing with Liz’s friend Tish, who was dressed as a bridesmaid.

“Yes, but it doesn't look that way by design.” The dramatic makeup and long, curly blonde hair definitely changed my appearance radically. “I don’t really want pictures of me looking like this while I’m not out at work. And, I guess I want to earn a picture in a wedding dress.”

I also shared another shot Liz had sent, a picture of me in her comfy chair, head bent over her niece, a perfect and adorable infant, as I held her close and gave her a bottle.

“Your bridal shot looks very professional,” Nicole said, “but I like this one better. That is just so you.”

It was, in obvious ways: I wasn’t wearing a wig, my hair was in my usual loose over-the-shoulder braid, and I was wearing my standard makeup. But it was more like me in deeper ways too.

I had felt an immediate connection to that little girl, so tiny, so vulnerable. I had wanted to hold her and shower her with love, and felt incredible peace when she snuggled in to me and drew warmth from my body. I had never felt anything like it, and my joy and wonder shone through in the photo Liz had taken.

We talked, of course, about opera; Nicole and Maggie live and breathe it. Nicole’s favorite opera, as I knew, was Tosca; Maggie really liked Carmen, which was appropriate to our current setting.

“Carmen is a great mezzo soprano part,” she said. “And, she’s fierce and mercurial, very much her own person. ‘Libre elle est née et libre elle mourra’ – she was born free and will die free. Of course, she does die. It’s opera. But she has a good run! And, I like singing French.”

“You sing Carmen!!!” An older man with the sharp and distinguished features of a hidalgo had overheard her remark, just as he was coming up to the table. “Excuse me, ladies. I was just coming to ask if everything was perfect for you this evening. I couldn’t help but overhear your remark.

“I was privileged to hear Doña Teresa Berganza sing the role at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, almost thirty years ago. She was older then, but still . . . the voice! The passion!!!”
Maggie put both hands to her mouth. “You did! Oh my God!! When Carreras played Don Jose?!!”

“Yes!!! Such an evening! Such magic!! I will remember it always!”

They geeked out a bit more, and Maggie had to explain that she was not presently scheduled to be part of any performance of Carmen, though she would love to one day.

When he left, I said, “You know, I just go places and have dinner. Regular gal. Simple, quiet. But when I’m with you two, anything can happen. People just connect with you, with what you do. It’s amazing!”

After dinner, we took an Uber back to “Opera House,” the row house where they lived. I had a small overnight bag with me because we had arranged in advance that I would sleep over.

They had taken an Uber to the restaurant because they wanted to feel free to drink; I had taken one mostly because I didn’t have a car. I was beginning to think it might be useful to get one.

Back at their house, we changed out of our finery and into something more comfortable. I had actually bought something for this purpose as well. On my own, I loved the sensual feeling of a sexy nightie under my dark green silk dressing gown, but that wasn’t appropriate for hanging out with Nicole and Maggie. So I had purchased a flannel nightgown and a heavy fleece bathrobe in a warm red color.

We made ourselves some green tea and trooped into the living room, where Maggie and Nicole gave me, with great enthusiasm, an introduction to opera. They would play a favorite piece – Maggie insisted on including Carmen, of course – maybe two or three renditions, pointing out the differences in interpretation.

We discussed how the artists were using their voices. Nicole and Maggie debated their favorite composers and librettists.

It sounds dull and technical, but it wasn’t at all. These two women might be young, but they had studied the subject for years with passion and intensity. They were sharing the thing they knew best and loved most in the whole world, the spark that gave their lives meaning. That allowed them to stand up in a crowd of complete strangers and sing.

I was captivated.

We turned in late and I slept deeply and dreamlessly.

~o~O~o~
Baltimore, Maryland, February 1

I woke early as usual, despite the late night. I’m sure Dr. Sheppard would scold me for my bad sleep habits, but I love the early morning. It was quiet and I was seldom interrupted by the demands of the outside world. Besides, while I had been in bed a shorter amount of time than normal, I had definitely slept better.

I put my fuzzy new robe over my nightgown, added some slippers, and padded downstairs from the spare bedroom where I had spent the night. Maggie had explained that the house was part of her parents’ retirement plan. They had bought three separate properties in Baltimore over the years, fixed them up and rented them out, using the rent to pay off the mortgages.

Opera House had been their first purchase and was already paid off. When Maggie and Nicole were ready to move on, it would become a rental once more. Her parents were both still working, so they were willing to let Maggie live there rent-free for now.

The living room was not suited for my morning exercise routine, which in any event tended to be a bit noisy. But there was space enough for me to do my stretches, so I concentrated on that. I went for fifteen minutes, took a short break to make some tea, then went for fifteen minutes more.

I was getting locked in on my splits now, able to do them consistently and without quite so much obvious strain. Though I felt a bit silly doing them in my nightgown, which had to be hitched over my hips to complete the maneuver.

When the girls wandered down, forty-five minutes or so later, I had tea ready and had cut up some fruits and berries and added them to vanilla yogurt for our breakfast.

“You’re up early,” Nicole said through a smile of greeting. “What’re you up to?”

“Just reading a piece about the impeachment proceedings.”

“Politics,” she said with distaste. “I can’t listen to all that stuff. Drives me crazy.”

I shook my head. “It’s always fascinated me. But now, as a transwoman, ignoring ‘politics’ would be like . . . .” I grasped for an analogy, then smiled and said, “it would be like going into a bar in a bad part of town without an escape plan.”

She grimaced at the reminder. “Is it really so bad?”

“Nicole, there are states where it's illegal for me to use the ladies’ room. Wouldn’t matter what I felt inside, or how many happy hormone pills I had taken. Wouldn’t even matter if I had all my male parts surgically removed. Plenty of people in America, right now, today, think that what I am doing isn’t just unnatural, it’s immoral and evil. And, they think I’m a threat. The ‘why’ doesn’t really matter. What matters is the fear – and the hate.”

“I’m sorry,” Maggie said, shaking her head. “I know we get tunnel vision here; we’re absorbed in our art, our music. When I think about it, I know how lucky we are. But mostly we just take it for granted, I guess. I heard about the bathroom bills, even if Nickie missed that. But . . . I just dismissed it as something stupid, like bad performance art. It didn’t touch me . . . I didn’t feel it, like you do. I should have.”

Nicole looked thoughtful. “Maggie’s right. We’re so privileged. Lucky. And I don’t think about what’s going on in the real world nearly as much as I should. But still . . . politics!”

I laughed, and the moment passed. Like most Americans, they loved their country, loved freedom and democracy, but took all of it completely for granted. Their world was more fragile than they dared to admit; democracy and civil rights, freedom and the rule of law, can be swept away unless they’re defended.

But part of me was glad that, at least for now, these two women lived in a moment where they could focus on their art, could explore their great passion and give such incredible beauty to the world. Not everyone is well-suited to the barricades. Though the time might come when they are called to defend them, nonetheless, I was grateful that it was not today.

Nicole and Maggie had one more treat for me before I left. They brought me down into the basement, an open space that was as large as the footprint of the whole house.

Had I known, it had ample space for my full exercise routine. But a section of it had been turned into a sound-proofed room for making recordings. The enclosure had a large glass partition on one wall, on the other side of which was a lot of professional looking audio equipment, including a synthesizer.

Nicole demonstrated, going in the room, closing the door, going to the microphone and singing. I couldn’t hear anything.

Then Maggie handed me a set of headphones, and I heard Nicole doing vocal exercises, as clear as if she was standing in front of me. I gave a big thumbs-up and she came back out.

“We do most of our work down here,” Maggie explained. "Our voice exercises, our recordings. We make demo tapes to send out for potential gigs. Having this space really allows us to focus.”

I was impressed, and said so.

Then Nicole said, “But we didn’t bring you down here to admire the hardware. You’re here for a workout – our kind of workout!”

I looked stupid I suppose, because Nicole looked mischievous and added, “You’re going to be working with Francesca Trelli; we can get you started before you meet her.” This was their voice coach, whom I would be using as a speech-language pathologist to develop a more feminine voice.

So Maggie and Nicole had me join them in doing vocal exercises, simply singing notes, or a series of notes, without words. They practiced some very basic warm-up routines with me, after first working on posture, breathing and good abdominal support for the voice.

Each of the exercises typically began in a low register and worked up and up. I had to switch to a falsetto before either of them were barely into the heart of their range, and had to stop altogether long before they topped out. But I definitely felt stretched, and they assured me that I could learn how to expand the top end of my present range.

A bit like learning the splits, I thought.

I really felt like I did after a workout when we went back upstairs. Nicole insisted on driving me home, so I got seriously pampered. When we arrived, she said that she wanted to see my apartment.

I felt a bit shy about it, strangely enough. It’s not that it was messy; I keep it neat (if not quite to Nicole and Maggie’s high standards). But I had actually never had anyone over. Other than my landlords, Al and Javier, no one else had ever seen my little refuge.

She spun around in the middle of the floor, taking it all in. “It’s . . . it feels just like you, Cami. It’s warm and friendly; organized. Peaceful . . . .”

One of the sliders to my closets was open, revealing my purchases from over the past months; she stepped close, ran a finger down the sheer fabric of my red slip dress and added, “And, so very feminine.”

She appeared to be thinking hard. “I don’t know politics and I don’t want to. But anyone who can’t see who you are is blind. Anyone who thinks you’re evil, or some kind of threat, is nuts. And if that’s what’s going on in this country, it’s time I got my head out of my ass and started paying attention. If there’s anything I can do to help, I’m here for you.”

I cry so easily now. I never cried at all, before. Nicole, bless her, could make stones weep. “You have got to stop doing that to me,” I said through my tears. “But thank you. I am so glad I sat down next to you on that train!” I cleared my tears and walked her back out to her car.

We ran into Al, who was popping out for an errand, and I introduced them.

Al said, “Oh. My. God! That hair – that hair I would do for free!”

Nicole laughed, we said our good-byes, and she drove away.

“Such a lovely young woman. Cami, it’s good to see you with friends. Especially women your own age.”

I couldn’t agree more, though I responded, “My old, guy friends are pretty good, too!”

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“l'ombra mostrarsi a me”
– Donizetti, Lucia di Lammermoor, Regnava nel silenzio (Aria)

College Park, Maryland, February 2

It was 9:30 in the evening. I had worked hard over the past day and a half, but the number of things to be done was inexhaustible. After a break for a late supper, I had gotten myself dressed for bed in my light green nightie.

But I had covered it with my dark green dressing gown and sat back at my computer to get another hour or two in before calling it a night. My hair fell loose and full over my shoulders.

Unexpectedly, my screen lit up with an incoming Skype call. Not work; it was, finally, Fiona. I eagerly clicked on accept, looked at my sister’s exhausted face, and said, “Oh my God, Fi! It’s that bad?”

Her smile in response was tired. “I’m just gonna pretend those weren’t the first words out of your mouth, little sister!”

“I’m sorry!” I was truly contrite. “But it really looks like you haven’t slept since the last time I saw you. Are you okay?”

She waved it off. “It’s been intense. Not a lot of sleep, but I’ll be fine. I know you called a couple of times. I’m sorry I’ve been so out of touch.”

I told her not to be silly; that I knew what she was doing was incredibly important. Then I asked if she had any better sense of how bad the coronavirus outbreak was likely to be, compared to what had been in the news.

“I know more, I expect. But not about the things that really matter. We know it can spread from person to person. We don’t know how transmission is occurring, the actual mechanism. We don’t know how infectious it is, and we don’t know how deadly it is.”

“So you’re preparing for the worst case?”

She shook her head. “In my line of work, there’s no way to prepare for the worst case. The worst case is Stephen King, end of the world stuff. But we’re doing what we can to be as prepared as we can be for whatever might happen.”

We talked a bit more about the nuts and bolts of what she was doing, and talked in general terms about what Henry and Hutchinson Financial were doing. It was clearly an all-hands-on-deck time.

But after a bit she said, “Now, sister mine. Do me a favor and talk to me about something, anything, besides coronavirus.”

I gave her the family news first.

“You know,” she said after I described my conversation with Gammy Campbell, “I don’t have any memory of another sibling, or of Mom being pregnant between Iain and you. I was little, and self absorbed. Had quite the ‘Daddy’s little princess’ syndrome. But I do have a clear recollection of living with Gammy for a while. I’d never really given any thought to why that happened. I can see how that might have really hit Mom. Dad too, for that matter.”

She was less surprised at my description of Gammy herself. “I knew her better, of course; she was part of my life until I left for college. And, I think she was willing to show her steel a bit more to me – because she figured I could take it – and to Iain, because she knew he needed it. You,” she said with a note of fondness, “I think she figured you just needed some love. You got plenty of discipline.”

She thought Gammy’s acceptance of my transition was a reasonable outcome. “She disagreed with what you’re doing and told you so, but she made it clear that she respects and loves you regardless.”

It wasn’t as emotionally uplifting as Fiona’s own embrace of my choice, but I agreed that it was the best I could expect from someone of her generation and background. For sure, I’d take it.

I also described my sessions with Dr. Chun, and Dr. Karpedian’s diagnosis of hypogonadism.

She was surprised, then thoughtful. “Not really my specialty. I always assumed you weren’t big like Iain because he took after the Savins and you were more like me and Mom’s family. But thinking about it, Grandpa Ross wasn’t small. I don’t really know about the male Camerons.”

We talked a bit about the next steps in my transition. I told her how excited I was to have the estrogen pills, even if I wouldn’t be able to start them for two months.

She smiled. “You know, I already have a hard time seeing anything male when I look at you. You look downright sultry all ready for bed!”

I blushed.

As we wrapped up the call she said, “I’m probably going to be hard to get in touch with while we’re working through this coronavirus issue. I wish I could be more present for you right now, with all the changes you’re going through. If I’m still buried in a month – which hopefully I won’t be – can you look after Iain’s discharge from rehab and his criminal stuff?”

I assured her that I would.

I sat for a bit after she signed off. She had been very cautious in what she had said to stress the tight limits of what was known about the new virus. But from the sounds of it, what little we did know was all bad.

As before, however, there was nothing I could do about it. Might as well get back to work.

~o~O~o~
Washington. D.C., February 5

I had spent much of the day on logistical issues. Our whole trial team was going up to Connecticut for all of the following week to prepare our witnesses for their trial testimony.

We would be staying in Hartford, where the client’s headquarters were located, but we would go down to New Haven Tuesday morning for a court hearing (David Parr’s argument, not mine), then again on Friday for the presentations to mock jurors that our jury consultant was organizing.

I was taking a brief break to listen to Senator Romney’s speech supporting conviction of the President on the charge of abuse of power, impressed despite myself by Romney’s obvious intelligence and sincerity. He had not presented himself nearly so well the two times he ran for president, I thought. What ambition can do to even the best of people!

Just as he was concluding his remarks, my “Cami App” chirped at me, and I saw that I was getting a call from Javier. I quickly got up, closed my door and took the call. “Hey Javi, what’s up?”

He replied in a voice I could barely recognize, “Cami . . . Cami you won’t believe it! Tina’s come back! She’s come back to us!” He was clearly weeping, uncontrollably. Tears of joy, of relief.

I had never met Tina, but in many ways I felt I was in her debt. She was a young transgender girl Al and Javier had taken in at eighteen at Sarah’s request. She had run away from her family years before, living by her wits on the street. They fixed up their garage so she could live in it, cared for her while she got her feet underneath her, and treated her like the daughter they never had.

But she had disappeared a few years later, leaving them, leaving her job and the life she had created, running once again. They thought her family had caught up with her.

Because they had loved her so much, they opened their hearts to me when I came to their salon, still uncertain of who I was or what I was doing, wanting to learn how to look like a woman. Al and Javi had figured out that I was transgendered before I was willing to own it myself. And, they had rented me her old apartment, convinced she would never return to them.

All of that passed through my mind in an instant when I heard the news. My first reaction was simple joy for my friends. “Oh my God, Javi!!! That’s amazing news!! How is she??”

His voice was still choked with emotion. “She’s good; she sounded good. We haven’t seen her but we’re going to the bus station to pick her up.”

“Does she need a place to stay? I’m happy to have her over at the apartment tonight. I won’t be home until late, but she’s welcome to crash. I can pick up an air mattress, if I need one.”

“Thank-you, Cami! I don’t know what her story is, but we may take you up on that. We’ll call later, okay?”

I agreed. “Oh, Javi. I’m so happy for you. For both – for all of you!”

He signed off.

Although I wasn’t really eager to share my sanctuary, I knew it was the least I could do. Al and Javi had no place in their apartment for their friend to sleep; their couch was really just a love-seat. And, I really was happy for all of them.

It was probably 9:30 before I heard from Javi again. He sounded more subdued; cried out and drained. He said that Tina did need somewhere to stay, and if my offer was still good they would take me up on it.

I assured him it was.

He told me not to worry about an air mattress. “We got one on the way home. We’ll get it set up and get her settled. Unless you’re leaving soon, she’ll probably be sleeping when you get home. She looks beat!”

It was almost midnight before I got home, and I worked to mute the clump clump of my wing-tipped oxfords as I came through the back gate. I eased open my door and used the light on my phone so that I wouldn’t have to turn on the overhead light.

An air mattress was on the floor near my desk; someone had used it but it was now unoccupied. I looked around, wondering where my guest might be, and was surprised to find a small, mouse-haired person asleep in my own bed.

Not the best of beginnings. Still, it had been her bed, once. And dealing with it would have to wait.

I pulled together my clothes for the next day, hung my suit and tie, and put the rest of today’s Cam-o-flage in the hamper. Then I fished out my flannel nightgown and crawled into the abandoned air mattress.

College Park, Maryland, February 6

I woke in the middle of the night, badly. The fear, the cold sweats. The racing pulse and ragged breath of my night terrors. I didn’t know whether I had made any noise. I lay still, trying to bring my body back under my mind’s control. To remember where I was.

When I was a teenager, a neighbor had asked me to look after her cats while she went on vacation for a week. They were beautiful creatures with long, smokey gray fur. But they were wary — very wary. They had been born in the wild and she had tamed them and cared for them. Around anyone else, they were skittish and mistrustful.

As I tried to get comfortable, tried to quell my terrors, I felt wary eyes on me. Looking to my bed, I saw I was indeed being watched by eyes that reminded me, frighteningly, of those feral cats. When I made a move, the eyes narrowed to slits, then very deliberately closed.

It was a long and sleepless night.

In the early morning, I got up quietly, got dressed and slipped out into the cold of the February morning. My usual routine – exercise, shower, coffee – was entirely out of the question. I would need to actually meet Tina, and when I did, things might be more comfortable. But my workweek was packed, and I didn’t know when I might have the time.

Before I left, I went to my desk and picked up my estrogen prescription from the prominent place where I had put it, a talisman and promise. Feeling both small and foolish, I put it in my pocket.

To be continued . . . .

IMPORTANT AUTHOR’S NOTE: I am not a medical doctor of any sort. Hypogonadism is a real syndrome that does affect the development of both primary and secondary sex characteristics, and it is normally treated through testosterone replacement therapy. However, readers should assume that all of it is more complicated than anything described in this chapter and remember that this is a work of fiction.

~o~O~o~

CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Il tuo bel cielo vorrei redarti”
Verdi, Aïda, Celeste Aïda (Aria)

College Park, Maryland, February 8

I was tired, short on sleep, shaken by night terrors, and grumpy.

It was Saturday morning. Normally, one of my favorite times, because I could spend the day, and the next day too, being myself rather than pretending to still be Cameron Savin, a male attorney at Cavendish, Edwards and Gunn. I would still be working, more often than not, but I would be doing it from my own apartment. But with Tina ensconced there, that was going to be hard.

I still hadn’t even spoken to her, because she had been sleeping – rather pointedly, in my bed – both when I left for work and when I got home. I had crashed on the air mattress, generally trying to squeeze a full night’s sleep out of the hours between midnight and 6:00 am. Which might have worked, but I had night terrors every night since Tina had arrived.

I grabbed my phone and checked the time. 5:53 a.m. Normally I would have been finishing my morning exercises. Not possible. Hitting the shower, however, had not awakened my visitor yesterday, or if it had she had hidden that fact. So I pulled myself upright, got untangled from the sheets, and got to my feet.

Still no motion from the bed.

I went to my dresser and pulled out my breast forms, a panty gaff, and bra and panty set, my stretch jeans and a white cotton shirt. Unwilling to get dressed in front of a complete stranger, I brought everything with me into the bathroom and piled it on top of the sink. I started the shower and went into my beginning of the weekend routine.

Forty-five minutes later I was at my desk working, a cup of coffee close to hand. Tina remained, to all appearances, asleep, and I decided I was just going to ignore her until she woke up.

I had been at it for almost two hours when a voice behind me said, “Are you gonna be here all freakin’ day?”

I suppressed a quick snap-back, turned around and said, very deliberately, “Good morning. I’m Cami. I’m glad I’ve finally had a chance to meet you.”

Tina was still sprawled on the bed, a sour expression on her face.

I waited.

After she had given me her best basilisk stare for almost a minute, she said, “I don’t give a flying fuck who you are. I asked whether you’re gonna be here all day.”

I don’t always respond to direct challenges with sweetness and light; expecting it after the kind of sleep I had gotten the last three nights was asking too much. I cocked my head to one side and said in a calm tone, “I’m happy to have a conversation, Tina, but if you want to have an argument you’ll have to pay me. I don’t work for free.”

I turned back to my computer and went back to what I was doing.

After five minutes or so of silence, she started pounding the table by the bed and saying, over and over, “GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!!!!”

I got up, walked over to the bed, where she was at least now sitting up, and interrupted her. “Tina, I live here. And I’ve got work to do. Can you please tell me what this is all about? We haven’t even met!”

She glared at me. “I don’t fucking want to meet you. I sure as fuck don’t want to share a room with you. This is my place! Mine!”

“No, I’ve been renting it for months. You can’t disappear for years and expect that the world won’t change.” I was keeping my voice reasonable – the tone you might take with a toddler throwing a tantrum – because she didn’t appear to be stable. My tone didn't seem to calm her.

“No, YOU'RE the one that’s wrong! This is my place,” she snarled. “They made it for ME! They bought this furniture for ME! I’m finally able to come back and they’ve turned it over to some dick who plays dress-up and has the guap to drip. Dresses. Undies. Pretty little things to wear at night. Jewelry. Falsies. You think that makes you TRANS?”

I looked at her, nonplussed. “Suppose you tell me what it takes to be trans, Tina.”

She finally stood up to face me, standing only a foot away. “When they hunt you down, and get some sick judge to say you’re cray, and they lock you up and try to force you to give up – try for YEARS!!! – and you spit in their face, because you CAN’T, you fucking CAN’T even PRETEND you’re male. Then maybe I’ll think you’re serious.

“But you? You go out every morning, wearing a suit. Look like the man to me. Probably to everyone you see. Then you prance around behind closed doors in your pretty panties and think it matters?!! You’re a sick joke!”

I took a long breath, fighting down my rising instinct to bite her head off. “I haven’t faced what you’ve had to face. But I’m not your enemy! I want to help. Why are you attacking me?”

“You’re in my way, dickhead. I need this place. No. I don’t have the guap – the scratch – like you. I can’t take out some fucking ‘lease with an option to buy.’ I got nowhere left to go. I’ve got these two guys. That’s it. And. You’re. In. My. Fucking. Way. Can you wrap your head around that, or is it too much for you?”

She threw up her hands. “You want to help? Fine. Get the fuck out of my life.”

This was . . . not going to work. And, unfortunately, I really didn’t have the time to deal with it. “We’ll talk later.” I went back to my desk, shut down my laptop, put it and my iPad in my bag, and walked out, grabbing my winter coat on the way.

She looked triumphant.

My emotions were roiling. First, I was boiling mad. I had offered her hospitality and she had rifled through my drawers and closets and then verbally assaulted me.

But . . . she had also been horribly abused. I remembered Al and Javier describing Tina as the sweetest, kindest person they knew, like a daughter to them. She had lived in this apartment for something like three years; Al and Javi had known her well. No way she had fooled them for that long.

No. Tina had come back, but she was a bitter, broken shell of the young woman they had known . . . and loved.

It was 9:30 in the morning, and I was in a bind. I was walking aimlessly around the streets of my neighborhood when I had work I had to get done. I had to be on a plane to Hartford tomorrow afternoon. There was no time to deal with this. Any of it.
I crossed Baltimore Avenue and sat on a park bench on the outskirts of the campus that gives the town its name. It was forty degrees and I couldn’t sit long, but I needed a safe, quiet space. Then I called Sarah.

“Hey, Cami,” said the familiar voice. “I thought I might be hearing from you.”

“You guessed I might be having roommate problems?”

“Yeah.” It was almost a sigh. I knew she had come to see Tina during the day while I was at work.

“Sarah, I don’t know the whole story. I know she’s been abused; sounds like they found a way to institutionalize her. But . . . she sees me as her enemy. An obstacle to resuming her old life. I don’t know what to do.”

She had me tell her the whole story, and was quiet for a minute after I had finished. “What options are you seeing, Cami?”

“Wellllll . . . ,” I said slowly, “I can try to stick it out. Make it work. Al called yesterday, asking me to do that ‘just for a while, maybe a couple months, while she gets back on her feet.’ I said yes then – what else could I say? And I want to help; I really do! For her sake; for Al and Javi’s sake. But I don’t see how I can. Not when she resents me. Thinks I’ve replaced her.

“And . . . . God, Sarah! I hate to say this, but she’s going to make my life miserable and I just don’t have the bandwidth to deal with it right now. I’m working eighteen-hour days! I can’t come home to a war zone every night!”

“Cami,” Sarah said sternly, “You are not required to solve everyone’s problems. You can only do what you can do. What’s option two?”

“I leave. Throw in the towel. It feels like quitting, running away. Letting Al and Javi down. But if I can’t make it work – and I don’t see how I can, right now – I’ve got to get out. Now, not later. But . . . I don’t have time to hunt for a new apartment. I’ve got to be on a flight tomorrow.”

I thought for a moment. “Maybe I could ask Nicole and Maggie if I could crash at their place for a few weeks . . . They are wonderful people, though I hate to impose . . . .” I ran out of steam.

“Any other options?” Sarah asked.

“I can’t see any,” I said glumly. “I suppose I could ask Al or Javi to talk to her, but that just seems like calling in parents. It only works when they're actually in the room. Once they aren't, the situation’s just worse than before.”

I’d been the youngest of three, and my older brother had been hard to deal with on occasion. I learned early not to bring our frequent disputes to our parents’ attention. Moreover, if Al and Javi were the only people she trusted, I had to make sure that I didn’t do anything that might shake her faith in them.

“You have a lease. You could tell Al and Javi that it won’t work. You could also tell them what you told me this morning.” Her tone was carefully neutral. Sarah doesn’t like to give advice.

“That’s just what I can't do. Al and Javi are my friends. This matters to them, more than anything. I can't do that to them. I just can’t.”

“They love you, too,” she said carefully. “Whether you go or she goes, it will hurt them. Like parents with daughters who can’t get along.”

“I know. But I’ve got options and Tina doesn’t. She’s being vicious, but she’s not wrong. I am in her way. So, I should be the one to go. And I would, except . . . .”

I didn’t want to finish the sentence, but Sarah wasn’t going to finish it for me. “Except . . . ?” she prodded.

“Except I worry about what she’ll do to them. She’s desperate, and she’s wounded. She is not the beautiful girl they remember. She’s going to tear them apart!”

The line was silent, then Sarah said, “I can’t tell you what to do. And wouldn’t, you know that. But for whatever it’s worth . . . . I think you’re probably right. She may be too far gone to pull her back. I know I can’t do it, not right now. I know Javi and Al hoped you might be able to help, but they had no idea how she reacted to you. Given her hostility, it’s pretty clear you can’t."

"Do you think they can?"

"I don't know. Honestly, I doubt it. But, they’re the only people who might be able to pull it off. The only people she even half trusts.”

I thought about that for a minute. “I need to talk with Al or Javi. Both, preferably, but one of them’s got the shop this morning. Will you come, too? I need them to know what I’m doing, and why, but I also need to make sure they know the risks. Maybe they won’t want to take Tina on, though I doubt it. But it should be their choice. If it’s just me, they might think I was trying to manipulate them into kicking her out.”

“Even I know you better than that,” she replied. “But yes, I’ll help. Let me call Al and see if we can’t meet some place this morning. Things are quiet here; I’ll close up for a bit.”

The better part of an hour later, Al, Sarah and I were all sitting at a table in the back of a local diner. Al was the last to arrive; he looked exhausted and his handsome face was etched with worry. And guilt. Sarah had filled him in when she called.

“Cami!!!” he said, “I’m so sorry! I had no idea it would be this bad!”

I jumped up and gave him a long, daughterly hug. Then I sat him down and stopped him before he could say anything more.

“Al, it’s okay. Really. I understand. I know how much Tina means to you both. I know you want to help her. And I want to help her too. Maybe down the road I’ll be able to. But right now, given where she’s at, the only way for me to help her is to give her space. She made that clear this morning. . . . And, I guess I need some space too, even if it’s just a room.”

Al broke in. “It’s your apartment, and this isn’t your problem . . . . we’ll . . . .” But he ran out of words because he ran out of ideas. There just wasn’t space for a third person in the apartment Al and Javi shared.

I covered his balled hands with my own. “Thank you. Really. But I’m not going to be responsible for putting Tina back on the street. I won’t do it to her, and I won’t do it to you two. Like I said to Sarah earlier, I’ve got options and she doesn’t.

“I’ll go somewhere else, but . . . I need to make sure that you actually want to have Tina in the apartment. She’s not who she was, Al. You know that. I’m worried for you both. So’s Sarah.”

Sarah didn’t say anything, but she didn’t challenge my statement.

Al stared out the window, looking tired and grim. Then he sighed. “We have to try. Even if we can’t rescue her. We couldn’t live with ourselves, if we didn’t try. We loved her so much . . . . we still do.”

I gave his hands a squeeze and then released them. “Then that’s decided.”

We talked some more, but the rest was just detail. Al filled me in on what he and Javier had learned about the years Tina had been gone. Sarah talked about strategies for dealing with Tina’s trauma and red flags Al and Javi should watch for.

We discussed the possibility that either Sarah or I could be more help down the road, if and when Tina got to the point where she felt secure in her living situation and in the primacy of her relationship with Al and Javi.

Finally, we talked about logistics. I didn’t have a lot of stuff. My computer table and chair were the only furniture I possessed; the rest was mostly clothes – Cam’s and mine. I wouldn’t be able to clear everything out until I got back from Connecticut, but I would need to take everything I needed for the week.

Al said he would get Tina away so I could take care of that, and he would let me borrow his car.

He wanted to know where I was going to go, and I told him that I was going to stay with friends in Baltimore. I hoped that was the case, but I didn’t know it. There had been no time to ask. If Nicole and Maggie couldn’t take me, I would just have to come up with something else. Fast.

We got up, said our good-byes to Sarah, and he drove me back. Alone with me in the car, he said, “I’m so very sorry. And we’re going to miss you so much!”

I assured him that he was losing a tenant, not a friend. But I also knew that, unless and until Tina stopped feeling threatened by my relationship with the two men, I would need to be conspicuous by my absence.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Nehmt sie in euren Wohnsitz auf”
– Mozart, Die Zauberflöte, O Isis und Osiris (Aria)

College Park, Maryland, February 8, ten minutes later

Al texted to tell me that Tina was over at the salon, so I slipped back into the apartment that had been my sanctuary for these incredible months of change, and suddenly, so very suddenly, wasn’t. Life was coming at me too quickly.

But I had no time for wallowing. I made a call to Nicole and got a message. I called Maggie.

“Hey, Cami! What’s shakin’?” she asked, answering her phone.

“Hi Maggie,” I said. “I’m calling to ask a huge favor. I’m losing my apartment, basically right now. Can I stay with you for a bit until I can get another place, or at least store my stuff there?”

“Oh my God, Cami, what happened? Of course you can stay here!”

“I tried calling Nicole but got a message. Do you have a way to check with her?”

“She’s at a voice lesson this morning, but don’t be silly. She would insist,” Maggie said.

I promised to fill her in when I got there; we ended the call and I quickly started to pack. What I would need for the Connecticut trip went into my large suitcase with the wrap-around garment bag. Everything from the bathroom – shampoo, conditioner, toiletries, cosmetics, hairdryer, brushes, razor – into a recyclable shopping bag. Another bag for Cam’s shoes. A third for mine. Underwear, socks, hosiery, sleepwear into a fourth bag.

The important clothes from my dresser went into my carryon bag. I grabbed my small wooden jewelry box and added it to the bag as well. Then I stopped and, again feeling small, opened it.

My watch was missing.

It was obvious, since it was the largest item I owned. It was also the only valuable piece, both intrinsically and sentimentally. Liz had given it to me at Christmas. I wanted to storm into the salon and sweat it out of that nasty piece of work, but I forced myself to think first.

Was I sure I had put it back in the box?

Yes, I was sure. I had it with me last weekend in Baltimore and had put it in its safe spot before starting the week. I hadn’t had an opportunity to dress as myself since then. So, yes. It had been stolen.

Was it possible someone else took it?

No. From what Al had told me, Tina had been in the apartment the whole time, except when she was right next door.

But that also meant that it was probably still here. She hadn’t gone anywhere; she hadn’t had a chance to fence it. Maybe she had it with her, but I thought not. She wouldn’t want to get caught like that.

I checked under the mattress. Nothing. Patted down the sheets. Nope. Checked the pillow cases. And, bingo. There it was, along with three twenty dollar bills and a baggie that held six pills. I pulled my prescription container out of my purse and opened it up. Sure enough. Same pills.

She was sneaky, but clearly not as smart as she thought. I put the pills and watch back where they belonged, put the jewelry box back in my carryon and closed it. I loaded what I had packed into the car.

Plenty of space still, and I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving my skirts and dresses for Tina to paw over. It seemed like each item came with a host of memories, from the A-Line dress with the floral motif that was my very first purchase, to the red slip-dress that had shocked Liz, to the beautiful party dress Fiona had given me for Christmas . . . .

I put down a towel over the other items in the car and just lay my nicer clothes on top of it, still attached to their hangers.

That was all I needed to take. I went back into the apartment and made sure I wasn’t forgetting anything important. But I wasn’t. I had eighty percent of my clothes, all of my toiletries and all of my valuables. I would need to get the desk and chair later. The food in the cupboards and the fridge I would leave, with one important exception.

I paused a moment, grabbed a piece of paper, and wrote Tina a note. “I told you that I’m not your enemy. But if you steal from Al or Javi, or if you do them any harm, I promise you that I will be. Do you really need more enemies?”

I left the note, unsigned, in the plastic bag that had held the estrogen pills she had stolen, and put it back in the pillow case. I also put the $60 back. I didn’t recall having left money around, so it might actually be hers.

I left the apartment and went to get the car. Javi was standing beside it, looking miserable. “Let me drive you, Cami. I’ve got things I want to say. And I can’t, here.”

I remembered how happy he had looked, those few weeks ago, when I had picked them up at BWI after they spent Christmas in Colombia. I thought, “Damn Tina!” But I dismissed the thought, damning instead the world, and the people, who had chosen to break her rather than accept her as she was, as God in His infinite wisdom had chosen to create her.

I got in and gave Javi directions.

He put the car in gear and started driving, remaining silent until we got on the highway. “You have been such a light in our lives. We don’t want to lose you. But Tina needs us so much. I’ve never seen anyone so tormented. We . . . .” He stopped speaking, his voice completely choked up.

“I know, Javi. I know. And it’s alright. I know you have to try. And I want to help you. What happened to her . . . but, this is the only way I really can help. At least right now.”

Javi nodded, looking forward, still unable to speak.

“Javi, you need to be careful. Both of you. Okay? I think she still loves you, and I hope that will make a difference. But she’s desperate.” I told him about the watch, and the pills.

He looked even more bleak.

“I wouldn’t have said anything,” I told him. “I didn’t want to; I know how much that will hurt you both. But you need to be careful. Okay?”

He nodded again, and drove for a while in silence. As we got close to the city, he said, “I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have to pay the price for our love.”

“After all you both did for me, this is nothing. And Tina’s right, I have been blessed in so many ways. Friends. My sister. A good job. Health insurance and great healthcare. I can’t begin to pay any of that back. Let me pay it forward, okay? This isn’t on you. You aren’t taking the apartment. I’m giving it.”

When we arrived at “Opera House,” Maggie came rushing down the steps and gave me a big hug. I looked at Javi, standing behind her, and said, “You see? I’m so very blessed.”

He helped me unload the car, and Maggie had me bring my stuff up to the spare bedroom.

I gave Javier a fierce hug. “Now you be careful, both of you. Do what you need to do. And God bless you both!”

Too full of emotion for words, he hugged me back, then kissed me on each cheek, and walked back to his car.

I watched him drive away, following his car with my eyes as it made its slow way past the arts and crafts houses, past the parked cars and the ornamental trees, then turned at the corner and disappeared.

Maggie stood behind me. As Javi’s car drove out of my view, she said softly, “Welcome home. Come on in and tell me what’s happened.”

I was just about to go in when Nicole pulled up, stopped smartly and jumped out. “Cami!” She ran up the stairs. “I called Mags just as I was about to come home. What happened?”

So they both pulled me in, we made some of their ubiquitous tea, and I told them about the last three days.

When I was finished, Maggie said, “Damn, Cami, you need to find your inner bitch! She’s a complete shit to you and steals from you, and she wins? That just seems so wrong!”

But Nicole looked at me and smiled fondly. “You chose love again, didn’t you? Just like with that little dick at the Christmas party.”

“I had to give Javi and Al the chance to help her. For her sake,” I said, looking at Maggie, “since nothing in that sad life looks much like a win. But,” I said, looking at Nicole, “mostly for theirs. She means so much to them.”

“I get that,” Maggie said, “but I’m not sure you did them any favors. Sounds like she’s going to make them miserable.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I know. And so do they. But that needs to be their choice. I won’t block them from trying to save someone they love, not even to protect them.”

Nicole shook her head. “Some day you’re going to need to fight for yourself. But . . . . for today, what’s the plan, and how can we help?”

“Here's my problem. I’m flying to Connecticut tomorrow for work and I won’t be back until Friday night. I can’t start looking for an apartment until I’m back.

“And, honestly . . . I’ve been working really long hours. Nights and weekends too. I don’t know whether I’ll have any time to look until the trial I’m working on wraps up, which should be in six or seven weeks. Can I stay until then? I won’t be around most of the time, and I’ll make sure I don’t interfere with your work.”

“Of course you can,” Maggie said. “Stay as long as you like.”

Nicole added, “We’d love having you. I wish you could just move in with us, but I know it’s a bit of a commute for you.”

I looked back and forth from one to the other, dumbfounded by their spontaneous generosity.

My expression made Nicole laugh. “Honestly, girl, it’s no imposition. Besides the fact that we’re all friends – which settles the matter as far as Mags and I are concerned – we’re both in and out during opera season.”

Maggie nodded. “I’m leaving for Sarasota in just over a week to start rehearsals for Catalini’s La Wally. By the time that run is over, Nickie’ll be in Chicago doing Wagner. I’m guessing there won’t be too many times that we’re all here at the same time until next fall.”

I thanked them profusely, managing just this once to keep myself from bursting into tears. After some pushback, I got them to agree that I could contribute to the household expenses the same amount I had been paying Al and Javi for rent.

With that out of the way, I said, “Now, I really hate to do this, but I have some work I absolutely have to get done today, and I’ve already lost the whole morning and part of the afternoon. Let me go upstairs and get to it, and I’ll let you two get back to your own plans.”

“Sure thing.” Nicole said. “I’ve got a student coming for voice lessons at 3:00, and Mags has one at 4:00. We use this room for that. It’s not too bad upstairs during lessons, but you will hear us. If you’d be more comfortable, you can work at the table in the basement. The synthesizer only takes about half of it.”

That’s what I ended up doing. I heard the sounds of their students, but from the basement they barely registered. Around 6:30 Nicole came downstairs. “We’ve got a bit of supper ready. Will you come upstairs and join us?”

Grateful for the break, and still more grateful for the food, I followed her upstairs.

Maggie had made a wild mushroom soup and Nicole had added a simple salad. It was heavenly.

I insisted on doing the clean-up, in the process learning where everything went in the kitchen. Then I went back downstairs and was soon plunged back into my work.

A light touch on my shoulder woke me up. I had just intended to rest my eyes a moment!

Nicole said, “Cami, honey, you aren’t going to be good for anything tomorrow if you don’t get some sleep.” She was already dressed for bed, a flannel robe over her nightgown and her waist-length hair gathered into a long, thick plait.

I looked at her. “What time?”

She just smiled. “Bedtime.”

I followed her up to my new bedroom and found that my roommates had removed everything that wasn’t either mine or furniture, put away or stacked my things, and made the couch as bed-like as possible. Someone had even laid out my blue nightie on the couch for me.

This time I couldn’t hold back the tears. “What did I ever do to deserve you two?”

Nicole wrapped me into a hug. “You would do anything to help your friends, the people you love. Well . . . so would we. Now get some sleep, and don’t you dare set an alarm. You’re a wreck.” She gave my shoulder a final squeeze and went off to her own bed.

I got out of my clothes and into my nightie – how nice to be able to wear it again! – then went into the bathroom, removed my makeup, washed my face, and brushed my teeth. I went back to my new room, closed the door, and prepared myself for sleep.

It had been a long and emotionally draining day. But I had been right. I had options, and the love and care of good friends. Amazing that I had only known Nicole for six weeks, and Maggie for even less time. So if life was coming at me quickly, it was doing so in good ways, too.

I said a prayer for Tina, that tortured soul, and for Al and Javi as well. And a final prayer, one of thanksgiving, for the blessing of good friends and open hearts.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Va tacito e nascosto”
– Handel, Giulio Cesare, Va tacito e nascosto (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, February 9

I slept the entire night without interruption, and didn’t wake up until 7:30 – two and a half hours late for me. Given how much I still had to get done, I was going to have to forgo my daily exercises for the fourth straight day. Ughhh.

I got up to use the shared facilities and bumped into Maggie as she was on her way out. I hadn’t thought to put on my robe and I blushed as she gave my scantily-clad self a quick once-over.

“Damn, Gina! Look at you!” She giggled at my embarrassment, gave me a hug and said, “You look good, Cami. I couldn’t resist laying that out for you when we were putting away your things. Sometimes you’re like a commando. But other times you are just such a girly-girl!”

I laughed along. “Guilty, I’m afraid. I just . . . well. Yeah. I am,” I ended a bit lamely.

She laughed and trotted downstairs. “All yours, girly!”

Nicole was still sleeping – apparently she was not a morning person by choice, which I suppose wasn’t too surprising since she grew up in New York. I took a quick shower and got dressed in a skirt, tights, and a knit top. I didn’t do much with my hair and kept my makeup minimal.

I had hemmed and hawed. But in the end, I decided I couldn’t risk traveling without changing into male attire. Unlike my colleagues, I was flying into and out of BWI, and I was scheduled to arrive in Connecticut an hour and a half before they were.

My drivers’ license no longer listed me as a male, so it no longer qualified as a “Real ID.” But the TSA wasn’t scheduled to begin requiring Real-ID compliant ID’s until later in the year. I could try to fly dressed to conform to my real gender. However, wearing breast forms might trigger anomalies at some of the TSA checkpoints, and I simply didn’t want to have to answer questions from security personnel about the inorganic material filling out the size C cups of my bra.

Moreover, flights got delayed; luggage got misplaced. These things happened often enough that I could not count on getting to the hotel without one of my colleagues spotting me. Dressed as Cami, I looked very different than when I dressed for work. But not so different that people who saw me every day wouldn’t know me.

I wrapped up everything I needed to finish for work and asked Nicole and Maggie if they would let me buy them lunch. We walked to a local deli and got sandwiches to bring back to the house.

Over lunch, I raised a point that had been bothering me since I made my decision about the flight. “Neither of you has seen me dress up as Cameron Savin. And . . . well . . . I’d honestly prefer that you didn’t.”

“Why?” Nicole simply sounded curious.

“It’s me, mostly. I guess. I mean, this is who I am,” I said, waving generally to indicate my feminine look. “And when I get dressed as Cameron now, I feel like a fraud. I don’t want you guys to see me that way.

“But I guess it’s us, too. You’re letting me stay here, and it’s wonderful. And it’s comfortable, because we’re three women. I worry you might not be so comfortable if you think of it as having . . . well. If you think of me as male.”

Nicole and Maggie looked at each other for a second, as if communicating silently. Then Nicole said, “We know that you’re trans, and that you haven’t transitioned. We know what that means physically, and we don’t care. I’ve said it over and over. You’re as much a woman as I am. Wearing men’s clothes won’t make you a man in our eyes.”

“It’s not just today, anyway,” Maggie said, practically. “You’re going to be going to work and coming home dressed like a guy. We’re going to see you that way sooner or later. Like Nickie said, it doesn’t matter. Not to us.”

They were right and I knew it. But I was still not happy about it. A little after lunch I went upstairs, got undressed, removed my makeup and nail polish. Removed my breast forms.

This was always the hardest moment for me, when I felt most vulnerable. Clothes and hairstyle could make me look more masculine or feminine, but without anything to hide me I felt unformed and ugly, a bug caught half-way between caterpillar and butterfly.

I pulled on Cam’s travel clothes – a button down oxford shirt, khaki pants, a Navy blazer. The heavy shoes and belt. Then I pulled back my hair, tied it back in the severe Cam pony tail, and clubbed the end to hide both its length and its curl. My breast forms went in a drawer; I wouldn’t need them on this trip.

I ordered an Uber. Ahmed, driving a silver Camry. Arriving in six minutes. When he was one minute out, I picked up my suitcase and went downstairs. Nicole was reviewing music in the front room. She looked up, gave me a completely natural smile and said, “See you in a couple days, Cami. Safe trip!”

As I made my way to the car I thought, once again, that I really didn’t deserve either of them.

~o~O~o~
On the flight to Hartford, a few hours later

I was stuck in a middle seat on an American Airlines flight. To my right, an older woman, her eyes glued to a mystery novel on her lap.

The woman to my left was younger, probably mid-twenties. She had earplugs in her ears, no doubt playing music, but nothing I could hear over the roar of the engines. Her eyes were shut, but her posture and expression indicated she was very much awake. She was simply flashing a “do not disturb” sign.

I wondered whether, if I had flown as Cami, I would be having a conversation with one or both of my neighbors. I might be meeting new friends, as I had on the Amtrak to Boston that had brought Nicole – and later, Maggie – into my life. I might be learning new things, hearing about people I would never meet and places I might never visit.

But Cameron would meet a more wary reception. And, anticipating it, he would not reach out in the first place.

“Good evening folks, this is your Captain from the flightdeck. In preparation for our landing at Hartford/Springfield, please bring your seats and tray tables into the full, upright and locked position, and store any of those larger electronic devices you might have taken out . . . .”

The familiar drone of the landing instructions washed over me and I smiled. I was going to be glad to get off the plane.

~o~O~o~
Hartford, Connecticut, later that night

I caught a cab from the airport to our hotel, located right in the middle of Hartford’s downtown, checked in, and got myself settled.

The four of us – Eileen, David, Daviana and I – met for dinner. We didn’t talk much about the case since we were ready for what we had set for the week.

Instead, the conversation was about the now completed impeachment proceedings, the messed up Iowa Caucus, the upcoming New Hampshire primary, and the Coronavirus. Over 10,000 cases had been confirmed worldwide; the President had declared a public health emergency and countries, including the U.S., were shutting down flights from China.

“I don’t really understand how shutting down travel from China is going to help,” David said. “People can travel from China to other countries, cause infections there, and there’s no restriction on those people coming here.”

I suggested that maybe the idea was simply to slow things down, give us more time to get prepared.

“Your sister works in epidemiology, doesn’t she?” Daviana asked.

“Close; she works on the clinical side on infectious diseases.”

“What are you hearing from her?”

“We haven’t talked much since the beginning of the year because she’s been working on this night and day. But last time we spoke, she said they still didn’t have answers to a lot of very important questions. So they’re just trying to be as prepared as possible for whatever comes down the pike.”

Our discussion of politics was interesting – and in many ways telling. For starters, all of us were Democrats. When all the lawyers are in one corner, it’s a fair bet that the greater number of people will be in the other. When it came to the Democrats who were running, we were all over the map.

David liked Mayor Pete. “He thinks clearly. Communicates complex ideas clearly. He’s been in the service. I like all that.”

Daviana was undecided. “No one's really made me sit up and take notice.”

I made the case for Senator Warren. “I don’t know how we got to a place in this country where people were so mad that they were willing to elect Trump. So maybe we need to do more than tinker at the margins like we’ve been doing for forty years.”

Eileen said, “Biden. Because he can win.”

Eileen and I talked about baseball. She was sold on the Nationals; they had won her over with their charmed season last year. I was, as always, big on the Cardinals, though they had come up short. We talked about the NLDS game we had seen.

I said, “If you really want to see baseball, you should catch a game at Busch Stadium.”

She looked skeptical.

“I’m serious,” I said. “The best fans – the most educated fans – in baseball. When someone hits a ball high and hard, the people don’t get out of their seats unless it’s actually going to be a homer, and they know it at the crack of the bat.”

But, I thought to myself, I doubt I’ll ever see it again. I had no desire, and no intention, to return to St. Louis. I’ll have to watch the redbirds play in other, lesser ballparks.

It was a pleasant evening, an opportunity to unwind a bit in the midst of our furious preparations. Eileen was always careful to make sure such events occurred; all part of the task of keeping a good team running well.

We said goodnight and I went upstairs and into my room. Once the door was shut and secured, I stripped, slithered into my silky green nightie, and slipped into bed.

I had my good dream once again – the one where I am running down a dock, wearing a lime-green one-piece swimsuit, beckoning someone to follow me. As always, in the dream, my hair is long and flowing and my curves are real and perfect.

But this time the sky was cloudy and the water had some distinct chop.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Dissimulando scoprir potrò”
– Mozart, Le Nozze di Figaro, Se vuol ballare (Aria)

Hartford, Connecticut, February 10

Eileen and I met with Theo Jacoby, the corporate VP who was going to be our principal witness for the trial, while David and Daviana did some final preparations for the argument David would be presenting on Tuesday. Jacoby was a large man in all dimensions – tall, broad, heavy without being fat. His gray hair was short and tightly curled; his wire-rimmed glasses framed hazel-colored eyes.

Eileen looked small, sitting across the table from him. She also looked, and was, very much in charge.

“First,” she explained, “while the substance of your trial testimony is going to more-or-less track your deposition testimony from last year, the structure and format will be completely different. So, last time opposing counsel asked almost all the questions, and then David just asked a couple of clean-up questions to protect the pre-trial record. This time, you’re going to tell your story to the jury first.

“I’ll ask the questions, but they will be big, fat open-ended questions. What happened? Why? What did you do? Then, and only then, defendants’ lawyers will cross examine you. And, you won’t need to argue with them, because I’ll ask you re-direct questions that will allow you to expand on the answers you provided during cross.”

She continued her instructions, pausing to take his questions and stopping the explanation to give examples of what she was describing. Then she started asking him questions from her outline and working to perfect the responses.

Occasionally, Eileen would ask me to chime in on whether an answer could be improved, but this was an occasion to largely stay silent. It’s important for the witness and the attorney who will be handling the examination to coordinate very closely, without distractions. With very few exceptions, leading questions are not permitted in a direct examination, so advanced preparation is essential.

It was a very instructive session. Because he was our principal witness, preparation went all day, with only a short break for lunch. Eileen spent the last two hours going over questions that might be asked during cross examination. She also played snippets from Jacoby’s deposition testimony and we discussed which answers worked well and how others could be improved.

By the end of the prep session, he was much more relaxed, comfortable with his testimony and confident that he knew what he needed to know.

The key, I could tell, was that he ended the session secure in the knowledge that Eileen knew what she was doing and would have his back when he was on the witness stand. That would be harder for me to pull off with my own witnesses, since unlike Eileen I was not a veteran trial lawyer.

I asked Eileen about that when we were walking back to the hotel.

She grinned. “Fake it ‘till you make it, Cam. Never let them see you sweat!”

I could only laugh. Eileen was playing my song!

~o~O~o~
Hartford, Connecticut, February 11

We were back at the clients’ offices, entering another conference room. David’s argument before the judge had gone well, although the judge reserved decision on most of the substantive issues being discussed. We had expected that.

Daviana and David were in a different conference room preparing one of the two witnesses Daviana would be handling at trial. Eileen was backing me up, but this was my show.

I looked across the table at the first of my two witnesses, Astrid Thune. Early thirties, with pale, pale hair in a thick braid and eyes the color of glacial ice — she would be a cool beauty, if she were not looking so nervous. Very likely she had never seen the inside of a courtroom.

I followed my gut instinct, walking around to her side of the table, giving her a warm smile and shaking her hand as she got to her feet. “Astrid, I’m Cam Savin. This is our lead trial lawyer, Eileen O’Donnel. How are you?” I sat at the end of the table and let Eileen sit across from Astrid.

Eileen offered a friendly “Good afternoon,” as she sat down.

Astrid looked at me, then Eileen, then back to me, before saying, “I’m good, though I don’t mind telling you I’d be better if I didn’t have to do this.”

“Never had to testify at trial before?” I asked.

She shook her head, still looking uncomfortable.

“There is nothing for you to worry about.” I kept my voice calm and light. “You did a great job at your deposition, and in some ways this will be easier. We’re going to walk you through every step, and by the time we’ve finished you’ll be ready for whatever might happen. You’ve got this. Promise.”

Finally, she started to look a little less stressed. “Well . . . good. I really like being prepared for things, and I didn’t know how to prepare for this.”

“That’s why we’re here,” I assured her. “So, first off, let me talk to you about how what happens at trial will be like your deposition testimony, and how it will be different . . . .”

I launched into my description, following more or less the same points Eileen had made in her preparation of Theo Jacoby. But both Eileen and Jacoby were older, more seasoned. Less nervous. It was clear that I needed to calm Astrid and give her some confidence. I worked hard to do that, communicating my own confidence that she knew her subjects and could communicate them clearly and effectively.

It took a while, but eventually she began to relax. And once she did, as I expected, she did fine. I started going through my outline of questions.

From time to time, I brought Eileen into the conversation, just as she had brought me in the prior day. But since this was my witness she was acting as a resource.

I didn’t want to rely on her too much, or it might lessen Astrid’s confidence in my ability to take care of her when she was on the stand. At trial, only one attorney for each party may examine the witness; since I could get no assistance then, I had to minimize the assistance I needed now.

By the time we were finished, Astrid and I had developed a good rapport, and she was no longer defensive when I suggested ways to make her answers more complete or understandable. We wrapped up, and I assured her we would have plenty of additional opportunities to go over her testimony, so she would be completely prepared when the time came for her to take the stand.

Eileen and I thanked her for her time and we started walking back to the hotel. It was only a couple of blocks, and Eileen would not let forty-degree weather deter her. That was practically balmy as far as she was concerned.

She was quiet as we started our walk. I was starting to worry that I had forgotten something when she said, “That was very well done, Cam. I don’t know if you were nervous, but you certainly didn’t show it. And, you were remarkably sensitive to her discomfort and did a nice job getting her past it.”

“I was nervous walking in. But once I saw how nervous she was I kind of forgot about it. I was surprised at how easy it was.”

Eileen thought about that for half a block or so. “Treat the jury the same way. Once the trial starts, just focus on them. Make sure you have a sense of when a witness is connecting with them. We can’t leave any jurors behind. It’s the same skill you just demonstrated, but the focus is different.”

I nodded.

As we got to the hotel, Eileen said, “We don’t hire people who aren’t smart and hard-working, but in my experience the kind of emotional maturity you demonstrated today is impossible to gauge and nearly impossible to teach. I wish we could.”

I thought about Steve, the clueless shopper, and smiled. Maybe empathy, at least, could be taught. It might not be instinctual, but in the end, it’s a habit of thought, a conscious decision to put yourself into someone else’s shoes. I suggested that to Eileen.

She chewed it over. “Maybe.”

Dinner that evening was more work-oriented, as the two teams shared how their respective witness prep sessions had gone. Then we called it a night.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Aspetti, signorina”
– Puccini, La Bohème, Che gelida manina (Aria)

Hartford, Connecticut, February 11, immediately following

Rather than heading straight for my room, I followed a whim, went to the hotel bar and got an Oban, neat.

It was a relatively slow night, and there were only a few people at the bar – a group of three and two couples. From where I sat, alone, I could see them interacting but could not hear their actual words. Observing their non-verbal communications, I challenged myself to guess what they were saying.

One couple was in their forties. She still looked good – very good – while he looked like an athlete who hadn't quite been able to adjust his diet as his body aged and his metabolism slowed. Still powerful, but heavier. His eyes lingered a bit too long on the younger women in the bar.

His companion was clearly aware, and looked both pained and annoyed.

The other couple was younger, both in age and in years together. The woman, in her early twenties, short and curvy, had hands that wandered, touched, promised. The man, a bit older, tall and well-built, was captivated. They laughed; their foreheads touched, then she came in for a light kiss. His hand rose to stroke her hair.

There was no need to hear what they were saying to know what they were thinking.

The group of three was more of a challenge. They – two women and a guy, all around my age, were talking together quietly like a group of old friends. But there was something about the way they were interacting that suggested that the guy and the girl further from me were an item, and the other was the odd gal out.

It wasn’t clear that she knew it. Something about the way they sat; about the way two sets of eyes met, and met again, while the other looked on.

The young couple left, no longer able to control the fire in their hearts.

The older man’s eye’s followed the young woman as she departed, snuggled into her boyfriend’s arm. The older woman abruptly rose, said something to her companion, and headed toward the lobby. He stayed, nursing his drink.

“Have another?” The bartender had wandered over.

I looked at my drink and smiled. “No, thanks. Slow night?”

“Mid-week in February, with no convention, this is about what we get.”

“That can’t make your life easier.”

She shrugged. “It’s a livin’, Hon. What do you do? Law, or insurance?”

I laughed. “No one else wearing suits?”

“Not in this town. Except maybe politicians, and even they don’t, mostly. If you’re not a lawyer, it’s either Travelers, Aetna, or The Hartford.” She wandered over to the forty-something wolf.

Two of the threesome – the two I thought were a couple – were getting up, and appeared to be urging the third to come with them. She waved them off, saying something humorous. They all laughed, but there was a tension to it.

The couple walked into the hotel, leaving their friend behind, looking at her almost-empty wine glass like it held some answers.

A few minutes later, the bartender handed her another glass of the same and said something to her. The woman looked at the wolf, speculatively. After a moment, she picked up her glass and made her way carefully to where he was sitting.

I thought, Oh, honey, you are SO going to regret that.

The bartender and I exchanged a look and a shrug, as if to say, what can you do?

I decided it was time to turn in, and headed upstairs. I wondered whether, a year ago, I would have bought the woman a drink, and laughed at the notion. Picking up women in bars was something that took more self-confidence than Cam ever had. She might have preferred Cam to the wolf. But who knows? Some women like the wolves.

But Cam was really just a disguise now, and one that was wearing thin. I divested myself of my Cam-o-flage, put my arms inside my green nightie and allowed it to slide teasingly down my body, thrilling, as I always did, at the sensual, transformational feel of the silky fabric.

I tucked myself into a pair of panties, slid into my cold bed, and fell into an uneasy sleep.

My dream was bizarre. I was back in the bar, but this time the bartender was giving me the wine glass, and I was the one walking over to the wolf, glass held lightly between thumb and two fingers. When I stood before him he snapped his fingers and I bent to kiss him.

Then I set my glass on the bar and began removing my tie and my suit jacket, letting them fall to the ground at my feet. He watched with dark eyes as I slowly unbuttoned my dress shirt and let it drop, exposing not the t-shirt I had worn, but a camisole and bra, daintily laced, pretty and feminine.

I reached back with both hands, displaying slender, milk-white arms, as I pulled my hair free. It billowed around my face like a smoky cloud and the wolf pulled me in, unresisting, for a deeper, more disturbing kiss.

My hands began to move without volition, echoing the caresses, the touches, of the young woman who had left the bar with her boyfriend. I felt . . . powerless. A loud siren began to wail as his tongue thrust between my welcoming lips.

I woke with a start, sweaty, tangled in my nightie. Which is when I realized that the siren was not part of a dream. It was, instead, the sound of the hotel’s fire alarm.

I froze, but only for an instant. Mercifully, through the aftershock of the dream that had left me disoriented and distressed, my normal reaction to emergencies kicked in.

I threw off the sheets and covers and rolled out of bed. One of my long lingerie straps had already slipped down; the other immediately followed and I got out of my nightie.

I had a pair of Cam’s sweats with me, since I had made some use of the hotel’s exercise equipment. They went on quickly. I stuck my feet in Cam’s sneakers, grabbed my room key and was out the door, making my way towards the stairwell with a stream of people.

My room was on the seventh floor, and progress down was slow as people on lower floors joined the exodus. But we did eventually come out in the lobby, where we were directed outdoors. It was freezing outside – literally – and people were not happy.

I looked around and didn’t see any of my crew; people were not all being directed to the same waiting areas. But I did see a face I recognized – the young woman who had decided to test the wolf. No one looked happy just at the moment, but she looked . . . truly awful. Shell-shocked. Hurt.

Unable to help myself, I was at her side without even thinking about it. I touched her arm lightly, very lightly, and asked, “Are you all right?” I kept my voice pitched so that only she would hear the question.

Her eyes came up, but she seemed to have trouble focusing on me. “Wha . . . oh. I’m . . . fine. I’m fine. Just . . . was surprised. By the alarm.”

“I don’t mean to intrude. But you look like something’s happened to you. Do you need help? Did the man from the bar last night hurt you?”

This time her eyes seemed to focus on me. “You saw . . . ?”

“I was in the bar when he bought you a drink, that’s all . . . . Did he hurt you?”

She closed her eyes for a moment and seemed to steady herself. Then she looked at me and said, “He didn’t do anything I didn’t ask for. No one’s fault but my own.” Her voice was low, and filled with self-loathing.

Just then an announcement came over the intercom inside, telling everyone that we could return to our rooms. The woman started to straighten up and I touched her arm lightly one more time. “You made a bad choice in a bad moment. That doesn’t make you a bad person. Okay?”

She looked at me again, almost puzzled, then reached up and gave my arm a squeeze. “Thank you.”

“There’s a CVS three blocks from here. If you need it.”

Her eyes widened fractionally, then she gave a quick nod, said “Thanks,” again, and walked to the stairs.

There was a large group of people waiting at the elevator banks, but I was only seven floors up. I took the stairs myself and spent the climb thinking about the poor woman. Although I had blithely assumed I would never do anything so foolish, my dream mocked my self-assurance.

How could even my subconscious be so stupid? And when I had been been startled awake, my body had been overwhelmed by sexual tension and excitement. I was only glad I didn’t have even a dream memory of going further. Saved by the bell!

~o~O~o~

On the walk to the client’s office the next morning, Eileen fell in beside me. “Quite the excitement last night. I saw you from the lobby, but you looked like you were helping someone. Everything okay?”

“Just a woman who was a bit shaken by the alarm. She’s okay.” I hoped it was true.

Eileen added, conversationally, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with your hair down before. Almost didn’t recognize you.”

To be continued . . .

~o~O~o~

CHAPTER ONE

“fra dubbiezza e disìo tutta sospesa”
– Cilèa, Adriana Lecouvreur, Acerba voluttà (Aria)

Hartford, Connecticut, February 12

So, Eileen had seen me with my hair down. That had been so careless on my part. I had been flustered by my disturbing and erotic dream, surprised by the sudden wake-up by the hotel’s fire alarm, and so intent in changing from my nightie into male clothes that I hadn’t thought about my hair. Yikes!

However, I still had the ability to put on a poker face when I needed it. Keeping my voice unconcerned, I said, “I know! I keep meaning to get it trimmed, but I guess I’ve gotten superstitious about it. I’ve had a lot of success since I started letting it grow out in law school. I don’t want to jinx it!”

Eileen chuckled. “‘The rose goes in the front,’ right?”

I laughed, hard. “Exactly!”

Our conversation shifted easily to the schedule for the day. Both Daviana and I were prepping our second witnesses, and since David was the honcho on our damages case, he was backing up Daviana. Eileen was again my backup.

We talked about Joe Sanchez, my witness for the day. I said, “He sounded too defensive in his deposition. He’s got a great resume, based on his LinkedIn profile. I want to spend some time at the beginning of direct, building him up for the jury, making sure they know he knows what he’s talking about. Does that make sense?”

Eileen nodded. “The judge will give you some leeway on that, even though we aren’t offering him as an expert. Don’t let it go on too long, though.”

As we approached the client’s massive brick pile of an office, Eileen said, “Cam, I may be wrong, but I’ve had the sense you’ve had a lot going on these past few weeks. I don’t mean to pry and I won’t. But, as your supervisor, is there anything I need to know? And, purely as a friend, is there anything I can do to help?” Her tone was warm and her voice friendly.

I thought carefully about the nature of the dual questions she had asked. I felt certain that I could rely on her friendship. But, as she pointed out, she is also my supervisor, and a senior partner, not to mention a member of the firm’s management committee. Partners have fiduciary duties to each other as well as to clients. She would need to alert her partners if I confirmed her suspicions, if only because doing so would trigger application of the firm’s non-discrimination policies.

And she would need to be dealing with all that might entail just as we were rolling into trial.

If, on the other hand, I didn’t spill the beans, she would probably keep her suspicions to herself for the time being. And yet! I didn’t want to spurn an offer of help that I would certainly need. So I chose my words with extreme care.

“Thanks, Eileen,” I said, matching her warmth. “I really appreciate it. You’re right; I have had a couple things come up. But there’s nothing that can’t wait until after the trial, and I’m making sure that it does. I would absolutely let you know about anything that could affect my work. But, once the trial is done, I would really appreciate a chance to talk to you – as both a friend and a mentor.”

Eileen had chosen to make her offer while we were walking, so that neither of us would have to look at the other while we talked. It was a very useful tactic for delicate conversations; I decided I might use it myself sometime. Still, I glanced sideways at Eileen to see what I could gauge from her reaction. She appeared to be . . . serene?

Yes; that was a fair description. Serene.

“Well, I’ve got absolutely no complaints about your work,” she said. “And if you tell me there’s nothing I need to know about right now I’ll trust you. But my door’s open anytime. I hope you know that.”

I assured her that I did, and told her how much I appreciated it. And, with that, we went inside and went to work.

~o~O~o~
30,000 feet above the Mid-Atlantic states, and Baltimore, Maryland, February 14

It was 8:00 pm, and I was headed back to BWI. It had been an intense, productive, and professionally satisfying week. Our mock-trial exercise had been incredibly instructive – enough to where I had no doubt that the client would consider the exercise to have been well worth the considerable expense. We would be ten times better prepared when we presented our case to the real jury in a month’s time.

Our panel of mock jurors, hired by our consultant for a one-day exercise, were drawn from the New Haven area and were representative of the people who might be selected for our jury. Three men, three women, diverse racial, ethnic, economic, and work backgrounds. Two retired; two union members; one academic, one contractor.

They had listened as David summarized our liability case, I laid out our damages case, then Eileen and Daviana laid out the opposing case for the Defendant, followed by a brief rebuttal by David and me. The “jurors” were told that their reactions to the presentations would be the basis for a subsequent mediation; they were not told that we were actually all working for the Plaintiff’s side.

Our presentations were mostly oral, but each side showed the most critical pieces of evidence for their respective cases, including excerpts of documents and video from witness depositions. As Eileen had suggested, I kept my attention focused like a laser on the “jurors.” David’s presentation, which we had both worked on, was logically tight and compelling, but David is a somewhat didactic speaker and I could tell that he was losing some of the jurors.

I tried to be more energetic in my presentation, to vary the pitch and volume of my voice more, to be physically expressive and to use analogies to explain some of the more esoteric concepts. Damages models are usually not simple things, but they have to be made simple in trial testimony.

Unfortunately, Eileen had stacked the deck by putting herself on the “Red Team.” In twenty-five brutal minutes, she calmly and methodically eviscerated our liability case, effortlessly tying together the best pieces of evidence for the Defendant’s side and casting doubt on the evidence we had presented. Daviana’s excellent presentation attacking our damages model was largely beside the point; without liability, damages are irrelevant.

David and I, having anticipated the content of the attacks (if not their potency), gave brief rebuttals. Then the moderator asked the mock jurors questions that we had worked out with him in advance.

On the whole, the responses suggested that the Plaintiff’s team had done better than I had feared. Two jurors found our claims persuasive and believed our damages expert. Eileen had wholly convinced two jurors that Defendant was not liable, and the remaining jurors were uncertain.

But plaintiffs have to convince everyone.

The moderator probed which pieces of evidence had been effective, which had failed to connect, and why. The “juror’s” responses were very enlightening.

After they left, Eileen said, “Okay, that was helpful. Don’t be too concerned that our side ‘lost’ today. We practice so that we get better, and now we know where we need to focus our work over the next month. The issues that were confusing or troubling to the jurors today can be fixed through good preparation of our trial witnesses. So I want us all to think about how we’re going to do that, and discuss it Monday morning.” She actually looked very pleased with the exercise, which certainly made me feel better about it.

I don’t like losing!

I was making notes on the topic Eileen told us to think about as the flight sped home. I was in a window seat, and able to screen my notes from other passengers. Not that it mattered; my neighbors had again ignored me. This time, I was happy about that.

I had a lot to think about. About the trial, mostly. But I was also thinking about the fact that my cover wasn’t holding as well any more. Eileen, I felt sure, knew or strongly suspected what was going on. Also, when I had gone into the gift shop in the lobby Thursday night to buy some Advil, I bumped into the woman I had seen in the bar, and later during the fire drill.

I hadn’t seen her in the back of the store, but as I was leaving I heard a hesitant voice behind me say, “It was you, wasn’t it? The other morning?”

I turned and recognized her immediately; my recognition was sufficiently obvious that she didn’t wait for a response. “I wasn’t sure, because . . . well. I mean, don’t take this wrong . . .” She was blushing furiously, having clearly gone out on a limb before her brain was engaged, but feeling compelled to finish her thought. “I, ah, thought you were a woman. I mean, that’s stupid, but . . . .”

I stopped her with a light touch, taking the opportunity to move us both out of the shop. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s a compliment. Anyway, you were dealing with other things. Are you okay?”
She assured me that she was, and thanked me again, and that was that.

But I knew why she had mistaken me for a woman. The hair had been part of it, of course, but during the entire fire drill encounter I hadn’t even thought about presenting as male. I had acted instinctively; naturally. And my “natural” communications, both in style and substance, had strongly signaled “woman.”

I thought to myself, we start picking the jury in just over a month. I only have to hold things together a little while longer. I’ve got to manage it!

Forty-five minutes later I was on the ground and had picked up my bags. I was so preoccupied that I started to head towards the MARC station before I pulled myself out of autopilot and remembered that I no longer lived in College Park.

But I was very happy to be heading to “Opera House.” Maggie had a part in the Sarasota Opera’s upcoming production of La Wally, and she was flying down to begin in-person rehearsals in just two days. I wouldn’t see her until after the trial – by which time Nicole would be in Chicago rehearsing for a production of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. During the brief time I had spent with my roommates the prior weekend, I had come to appreciate what their lives were like during the season.

I got an Uber and then texted the girls to let them know I was on my way. When I came through the door, Maggie popped out of the kitchen. She gave me a smile and steered me to the stairs.

“Go dump your bag. We got a bath ready for you, so soak as long as you like, then come down and we’ll have some soup. Nicole’s just finishing some rehearsing in the sound room.”

“You two are amazing.” I gently pressed her steering hand on my arm, gave her a grateful smile, and headed upstairs.

I dropped my bag in my bedroom, found a few essentials, as well as my flannel nightgown, fleece robe and fuzzy slippers, and headed to the bathroom. A bubble bath! Oh, Maggie deserves a place in heaven! I pulled my hair loose from its bands and sank down to bring the water all the way up the back of my head. The stress of the week began to melt away as I closed my eyes and simply relaxed.

Eventually I sat up and shampooed my mop, then massaged conditioner into my scalp and down the growing length of my mane. I pulled the lot forward to rest on my chest, then sank back down and began shaving my legs. There’s not all that much to shave – undoubtedly a function of the hypogonadism that had muted the development of all of my masculine sexual characteristics during puberty – but I like my skin to be completely smooth.

I particularly enjoy the sensual exercise of shaving my legs – the tingle of the foam, the caress of the sharp blade over sensitive skin, the visual image of the razor’s tracks effortlessly skimming the soap away in long, straight lines.

When I had finished, I pulled the plug, then patted myself dry and took a blowdryer to my hair. I would normally have put in some mousse and curlers, but I didn’t want to keep Maggie and Nicole waiting. I simply left it loose, only pulling back the hair from my temples and securing it behind the crown of my head. After attaching my breast forms and applying the concealing makeup to the seams, I slipped on a padded panty gaff and then got into my nightgown and robe.

Finally, I shaved my face (mostly a prophylactic exercise), used cleanser and moisturizer, and put on some lipstick and just a hint of blush and eyeshadow. Maggie and – God knows! – Nicole needed no makeup to present as female; I preferred to have a little help!

I padded downstairs in my fuzzy slippers, finally feeling like myself again, and bumped into Nicole at the bottom of the stairs.

She smiled hugely and gave me a big hug. “Hey girl! Welcome home!”

I gave her an equally big hug in return, overwhelmed once again at my good fortune at having found such a fabulous friend. Then we joined Maggie in the kitchen and served some tomato basil soup with fresh toasted sourdough bread.

I told them a bit about my week. They thought the mock jury exercise sounded really cool. “You never see anything like that on TV,” Nicole said.

“What people generally don’t realize is just how much planning goes into every minute of a trial,” I said. “You spend hours perfecting ten minutes of testimony. And if a juror falls asleep for five minutes, literally hours of work are wasted. It makes it pretty intense for the lawyers.”

They were most interested in my exchange with Eileen on the walk to the client’s headquarters. They both wondered whether it wouldn’t have been better just to tell her.

“I don’t think so,” I said, “though I’m really just guessing. I think it would be disruptive for me to come out just before we start the trial. I think it will make Eileen’s life easier if I wait, and her reaction to what I said makes me more confident I’m right about that. I think the jury is less likely to think anything about my gender if I’m presenting as male; I do have more experience doing that, and in a work setting I don’t have any experience presenting as a woman. But I could be wrong about all of those things.”

Nicole nodded. “I guess I can see your point,” she said. “Though I have to tell you, I really get a very female vibe from you. I’ve only seen you presenting as male once, though, and we didn’t really talk. Obviously the physical presentation helped, but I didn’t have any trouble seeing Cami through your suit. I can’t exactly say why.”

“I thought the same thing,” Maggie said. “Maybe it’s just how expressive your face is. Or how you move? But, the jury will never have seen you present as female, so maybe they won’t see it like we do.”

“Let’s hope so, anyway,” I said. “I think I present differently as a male. Although it feels more natural to me now, I really worked hard to develop more feminine ways of appearing, moving, interacting . . . now I seem to apply those lessons in reverse. I consciously use my older mannerisms when I’m presenting as male. I mean, it’s funny that you mention my face being expressive; as Cameron, people joked about my having a permanent poker face."

"Seriously?" asked Maggie.

"Yeah, really!" I said. "Anyway, other than Eileen, who probably wouldn’t have thought about it if she hadn’t caught me with my hair down, I don’t have a sense that anyone at work is seeing anything odd in my behavior, and they’ve only known me as male. So I should be able to pull it off for a jury for two weeks.”

We called it a night a bit later. As I prepared for bed, I thought some more about our conversation. And about how the woman in the hotel had thought I was female even though I didn’t have my artificial curves, or the benefit of makeup or female clothing. I hope that my confidence in my ability to stay balanced on the tightrope isn’t misplaced.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWO
“Sous le rhythme de la chanson”
– Bizet, Carmen, Les tringles des sistres tintaient (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, February 15

For the first time in over ten days, I was able to get up and do my full early morning routine. I rolled out of “bed” – a couch, but comfortable – got dressed in a sports bra and yoga pants, put my hair in a high ponytail, and slipped down to the basement for a full aerobic workout: Fifteen minutes of stretches, thirty minutes of vigorous cheer routines, and ten more minutes of stretches. I had at least been able to do some of my stretches in the hotel room in Hartford, and I had gotten down to the hotel gym twice and used exercycles, so I hadn’t lost too much. Still, I felt quite winded when I was done.

I trotted upstairs, hot and sweaty, and was in and out of the shower before 6:15. This time, I did apply mousse and curlers in my hair, then I put nail polish on my fingernails and went back to my bedroom to let it set. By 7:00 am I was downstairs again.

Having observed Nicole and Maggie last weekend, I decided I needed a few more casual clothes, if I was going to fit in properly. For the moment, I went with black tights and an oversized hoodie that had – for some reason – been part of my male wardrobe. It looked better on me as Cami, covering just enough at the bottom to be acceptable and accentuating my (unfortunately artificial) breasts. The thing must have fit my male self better when I weighed fifteen to twenty pounds more. At my current weight, it made me look practically petite. I wore a pair of flats and put my hair in my almost-signature over-the-shoulder loose braid.

I was looking around the kitchen for something I could make for everyone to eat for breakfast when Maggie popped into the kitchen wearing a knee-length flannel nightgown in a Royal Stewart plaid with a wide neckline that emphasized her bird-like collar bones. Her blonde hair, about the same length as mine, was still mussed from sleep, but her sky-blue eyes were wide awake.

“Good morning, Cami!” she said warmly. “I’m used to being the early bird around here. Do you always get up in the middle of the night?”

I gave her a spontaneous hug. “5:00, when I can manage it. I hope I didn’t wake you!”

She smiled and stretched like a cat. “No, I’m up early ‘cuz I’m excited about tomorrow, I guess. But then I heard you downstairs and thought I’d investigate.”

I asked her what she would like for breakfast, convinced her that it was okay to let me make her something, and shortly afterward served her an egg over easy, sliced tomato, and a piece of yesterday’s sourdough bread, toasted and buttered. She got green tea and I made myself coffee – the only thing I had brought from my kitchen last weekend.

Once she had done her morning vocal exercises, she planned to spend most of the day packing, though she had two students coming in that afternoon for lessons. She told me I should feel free to sleep in her room while she was gone, since her bed was undoubtedly more comfortable than the couch.

I told her that I had some calls to make, but would spend most of the day working. However, I had my first meeting with my voice coach, Dr. Trelli, at 1:00.

Maggie was excited. “You’ll love her – she is absolutely the best voice coach. She’s half the reason Nickie was willing to come live with me in Baltimore. . . . You’re welcome to join our morning voice exercises once Nick’s awake; it’ll definitely help wake up your voice.”

Before we got up to get started on our respective tasks, I said, a bit shyly, “I’d really like to do something nice for you as a send off. Do you have a favorite dinner? A favorite place to eat? Even a favorite dessert?”

She grinned at me. “Damn, I could get used to this! This time of year, I mostly eat soups of one sort or another. If you have a good soup recipe I’m game!”

“Deal!” I didn’t actually have a good soup recipe, but I would by-God get one!

We got to work. I went downstairs and opened up my laptop while Maggie went upstairs to get her shower and pull together her laundry.

Around 9:30 Maggie and Nicole both came down to the basement; by this point even Nicole was showered, dressed. and ready for voice exercises. These followed the same sets of patterns we had used the previous week. After thirty minutes or so we stopped, and I had to agree that my voice felt much more “awake.” It struck me as a strange description, but accurate. I felt like I could go to any point in my normal pitch range without feeling any strain – no sensation of “forcing” the higher notes of my register.

After our exercises, Maggie went upstairs again. Nicole was going to use the sound enclosure to work on Götterdämmerung. Before she went in, I told Nicole about my idea of making a nice dinner for Maggie.

She clapped her hands gleefully – I’d never actually seen someone do that. “That’s perfect! What were you thinking of making?”

I explained that Maggie had expressed a preference for soup, and I didn’t have a particular soup in mind.

“Oh!” she replied, “I have a fabulous fish soup recipe I’ve been dying to try – Mags would love it. Hows about I do the shopping this afternoon while you’re doing your lesson, then we can cook dinner together?”

That sounded perfect and I said so.

She flashed me a big smile. “Great idea, Cami!” then went into the sound booth. When I looked up from my computer screen I could see her at the microphone, headphones on and a look of intense concentration on her face as she sang.

At a bit before noon I shut down my laptop. Before I went back upstairs, I picked up the headphones to listen to Nicole. I could hear her voice blending with a recording that she played through the synthesizer. I closed my eyes for a moment and just listened.

Whatever piece she was singing, it did not have the beauty, the pathos of the aria she had sung from Tosca during our romp through Rockefeller Center, or the sheer sensuality of Maggie’s favorite aria from Carmen. But it had incredible power – an overwhelming sense of strength, of force. From a technical standpoint, it demonstrated Nicole’s virtuosity. I didn’t love the music, but . . . I found I could respect it.

After a few minutes of listening intently, I opened my eyes and saw that Nicole was watching me, a look of amusement and mischief in her eyes even as her voice rose higher and increased in power. I smiled back, waved, then removed the headphones and went upstairs.

Maggie was in the kitchen when I emerged onto the main floor. “Want some chicken salad?” she asked.

“Sounds perfect.”

She spilt the container between the two of us. “Nicole eats breakfast so late she generally skips lunch, or just has an apple or something in the early afternoon. So this is all ours!”

I finished and was cleaning the dishes when Nicole came up from the basement.

She said, “Why don’t I drop you off at Dottoressa Trelli’s studio and I’ll go to the grocery store from there?”

So, I hopped into Nicole’s car and we sped off. The studio was only five or so minutes away by car; I could easily have walked, but this saved time. Nicole dropped me off and I walked up the steps of another private residence which, like “Opera House,” was also being used as a studio. Unusually, the house had a stucco exterior, brightly painted trim, and colorful tiles on the risers of the stairs leading to an ornate front door.

I rang the bell, which generated a seven-note scale. This left me smiling just as the door opened, revealing a very large woman – at least my height, and substantially larger in all other dimensions – with blue-black hair and eyes so dark they might as well have been black too. She was wearing slacks and a loose-fitting top, and looked like she was in her early- to mid- forties. Her face was feathered with smile lines, and she used them to good effect.

“You must be Cami! Come in, come in!” She had me sit down. “Now. I’ve heard about you from Dr. Chun. And I’ve heard about you from those fine young women you are living with. But before we start, I’d like to hear about you from you. Tell me about yourself. Tell me what brings you to my studio.”

So, I gave her an edited version: the biographical details, education, work. Then I talked about my growing realization last fall that I was misgendered as a male, and my resolution to do something about it. The fact that, outside of work, I was now spending all of my time as a woman. My desire to make my presentation match my internal understanding of my gender.

Her intense eyes never left my face, but I felt like she was somehow in constant motion. She was nodding, or smiling. Her hands were moving. Clearly and visibly, she was completely engaged in what I was saying.

When I was finished she said, “Buono. With this, I can help. I am already getting a sense of your voice, your manner of speaking, of communicating. But, I have some exercises that will help more.” She handed me a sheet of paper.

I giggled as I saw it was a print of the Lewis Carroll poem, Jabberwocky.

“You know this poem? That is good,” she said. “Ecco. Here is what I want you to do. First, I want you to read this poem to me as if you were sitting at a conference table in your office, dressed for work, and I were one of your co-workers. In other words, use your ‘male’ voice.’ Then, I’ll have you repeat it in your ‘female’ voice. Please begin.”

This was unexpected. I closed my eyes for a moment and conjured the scene she had described. Cameron Ross Savin, Esq. Suit and tie. Wingtips. Hair strictly tied back and clubbed. Conference room. Reading. My eyes opened, and I read, “‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves . . . .’” The poem’s familiar cadences, in my male high tenor, inflection carefully cabined; stress indicated through changes in volume and pacing. Facial expression controlled; body and hands, still.

I finished the poem.

The Dottoressa again said, “Buono. Now, let me hear you, Cami.”

I smiled and began again. My voice was higher, lighter. Softer. I modulated my pitch more than my volume to provide emphasis, and allowed both my face and my body more range of expression.

As I read the father’s lines – “Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” my eyes shone with pride, my smile echoed my rising voice and my arms swept out, as if to embrace the conquering hero son. I finished the reprise of the first stanza more softly, on a lower pitch.

Dottoressa Trelli was smiling and nodding. “Yes! You have been paying attention, haven’t you? You are a good student of the best school – the observation of people. But!!! But!!! There is much room to improve, and that is what we shall do!” She was, as Lewis Carroll might have said, beamish.

In a quieter voice, she said, “In what you just showed me, I would say you have made a good beginning in a couple of critical areas. Intonation – the rise and fall of pitch in your speech – is noticeably more fluid in your female voice. Similarly, your volume is lower and more consistent. I would say your greatest strength, where you show the most difference between your ‘voices,’ is in nonverbal communication. Your face is very expressive as Cami, you make good eye contact, and your body is loose and free to speak along with your voice. This is all good.” She beamed again.

“Where I think you need the most help, and where we will focus most of our attention to begin with, is pitch and resonance. You are largely using your ‘head’ voice when you talk as a woman. That allows you to somewhat hide the depth of your voice and cuts out the deeper resonances that come from the larger sound chambers of a man’s throat and mouth. It’s a decent short-cut, and I see why you use it. Given the relatively high pitch of your natural male voice, it’s also reasonably convincing.

“It is not, however, desirable or sustainable. You need to be able to increase the effective range of your voice – the range that you can access using your full voice, your properly supported chest voice. This will be vastly more convincing – no one speaks in their head voice most of the time, and if you want to continue in your current profession you will especially wish to avoid doing so. A head voice is too soft to convey authority. And an unsupported throat voice that is pushed to a higher register sounds inauthentic. That will also damage your vocal cords over time.”

She nodded her head emphatically, to stress the point. “No! What you need to do is to increase your effective range. There are exercises for that, and you will do them every day, without fail. Yes?”

“Yes, Dottoressa,” I said obediently. I added, “Nicole and Maggie have had me join their morning warm-up exercises on a couple of occasions. Will that help?”

She was back to beaming. “Intelligent young women! Inspired! You are greatly blessed to work with them! Yes, it will help tremendously. They will be able to keep you doing the exercises correctly, without strain to the voice, but also push you where and how you need to be pushed – just as they push each other. There are some additional exercises that I will assign you as well; these have more to do with enunciation and articulation. In general, women tend to articulate more clearly, with crisper consonants. Yet, nonetheless, they tend to speak more quickly.”

With that, she sat down at her piano and walked me through a set of exercises. The first were, recognizably, the same ones I had practiced earlier in the day. She wanted to hear how I did with them, and what the current limits of my range were – the point at which I would go into falsetto. She stopped me periodically, giving me tips on posture and breathing to ensure that the notes were properly supported.

After that, she had me go through a different set of exercises than the ones I had done with Nicole and Maggie, aimed at articulation and speed. These were fun – almost tongue-twisters. Each time I went through them, she increased the tempo on her metronome. By the end, I was completely tongue-tied, but grinning like a springer spaniel.

She stopped me, and the metronome, and returned my grin. “Buono. Buono! You, I will enjoy training!”

She gave me several worksheets with the exercises on them, stressing once again that I was to do my exercises every day and without fail. I was very much afraid that I would have to at least curtail my normal physical workout if I was going to have time, but this was a priority. We set a time to meet the following weekend.

As I got ready to go, she said, “Dottoressa McGregor is leaving tomorrow, yes?”

“You mean Maggie? I didn’t know she had a doctorate!”

She responded, “We Italians are not so stingy with honorifics as you Anglo-Americans. She has a Master of Music degree from a prestigious school; it is enough, and more than enough! If you can prevail upon her to do so, ask the Dottoressa if she would do a recording of the second set of exercises for you before she goes. She is quite familiar with them. Her articulation at high speeds is exemplary, and her pitch, while substantially higher than yours, is still closer to it than Dottoressa Fontaine’s. Record your own sessions and compare your articulation to hers. You will see immediately what I am getting at. Your goal is to emulate her admirable clarity. Yes?”

With that, she shooed me out and I found to my surprise that it was already 3:30. The time with THE Dottoressa – I now understood why Maggie and Nicole both seemed to use verbal capital letters when they referred to her – had passed incredibly quickly.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER THREE
“Merce dilette amiche”
– Verdi, Les vêpres siciliennes, Merce dilette amiche (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, February 15, immediately following

The day was warm enough (I had changed into sturdier shoes and donned my winter coat), so I decided to walk back to Opera House. It took me about twenty-five minutes, walking through neighborhoods of modest houses, most dating from the early Twentieth Century, when Baltimore was more prosperous and fine craftsmanship could be had for less.

The smell of woodsmoke carried in the cool, dry winter air, and the sounds of a city – voices, traffic, equipment – combined in an intricate harmony. I thrilled to the cool touch of the wind as it swirled old leaves at my feet, bringing a feather of cold up legs sheathed only in tights.

A car approached and, as it drew level, I briefly saw a man’s face, grinning, followed by the sound of a high, appreciative whistle as he continued on his way.

I laughed. Oh, it could have been a problem, and in some circumstances it would have been. But he hadn’t paused or hassled me otherwise, and I was more than inclined to simply stick the compliment in my purse and enjoy it. It is, I thought, very good to be alive.

I was back at Opera House at almost 4:00. Maggie was working with a student in the front room, so I went around and came up the back stairs to the kitchen. There was no sign of Nicole, but I saw a covered bowl on the counter and, peaking, discovered that it held rising dough. I went in search of Nicole and found her downstairs, once again rehearsing in the sound enclosure.

I let her know I had arrived and sat at the table. Procrastinating a bit, I sent a text to Al and Javier asking how they were doing and whether I could come by tomorrow to get the rest of my stuff. After that, I sent a text to Liz just to let her know I was thinking about her, and a final text to Fiona. “Hey Fi – keeping you in my thoughts and prayers. Hope all is well. Are you getting answers?” Then I opened my laptop and got to work.

After a few minutes I got a call from Javier. He sounded better than he had a week before. “Hey, Cami! How was your trip?”

I said it had gone well, and asked how he, Al and Tina were doing.

“I think we’re making progress. It’s slow, but we’ll take it. We, uh . . . well. After what you told me about your watch, I went and gathered up the rest of your stuff when I got back from Baltimore last week. It’s in a bin in our apartment. The table and chair are still in the garage, but that won’t be any trouble.” He paused for a moment. “Would it be okay if I just drove it all out to where you are staying tomorrow?”

That spoke volumes; Al and Javi clearly thought it would be counterproductive to have me either encounter Tina again, or enter what was once again her apartment.

While on one level I was sorry to hear it, I didn’t have any great desire to run into Tina either – at least not in her current condition. In any event, there was only one answer. “Of course, Javi. How’s 1:00 sound?”

He agreed, clearly grateful I had accepted his offer, and we ended the call.

I had a short and cheerful text back from Liz, but nothing from Fiona. Another Saturday at work for her, I thought. I got back to it myself.

Nicole emerged from her session around 4:45. “Ready when you are!”

I shut down my computer and we went back to the kitchen. Maggie had apparently finished with her students and had gone back upstairs. I asked Nicole to give me a minute, then went up to Maggie’s room, where she was carefully folding freshly-washed clothes.

“Hey, Dottoressa McGregor!" I said with a big smile. “What’s shakin’?”

That got a laugh from her. “Don’t you start! She’s earned the title; I certainly haven’t!”

“Maybe not, but THE Dottoressa said I should ask you, and very specifically you, if you would do a recording of the exercises she just gave me, so that your humble acolyte could learn the secrets of your ‘exemplary articulation at high speed!’”

She laughed again. “Articulation exercises? Sure! I know exactly the ones she gave you. Let me just finish folding these and I’ll record it right now.”

“Better still, let me help you with the laundry. Least I can do.” We finished the folding in four minutes, and I was back down in the kitchen.

Nicole had started pulling ingredients out of the refrigerator. She had put on a floral apron, already powdered with some flour, and she handed me a matching one. “So, here’s the recipe!” she said, excited, as she handed me an iPad.

I looked it over and grinned. “Oh, you like challenges!” Nicole wasn’t just proposing we make “fish soup;” she wanted to make a genuine Marseille Bouillabaisse!

She grinned back. “Game on, girlfriend!”

While Nicole pummeled her bread dough, I started chopping onions, garlic and leeks and zesting some orange peel. I sauteed it all together with sprigs of fresh thyme and fennel seeds, then added tomato paste and a fresh tomato, diced fine.

Meantime, Nicole was preparing the “waste fish” that we would add to the broth – truly awful looking stuff like fish heads and bones, together with another fish she described as red mullet, singing a little ditty in French as she worked. The tune was a real earworm; it stuck in my head for weeks. She had me sing the chorus with her, a task somewhat complicated by the fact that I don’t speak French.

I got it eventually, but caused her some real chuckles before I did.

“I think you just said you like to eat Germans!” she giggled.

“Who doesn’t?”

Nicole layered her ugly waste fish into my pretty broth, then deglazed with some white wine and a splash of Ouzo. With a twinkle of mischief in her eye, she took a swig from the wine bottle then handed it to me.

“Merci,” I said – even I know that much French! – and followed suit. I quick-boiled some water in their electric kettle and added it to the pot, covering the fish, then we took the mixture to a full boil for several minutes before lowering the temperature to a simmer.

“Now,” Nicole said, “if you take care of the rouille, I’ll get this bread ready to bake.”

Even the rouille was complicated – very complicated, in comparison to my usual meals – but cooking with Nicole was fun. She was beating up on her bread dough, scolding it in a mixture of what sounded like Italian and German, while I put an egg yolk, garlic, leftover bread, red pepper, and a touch of saffron into the blender. Once everything was mixed together, I drizzled in some olive oil and a bit of the hot broth from the pot. I looked up to see Nicole rolling her dough into long ropes.

“Can you give me some more rolls this thickness?” she asked.

I moved to her side to lend a hand.

Once she had three ropes of her desired length, she started braiding them together. We made three loaves – “More than we need, but it’s as easy to make three loaves as it is to make one,” she said. “I’ll give the extras to our neighbors.”

The broth was still simmering away as we slipped the braided loaves onto a broad pizza stone and put it in the oven. Nicole sniffed the broth. “Let’s give that a couple of minutes. I need to powder my nose.”

I laughed. “But you already have!” She must have scratched her nose when her hands were dusted with flour, since there was a noticeable spray of powder on the upturned tip of her celestial nose.

She stuck out her tongue at me and then headed upstairs.

I used the time to clean up the growing mess of cutting boards, blender, knives, spoons, and miscellaneous implements.

When Nicole returned, she checked the bread, then came back to the simmering broth. Satisfied, she said, “Alright, time to grind it up.”

We ran a batch of the broth into the blender, fish bones and all, then put the resulting mixture through a fine mesh strainer and into a second large pot. It took three pours before all the broth was mixed and strained, at which point we put the fresh pot on low heat and stirred everything together.

While Nicole pulled her loaves from the oven, I poached the “good” fish – filets of red snapper, sea bass, monkfish and sole – in the broth, removing them as they were done. Finally, I added steamers to the mix and pulled them out just as they were opening.

The smells in the kitchen at this point were heavenly, and Maggie could no longer resist. “What are you two doing in here,” she said as she came through the doors. “It smells incredible!”

“Ah, ah, ah, ma petite cherie!” Nicole teased, “no spoiling our surprise! Be off with you! But,” she relented, as she gave Maggie a cup of the rich white burgundy, “Take zees to zee living room and relax yourself until we are ready for you!”

Maggie laughed, took the cup, and retreated.

We were just about ready. Nicole had me set the table while she cut one of the braided loaves into fine slices, then cut the slices in half and toasted them on a baking sheet.

I put out bowls and silverware, glasses of water for everyone and wine cups for Nicole and me. Candles were next, then cloth napkins fetched from where Nicole said they could be found (normally, we used paper towels!). Then I helped Nicole spread the rouille onto the toasted bread and brought it, the broth and the poached fish and steamers out to the table.

I was about to get Maggie when Nicole hooked my apron string with her finger. “Not for the table, Cami!” We laughed, removed our protective gear, checked each other’s appearance, then went and got the guest of honor.

Too often, these two women had brought me to tears with their generosity and kindness. Now it was Maggie’s turn. Her blue eyes glittered in the candlelight as she threw both arms wide. “I’m in heaven. I live in heaven!”

“That may be the very first time anyone — anyone ever — has said that about Baltimore,” Nicole quipped.

Nicole and I gave Maggie a communal hug, then we sat to eat. In each bowl, we ladeled broth, added some of the toasted bread, and then put in the poached fish and steamers.

I raised my cup. “Safe travels, Maggie – and good luck!” We clinked cups and Nicole and I drank.

Maggie toasted the best roommates ever, and we all drank to that.

Amazingly, the bouillabaisse tasted as good as it smelled. The broth was rich and complex, and both the fish and the shellfish were perfect.

Maggie said, “That is not the first time you’ve made that!”

“Don’t look at me!” I said.

“When I was a girl,” Nicole explained, “we sometimes visited Grandmère in Aix-en-Provence. She made bouillabaisse, but I never learned how she did it. I wish I had asked her to show me.”

“Is she still alive?” I asked.

She shook her head, ruefully. “No, we lost her, oh, ten years ago or so. She was not so old. But my Grandpère, he was much older. And after he died, she just seemed to die with him. It took a bit longer, but not too much.”

I touched her arm in sympathy; the memory clearly still pained her. “I am so sorry. You must miss her.”

“Yes. She was a wonderful woman. Full of life. Loved cooking, and music, and flowers . . . . I wanted to grow up to be just like her.”

“I think she would be very proud of you, Nick,” Maggie said.

Lightening the mood, Nicole responded, “Well, I think she would have liked this bouillabaisse, certainly. I’m pretty sure this is close – very close – to what she used to make!”

I asked, “Did she teach your mom her recipes?”

“Ah, no. They were Dad’s parents, not Mom’s.” Nicole smiled. “I swear Dad couldn’t cook a hot dog.”

Maggie said, “All Irish and – don’t say anything – English in my family, so no great cooking traditions. What about you, Cami?”

I shook my head. “Mom’s family are all Scots – her Dad was Highland Scots, her Mom was – is – Appalachian Scots. So they know how to cook to survive, and how to make sure you don’t enjoy doing it. My Dad’s family – well, no one knows. Family legend is that they were Huguenots who fled to the New World after the fall of La Rochelle, but I’ve never seen any proof. Far as I know it’s just a story. For sure, no good recipes ever got handed down!”

We talked, and had seconds, and opened another bottle. We talked some more. Eventually, I asked Maggie if she was all ready to go for tomorrow.

“Yep,” she replied. “All packed and ready to roll. I’ve got to be at BWI by 9:00, but I can just shower and go at this point.”

I gave her a big hug. “Go get some sleep. I’ve got the mess.”

But neither she nor Nicole would let me do that, so we traipsed into the kitchen, slightly tipsy, somewhat giggly, and started washing, drying, and getting everything back to Opera House immaculate. We were bumping into each other and tittering like teenagers, but we got the job done without breaking anything.

At Maggie’s insistence we all had ten ounces of water before turning in – “No hangovers tomorrow!” Then we went upstairs and off to our respective rooms.

I was beat. It had been a busy, but wonderful, day, and I was more than ready for sleep. I brushed my teeth, removed my makeup, moisturized, and got into my flannel nightgown. Back in my room, I grabbed my phone to charge it overnight. It was then that I noticed that Fiona had finally responded to my text.

Her text sobered me immediately. “I’ll call tomorrow. It’s a pandemic.”

Sleep was long in coming, and my night terrors returned. The specifics of the incident that triggered my terrors – the attack by that jackass at the Christmas party – no longer resurfaced. All that remained was the feeling the attack had engendered: the terrible, overwhelming sense that my sister was in danger. My mind screamed in silent, frantic fear.

Fiona!!! Be safe!!!

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER FOUR
“levarsi un fil di fumo sull'estremo confin del mare”
– Puccini, Madama Butterfly, Un bel di vedremo (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, February 16

5:00 a.m., and my phone alarm was softly buzzing. Normally I leaped up; this morning I suppressed a groan and the urge to hit the snooze button. Or, to just turn the damned thing off. But I threw off the covers, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, changed, and went downstairs.

The morning exercise session required a fair bit of grim determination at the beginning. I pushed myself harder than usual on all of the stretches. If I was going to go through this, I was, by God, going to get some bang for the buck. Then I went into the cheer routines. As usual, I repeated the same routine, which I had worked up to seven minutes, four times.

Through the first and second routines, I pushed, determined to kick higher, prance more brightly, manage the split with greater ease. But by the third round, the exercise began to have its normal salutary effect on my mental, emotional, and even spiritual, state. I began to smile as I continued to push, and push some more.

By the final round I was nearly “beamish.” Whatever the future might bring, I was healthy today and would celebrate it.

I finished with the final element, dropping down to do the splits, raising my arms in a “Ta da!” maneuver, arching my back and raising my head high. I held the pose for a moment, then reached down, breathing hard, to turn off the music on my phone.

“You do that every day!?” Maggie was at the bottom of the stairs, an incredulous look on her face. I could only nod, chest heaving, as I got my breath back.

“When did you learn to be a cheerleader? I can’t believe you did that in school.”

I grinned. “Long story,” I said, thinking to myself, “and one I ABSOLUTELY don’t intend to share!”

Maggie shook her head. “You just keep amazing me, Cami. I think I know you, and then!”

I laughed. “But really, I haven’t known either of you very long. It just feels like we’ve been friends forever.”

She smiled at that. “Yeah, it does. And I’m really, really glad about that. . . . You want the first shower?”

I shook my head. “You go ahead. I’ve still got to stretch for ten minutes.”

She smiled, shook her head again and headed upstairs.

We were all showered, dressed and ready for the day by 7:45 – barbarically early as far as Nicole was concerned. But she looked more rested than I felt. Or perhaps I was extrapolating from the fact that she looked fabulous. That didn’t really signify, though. Nicole always looks fabulous.

I made omelets for everyone, using some of the extra chopped onions and spices from the prior night’s dinner and toasting some of Nicole’s braided bread to go with them. As we finished and settled back with our hot drinks of choice – coffee for me, tea for my roomies – I told them about Fiona’s message.

“What does it mean?” Nicole asked. “I mean, I understand that a pandemic is a world-wide epidemic, but, how will that affect our lives?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. They shut down all of Wuhan – put it in lockdown. It’s bigger – way bigger – than New York City. They quarantined that cruise ship – the Diamond Princess – and wouldn’t let people off. But I don’t know whether we’ll be talking about local flare-ups here and there, or something else. Fiona might know, but she probably won’t. Hopefully I’ll be able to talk to her today.”

We sat silently for a few minutes, sipping our drinks, lost in our own thoughts. None of which were very cheerful, judging by appearances. But Maggie finally sighed, stretched, and got up.

“Well, whatever’s going to happen, the show must go on. So I’d better get going.”

We all got to our feet and helped her carry her three bags down to the car. It would be a tight fit for the three of us, but neither Nicole nor I would stay behind. When we got to the airport, we all jumped out.

I pulled the bags from the back while Nicole gave Maggie a big hug, kissed her on the forehead, and said something softly that I didn’t catch. Then she got back into the car to circle while I helped Maggie get her bags to baggage check.

Once we had dropped her two large bags, now tagged, with airport security for screening, I gave her my own hug and a squeeze and, thinking of Fi, said fiercely, “Be safe, Maggie!! Be safe!!”

“You too. And take care of Nickie for me, will you?”

She let me go, and went to catch her flight. I went back outside and hopped into the passenger’s seat as Nicole came around the loop.

“You look blue, Cami.”

My smile was a bit lopsided. “Crazy, right? But Opera House certainly won’t feel the same without her there.”

“That’s our life, though,” she said. “The chance to do what Maggie is off to do right now – that’s what we spend hours training for every day. It’s a crazy-assed way to live, I guess, from any normal person’s perspective. But we wouldn’t have it any other way.”

I chewed on that while we made our way back home.

When we got back, Nicole said, “Okay, now I promised Mags I would make sure that you did all of your voice exercises. Let’s start with the warm-ups since we both need to do them. You can do your articulation exercises later – Maggie left you the recording – but you must do them. Or I’ll be in trouble with The Dottoressa, not just you!”

So we went downstairs and did our vocal stretches, after which Nicole disappeared into the sound enclosure to work on her opera and I opened my laptop to work on the trial.

I got a ping from my computer’s Skype app around 11:30 and was delighted to see that it was from Fiona. It had been two weeks since I spoke with her last and she still looked exhausted.

I decided I wasn’t going to comment on that. “Hey, big sister! I wish I could give you a hug; you look like you could use one.”

Her smile was tired, but genuine. “Hey, Cami. How are you? For that matter, where are you? I don’t recognize the space. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

I responded, “I’m fine, and I’m home – my current home, anyway. Long story, but I’m staying with friends until my trial’s finished. Now, tell me how you are doing. And what. Your message last night was pretty bad.”

“I’m okay, just . . . working. Too long. Too hard. And, nothing’s enough. It’s going to be bad, Cami, we just don’t know how bad. The evidence from the Diamond Princess is that this coronavirus spreads pretty easily, and infected people can spread it even before they show any symptoms. That makes it really, really hard to stop the spread.

“The death toll in China is already higher than it was during SARS. So, the disease – COVID-19 – can cause severe illness and death, the virus spreads from person to person, including through asymptomatic people. And, it’s starting to show up in different countries around the world.”

“Okay,” I said. “I mean . . . not okay, obviously. But . . . is there anything that we should be doing to prepare? Anything we should be doing differently? I assume closing the borders to flights – assuming we could even do it – would just slow things down?”

Fiona nodded. “Right. Buying time, which I hope to God we use. But now hospitals are scrambling for scarce resources and it’s a zero sum game. And until we see where it’s going to hit first, it’s impossible to know where the most resources should be directed.”

Pragmatically, I asked, “Is there anything that the public should be doing to prepare? Anything I should tell my roommates, or work colleagues?”

She shook her head. “Good hygiene, generally. Wash your hands regularly – REALLY wash them, with hot water and soap. Cover your sneezes – and don’t sneeze into your hand! Don’t, for God’s sake, go into work or go out if you are feeling sick. That sort of thing. Beyond that . . . . It’s harder to say. It’s not clear whether it's spreading through the air – aerosol transmission – and if so, how far.”

“I’ve seen some buzz about maybe wearing face masks?”

She shrugged. “Wearing masks may be helpful. Probably helpful, I’d guess. But there aren’t enough of them. Hospitals are fighting each other to get proper supplies of N95s and surgical masks right now. And, there’s no evidence yet that general mask wearing would be useful or effective even if everyone was doing it, which they can’t because we don’t have them.”

“I see why you look so tired,” I said. “This sounds really frustrating.”

Surprisingly, Fi shook her head. “It’s scary, and it’s frustrating, but this is what we trained for. I’m where I’m supposed to be, Cami. All of us here wouldn’t be anywhere else, doing anything else. It will be bad. But I promise you this, little sister. We’ll get through it.”

I smiled a bit wistfully, thousands of childhood memories of my heroic sister coming into my head all at once. “Reach for the stars, Fi.”

With quiet warmth, she finished the line: “And when I catch them, I’ll bring ‘em home just for you.”

After a moment, she sat a bit straighter. “I don’t have anything else on that particular subject, but there was one more thing I wanted to talk about, before I get back to work.”

I raised an eyebrow in question; she was definitely in “Dr. Savin” mode.

“Did you talk to your medical team about whether you wanted to preserve any of your sperm before you started hormone treatment?”

“Yes, Dr. Chun raised it with me. She said the effects of the hormone treatment would make it very unlikely I could have children later if I didn’t.”

“And, you decided . . . ?”

“Not to do it. No offense to you, Fi, but I’m not so enamored of my gene pool. If I want to raise a child at some point, there are lots of children who need good homes.” Trying to make light of it, I said, “Besides, you’re there to preserve whatever good genes we’ve got, and strong, virile Iain can always sow some oats if the world really needs more Savins.”

She bit her lip, not falling for my attempt at light-heartedness. “It’s your decision, of course. You do what you think makes sense. But . . . you probably shouldn’t count on me. I’ll be thirty-six before I’m even married, you know. It doesn’t get any easier. Tick-tock.”

She paused for a moment, but she was clearly searching for a way to say something else, so I didn’t interrupt. Finally, she said, “Cami . . . I don’t know what your thought process is. But I want you to know, for whatever it’s worth, that I think your genes are worth preserving. I think you’re wonderful. The world may or may not need any more Savins, but it could sure use more people like you.”

She was fighting tears.

“Thank you for that,” I said gently. “You know I love you too. But if you’re worried that I don’t want to reproduce because I think there’s something wrong with me, that’s not it. I’m fine. Really. But I can’t see spending thousands of dollars to preserve my DNA when there are so many babies out there without a good home. It just seems wrong.”

Fi nodded, still looking sad. “Okay. You’re a big girl, so I’ll butt out. But I wanted to make sure you’ve thought it through.”

We talked about a couple more things, inconsequential mostly, then Fiona had to get back to work.

And so did I. I said, “Thanks so much for calling. I know you’re incredibly busy, and I suspect you’re going to stay incredibly busy. Just know that you are in my thoughts, every day. I’ll keep you in my prayers too. And if there’s anything I can do to help . . . anything at all . . . just let me know, okay?”

“I’ll do that. Love you, girl.”

“I love you too,” I responded.

I signed off, and sat still for a moment, processing.

Nicole stuck her head out of the sound booth. “That looked intense. You okay?”

“Yes . . . It was Fiona. She didn’t have a lot of practical advice, but the news on the COVID-19 front is all pretty bad. And, she’s starting to worry about our mortality, I think.” I told her about Fi’s sudden concern with preserving my sperm.

Nicole looked thoughtful. “I’m with her, I think you’re pretty special. But I have no opinion on whether that’s genetic. Anyhow, you think she’s worried about it because she’s concerned about this pandemic?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know. But she never raised it before, and she seemed pretty serious about it.”

We talked a bit more, but once again, there wasn’t really anything we could do about the pandemic, other than continue on with our lives and see how things panned out. So Nicole went back to work and, after a moment, so did I.

I went upstairs at about 12:45 and made sandwiches for Nicole, Javier, and myself. Javi was a couple minutes late, but not much. I popped out to meet him as soon as he arrived, gave him a hug and helped him get first the bin, then the dis-assembled desk and the chair, into the house. The bin went up to my room and the furniture went into the basement for storage.

Once we had that stored against the far wall, I caught Nicole’s attention through the glass window of the sound enclosure and made a motion indicating eating.

She nodded, held up a hand indicating four minutes, and continued singing.

I brought Javier upstairs.

Nicole joined us just about when I got glasses of water poured and the sandwiches set out on plates. I introduced the two of them.

Nicole said, “Cami has told us so much about you and Al. All of it good!”

“Likewise,” Javi responded. “I’m so glad you were able to take Cami in on such short notice; we feel terrible about it.”

“Eh,” Nicole said, then, indicating her sandwich, she added, “She manages to be useful from time to time.”

We all laughed at that.

Javier said that Tina was settling in. She was still staying tight inside the apartment and only getting out to go over to the salon or to Al and Javi’s upstairs apartment. But their conversations seemed to be easier and she appeared to be less hostile, less prickly, than she had been when she first arrived. “No real breakthroughs yet,” he concluded, “but no breakdowns either. So, we keep at it.”

It was a good lunch, though Javier was more subdued than his usual cheerful self.

Nicole went out of her way to be charming, and that helped tremendously.

By the time he left, Javier appeared to be feeling less guilty about my abrupt departure a week before. He knew I was in good hands.

~o~O~o~
Suburban Maryland, later that evening

“Sisters, will you pray with me?”

I was back in Jacqui’s house, meeting for the second time with the small faith community of transwomen that Sarah had brought together. Unlike last time, I was wearing all of my padding as well as light makeup.

Sarah had picked me up at the College Park metro station rather than my new home, and I knew better than to appear in public places dressed like a woman but not trying my absolute best to look and act like one. Like the other transwomen present, I bent my head and concentrated on Jacqui’s prayer of invocation.

Later in the service, when it was my turn, I said, “Sisters, will you pray with me? I have so many things to pray for tonight. So many! I would like to pray for Tina, a transwoman, my age, who was badly hurt and terrorized by her family. Join me in praying for healing for her, for her mind, her heart, her soul. I would like to pray for my sister Fiona, who is working hard to combat this new disease, and for all of those, all over the world, who are dealing with COVID-19. Join me in praying for courage, for strength, for healing.”

I took a breath. “Finally, I would like to offer a prayer of thanks. For each of you. For my wonderful roommates. For my friends, my colleagues. For the doctors and specialists who are helping me. I am so very, very fortunate. So blessed. Please pray with me, sisters.”

And my sisters joined my heartfelt prayers.

To be continued . . . .

~o~O~o~

CHAPTER FIVE
“Addio, del passato bei sogni ridenti”
– Verdi, La Traviata, Addio, del passato (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, February 21

It had been a long week, but Nicole and I had settled into a routine. I had to be out before she was awake, so I did my voice warm-up exercises alone after I did my (slightly shorter) physical exercises and stretches. It took me longer to get into work, too, but I was usually there by 8:00 thanks to the MARC train.

I worked until around 9:00 pm and did my articulation exercises when I got home. Dottoressa Trelli was certainly correct about Maggie’s very clear and crisp consonants, regardless of how fast she spoke. I was making slow progress in my efforts to emulate her.

Nicole was a night-owl by nature, so I did see her in the evening and she popped down a couple of times to hear my exercises and give me some tips. Her explanations were very clear and precise – she knew a tremendous amount about the production of sound, and it showed.

I was sleeping in Maggie’s room as she had suggested – and as Nicole insisted. “No sense sleeping on a couch when there’s a perfectly good bed that’s not being used!”

So I was sitting at Maggie’s vanity, just checking a few last emails, when my cell phone began to buzz.

It was Iain.

I hadn’t spoken to my brother since I dropped him off at the drug rehabilitation center at the beginning of the year. We hadn’t parted on the best of terms, which wasn’t all that unusual. So I was pretty apprehensive when I saw his name on my caller ID at 10:30 on a Friday night.

“Iain?” I said, perhaps more warily than I intended.

“Hey, Cam,” responded the familiar gruff voice. “Still makin’ the world safe for plutocracy?”

I sighed internally. “You bet. What’s up?”

The line was silent for long enough that I thought the call might have been dropped. Then he said, “I’m sorry, Cam. I called to apologize for being a prick all the time, and I start out by being a prick. It’s like I can’t help myself.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of that, so I probed carefully. “Well . . . umm. Apology accepted, I guess. But what brought this on? Are you feeling your mortality or something?”

“No. Just clear-headed. It’s been a while. I’ve been in some dark places, kid. Messed me up. I’ve just been angry so long . . . nothing went right and I guess I wanted to blame someone else. Everyone else. You. Fi. Everyone who got a break when I didn’t, or got ahead when I didn’t. Anyone I could think of. Anyone but me.”

He stopped talking, and I really didn’t know what to say. This didn’t sound like my brother. More accurately, I thought, it didn’t sound like the person I always thought my brother was.

“Iain,” I said, “I’ve known you all my life, but I realize listening to you right now that I don’t really know you at all. What were you looking for, all those years ago, when you left? What was your dream? And why do you think you failed?”

“It’s not that hard to understand, is it? Dad and I . . . we were always butting heads. He wanted me to be like him. Wanted it bad. Wanted me to be into sports, wanted me to be smart, to go to college. Come back, go into insurance. Take over his business someday, I guess.”

I could almost hear his shrug over the phone. “I don’t like being pushed, so I pushed back. I did sports, but my sports. I did drama. That pissed him off. Otherwise I blew off school. Blew off church. Left home as soon as I could. I thought I’d come to New York, and I’d wow everyone with my acting, and show everyone – show Dad – that I didn’t need his bougie respectability.

“I’m okay. I got bit parts. Was part of the scene, you know? But nothing more. Not enough to survive. I got restaurant jobs to pay the bills, like everyone else, waiting for the ‘big break.’ I told myself I’d get out if I hadn’t gotten a big part by the time I was twenty-eight, when I’d been hustling for ten years. But I didn’t. I love this place, you know? And, I didn’t have any better ideas. So I just stayed, and kept at it, and started using to take the edge off, instead just to have a good time. Until I started losing it – first with Dad, then with my roommates.”

He seemed to have finished, so I said, “Iain . . . you’re only thirty-two. It’s not too late to start over. Maybe find a new dream?”

“I’m done with dreaming, Cam. Gammy was right about that. ‘You can spend your life dreamin’, or you can spend your life workin’. Only one of them will keep a roof over your head.’”

I chuckled. That was Gammy Campbell, sure enough. “Okay, but if you don’t need a dream, you do need a plan. What are you thinking?”

“I’ve got a job lined up when I’m done here – a restaurant I’ve worked at before, up in New Rochelle. That’ll keep me for now. Come spring, construction pays better, and I’ve got some contacts. If I take some classes on the side, I may be able to apprentice to an electrician in a year or so. Pay’s better.”

“Is there anything I can do to help? Anything you need? Do you even have a place to stay?” I said, almost gingerly.

His response was gruff. “I won’t bite your head off. I know I did before. I didn’t want to admit I needed help . . . or that my kid brother was doing better than me. And I know what you and Fi did for me . . . it wasn’t hard to find out that you lied about state money for rehab, and who was really paying.”

“I’m sorry for lying. I didn’t see any other way.”

“There wasn’t one,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t have come here if I’d known. And you were right; I needed to come.”

He was quiet a minute. “I really hate to ask, but I do need some more help. I’ve got a friend – another artist who didn’t make it – who’s also looking for a place. He found something that’ll work for both of us, and we can manage the rent between us. But we need a security deposit and first and last, and we don’t have it. Swear to God – or I would, if I believed in one – I will pay you back. But I could really use some cash for that.”

Iain had never, ever, asked me for anything; I agreed immediately and we worked out the details. We talked some more – it was the first time in forever that we had a real conversation.

But I didn’t raise the issue of being trans again, and he didn’t mention it. He hadn’t believed me when I told him in January, and I wasn’t going to risk that kind of reaction again. He would get the picture next time I saw him. Literally.

Speaking of which . . . “Do I need to be there when you get discharged?”

“No,” he answered. “I just walk out. Your lawyer friend at the PD’s office says they don’t need me back in court. The DA will drop the charges on March 3, and you can get the bail money back.”

“That’s good. I’d come up if you needed me, but I’m slammed at work for the next month or so. I’m working on a case that goes to trial next month up your way, in Connecticut. Hopefully I’ll be able to see you once it’s over. You’re on the way, by train. But, busy or not, I’m always here for you.”

We talked a bit more; it was nearly midnight when we ended the call. I sat at Maggie’s vanity for a few more minutes, bemused. I don’t think I’d ever talked to Iain for so long, one-on-one. It was positively disorienting.

After a minute, I started brushing out my hair, using the soothing feel of the repetitive exercise to quiet my thoughts so I could get some sleep. As I sat at a woman’s vanity, wearing a sheer nylon nightie and my dark-green dressing gown, brushing long dark hair that now reached to the lace of my décolletage, I wondered impishly how Iain would take to having a little sister.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER SIX
“Stridea l'uscio dell'orto, e un passo sfiorava la rena”
– Puccini, Tosca, E lucevan le stelle (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, February 22

I got up at my normal time and did a full hour of physical exercise, adding a fifth seven-minute routine into my workout. I shaved, showered, did my nails, hair and makeup, put on my jeans, my calf-length leather boots and a fun, frilly top, made some coffee and started right in on work. At this point, I was adept at making sure I had everything with me that I would need when I left the office on Friday night.

When I heard Nicole begin to stir, I made up some omelets – they were beginning to look a bit better, though nothing like Henry’s – as well as some green tea.

She came downstairs in her robe and slippers, her hair in its nighttime plait, and gave me a sleepy grin. “I love weekends.”

When we were done with breakfast, Nicole went upstairs to get washed and dressed. I did the dishes, dried them and put them away – there was no mess at Opera House! – then went back to the basement and got back to work. Nicole joined me around 9:30 and we were able to do voice exercises together.

She gently chided me for “scooping” – beginning to sing before I had the right note, then lifting up to reach the actual note that Nicole was singing. She played the tape and I caught it right away. We worked on that as we went through the exercises, and it definitely helped. She was an excellent instructor.

When we were done, Nicole spent some time working on her parts – I assume for Götterdämmerung, but I knew she was also working on other parts she would be singing later in the season.

I went back to work. We had a light lunch at noon, then Nicole got ready for an afternoon of teaching voice to college students. I gratefully accepted her offer to let me borrow her car and got out of her butt-length hair.

First, I went off and saw the Dottoressa and had a good second lesson. We spent forty-five minutes on exercises to expand the high end of my effective range and fifteen minutes on articulation exercises.

She thought I had made better progress on the former than the latter. “More time with Dottoressa McGregor’s tapes!” she demanded.

One does not argue with The Dottoressa.

After my lesson I went off to Target to pick up a few more casual things to wear around the house. My purchases to date had focused on dresses, skirts and – honestly – sexy-feeling lingerie. I knew that I was overcompensating and that cisgendered women more often wore practical clothing – pants, shorts, T-shirts; sweatshirts. It didn’t matter when I was living by myself, but I felt overdressed wandering around Opera House in dresses when Maggie and Nicole were less formal.

I was fond of my stretchy jeans, so I got two more pairs (one black; one olive), a couple pairs of heavy tights, a few women’s T-shirts with v- and scoop necks, with either capped sleeves or sleeveless, and a couple of tailored fleece tops.

On my way to the register, I saw a scrumptious surplice-neck black camisole that I had to have, and two more pairs of nylons. And a royal blue sports bra with intricately patterned back straps. I decided that my inner girl had done enough damage for one day – thank God for Target prices! – and I made it out the door without any more impulse buys.

After that I went grocery shopping and picked up some staples for the week – a few things that would be quick and easy since we would both be pretty busy. It was after 4:00 when I got home, and Nicole was just finishing with her last student in the front room. I went around and came through the back door to the kitchen.

As I was making my third trip with grocery bags, a young Black girl, maybe twenty, came out the front door, smiling and chatting with Nicole, who waved me over. “Cami, this is Shana, Shana, this is my roommate, Cami.”

Shana flashed a thousand-watt smile. “Hey!”

I returned the smile. “She working you hard?”

She shook her head. “Singing for Miss Nicole? Nah! She slays!” She waved good-bye with a cheery, “See ya!” and was off down the road.

I looked at my roommate. “Miss Nicole, I think I old.”

She grinned. “Start teaching kids. They’ll keep you young!”

I took the grocery bag in through the front door and brought it back to the kitchen, then went back out to get my other purchases. But Nicole had already purloined the bags and was bringing them upstairs.

“Ooooh!,” she teased, “somebody’s been shoppppping!”

I pretended to grab for the bags, she pretended to pull them away, and we giggled.

“C’mon,” she said. “Show me!”

So I showed her the pants, tights, t-shirts, and fleeces. She gave me half a smile. “Your friend Sarah again, right? Fitting in?”

I nodded, a bit sheepish. “Yeah, I thought I was kinda overdressed.”

Nicole put her hands on my shoulders. “In this house, you wear what makes you feel good, okay? Not what you think will make us feel good. You don’t have to blend in here. You. Are. Safe. Got it?”

To keep from tearing up, I leaned in, gave her a peck on the very tip of her nose. “Yes, Mom!”

Then I pulled back and said, more seriously, “I love dressing like a woman – I love the look and feel of different fabrics, the way they feel in different combinations. But liking women’s clothes is like a bonus; it’s not what makes me trans. When I’m able to be full-time as a woman, I expect I won’t feel as much need for my clothing to give me comfort and reassurance. Then I’ll probably lounge around in more practical clothes.”

“Should I get you some sweatpants then?,” Nicole asked (knowing that I loathed them).

I shivered in mock horror. “No! Not that!”

“Well, okay then,” she said. “But I think you’re holding out on me, girlfriend. That last bag doesn’t look empty to me!”

That led to a chase around the room, until, cornered, I showed her the pretty sports bra, the nylons, and the silky black camisole.

She held that last garment up against my torso. “Oh, yes, very practical, Cami!” She laughed and returned my peck on the nose. We went into the kitchen and put away the groceries.

I had picked up a rotisserie chicken and some salad for dinner, so we ate that and a bit of sauvignon blanc. We cleaned up, I put away my new purchases, and we each got a bit more work done. About 7:30 we had arranged to Facetime with Maggie, so we went upstairs for better WiFi.

Maggie looked great. “Hey!” she said, excited. She filled us in on how rehearsals were going and how she was settling in. She was sharing what sounded a lot like a dorm room with another singer. “It’s tight quarters, but we’re really only there to sleep,” she said. It was apparent that the rehearsing was intense and went on all day.

We didn’t have much exciting news for her, though I did mention that I had a really good call with Iain.

“Really?” she said. “That’s fantastic!”

I gave her – really, gave them both, since I hadn’t said much about it to Nicole – all the details.

At the end of the call Maggie yawned like a panther. “Early bed for me tonight. Listen, I miss you guys!”

“Miss you, too!” I said.

Nicole smiled and blew her a kiss, and we signed off.

After 8:00 I excused myself to watch some results from the Iowa caucuses. The TV was still in my room, which had been kind of their TV lounge before I showed up. None of us watched TV much, so it hadn’t been a problem.

After half an hour or so Nicole knocked, came in, and sat down on the couch with me. “Okay, Cami. I want you to tell me what I’m watching. And why I care.”

So I did.

We sat for a while, watching the talking heads describe what was happening. It became increasingly apparent that Senator Sanders was going to win handily. He had already won the New Hampshire primary and had the most votes in the Iowa caucuses. He was starting to look unstoppable.

And I guess I was starting to look worried. “You don’t like Bernie?” Nicole asked, with nothing more than pure curiosity in her tone.

I waved my hand. “I don’t have a problem with him, though he’s not my favorite. But . . . I’m really worried that he can’t win the general election. And that’s the one I care about.”

Nicole was quiet for a bit, then got up and stretched, lacing her fingers together, inverting her hands and reaching for the ceiling. “You’ve convinced me . . . . But it seems like a stupid way to pick a president.”

With that, I couldn’t disagree.

~o~O~o~
Washington, D.C., February 25

We were meeting in the conference room we had set aside for trial prep. Neatly stacked boxes full of neatly labeled binders, containing all of the potential trial exhibits for both sides, lined one wall.

I was the last to arrive; I had been delayed by the news flash that had popped up on my phone. I apologized and said, “Dr. Messonnier from the CDC is warning that we may be facing school closings, workplace shutdowns, cancelling large events. Cases keep popping up on the West Coast, and now Italy is some kind of hot spot.”

Daviana asked the question that was on all of our minds: “Are we going to be able to do this trial?”

But none of us had answers. We called our local counsel in New Haven, but he hadn’t heard anything either.

Finally, Eileen said, “We’ve got no choice. It’s full speed ahead unless the court says otherwise. We need to assume we’ll be picking a jury in three weeks. So let’s stay focused, shall we?”

~o~O~o~
Baltimore, Maryland, February 29

“Biden in a landslide,” I said, as Nicole poked her head into my room and quirked an inquisitive eyebrow at me. I was watching the returns from the South Carolina primary.

She said, “Is that good news, or bad news?”

“Depends on your pony in the race, I guess. But . . . Warren, Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Bloomberg got almost no support from the Black community. If that carries over to Super Tuesday, their campaigns are dead in the water.”

She looked intrigued. “The Black vote is that important?”

“For any national race, it’s critical for Democrats.”

“Huh,” she said. “I wonder what Shana would say to that.”

We watched for a bit longer, but it just devolved into talking heads discussing James Clyburn’s clout. Nonetheless, Biden’s campaign had come roaring back after a near-death experience. Come-back stories are always interesting.

~o~O~o~
Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland, March 3

For all the work that we had done on the trial, there was still more to do, and we continued to be very busy. I had been working with my witnesses by phone, and I was helping David in his efforts to get our primary liability expert to sound like a real person instead of an overeducated toaster. This was proving to be quite a challenge for both of us. Part of the problem was that David and I were also too educated for our own good.

Eileen said, “Think of someone you know who’s smart, but hasn’t been to college.”

David, bless him, looked blank.

I immediately thought of Gammy.

“Now,” Eileen said, “imagine having Dr. Silverman explain his report to her.”

Eileen had been working on her opening statement for the jury. It followed the outlines she had prepared earlier, but she was working on specific language to figure out what would land well. We had several sessions where she tried new language and all of us provided feedback. And, work with the documents never stopped.

Just as it was getting easier and more natural for me to present as a woman, it was growing increasingly difficult not to. I could still do it, and do it convincingly. But it took concentration, mindful attention, and with all of the work involved in preparing for the trial, the strain of that constant concentration was wearing me down.

I took to wearing the underwear that Sarah had selected, partly as a gag. At least when I wore it at work, I would feel the touch of something feminine against my skin, even though I was presenting a masculine appearance. Anything to stay sane.

But March 3 was a big day for reasons unrelated to work. I made calls to make sure that Iain was all set. The drug rehab facility provided the necessary paperwork and the DA’s office, as promised, dropped the charges against him.

I spoke with Iain briefly. His friend had made their housing arrangements, and Iain was heading up to see the new place. He said he was starting work the next day, and at my request gave me his new address and the name of the restaurant where he would be working.

I had mental images of showing up there in my LBD and stilettos once the trial was done!

Later that night, as I headed back home on the MARC train, I read on my pad that there had been a COVID outbreak in New Rochelle involving a Bat Mitzvah at Temple Young Israel. Local authorities had ordered attendees at the event to self-quarantine. I sent a link to Iain by text and a warning to be careful, and received a thumbs up in response.

I thought about it some more. Was there anything else that Iain could do? Nothing that I could think of. But I sent Fi a text saying, “Iain now out of care and living in an apartment in New Rochelle. I saw there’s an outbreak there. Is there anything he should know? Can you call, or text him?”

I got back, “Will.”

Nicole was asleep when I got in. I found some cold chicken in the fridge and had a bite while I checked on the results pouring in from the Super Tuesday primaries.

Senator Klobuchar and Mayor Buttigieg had already dropped out and endorsed Vice President Biden, and it was clear he would be the presumptive nominee by the time the night was over. Quite the comeback! I just hoped that Eileen was right in her conviction that Biden could win in November.

A whole lot was riding on it.

I got myself ready for bed, snuggling into my charmeuse nightie – no sense being modest if my housemate is asleep when I go to bed and when I get up! – brushed out my hair, then buried myself under Maggie’s covers.

I woke up in the middle of the night to find Nicole standing by my bed, looking like a guardian angel. When my eyes opened, she half sat on the edge of the bed and put a hand to my cheek. “You were crying out again, Cami. Are you okay?”

“I’m so sorry. I wish I didn’t wake you up with these things. Just . . . just bad dreams.”

“Do you want to talk about them?”

“There isn’t much to talk about,” I said, frustrated. “If the dreams contain images, I can’t remember them. All I remember is the fear . . . the terror.”

Her face filled with compassion, she bent down and kissed my forehead gently. “Scoot over.”

I did as she requested, and she took off her robe and slipped into bed beside me, wearing a long, cream-colored négligée. She turned me gently away from her and spooned into my back, sliding one arm under my neck and gracefully draping the other over my chest.

“Sleep,” she commanded. “No more dreaming.” She kissed the crown of my head.

I did as I was told.

~o~O~o~
Baltimore, Maryland, March 4

I woke up again, my body clock telling me it was close to time for me to get up. Nicole was a warm, soft presence at my back; I could feel the slow, deep rhythm of her breathing. I was acutely aware of every line of her perfect body next to mine, separated only by two layers of the sheerest fabric.

I thought, Careful, Cami!

I didn’t want my alarm to wake her, so I slowly slid from under her draped arm and slipped from the bed. She murmured something and slid her now-free hand under her cheek. She was so very beautiful. So perfect.

I reached over and gently tucked the comforter under her chin.

She smiled in her sleep and snuggled in more deeply.

I picked up my phone and tiptoed out the door and popped into the bathroom. It was time for my morning exercises, both physical and vocal. But I had the strong urge to go straight to the shower, to feel the hot water pound on my skin. To move soapy hands all over my body . . . .

I stopped, breathing hard. I hadn’t had any sexual activity, of any sort, for months. I was hot, bothered . . . horny as hell. My male member, currently not confined in a gaff, was making its unimpressive presence felt against the nylon of my panties. Nicole’s physical intimacy, wonderful and well-intentioned, had left my body aching.

I slipped out of my nightie and pulled down my panties. Forced myself to look in the mirror. I was not yet a woman, no longer a man. Caught in between, for a while longer. I closed my eyes and stood upright, as if I were going to practice for Dottoressa Trelli, then worked to slow my breathing, willed my blood to flow easily, dispelling the hot flush on my cheeks and throat. Finally I opened my eyes, in command of myself again.

I nodded at the ambiguous figure in the mirror, then got dressed for exercises.

An hour and a half later, having exercised voice and body, I showered – without incident – put on my Cam-o-flage, and quietly went out into the still air of the early morning.

Nicole slept, to all appearance, dreamless.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Fatale vision, mi lascia!”
– Cilèa, L'Arlesiana, E la solita storia (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, March 6

Another Friday night. I was home early – 7:00 – so I was able to get out of my male clothes, shower, and then get dressed properly. Nicole had marinated some kabobs at lunch time and cooked them while I was changing over. We had a quiet dinner and talked about the latest disquieting news on the COVID front.

Another cruise ship was having problems, this time off the California coast. After the death of a passenger from COVID, the California Air National Guard dropped some test kits on the ship at sea, and 21 of the 46 people tested had tested positive. There were 3,500 people aboard, and the ship wasn’t being allowed to dock, so that the positive cases wouldn’t be “counted” in our national total. It was scary, and crazy.

And again . . . . we were helpless. All we could do was wait and watch.

Nicole said, “It’s like one of those bad dreams, where you can see a train go off the rails, or a car careening into a group of people, and you try to cry out, or move, but you can’t.”

“I know,” I said. “And it's bizarre, just going forward, getting up in the morning, getting ready for the day, like none of this is happening.”

But in the end, neither of us could think of any better way to deal with it.

We put aside our existential worries and FaceTimed Maggie to wish her luck. “All ready to go?” I asked.

“I can’t wait,” she replied. “Maestro DeRenzi is fantastic – just fantastic! And I really like Stephanie Sundine’s direction. It is going to be so good!”

Nicole had lots of technical questions, so I let the experts go at it. It was fun – how I imagined an outsider might view a conversation between Eileen and David about trial strategy for our case. Or, how an opera singer might hear a conversation between professional shortstops. The details are different, but the passion, the appreciation for those details – that was what would always come through.

At one point Nicole gave me a sideways look and flicked one of my drop earrings with a lacquered fingernail. “What are you grinning at, goof?”

I laughed. “You two, silly. I always like watching people geek out. The subject doesn’t matter.”

She growled in mock annoyance at being called a geek.

But I added, with complete sincerity, “There’s nothing more beautiful than people talking about the thing they love most. Nothing. So don’t let me slow you two down!”

That got a fond smile from both of them, and soon they were at it again.

~o~O~o~
Washington, D.C. March 10

The remainder of the weekend had been busy. I had had appointments with Dottoressa Trelli and with Dr. Chun, each of whom was reasonably pleased with my continued progress. I let them know that I would be out for the rest of the month; we were scheduled to go up to New Haven on Saturday the fourteenth.

Nicole and I were both buried in the labors of our very different lives. Every so often I had looked up from my computer to see her in the sound room, posture perfect, features radiating concentration, singing at full power. But not a peep came through the soundproofed enclosure. We had been in completely separate bubbles, mere feet, but worlds, apart.

But the regular workweek rolled around and the tempo picked up. Back in male garb, I was supervising the shipment of all of the materials in the war room to local counsel’s offices in New Haven, assisted by Greg Gilles, our paralegal, and Carrie Fox, Eileen’s secretary.

Five paper copies of every exhibit (one for the court record, one for the judge, one for opposing counsel, two for us), plus hard-drives with electronic copies of everything we might need. Manuals. Brief books. Supplies . . . .

My phone buzzed an electronic warning; I looked at it and felt my blood run cold. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had just announced that he was deploying the National Guard to create a containment area in New Rochelle. Apparently the local self-quarantine order had failed to stop the spread of the virus; New Rochelle suddenly had over a hundred COVID cases – more than half of New York state’s total.

“I’m sorry,” I said absently. “Greg, Carrie . . . can you give me a couple minutes? There’s something I need to deal with.”

I heard them say something affirmative, then I heard the door close behind them. I called Iain and got him in one.

“Hey Cam. I kind of thought I might be hearing from you.”

“I just heard the news about the containment area.”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” he assured me. “We got the low-down. They’re shutting schools and churches and synagogues for a couple weeks, setting up a testing center, disinfecting public spaces. That sort of thing. But it’s not like we can’t come and go. The restaurant’s still open.”

“Iain, I am worried. I haven’t talked to Fi in a while, but everything she told me . . . this thing’s bad. And we’ve seen what’s happening. In China. In Italy. You’re in the middle of the biggest hotspot in America. Can you . . . can you just get out? Not just out of New Rochelle. Out of New York? I’ll put you up. Anywhere. I’ll find a place.”

Iain stopped me. “Cam. Stop. Maybe it’s worse here right now. But that won’t last. There’s no place you could put me up that'll be ‘safe.’ You know that. Even Fi admitted that when she called me. Here, I’ve got a place to stay. Work. Friends.”

“But . . . .” I began, sounding irrational even to myself.

He stopped me again, his voice more gentle than I had ever heard it. “Thank you. Really. But I’m just barely starting to get my feet back under me. People went out on a limb for me. My roommate. My boss. I can’t just walk away. Any more than you would leave your job and your home just because of a virus.”

I was silent for a moment. The conference room seemed to darken, or else my vision was clouding. “Iain,” I said, “I’m frightened for you. Scared.” My voice was almost gone.

“Me too, kid,” he said. “But Fi will get us all through it. See if she doesn’t.”

“Okay,” I said. “Be safe, will you?”

“Always am,” he responded.

We ended the call.

The room faded to black. My vision was gone completely and I was blind. Caught in a waking nightmare of darkness, of crying and screaming. The smell of fear, the heat of fever, the sound of labored breathing, of hearts straining. Terror in the streets of Bergamo, of Padua . . . all of Lombardi. Beautiful Italy, I thought irrelevantly, the land of Dottoressa Trelli. Of Puccini. Opera.

I heard . . . a voice? Yes . . . a voice in the dark. Nicole. “Like one of those bad dreams,” her voice was saying, through the weeping, the cries, “where you can see a train go off the rails, or a car careening into a group of people, and you try to cry out, or move, but you can’t.”

I shuddered, opened my mouth to scream a warning. To Iain. To Fi. To anyone. Everyone. But I detected no motion, no sound. Nothing but a deep, rhythmic pulsing, like the thrumbing of a massive heart. Or a planet-sized ventilator. Or the slow, powerful beating of dark wings . . . .

The wings of the Angel of Death.

I felt a hard grip on my arm. Another voice. Please God! A real voice! “Cam!! Cam!! What’s happened? Cam!”

I tried to move again. Tried. And finally felt my muscles obey. My left hand reached up, blindly, clutching at the hand on my arm. I could feel my own breathing, ragged. But I could feel it, and I worked to bring it back under control. Vision was starting to return. I was kneeling, I could sense. My head was bowed. My right hand was clenched.

I heard the voice again. “Cam? Can you hear me?”

It was Daviana.

I nodded jerkily and took a deep breath. “I’m okay now.” My voice was barely a whisper.

“Like hell!”

I didn’t try to speak again. Instead I focused on simple motions. Release her hand. Give it a pat. Move it to the chair, that was . . . right there. In front of me. Grip the chair. Get my left foot under me. Push up, slowly. Use my left hand for balance. Right foot forward. Turn. Get into the chair. Okay. Raise my head, find Daviana.

She was standing. Looking worried — seriously worried.

I took a couple more deep breaths and tried my voice again. Stronger. The nightmare was receding, quickly now. I felt suddenly exhausted, but I was otherwise entirely in the present.

“Thanks, Daviana. I’m sorry I gave you a scare. But I’m okay. Really.”

She sank down into the chair next to mine. “What the hell happened?”

I thought of the terror, pushed it back. I forced my voice into Cam Savin’s cool analytical pattern. Calm. “I have PTSD. From . . . from an incident. I’m seeing someone about it. It’s never hit me when I was awake; I just think of it as night terrors. But I just got some very bad news, and I guess it got triggered.”

Still looking worried, Daviana asked, “What was the news?”

“My brother is living in New Rochelle. They’ve just imposed a COVID containment area there. He won’t get out. And, just like that, my PTSD hit. It’s not rational, I know. He’s fine.”

She looked at me intently for a minute and evidently didn't care for what she saw. “Look, I’ll spell you here for a bit. Give yourself a few minutes. Go home if you need to. I’ve got this.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m fine. Really.”

“Cam, you scared the crap out of me,” she said. “You couldn’t see me, or hear me, your face was covered in tears and you looked like you were talking to ghosts. That’s not ‘fine.’ Take a half hour – at least. Or, do I need to get Eileen involved?”

That, I absolutely did not want. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be good. I’m sorry for giving you a fright.” I got up and headed for the door. When I reached it, I turned. “Thanks, Daviana.” Then I walked out.

I found the restroom – in this case, the men’s room of course – and went in. Daviana hadn’t been kidding; my eyes were red and my cheeks were soaked. I filled my hands with cold water; held them to my face, to my burning eyes.

After a few minutes I dried them off, then went back to my office. I closed the door, sat at my desk, and closed my eyes, allowing them to cool. There were some Advil in my drawer; I pounded two dry.

I spent the next twenty minutes focused exclusively on controlling my breathing, concentrating on each inhalation, each exhalation . . . driving all other thoughts from my mind.

Breathe in life, breathe out fear.

Breathe in life. Breathe out death.

Breathe.

After exactly half an hour, I re-entered the war room, gave Daviana, Carrie, and Greg a nod of thanks, then went back to work. After a few minutes, apparently convinced that I truly was okay, Daviana went back to her office.

On my way home later in the day, I sent Fiona a text. “I tried to get Iain to leave New Rochelle. Failed.”

I was almost home when I got her reply. “Me too. Keep those prayers coming.”

I replied, “Roger that. For Iain and for you. Be safe.”

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER EIGHT
“gelido, mortal, v'è un silenzio, un freddo che m'agghiaccia!"
– Puccini, Manon Lescaut, In quelle trine morbide (Aria)

Washington. D.C., March 12

I was at my desk going through my emails. Normally something I do on the train on the way into work, but I had instead been reading about the WHO’s decision the previous day to declare that the coronavirus constituted a pandemic. Fiona had called it early, but after over 100,000 cases in more than 100 countries and over 4000 deaths, there was no longer any doubt.

Other, more pressing matters diverted me when I got to the office, so it was mid-morning before I got to it. As I was finishing up with what had arrived overnight and in the morning, a new email came in, this one from the Connecticut District Court. I opened it and read.

From: CMECF @ ctd.uscourts.gov

Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2020 10:35 AM

Subject: COURT OPERATIONS UNDER THE EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES CREATED BY COVID-19

This is an announcement e-mail message generated by Court action through the CM/ECF system. Please DO NOT RESPOND to this e-mail because the mail-box is unattended.

WHEREAS, the Governor of the State of Connecticut has declared a public health emergency throughout the State;

WHEREAS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised people to take precautions in light of the COVID-19 virus (coronavirus) outbreak, and has noted that the best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to the virus;

AND

WHEREAS, trial jurors often have to work in close quarters to hear the evidence and deliberate following presentation of the evidence;

THEREFORE IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, effective immediately, that all civil and criminal (grand and petit) jury selections and jury trials scheduled to commence now through April 10, 2020 before any district or magistrate judge in any courthouse in the District of Connecticut (i.e., Richard C. Lee U.S. Courthouse in New Haven; Abraham Ribicoff Federal Building in Hartford; and Brien McMahon Federal Building in Bridgeport) are CONTINUED pending further Order of the Court.

I just sat there, staring at the screen. Even when we had talked about it, we hadn’t actually thought it would happen. Life would go on. Life always went on. Tomorrow would be like yesterday.

Until, suddenly, it wouldn’t be.

Another message came in, this time from Eileen. “Let’s gather in the war room at 11:00.”

I sent back, “Got it,” and pushed back from my desk. I stood up and for some reason got my jacket from the hanger on my door and slipped it on. I picked up my coffee cup and went out to the common area. Filled up.

“Oh, my God,” Daviana said, coming up behind me. “Can you believe it?”

I tapped my forehead. “Up here, yeah. I get it. But . . . the rest of me may take a while to catch up!”

She nodded, filling up her own cup and taking a sip. “Well, let’s go see what the plan is.” We headed to the now almost empty war room.

David was already there, then Greg came in followed by Carrie.

Coming in last, Carrie said, “Eileen may be a couple minutes late; she’s on the phone.”

We talked quietly for a few minutes, the mood somber and subdued. Eileen came in and, very uncharacteristically, took the seat at the head of the table.

“I’ve just been speaking with local counsel and some of his contacts in the federal bar in Connecticut. We’re looking at a three month delay, minimum. Apparently the Chief Judge is using the April end date as a place-holder; no one thinks it will be over that soon. And even if it does, criminal matters necessarily take priority because of the Sixth Amendment. I’ve already emailed in-house counsel and Theo Jacoby to let them know. They’ll spread the word.”

She looked around the table, seeing a ring of stunned faces. She said, gently, “I know how hard all of you have worked. How hard it was to get to this peak of readiness. And we were ready, no question. But trials get delayed all the time. Not usually for reasons this dramatic, but it happens. We’ll have to roll with it. And we can.”

Her eyes went around the room again, gauging our reactions. “So, here’s the plan. We’ll need to put things in shape so that they will be relatively easy to pick back up whenever we get the green light. We’ll need ramp-up time to get back to where we are now, but we’ll absolutely have it. Like I said, once they open the courts again criminal matters will have priority, so we’ll have lots of notice. Nothing’s going to be sprung on us. Okay? Any questions?”

Naturally, everyone had some. We talked about logistics, and speculated about the schedule, and basically said everything that can be said in a situation where almost nothing is known.

Finally Eileen pulled the discussion to a close. “So we have things we’ll need to do, but there’s nothing that can’t wait a few days – other than canceling our hotel and travel arrangements. Which I’d like you to take care of this afternoon, Carrie, if you would.”

Carrie nodded.

Eileen continued. “Other than that, I’d like you to all go home. Take the rest of the week off. Unplug. We’ve been at this almost non-stop for months. Go see your families. Let’s plan to meet Monday morning.”

People were pulling back their chairs and standing. We had a plan, and that provided some confidence. People no longer looked dazed. Daviana was even regaining her almost perpetually cheerful look.

I didn’t move. I looked down at the table, thinking furiously.

When I looked back up, Eileen was also still seated. Watching me.

I said, “Can you spare a minute?”

To be continued . . . .

~o~O~o~

CHAPTER NINE
“A mes voeux a daigné sourire”
– Donizetti, La Fille du Régiment, Ah! mes amis (Aria)

Washington, D.C., March 12, immediately following

The door to the conference room closed behind Daviana, who – seeing me remain behind – looked concerned. Eileen and I were alone.

She gave me a lawyerly half smile. “I don’t suggest you wait to take care of personal issues until after trial now, Cam. So . . . if I remember correctly, there were some things you wanted to talk to me about?”

I nodded. “As a mentor, as a friend . . . and as my supervisor.”

Hearing the last item on my list, she looked more serious, but she just nodded in return. “Of course.”

I tried to think of a good way to explain. Lord knows, I’d had plenty of time to think of what I would say and how I would say it, but facing the reality of the moment, my erudition failed me. I knew deep down that all the smooth words, the careful words, were useless here anyway. The truth, and nothing but the truth, is usually brief.

“I’m trans, Eileen. And I’m running out of the strength, even the ability, to present as male. I could have made it through the trial. I convinced myself I needed to, that it was the right thing to do. But that’s when we were looking at three weeks. Not three months.”

“Three months, minimum,” Eileen added. “Probably more.”

She had listened to me quietly, displaying no change in her demeanor. Not surprise. Not – thank God – revulsion or even discomfort. “I’m glad you told me. I had an inkling something was troubling you, and after that morning in Hartford, I had a guess what it might be. I think I understand why you waited, but it’s going to be okay. Really.”

She leaned forward slightly. “Now. There are things I need to say as a member of the firm’s leadership team, so let me get them out of the way. We have a nondiscrimination policy. I assume you’ve read it?”

I nodded, mentally thanking my sister’s fiancé for bringing it to my attention. And, I thought, Henry can also cook!

“Good,” Eileen continued. “You know it is the policy of this firm not to discriminate against any employee on the basis of gender identification. And I will tell you – me, personally, Eileen O’Donnell – that the day we don’t live up to that policy is the day I walk out. Which they won’t want,” she said with a predatory grin, “because I’m hands down their best trial lawyer.”

In a more normal tone, she added, “But I also know this firm. I’ve done as much as anyone to create its modern incarnation. I know all of the partners to one degree or another. And I know every member of the management committee very well; I strong-armed half of them into doing a stint. I’m confident that we’ll do right by you.”

She gave me her most direct look, making sure her words had sunk in. “Better?”

“Better,” I said with a somewhat relieved smile. “Though, honestly, I wasn’t really worried about outright discrimination. This has just never struck me as that kind of place. I do worry that I’ll make people uncomfortable – and, I guess, the other way ’round. And I know that’s not something management can ‘fix.’ People are people. They have comfort zones, and trans people are outside of those zones for a whole lot of people.”

Eileen nodded. “I understand. And to be fair, I really don’t know what you’ll experience that way. This is a big place. We insist that everyone always behave professionally, and that is something we can enforce. And have. Beyond that, though, you’re right. Not much we can do. But, honestly, I don’t think you’re going to find yourself isolated or friendless. The fact that this is a big place cuts both ways. Everyone tends to find their own group. I think many, if not most, of our people are not going to be put off by your being trans.”

She was quiet for a moment, thinking. “Your bigger problem may be the world outside the firm. Life’s no cakewalk for women lawyers, much less trial lawyers. I’m in lots of meetings with all the bigwigs from some Fortune 50 company and I’m the only woman there – unless maybe the head of HR is a woman. Even now, in 2020.

“People will tell you it’s different today, but they told me the same thing forty years ago. News flash: it wasn’t then and it isn’t now. You’ll have to go through extra hoops to be taken seriously, and I can’t begin to tell you how tiresome that gets. I don’t know if that’s going to be even worse for you as a transwoman. But it sure as hell won’t be any easier.”

I protested. “Eileen, I’ve seen you completely dominate every room you’re in, no matter who’s there!”

She grinned. “There are some tricks to that, and I expect you’ll master them. But mostly it comes from building my reputation to a point where now it can do a lot of the heavy lifting for me. That takes decades.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“I know,” she replied. “I wish there were some silver bullet or magic wand that would eliminate bigotry and harmful stereotypes, but there isn’t. It’s just long, grinding work.” She added, jokingly, “Are you sure you want to be a woman?”

I returned her smile. “Yes, I am. Very. But it wouldn’t matter if I wasn’t. I am what I am. I just can’t hide it any more.”

She looked thoughtful and leaned back in her chair – a slight movement, barely changing her normal perfect posture. Simply a small signal that our conversation would now be less formal. She was taking off her supervisor hat, insofar as she ever could.

“Can you tell me about it? What’s it been like for you? How long have you known?”

“I guess I’ve always known that I didn’t quite fit. I just assumed it was me, though – just stupid insecurities everyone feels. Nothing really felt natural; I didn’t know why. Or rather, I didn’t even know it was possible for things to feel natural.

“Everything I did, how I interacted with people, how I responded to things, was calculated. I would think, ‘What is it that I’m supposed to be doing in this situation,’ or ‘What’s the correct way for me to respond to this individual.’ I would game it out in my head and make a careful decision on what to do. I assumed everyone was like that.”

I paused, searching for the right words. Eileen regarded me calmly and attentively, waiting for me to collect my thoughts. I should have this down by now, I thought to myself.

“Last year, I started to realize that people didn’t operate like that at all. Oh, maybe for big, important decisions. Sometimes. For everyday stuff, though, people were generally spontaneous – their actions simply flowed naturally from who they really are. But I had blocked those natural, instinctive reactions.

“And the reason I had was because, when I did express myself naturally, everything about my expression was female. Deep down, that’s who I am. That's when everything started to make sense. I knew what was ‘wrong’ inside me, and I suspected that I could 'fix' it by presenting as a woman.”

“So you tried it,” she said, making it a statement rather than a question.

I nodded. “I’ve been living as a woman for the past several months, except at work.”

“Given how many hours you’re here, a large exception,” she said dryly.

I chuckled. “Yeah, that part’s been hard. Because just as I was discovering how wonderful it was to just be myself, be the person I am inside, I was also making a very conscious effort to suppress all of that here.”

We talked a bit about my recent experiences. I told her about the change in my living situation, and how I was temporarily living in a house in Baltimore with two cisgendered women who were professional opera singers. And how they both accepted me as a woman.

“Twofer!” Eileen exclaimed. “You get fabulous roommates and you get to learn about one of the truly great art forms!”

I laughed, delighted. “You know opera?”

“I enjoy it. Your roommates know it. Big difference.”

I nodded. “I’ve been incredibly fortunate, but it’s really just a short-term solution. The commute is a real bear. And, I don’t know how they would feel about my being there full-time.”

We talked some more, then she said, “Well, I suppose I should put my supervisor hat back on and ask you what’s next. How do you want to go about changing your status here, and when, and what are the next steps in your transition?”

I took a deep breath. “You know, I’ve just been pushing off thinking about the nuts and bolts of this until after the trial. I want to begin hormone therapy. That will take some time to produce physical results – probably a few months before any noticeable changes occur, and the changes can take as much as two years to finish.

“I gather at the outset I might have to deal with mood swings triggered by hormones, just like a girl going through puberty – which is one of the reasons I thought I’d better wait until the trial was done. I think I can handle it. I certainly hope I can, but . . . I wasn’t so confident that I wanted to risk having a breakdown in the courtroom!”

She laughed lightly and said, “Yeah, that would have been suboptimal for sure. It’s been a while, but I do remember puberty – my own, and, much worse, my daughter’s!”

I laughed. “Yeah, not looking forward to that. But I do, at least, have resources and experience a fourteen-year-old lacks.”

Returning to the immediate issue, I said, “The treatment should allow me to present a more natural feminine appearance. But I don’t think there’s any need to delay changing over until that process is complete. I’ve worked hard at this, and as I said a fair bit seems to come naturally.

“I’m pretty confident in my ability to present convincingly as a woman here at work with the assistance of some padding. So I can start right away. I’m just not sure whether that’s the best way to go about it. I was hoping you might be able to advise me on that.”

“Hmmm,” she said. “Probably doesn’t make sense for you to go home today as you are and then just show up on Monday as a woman, no matter how convincing you are.”

She clicked a nail against her teeth, thinking. “I tell you what. Let me talk to my colleagues on the management committee. What they’re probably going to want to do is send out a firm-wide notice similar to the one we send out when new employees arrive. Though it might feel like putting an unwelcome spotlight on your situation, it would also spare you a lot of individual conversations. And, it would underscore the fact that the management committee is in your corner. Do you think that would work?”

I thought about it, thought some more, then nodded emphatically. “Yes, I think that would be best. Hopefully it’s no more than a one-day story.”

“Okay,” she said. “It may take a bit more time to get that taken care of. We’ve got a meeting scheduled for Tuesday anyway; I was going to have to miss it because of the trial, but now – Joy! – I can be there.”

From her expression, management meetings rated somewhere between orthodonture and amputation.

“Once I get their blessing on the strategy, I’ll draft some text and run it by you. In the meantime, why don’t you take next week off and get yourself sorted out. Just for example,” she said with a warm smile, “you might have to get yourself a work-appropriate wardrobe. I can probably arrange for the memo to go out by Thursday of next week.”

“But . . . we’ve got work to do next week. I don’t want to leave you short-staffed!”

She gave me a kind look. “Keeping a trial team functioning well as a team requires a lot of work and forbearance from every team member. You obviously understand that, but you’ve gone above and beyond your duty. It shouldn’t require completely suppressing your identity, which you’ve done for months. We can spare you for a week.

“Question is, do you want me to tell the team what’s going on when I meet with them on Monday? Would you rather tell them yourself? Or, have them find out when the rest of the firm does?”

“If you could tell them, that would be great. These conversations . . . really aren’t easy. You’ve been wonderful, but I’m always worried about how people will react.”

“I’ll be happy to,” she said.

We had to talk, of course, about the tail that so often seems to wag this particular dog.

“You are welcome to use the women’s restrooms throughout the office,” Eileen said. “Understand, that may make some people uncomfortable. Alternatively, it might make you uncomfortable. I don’t know, and mercifully I don’t have to care. We provide unisex restrooms on the sixth and eighth floors for people who, for whatever reason, are uncomfortable with the gender-differentiated common restrooms. Whether you use those instead of the women’s rooms is entirely your decision.”

As we were winding down our discussion, I said, “There’s one more thing I guess I’d better tell you. I promised I’d let you know if anything that was going on would adversely affect my work . . . . I have been dealing with PTSD since an incident at Christmas. I didn’t say anything because it had only affected me at night. But I had an incident in the office two days ago. Gave Daviana quite a scare. I am getting treatment, and Dr. Chun is confident it will get better. But I thought you’d better know.”

Eileen said, more formally, “Thank you for telling me. Communication on issues like this is important, so we can provide a supportive environment and make accommodations where necessary. Was there anything here you’re aware of that triggered the episode?”

I shook my head emphatically. “No; it was something else. That containment area they’ve established in New Rochelle – my brother Iain lives and works there. I talked to him; he’s not leaving. And I was just overwhelmed by fear. For Iain, for my sister – for the whole world. It’s not rational, but it suddenly just scared the bejesus out of me.”

“Or else you’re rational, and the rest of us are just whistling past the graveyard. You’re seriously worried about this virus, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know why, but it really scares me. Not so much for myself. But I feel like it’s coming on like some sort of tsunami wave, and we’re all frolicking on the beach building our sandcastles . . . . Anytime I start going down that rabbit hole, though, I ask myself what I should be doing differently – what all of us should be doing differently – and I keep coming up empty. So I just get on with life.”

Eileen nodded. “Yeah, that’s where I keep coming out too, though I don’t think I’ve had your visceral reaction to the news that’s been coming out. I also don’t have anyone in a hotspot, though obviously that can change.”

She paused a moment, shook her head, then returned to the earlier issue. “Anyhow, on the subject of your PTSD, you’re doing what you can for treatment and you’re normally fine. If there’s anything we can do, let me know. Keep me posted, but otherwise, just take care of yourself, okay?”

I agreed.

That seemed to cover everything, so I said, “Eileen, thank you so much. For everything. I’ll make it work, really I will. And I think I’ll be more of an asset here than I have been, trying to be male.”

She smiled. “You were doing just fine, and I don’t doubt you’ll continue to do fine. I’m looking forward to working with this woman you’ve been hiding from us. But . . . what should we call you? Will you use the same name?”

“You know, I should have an answer for that, and I’m sorry to say I don’t. Cameron can be a woman’s name as well as a man’s, but I’d like to make a break, somehow. On the other hand, the name I use with my friends doesn’t really work in a professional environment.”

Eileen stood up and started moving to the door, and I did as well.

“Well, give it some thought and let me know,” she said, “so we can put it in the memo that goes out to the firm. In the meantime, when we’re behind closed doors, not speaking as partner and associate, may I use your friend name?”

“I would really like that,” I said, fighting the prickling of tears. “Please, call me Cami.”

She smiled and held out her hand. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Cami.”

We shook hands, formally, both smiling, then she was gone.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TEN
“Achevons la métamorphose”
– Gounod, Faust, Ah! je ris de me voir (Aria)

Washington, D.C., March 12, immediately following

I went back to my office in something of a daze. I had taken the plunge! That thought dominated my mind. But at the same time, there were plenty more worries behind it. Until just a couple hours ago, I was one hundred percent prepared to be in a trial next week; now, I would be on vacation.

And then what? What work would I be doing when I got back? There’s always plenty of legal work to be done, but I wasn’t just a lawyer, I was a litigator. If we had the British legal system, I would be considered to be training to be a barrister, not a solicitor. What happens if all the courts close down?

But, as with everything COVID-related, there wasn’t anything I could do about that right now. I sat at my desk, closed my laptop, and put it in my bag, then took a moment to look around, realizing that this would be the last time I would sit here in a suit and tie. When I returned, I would look completely different. I would be, finally, myself.

A very Cami-like smile lifted my lips, and I left with a spring in my step.

~o~O~o~
Baltimore, Maryland, Later the same day

As I walked up the street towards Opera House, I heard the sound of Nicole giving a voice lesson in the front room. So as not to disturb her, I went around to the back, came in through the kitchen and headed for the staircase.

Nicole paused her lesson long enough to stick her head into the hallway to make sure it was me. She gave me an inquisitive look and I mouthed, “Later,” then she went back to her lesson.

In my room, I removed my suit jacket and hung it, untied my necktie and put it on the rack. Unbuttoned my dress shirt, dropping it into the bag I was using as a clothes hamper. I sat on the couch and removed my wingtip oxfords, then the regulation black dress socks. Finally, the heavy wool pants joined the jacket on the hanger.

I unpeeled myself from Sarah’s present – a stretchy, nylon-spandex undergarment that looked like a man’s t-shirt and brief, but felt and operated much like a leotard. It had served its purpose. I thought, I’m finally done with half-way measures.

Finished.

I put on my dark green dressing gown, grabbed some critical supplies and went into the bathroom. After taking the time to Nair everywhere, I stepped into the shower, cranked up the heat, and in my imagination washed my male persona straight down the drain.

Finished, I thought again.

I carefully shampooed, using something fragrant, then worked conditioner into my hair. I waited five minutes, then rinsed it all away, too.

Finished.

I patted myself dry, put in some mousse and curlers, then attached my breast forms. Once they were set, I put my robe back on, poured myself a tall glass of water and went back to my bedroom. Next, I attached extensions to each of my nails, let them dry and smoothed them out with an emery board. I selected a deep red nail polish and lovingly, carefully applied it to each finger nail. Then I did the same with each of my toenails.

Suddenly hit with the memory of another singular moment of transformation, I sat on the couch and pulled Stravinsky’s Firebird from my phone’s playlist. Cradled in the palms of my hands, I held a small, brown plastic tube-like container with a bright white lid. It had been a talisman, a promise for the future. But the future had arrived much sooner than I had expected.

I was still sitting there when Nicole knocked softly and poked her head in. She took one look at me, came in, and sat on the other end of the couch. “Okay, girlfriend. It’s Thursday; it’s not even 5:00, and you’re not only here, you’re rounding third base and sliding headfirst into gorgeous. What happened? Did you lose your job?”

She sounded concerned, so I smiled reassuringly. “No. It’s all good. Well. Mostly good. I’m still employed. But our trial’s been put off because of COVID; we don’t know how long. Eileen thinks three months minimum.”

“Oh, God! What will you do?”

“For work? I don’t know. Lawyers can usually find trouble to get into. COVID’s a disaster, and disasters breed lawsuits like prize bitch spaniels breed puppies. But I doubt I’ll see the inside of a courtroom anytime soon. So, I decided.”

“Decided what?”

I opened my hands and showed her the bottle.

Her eyes grew wide as saucers. “Really? Now?”

“Now . . . and forever. No more hiding.”

She leaned back, a look of wonder still on her face. “I know you, Cami. No way you’re doing this on the sly. You told your boss.”

I smiled. “Yes. You do, and I did. Eileen and I had a great conversation. She’s going to let the firm know next week. I am on vacation until a week from Monday, so I can get things sorted out.”

Nicole’s smile was big enough to split her face. She bounced to my side of the couch and enveloped me in a huge hug. “Oh my God!!! That is SO wonderful! I am so happy for you! We have to tell Maggie! And we need to celebrate! Damn, I wish we were in New York!”

Nicole, enthusiastic, was practically a force of nature, but her mention of New York brought reality roaring back into my own mind. There was a pandemic out there, and it was growing. Spreading. And among the places where it was spreading fast was New Rochelle, a suburb of New York City.

I squeezed my wonderful roommate, then pulled back and held her at arm’s length.

“Nicole, honey, it’s good that we aren’t in New York tonight. I wish none of our family members were there either. So far, Maryland hasn’t seen much COVID, and I don’t think Baltimore has seen any. I’m sure it’ll come soon. But in New York . . . in New York, it’s now.”

She gave me a long, thoughtful look and, just like Eileen, asked, “This is really worrying you, isn’t it?”

I thought about my day terror in the conference room two days ago, and nodded. “Yes. I’m worried. No, that’s too tame. I’m scared. Terrified. For all of us. And I know I’m probably being silly.”

“Me too. They announced today that they’re starting to close schools and churches in Maryland and DC. Had you heard?"

I nodded.

She continued, distress growing in her voice, "Now you tell me they’re closing courts. I’m living in constant fear of a call that tells me they’re closing opera houses and concert halls, even though I know . . . . I mean, they almost have to, don’t they? I don’t know what I’ll do, what Maggie will do, if that happens. When that happens. And my parents are in New York City, right now. That’s their home. I feel like the world is just about to come crashing down on top of all of us."

She paused, took a breath, and very visibly slowed herself down. "But right now – right now, tonight, the world is still standing, and my very dear new friend has something amazing to celebrate. Please, Cami? Let’s steal a moment from whatever is coming, and do something fun, while we still can?”

I absolutely can’t resist Nicole, especially when she’s right. I smiled bravely at her. “‘Take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!’”

Her own smile returned, strong and bright. “That’s the spirit!”

“Welllll,” I said, drawing out the single syllable. “I think I might have something that will do the trick. It’s not Vissi d’Arte in Rockefeller Center at midnight, but Eileen did mention the importance of my acquiring a ‘suitable wardrobe for work.’ And I’ve never, ever, been shopping with a girlfriend before. Will you take me?”

She beamed. “Yes!!! But, two conditions. First, we find someplace nice to eat. And second, you have to promise that we won’t spend the whole time looking at work clothes. Lawyers dress funny!”

“Done!” I said, laughing.

She sprang off the couch to get ready, but I stopped her. “Nicole, before you go . . . .”

She looked back at me. “Yesssss?”

“My nails are still sticky, and I can’t get one of these pills out. Could you help?”

Her face softened; she came over and sat right beside me on the couch, took the bottle from my hands, pushed and twisted the top, and removed a single, precious pill. She closed the container and set it down, then put her left arm around my neck, brought her right hand to my lips, and said, “Open up, princess.”

When I complied, she set the pill right on my tongue, reached over, and picked up my water glass. “Now this,” she said, and handed it to me.

I drank the pill down, and deep inside, finally, a powerful dose of estrogen began to flow into my body. “Thank you,” I said, my voice sounding soft and warm.

“I’m glad I could share the moment with you,” she replied. Amazingly, she leaned in and kissed me lightly on the lips. “Now, get yourself ready!” She flowed off the couch and was out the door.

As soon as my nails were dry, I went back to the bathroom, took off my turban, removed my curlers and started blowing out my hair. I got it dry and headed back to my room, but Nicole stopped me in the hallway.

“Let me do your hair — I’ve been itching to try something.”

Intrigued, I readily agreed and we went back to her room (she has a suitable chair!). She first began to brush it out, using long rhythmic strokes as she hummed something under her breath. She took her time about it, too, brushing from both above and below, so I just closed my eyes and enjoyed the sensation.

When she was done brushing, she created loose, twisted braids on both sides of my head, brought them around to the back, and rolled them together into a complicated, loose over-under knot that she held in place with a long hairpin. She pulled a few curled tendrils to dangle down past my left ear and down almost to my shoulder. The end result created the appearance of a lot of movement and volume around my face.

She turned my head this way and that, pulled out a few more tendrils, then pronounced herself satisfied. I was admonished to go find something nice to wear to dinner, but not so nice that we couldn’t go shopping.

I settled on a short, tight black skirt and a flowing royal blue top with a wide, relatively shallow u-shaped neckline that did a nice job showcasing Nicole’s hairstyling efforts. Drop earrings, Liz’s watch, sheer black nylons and black pumps with a three-inch kitten heel added to the look. I wore a black bra and my new black camisole, and the cut of the neckline on my top allowed the straps to occasionally peak through, left or right. It was a bit flirty, but then again, I was celebrating!

I put on some evening makeup, enough to really bring out my blue eyes, and carefully painted my lips with a deep red gloss that matched my nails. Finally satisfied, I went to find Nicole.

She was still in her bedroom, almost ready, wearing a creamy silk sleeveless blouse over a classic white camisole, all tucked into a full, asymmetrical skirt in an almost tweedy sage-green. Her long, curly hair was loosely braided and piled on top of her head. She looked even more stunning than usual.

“Could you give me a hand with this?” She showed me a thin gold necklace. “I’m all thumbs this evening.”

I managed it, despite the complication of my nail extensions, and we went off to the mall.

Shopping with Nicole was completely different, and a thousand times more fun, than shopping by myself. She would give me useful feedback like “Yuck!” and “Absolutely!” Finding things I never would have considered, she would insist that I try them, and blow me away. She even came with me into the dressing room and help me with all of the unusual ways designers devise to fasten womens’ garments.

Sometimes I would talk her into trying something on and seeing how well my own eye was developing. She liked a lot of my suggestions, but said she wasn’t buying anything today. “Just window shopping – and I love window shopping,” she said with real enthusiasm.

But I decided that, regardless of all the fun things we were trying on, I would only actually buy work clothes today. Nicole was equally helpful there, despite her earlier finger-wagging.

“The key,” she told me, “is to get some really good foundational pieces, then add things so that you can mix and match.” Three conservative skirts (black, red, gray), a couple of well-made jackets, and several tops, including a couple of white or off-white shells. A couple pretty scarves to change things up. “And that will really do for you to start,” she said. We did add a dove-gray sleeveless dress that I could wear with the jackets, but that, she said, was gravy.

We brought the purchases out to the car, then it was time to get some food. Nicole drove to a seafood restaurant that she liked and we had a very nice dinner by a lovely wood fire. It was only 9:00 when we finished – my strange circumstances had allowed us to make a very early start – but Nicole stopped on the way home and we picked up a bottle of champagne.

“What are you two beauties celebrating?” asked the old guy behind the register.

I said, “Trust me, you really don’t want to know!”

Back at Opera House, we grabbed some glasses, went into the front room and popped the champagne.

“To Cami,” said Nicole, “long may she blossom!”

I raised my glass. “Soon may she blossom!” – which, as intended, got a laugh.

Nicole sat in a large chair, folded her legs and tucked her stocking-clad feet. “Cami, we’ve talked a lot since we first met, but I feel like there’s so much I just don’t know. You’ve been on this amazing journey, and it’s like I’m getting on the train late. Tell me your story!”

This was not the sort of conversation I could ever imagine Cameron Savin having with a male friend. I also wasn’t sure how to answer her. But I started somehow, and soon we were exchanging stories. Our families. Friends we had known. Moments that had been important to us. The difficulties we had been through. Our loves.

As wonderful as our first conversation had been, this one was far deeper, far more intimate. It was, simply, amazing. I had never experienced an evening like it; not even with Liz. Liz had been meaningfully older, far more experienced, and always very much in charge. Nicole was my contemporary.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Mentr'io fremente le belle forme disciogliea dai veli!”
– Puccini, Tosca, E lucevan le stelle (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, March 13

It was 1:00 a.m., the champagne was long gone, and Nicole gave me a wide, sleepy smile. “Welcome to one of the best parts of being a woman.”

“If guys find out it’s like this, they’ll be lining up to get snipped!”

We made our way up the stairs, removed our makeup, and did our nighttime rituals.

Nicole caught me again on the way back from the bathroom. “You’re not going to want that hairpin in your hair while you are sleeping.” Her deft fingers released my hair to flow down my back.

I went back to my room, took off my outfit, and got into my short blue nightie and my green dressing gown. Then I padded into the hallway and went into Maggie’s room, which I was currently using to sleep.

I had just pulled the covers back when I heard Nicole’s voice behind me. “Cami,” she said, very softly, “will you stay with me tonight? Please? I’m scared . . . scared about what tomorrow will bring. I don’t want to be alone.”

She was standing in the doorway, dressed again in the cream-colored négligée that hugged her flawless curves. My heart began to pound in my chest; I was surprised she did not hear it. I walked over to her and brought my hands up, resting them lightly on her torso, thumbs on her ribs, fingers curling around her back.

“Nicole,” I said, my voice suddenly husky, “I’m a woman, and I’m attracted to men, but honestly, I don’t think I can keep my hands off you if I sleep in your bed tonight.”

“I'm a woman,” she replied. “And I’m attracted to men. But tonight, I just want to love, and be loved, by someone I care about deeply. Someone I can hold on to. Gender isn’t very important right now. I have been with other women before. Is that so wrong?”

A million thoughts raced through my head. Reasons why this might be a very bad idea. I knew that I wanted to be with a man, as a heterosexual woman. But, my attraction to Nicole was real, immediate, and undeniable. My love for her was real, too. I knew that, like Liz, she was also heterosexual. And it had been hard — so very hard! — to make the break from Liz in similar circumstances. Unlike Liz, Nicole did not live a long distance away.

Because of the love between us, it was not wrong in my book. It was no sleazy one-night stand; nothing like what Liz’s friend Tim had offered back in January. It wasn’t wrong.

But it might be unwise.

None of that mattered. I would no more deny Nicole in her moment of need than I would cut off my right hand. I moved that hand up to cup the smooth curve of her cheek. “No. It’s not wrong.”

She stepped forward, folded her perfect arms around my neck, and kissed me with her soft, sweet lips. I was lost in her embrace, and found my hands moving across her back, feeling her frame, taught and powerful, under the silk of her négligée.

She broke off our kiss and leaned her forehead into mine. “So, that’s a yes?”

“I withdraw my objection,” I murmured.

“Come,” she invited, and led me back to her room. Once there, she ran her fingers down the front of my green dressing gown and undid the sash. Then she ran her fingers back up my sides, hooked her thumbs into the lapels of my gown at the shoulders and deftly slid it off. She turned and hung it behind her door.

While she was facing away, I stepped behind her, and pulled the pins – there were several – that held her hair in place, allowing the enormous mass to cascade down her back, like a lake suddenly released from a dam. I ran my fingers through it, marveling at its silkiness, its sweet perfume.

She turned to face me, took my hand, and led me to her bed.

We were under her sheets, this time facing each other. I ran a finger over her cheek, across the fine line of her jaw, down her slender neck. “You are so incredible,” I breathed.

She smiled. “So kiss me, you fool!”

I did. But even as our lips reconnected, my hands began to explore her magnificent body, fondling her full breasts, caressing her slender arms, the gentle swell of her belly, her firm thighs. My fingers curled around her round backside and squeezed gently.

She was breathing heavily, as excited now as I was myself.

I lifted one of her lingerie straps and slid it down her arm, freeing her left breast. Her skin was so soft . . . so smooth! I broke off our kiss and dropped my lips to the hollow at the base of her throat, then to her chest, before planting a series of soft kisses across the breast I had exposed.

One of her hands was tangled in my curls; the other was pressing the thin fabric of my nightie against the small of my back. Her exposed nipple was hard and dark; as I took it in my mouth she cried out and began to whimper.

My hand slipped under her négligée, caressed her thigh and rested lightly on her bush. I began to massage her pelvis as my tongue lashed her nipple.

She groaned, and I groaned with her.

I could no longer stop myself; I brought my head down, down, and kissed the engorged lips of her vulva.

Her excitement was intoxicating, electrifying. My tongue found her passage.

She gave a great cry, and another. Her breath was coming fast, she was whimpering, moaning, quivering.

I continued, giving her no rest, taking her juices, lovingly worshiping her perfection as it deserved.

She climaxed several times, bucking and crying out with pleasure. With a final, great shudder, she finally subsided.

I raised myself back to the top of the bed, slipped my arm under her, then rolled her body, unresisting, until her head lay on my shoulder and her long silky curls spilled across me.

She was utterly, completely spent.

I kissed the top of her head. “Sleep, angel. No dreams tonight.”

But I dreamt. I was on the pier over the ocean, but I was no longer running. I had reached the end. Wind whipped my long, black hair and tore at the planking and supports that held me above the waves. Rain lashed my body in sheets, soaking my lime-green one-piece swimsuit, making it cling to the curves that, in my dream, were all real, all mine. The water below me was inky black, turbid and impenetrable.

But my face was calm, peaceful. My legs were together, my feet side-by-side, lacquered toenails curled over the last plank of the pier. I looked straight out and raised my white arms to shoulder height. Then I bent my knees, pushed off strongly, and dove into space.

An instant later, the pier collapsed behind me and vanished.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Un solo instante i palpiti del suo bel cor sentir!”
– Donizetti, L’Elisir d’amore, Una furtiva lagrima (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, March 13, morning

If my alarm went off, somewhere, I didn’t notice it. My body’s internal alarm likewise took the night off, or at least the morning. When I awoke, the sun was already shining, and The Most Beautiful Woman I Had Ever Personally Met was gazing up at me from where her head rested on my shoulder, looking thoughtful.

“Good morning,” I said to her with a smile. “You look like someone who is thinking deep thoughts before breakfast. Which is just wrong. So you know.”

She smiled back at me. “I was actually trying to decide the best way to return the favor from last night. I might as well have been a man — one of the more thoughtless ones — for all the effort I took to give you pleasure.” Her lingerie strap had found its way back onto her shoulder, and she had one hand lying lightly on my nightie just over my stomach.

I covered it with my own left hand. “I have never been more satisfied.”

She looked unconvinced.

I raised my free hand to stroke her hair, her cheek, her bare shoulder. “Nicole, there’s nothing here you would want to see or experience. I can’t even pretend to be a man anymore, and as a woman, I’m mostly silicone. My breasts are fake, my hips, ass, and pelvis are padded. I wouldn’t want you, of all people, to see the kind of freak I am right now. I don’t want you to think of me that way.”

She gazed at me calmly. “Here’s a lesson in being a woman, Cami. It’s not all about appearances. It matters, sure. Especially in the beginning. And at the margins. But other things are more important. Like the fact that you are a truly wonderful person. And last night, when I was honestly desperate to be loved, to be comforted, you were there for me. You kept the darkness away, for a little while.”

She turned her head to plant a gentle kiss on my chest. “I know that your body isn't what you want it to be. What it will be someday. But it’s your body, and you are important to me. So I would like you to forget what you look like. Close your eyes if it helps, and imagine you are a beautiful woman. Because that’s what I see when I look at you. And that’s the woman I want to make love to. Right now.”

She rolled and straddled me, her négligée riding up on her hips. In a single, graceful motion she drew it over her head and dropped it on the pillow.

I couldn’t close my eyes, because I didn’t want to stop looking at her. Her hair surrounded her body like a cloak, tendrils caressing her breasts.

She began rocking back and forth, while her hands petted me, caressed my arms, my face, my torso. She bent down and kissed me, hard. Then she folded her legs together, slid her body down my own, and used both hands to remove my panty gaff entirely, exposing my inadequate, but very excited, male member.

I looked away, ashamed.

“Cami. . . . Cami. Look at me.”

Unwillingly, I brought my head around and saw her, crouched between my legs, surrounded by a nimbus of light brown curls.

“There is nothing you need to be embarrassed about. Nothing that shocks me. I am not disgusted. You are beautiful. Now close your eyes, girl, and let me prove it.”

Naked and vulnerable, I was now happy to comply. I lay on my back, arms at my sides, passive, as Nicole stoked the tender skin inside my thighs, stroked my stomach, and began to kiss me, intimately.

I was rock hard.

She gave my shaft the lightest touch and I gasped. She continued, and now I was the one who was whimpering and crying as my excitement mounted, mounted, and began to crest. Suddenly, her lips parted and she took it all in her mouth. Her tongue folded around me and I felt myself go, hot and hard.

In a moment, she had reversed our position from the previous night. My head was on her shoulder, my mouth inches from her breast. My dark hair spilled across her body, and she stroked me with her free hand as I wept cleansing, healing tears.

“It’s okay, Cami,” she crooned. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be a superwoman every minute. I’ve got you.”

I don't know how long that moment lasted, but eventually my tears did stop flowing. I blinked them away, in the process delivering a few angel kisses to Nicole’s upper chest. I brushed my lips against her lovely breast and levered myself onto my elbow so I could look at her. There was nothing in her face but tenderness and compassion.

“I hate to be the one to say this,” I said, “but I really need to pee.”

She groaned. “You had to say it!”

“Race you!” I said, leaping from the bed.

She followed me, naked, beautiful, and cursing a blue steak, but I got there first, sat down primly, arranged my nightie, and asked, “Have you ever been to Niagara Falls?”

She gaped, stopped cursing, then started to hop up and down. “Christ! Don’t take all day, or I’ll go on the floor and you'll have to clean it up!”

I laughed, but I finished quickly and abdicated the throne.

She closed her eyes and slumped, relieved.

I retreated to her room while she finished her business and stripped the bed, bundled the sheets and pillow cases, and put the covers back in place.

Nicole poked her head in. “I get dibs on the first shower!”

I smiled, blew her a kiss, and made a motion of dismissal with my hands.

She disappeared down the hall.

I brought the sheets, our nighties, and our dressing gowns down to the laundry, pausing at my room to snag my flannel nightgown. The sheets were dark, so I set the washer on a cold rinse setting, put everything in, and started it. Returning to the main floor, I made Nicole some green tea, and myself some coffee.

As the last of the hot water was flowing through my drip cone, Nicole came in, her hair turbaned, wearing her own flannels. She saw the tea, smiled, and took it to the table.

I joined her a moment later. “So . . . I guess we need to talk.”

She nodded, but looked – mercifully – unconcerned. “I’ll let you win this race,” she said, smiling. “So you can start.”

I took a sip of coffee, then set it down. “Where to start? I didn’t mean for that to happen last night, and I can think of a lot of reasons why it was a bad idea. But . . . I love you, so it was wonderful.”

I was silent for a bit. Then I said, “Your turn.”

She looked at me over the rim of her coffee mug. “I love you too, Cami. And it was wonderful, and I don’t have any regrets at all. None. So, now that we’ve taken care of the easy part, we can talk about the harder parts.” She smiled again. “Your turn.”

“Last night, we both said we were attracted to men. I know I don’t have any actual experience that way. Maybe I never will. But you do, and . . . and I’d like to. So, there’s that.”

She put down her mug and covered my hands with her own. “I think what you’re saying is that we can’t have ‘always.’ There’s something else that we both want, something different. I know that. We needed each other last night, and we were able to be there for each other. That’s enough for me. It could happen again. It might not.”

She paused and looked at me carefully. “But I need to know if that makes you uncomfortable. Or unhappy.”

I shook my head and smiled, clear and untroubled. “No. Not at all. I don’t have casual relationships, but this wasn’t – isn’t – casual. Love makes all the difference. I’m relieved that my physical attraction to you isn’t a problem. I was worried about it. A lot, really, the last time we shared a bed.”

“I’m probably more strongly heterosexual than you are,” she said, “but like I told you last night, I have been with other women, in somewhat similar circumstances. And enjoyed it. . . . Maggie included.”

I thought about that for a minute while we sipped our drinks. “Nicole, I’m a guest here. And I care about you both. I don’t want to do anything that hurts either of you.”

She stopped me and squeezed my hand. “It's not like that. Mags is hetero too. But we’ve shared a lot of ups and downs, heartaches and heartbreaks. There have been nights when we’ve been there for each other, just like you and I were there for each other last night. Then we get up again the next morning, and keep our eyes out for a good catch. Maggie wouldn’t have any issue with what happened last night.”

I couldn’t help but ask, “You’re sure?”

“Positive.” Then she grinned. “But, feel free to ask her about it!”

I stuck out my tongue at her.

“What do you have going on today,” I asked.

“Pretty much a normal day,” she responded. “I’ve got a lesson with the Dottoressa at 11:30, and I’ve got two students coming in for a joint lesson at 2:00. But other than that, it's just vocal workouts and studying parts. How about you?”

I said, “Since I actually planned to be working all day today, I don’t have anything else on my schedule. I think I’ll get in a proper workout – with you, for my voice, and on my own, for the rest of me. Then I might do some wandering. It’s going to be in the 70s today, if you can believe it. I might just go for a walk in a park. Wouldn’t that be wild!”

She laughed. “I’ll need the car when I go to see The Dottoressa, but otherwise feel free to use it.”

We ate some fruit and yogurt for breakfast, then Nicole went upstairs to make herself (even more) beautiful. I was surprisingly serene about the events of the prior night. It had been wonderful, and I treasured every moment. But, I did not feel any anxiety, any need to lay a claim on Nicole.

I washed, dried, and put away the dishes, poured myself a big glass of water, then went and rotated the laundry. Nicole came down around 10:00 and we did our vocal exercises in the front room. I changed into exercise clothes, went into the basement and started my exercise routine, late but very welcome.

By the time I came back upstairs, Nicole was off at her voice lesson. I took a leisurely shower and got dressed in a new pair of stretchy jeans, a sleeveless T-shirt, and a fleece. I added a pair of sneakers and put my hair into its usual loose side braid.

It suddenly occurred to me that Al could cut it properly now, since I didn’t need to preserve the option of a “male look.” I thought about calling the salon, since it was a work day, but it occurred to me that Tina might well be hanging out there during the day. So I shot him a text instead. I gave Sarah a call and filled her in on my good news.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Denn der Götter Ende dämmert nun auf”
– Wagner, Götterdämmerung, Fliegt heim ihr Raben (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, March 13, later that day

Around 1:00 I went down to the basement, opened my laptop and checked my emails. Unsurprisingly, under the circumstances, there was nothing particularly pressing. I went to my usual online news sources to see what was going on in the world. And saw a news flash that, following the President’s declaration of a state of emergency, the Metropolitan Opera of New York had canceled its entire season.

Just then, I heard someone come in the front door. I ran upstairs and saw Nicole, looking happy, as she often did coming back from her lessons. She saw my face, blanched, and walked slowly in my direction.

I met her half way and folded her in my arms. “Nicole, honey, the Met’s just canceled the rest of their season.”

She stiffened, brought up her arms and held me wordlessly.

I said, “Maybe . . . maybe it’s just New York. Because, you know . . . .”

I felt her head nod, but she said nothing.

Her cell phone rang. She squeezed me hard, then let go and fished it out of her back pocket. She swallowed, but then she straightened up, swiped, and accepted the call. “Nicole Fontaine. Yes. Good afternoon, director. . . . Yes, I just heard. . . . I see. The whole cycle? . . . . No, I understand. Thank you for the call.”

She ended the call and looked blankly at her phone.

“Chicago?” I said.

She nodded. “Not just Götterdämmerung. They were doing the entire ring cycle. It’s all canceled. Every performance.”

“Oh, Nicole!” My heart was breaking for her.

She shook her head, looking a bit dazed. She swayed a bit on her feet and her arm came up, haphazardly, looking for a wall.

I jumped in, put a steadying arm around her, led her into the living room and eased her back into the chair where she had sat, just last night, during our wonderful talk-a-thon.

“Stay here!” I dashed into the kitchen and grabbed a glass of cold water.

Her hands looked shaky, so I helped guide the water to her lips and she drank. Her eyes started to come back into focus, and she waved the water away.

“Thanks,” she said, carefully.

Her phone rang again. She closed her eyes, pain etched every line of her face. “Dear God, that’ll be Mags.”

She took a steading breath, looked at her phone, and answered it. “Hi sweetie.”

I could hear the sounds of distress coming from the speaker.

“The rest of this show? What about the others? . . . . Yeah, I guess there’s hope. But not much, huh? . . . . Yeah, Chicago too. Seems like everyone was waiting for the Met to pull the trigger. . . .”

There’s was a long pause on Nicole’s side, while I could hear Maggie talking rapidly. Then Nicole said, “Of course. What time? . . . Not a problem. Text me the flight info? . . . Okay. . . . Yes. . . .Yes. . . . No, she’s here. Her trial was canceled too. . . . I know, right? ‘The end of the world as we know it.’ . . . . I’ll do that. . . . I love you too. See you at 6:30. Bye.”

She closed her eyes and sat still as a stone. I ached for her, but had no idea what I could do that would make a difference.

Finally she stirred and, without opening her eyes, said, “She told me to give you a hug and a squeeze for her. She’s sorry about your trial.” She sounded tired, broken, and flat. Not like Nicole at all.

I found myself kneeling at her side. I took her hands in mine and bent over them, feeling the splash of my tears. “Oh, Sweetheart,” I choked. “I don’t even know what to say!”

Her eyes opened and a ghost of her smile returned. “Thank you for last night, Cami. I’m so glad we had that moment.”

“Don’t give up, Nicole!”

She whispered, “Remember what you sang to me, in New York? ‘How can I keep from singing?’ How can I, Cami? How?”

“You can’t,” I said. “And you won’t. I don’t know how, but you won’t.” I squeezed her hands and took a deep breath. “I promise you, Nicole. We’re going to get through this somehow. You, me, Maggie. We’re going to make this work. We will find a way.”

She looked at me for a long, long moment. “Superwoman’s back, huh?”

“Damned right, she is.”

“Okay, Cami. I’ve got nothing in the tank right now. But I’ll hang in there. We’ll come up with something.” She still sounded lifeless, but at least she was willing to listen.

Desperate for some further inspiration, I thought to myself, what would Eileen do? And the answer came to me.

I gave her hands a last squeeze, released them and stood over her. “Good.” I kept my voice warm, but for the first time I allowed steel to show through. “Here’s the first thing that’s going to happen. You’re going to go upstairs and take a cool washcloth to your eyelids. Then you’re going to sit down and have a mug of tea to open your throat again. Because you’ve got two students coming in half an hour. Their world is probably about to come crashing down, too, if it hasn’t already. They will need you to be Dottoressa Fontaine for them, even if it’s the last time. Can you do it?”

Her eyes had gotten wide at the change in me.

I hoped it would work; what I had done was the verbal equivalent of pouring ice water down her shirt. But I had guessed right.

At the mention of her students, she sat bolt upright. “Sadie and Terry!!! Oh my God!!” She jumped up and ran upstairs.

I sagged with relief, then went into the kitchen to make her tea.

I was very worried that Nicole’s students would also cancel, but they bounced up the stairs promptly at 2:00.

Nicole was ready for them. Whatever agony she was feeling inside, she was able to suppress it when some of “her girls” needed her.

While she was teaching, I took the opportunity to make a run to the grocery store and get something for dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch. I was thinking hard and making plans. I was just finishing putting away the groceries when I heard Nicole seeing Sadie and Terry out.

A few moments later she came in and leaned against the doorframe. “Thanks for the dope slap. I needed it. I’m going to go upstairs for a bit. I’ve got to call Mom and Dad. And a few other people, too. Then I might take a bath. Can you hold the fort?”

“Against all comers,” I said. “Go on now.”

She blew me a kiss and went upstairs.

I followed a few minutes later with cleaning supplies and fresh sheets. Nicole was talking in her bedroom so I closed the door to Maggie’s room to avoid disturbing her. I stripped down the bed and put on the fresh sheets, cleaned every surface and dust-mopped the floor. Everything looked as neat as Maggie always left it.

While I had everything handy, I cleaned our common bathroom as well, then tidied my own room. The dirty sheets went downstairs to the wash, and I pulled the earlier load from the drier. I folded Nicole’s sheets and our sexy sleepwear, and brought it all back upstairs.

I didn’t hear any talking from Nicole’s room, so I shot her a text asking if she wanted me to draw her a bath. She sent back a thumb’s up and a heart emoji, so I followed through. When it was finished, I went back to my room.

While Nicole was having her bath, I made up her bed, laid out her négligée, closed the door softly and went back downstairs. We needed ideas, so I opened my laptop, checked my mail, then started doing some furious research.

Around 5:00, I got a text back from Al. “Cami! I can finally cut your hair properly? Yay! I’ve had a ton of cancellations :-( so I can fit you in tomorrow at 1 if that works.”

Al and Javi’s business, like Nicole and Maggie’s, was under direct threat. I sent back a cheerful “I’ll be there,” and prayed they would be alright.

Nicole came down around 5:30. “Groceries, fresh sheets, clean rooms, a bath . . . I’m getting some kind of spoiled! But honestly, Cami. You don’t have to do all of this.”

I had some tea ready, so I put a mug down for each of us and sat down at the table.

As she sat to join me, I said, “I know that. But you and Maggie just had your stuffings kicked out, and a little pampering can’t hurt. Besides, between work and travel I haven’t been able to do much here to earn my keep.”

She clinked her cup to mine, sipped, and said, “My brain still seems slow. What’s the plan?”

I looked at her carefully as she sat across from me. She appeared to be fine. Not her usual self, obviously, but fine. Still . . . “Are you okay to drive?”

She took the question seriously – a worrisome sign in its own way – but after a moment’s thought said, “Yes. My reflexes are fine. I’m just having trouble planning.”

I relaxed. “What I’d suggest is that you pick up Maggie while I make something light for dinner. After that, I’d recommend an early bed. We’ll all think better when we’ve had some sleep and this day is behind us.”

She nodded. “Works for me.”

She left around 6:00, by which time I already had a marinated pork loin in the oven. Around 7:15 I heard them pull up.

I went out to help unload the car and found them both looking red-eyed and tired. I gave Maggie a big hug and just held her a moment. “Dinner’s on the table. Go get started; I’ll take care of this and join you shortly.” It was a measure of how far gone they were that they went along with my suggestion.

Maggie gave me a squeeze and a muffled, “Thanks,” then they both went inside.

I rolled Maggie’s big bag to the porch stairs and had to use two hands to get it up. My morning exercises were not designed to increase upper body strength! I went back to the car, unloaded her two smaller bags, then brought everything in and upstairs.

Neither of my roommates had eaten a lot by the time I joined them, but they were eating and talking quietly.

When it was apparent that they both eaten as much as they were going to, I told them both to go upstairs and get some sleep. “But I’m laying down a marker,” I said. “9:30 tomorrow, we’re going to have breakfast and we’re going to brainstorm. However bad this pandemic gets, we’re going to get through it.”

Nicole had heard it already; Maggie looked thoughtful. “Thanks, Cami. I’ve done a lot of crying today. Too much for my own good. I’ll be better tomorrow. Planning will help.”

I reached out and touched them both, wanting the contact. “Love you guys,” I said. “Now scoot!”

They went.

I cleaned the kitchen then went downstairs. It was a bit after 9:00.

I really, really wanted to talk to Fiona. I had sent her a few supportive texts over the last few weeks – nothing requiring a response – just to let her know I was thinking about her – and I had one exchange with her following my failed attempt to get Iain out of New Rochelle. I hemmed, hawed, and finally tried a skype call to Fi and Henry’s condo.

In a moment there was a connection, and Henry’s face appeared on the monitor. He looked, as usual, calm, competent and friendly, but he also looked tired.

He smiled and greeted me warmly, but said, “I’m sorry, Cami. She’s still at work. Biogen had a big conference here and scores of participants got sick. Naturally they’re at MassGeneral. If there’s something urgent I can get her a message, but mostly I’m just staying out of her hair so she can do what she needs to do.”

I put on a brave face, but I found my disappointment was so great it hurt. To keep from showing it, I asked, “Are you staying safe? Both of you?”

He nodded. “Yes. Fi’s in full PPE when she’s dealing with patients, of course, including, I gather, a face shield over her respirator. She also changes before she leaves work, then she gets home, showers downstairs and changes again before coming upstairs. She’s talking about staying downstairs in the guest bedroom to lower the risk that she’ll infect me, but hopefully it won’t come to that.”

I shook my head. “Henry, I knew it was bad, but . . . .”

“I know,” he said. “However bad people think it is, it’s worse.”

“How are you doing, Henry?”

He shrugged. “Work’s crazy. With all the shutdowns that are being announced, everyone wants to sell. Then people hear promising things about a stimulus bill, or about widespread availability of COVID tests – which is bullshit, by the way – and they want to buy. But we’ve got a longer-term strategy and so far it’s been working and our investors are on board with it. Long days, but nothing like what Fi is coping with.”

I told him about the trial, and about coming out at work. I told him about my current living situation and how my roommates had been impacted by the shutdowns. Finally I asked what he’d heard from Fi on the best ways to keep safe, since what was coming out of the White House seemed to go six different directions at once.

He snorted. “That crowd couldn’t find their backsides with a GPS. Don’t get me started on ‘anyone who wants a test can get one;’ you’ve got no idea how much trouble that piece of misinformation is causing for hospitals. In terms of advice, what Fi’s told me is still pretty much common sense stuff. Good hygiene. Wash your hands a lot. Cover coughs and sneezes, and not with your hand. Avoid crowds, especially indoors. Try to keep your distance from people.”

“What about masks?”

He shrugged. “Nothing new there either. Fi still says they probably help, but there aren’t enough available for use by healthy people who aren’t caring for sick people. It’s going to take a bit to ramp up production. I’m feeling pretty good about our investment in 3M, that’s for sure.”

I asked him to please give Fi a huge hug for me, and tell her that she was my hero and I missed her. I managed to keep from getting weepy, at least until I had signed off, but it was tough.

I really, really wanted to see Fi.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Il mio tesoro intanto andate a consolar”
– Mozart, Don Giovanni, Il mio tesoro (Aria)

Baltimore, Maryland, March 14

I had gotten up at my usual time, done an hour of stretches and exercises, showered and gotten dressed. It was only 7:00; early still, but not for me. I was brewing some coffee when Maggie came into the kitchen, still in pajamas and a robe. She looked a thousand times better than she had. I gave her a hug. “Good morning. How are you doing? Can I get you some tea?”

She hugged me back and smiled warmly. “Me do, Mommy!”

I laughed. “Sure thing, Sweetie!”

I sat down at the table with my coffee and watched as she made herself a cup of tea. Once she poured the water, she took the cup back to the table and joined me.

“I’m doing better,” she told me. “You were right; sleep helped.” She pulled the tea bag out of her mug, set it on a saucer, then blew gently on her steaming brew. “I slept in Nickie’s bed last night. You knew?” Her tone was more careful than casual.

“I assumed. You two needed each other yesterday.”

She was watching me carefully. She laid a hand on my wrist. “Are you okay? Nickie was worried that you might be . . . .”

“Hurt? Jealous? No. Not at all.” I paused, then added, “So Nicole told you about two nights ago?”

She nodded.

“Maggie, I care about you both. Deeply. I told Nicole I didn’t want to do anything that would hurt either of you. If I have, I’m sorry. Very, very sorry.”

She shook her head, hand still on my wrist. “You didn’t. I’m glad you were able to be here for her – and glad she was here for you. It’s not like we’re an item, Nickie and I. Sometimes we’ve shared a bed, like last night. Sometimes there’s been more. But mostly we’re just very, very close friends. ‘Friends with benefits’ sounds tawdry, but it’s never felt that way, between us.”

I gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “So we’re good?”

She smiled back. “Better than good. I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re with us. Especially now. I don’t think Nickie or I could have made it through the day without you, yesterday.”

Then she gave me a stern look. “But I won’t have you playing housewife to the both of us. I can look after myself. Most of the time, anyway. And so can Nick. You don’t have to carry everything all the time.”

“But maybe some of the time?” I responded, “when for some reason like, I don’t know, a global pandemic, you might be feeling a bit low?”

“Maybe,” she said, smiling. She got up to go get her shower.

“Maggie, there’s something you and Nicole need to talk about, without me around. Might be better if you did it before our pow-wow this morning, because it impacts financial planning.”

She gave me a questioning look.

“When I came here, I only asked if I could stay a few weeks, until the trial was over, when I’d have a chance to look for a place of my own. That’s still an option. But . . . would you like me to stay? I know there are pros and cons.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but I put my index finger over her lips.

“No,” I said. “Talk to Nicole first. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings; you need to figure out what makes sense for you both, then we can take it from there.”

She touched my arm, smiled, and went upstairs.

When I was shopping the day before I decided to try making a quiche. I got everything prepared, put it in the oven, and sat down at the table, using the opportunity to do a bit more research. By the time Maggie and Nicole came down at 9:30, the quiche was done, the table was set; there was fresh fruit, tea for two (and coffee for one!), and grapefruit juice.

Nicole came and gave me a hug. “Thanks, Sweetie,” she said. “for everything.”

We dug in, and after we were getting down to nibbling on fruit, started our talk.

Nicole said, “Cami, of course we want you to stay. And we would even if we didn’t need to rent out that room. Which we do now, for sure. But we love having you here with us.”

Maggie nodded her agreement. “But . . . do you want to stay? It’s a nasty commute.”

“Yes. I want to. I’ve never shared a space like this . . . I mean, except when I was living at home with my parents. I never even realized how lonely I was, living by myself all the time. . . . And besides . . . .” I stopped, trying to figure out how to express what I was feeling.

Nicole prompted, “And besides?”

“Did you ever see that Disney movie, Lilo and Stitch?” I asked

They both nodded; Maggie said, “Of course.”

“I don't remember all that much about the movie,” I confessed, “but there’s one line I never forgot.”

Immediately understanding, Nicole said, softly, “Ohana.”

I nodded. “‘Ohana means family.’ I want that. Here. I feel like we have it. One Ohana.”

Looking just a touch misty eyed, Nicole raised her juice glass. “Ohana!”

We clinked glasses, and Maggie and I returned her toast.

Then I said, “Okay, so that’s decided. Now, we need to talk about how we get through this pandemic. Together. I can see a couple of issues that will come up; I’m sure you’ll spot others. First, we need to get a handle on our financial situation. As long as I’ve got my job, we won’t starve or have the heat shut off.”

Maggie looked momentarily rebellious.

But I gently said, “Ohana, Maggie. We’re all going to pitch in. This is one way that I can. But you will want to find work that pays as well, for your own sake if nothing else. So we need to talk about that. I have some ideas.

“Second, one way or another, we have to find opportunities for both of you to sing. I have only the barest idea. But whether or not you get paid for it, both of you have to sing, and do it where people can hear it. No ifs, ands, or buts. You. Must. Sing. Period.

“Finally, we’ve also got to find ways to not go batshit crazy here, because I think opportunities to do things outside the house are going to disappear in a hurry. There may even be lockdown orders; we’ve seen it in China and Italy. It can happen here. So . . . projects. Things we can teach each other. Things we can learn, together or separately.

“I don’t know how busy I’ll be at work, but I doubt it will be anything like the last few months. And you two will have more spare time then you’ve ever had. You didn’t want it, but you’ve got it anyway. So let’s think about productive ways to use it. Let’s see the opportunities as well as the losses. The pandemic will be over someday. If we think creatively, if we use this time like a gift we may never see again, we could come out of it stronger and more resilient than when we went in.”

I was channeling Eileen, and how she had gotten our team refocused after the stunning news on Wednesday. Get people thinking. Make a plan. Create some direction.

Looking at my friends, I could tell by their posture, by their eyes, that it was working. They weren’t just listening, they were actively engaged. Considering a way forward, rather than wallowing in despair over what had been lost.

Maggie nodded. “I like it. I do. So, let’s start with the yucky stuff. Money.”

“Okay. Most important, Maggie, what’s the story with the house?” I asked. “I know your parents have been letting you use it rent-free for now, but it’s part of their retirement savings too. Do you know how long this arrangement will last?”

“They’re both a few years from retiring, and there’s no way they’ll kick me to the curb in the middle of all of this,” Maggie responded. “I’ll talk to them about it – I need to talk to them anyway – but I’m sure we don’t have a problem on that score.”

“Great,” I said. So . . . what are our expenses? Who even handles that?”

Nicole smiled. “I usually handle the bills. The regular household expenses are gas, electric, water, cable and groceries. Probably twelve to fifteen hundred dollars a month. Our regular individual bills are, I guess, cell phones and payments for voice lessons.”

I thought about Al’s cancellations. “I wonder whether in-person vocal lessons are going to continue if this goes on – which will obviously affect your incomes as well as your expenses.”

Nicole frowned. “Yeah, I’d thought about that. I don’t know how that will go.”

“Well, you’ve got one pupil anyway,” I said. “Me. I’m going to continue to need lessons, and if Dottoressa Trelli isn’t giving them, I’d like to work with you two. You’ve already been helping, for free. For the immediate future, she’s got me working on expanding my range and improving my articulation, and you’re both more than qualified. I don’t know what else she had planned, but I need to take care of first things first.”

I asked whether they had sources of income apart from voice lessons and professional singing.

Maggie sighed. “No, and I’m not sure I’m good for much else, either.”

“That,” I said confidently, “is where I’m sure you’re wrong. There are things you can do. Some of them might not appeal to you, and some might not work out. But you are smart, articulate, motivated . . . there’s plenty you can do. Let me throw out a specific idea. Have you ever done a podcast?”

They looked at me blankly.

“I’m guessing a lot of people will think about doing this . . . eventually. But let’s be out of the gate first. Remember that night when we got back from dinner and you both gave me a tutorial about opera? Or, when I told you how much I enjoyed listening to the two of you geek out about it? There’s an audience out there – people who will want to learn; who may want to hear fresh voices. And, like us, may suddenly have some spare time they didn’t want.”

Nicole shook her head, bemused. “I wouldn’t have the first idea how to do something like that.”

“The technical elements are easy, and you already have a very nice sound studio downstairs. How to get paid for it . . . that’ll be more difficult, and will take time. But if it doesn’t pan out, you won’t have lost anything. And, you will have given your co-host an education in opera!”

Maggie laughed. “You’re willing to co-host a podcast about opera?”

“Absolutely!” I grinned wickedly. “You need me. Unless you just want to talk to other out-of-work opera singers, you have to speak to people who are interested but not knowledgeable. I’ll be there to ask the questions that are so basic they won’t even occur to you doyennes – and, asking questions is what lawyers like me do best.” I sounded like Tigger.

Nicole seemed willing. “Try me!”

“Okay,” I responded, “why is it that everyone always ends up dead at the end of an opera? We have happy movies. We have happy songs. Happy plays. Why can’t we have happy operas?”

That did it – they both busted a gut.

We talked about other opportunities as well, areas where they could develop or hone skills that were useful, if ancillary, to their careers.

I mentioned that I had learned to design websites in high school and college, and marketing is important in the entrepreneurial world of opera.

Both Nicole and Maggie were interested in improving their dance skills, since that might open up musical performance opportunities outside of opera. Sort of like diversifying a portfolio.

Then Maggie grinned. “You know what I want to learn? It’ll help with the dance. I want to learn how to be a cheerleader!”

“Huh?” Nicole looked puzzled.

I just giggled.

“You didn’t know? That one” –Maggie pointed at me – “is up at the crack of dawn, doing cheer routines. Every day. I saw her, and I tell you what: it’s GREAT exercise. I want to learn it!”

I thought about how Liz would react if she heard that her cheer squad reject was going to be giving lessons, and laughed out loud.

We continued in this vein, brainstorming. There was a lot of positive energy. By the time we were done, everyone was feeling sharper and more optimistic. I thought to myself, Thank you, Eileen!

And, speaking of which . . . . “Hey . . . I was wrestling with something, and with everything that happened yesterday it slipped my mind. I need a name. For work.”

Maggie looked puzzled. “Why not Cami? It’s a great name. It’s you.”

I smiled at her. “Thanks for that. It is me. But, Eileen was right when she said women have a harder time being taken seriously as lawyers . . . as litigators. ‘Cami’ is . . . I don’t know. Informal doesn’t quite capture it. Intimate, maybe?”

“I can see that,” Nicole said. “It’s one of the reasons I like your name, I think. But that wouldn’t be a plus at work.”

Maggie asked, “You’ve ruled out staying with Cameron?”

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t say I’ve ruled it out. It’s sort of a default. But . . . I’d prefer to make a break. Something that respects the fact that I’ve changed. I’m not just the same person wearing different clothes.”

Nicole looked thoughtful. She pulled out her phone, ran a search, then nodded. “What about ‘Camryn?’ It’s the same name, but it’s not. Just like you are the same person, but also different.”

It was perfect. I jumped up and gave her a quick but exuberant kiss. “You’re amazing! That’s it!”

We all got up, and it was a healthy sign that once again everyone worked cooperatively to get the kitchen spotless.

Then I said, “Now if you girls will excuse me, I’m going to get a one hundred percent, no hedging, ‘Camryn’ haircut!”

They cheered me on my way; Nicole had already insisted that I take her car.

~o~O~o~
College Park, Maryland, the same afternoon

I parked in front of the salon and came in the front door. Which felt strange; normally I had come in from the back. But I wasn’t living on premises anymore.

Tina was sitting at the reception desk. She looked at me with an unreadable expression. “I’ll get Al.”

But he came in before she had a chance to move and gave me a quick hug. “Cami! So I finally get to give you a proper cut!”

I laughed, and we went over to the sink so he could give me a rinse.

I filled him in on my news, but didn’t ask much about how he and Javi were doing, assuming that Tina could overhear. I explained that I had decided to stay in Baltimore and commute since my roommates were fabulous and it was at least convenient to all of the health care professionals from Haverford, if not to work.

He sat me in his chair and asked what I was thinking about for a cut.

“I like it long; I want to continue growing it out. I like being able to wear my loose side braid. But . . . I want it to look one hundred percent feminine. No more straddling the fence. Cameron is done.”

Al smiled. “I think I can manage. Let me trim the front into long bangs; you can do different things with those, but won’t always have to pin them back. Then, I want to layer the rest, and of course trim all of the ends. You’ll still be able to do your braid, but if you want to just blow dry it and let it hang free, it will look pretty and feminine and frame your face nicely. Okay?’

“I’m in your hands, Maestro!”

He got to work. At some point Javier wandered in and we chatted a bit, too. Business was slowing considerably, and quickly. But they were still getting by.

“It’ll be tight,” Al said. “Maybe real tight. But we’ve been in tight spots before, Javi and me. We’ll get by.” They shared a look that carried a long freight train of memories.

When he was finished cutting, Al took a blow dryer to my hair, sprayed on some product and began brushing it out. When he was finished, he handed me a mirror. “Let me introduce you to my friend ‘Camryn!’”

Wonderful! The cut made my hair look much, much more full. It looks . . . fun. Interesting. Very feminine.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you so much!”

We made our goodbyes, and I held my finger and thumb to my cheek and ear in the universal sign for “call me,” so that I might hear how things were going with their new tenant. But I needn’t have bothered; she was no longer at the front desk. I walked out and discovered that she was, instead, out by Nicole’s car.

“So, you decided to get off the fence?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. Ah . . . congratulations.”

This was a bit unexpected, but to be encouraged. “Thanks.”

“Listen,” she said. “That note you left? I wouldn’t steal from these guys. Never. I don’t know you. But these guys are everything. Okay?”

Ah. Well, an apology would have been nice, I suppose, since she had tried to rob me, but I wasn’t going to stand on protocol. Besides, there were more important things to think about. “I’m very glad to hear that. Very glad. But . . . they’re going to need more than that.”

She looked at me warily.

“This pandemic . . . . their business is going to be hurting. They’re going to be struggling. They’ll need you.”

“Huh?”

“Tina,” I said patiently, “you need to find ways to pitch in. Find ways to make some money. Without stealing it. They’re paying all the bills and their income is about to go in the crapper. You’re living here, you’re an adult. For your sake, and for their sakes, you need to pitch in.”

She looked like she’d been pole-axed. “I . . . I don’t . . . I mean . . . what can I do?”

“I don’t know. But you need to figure it out. They need you to figure it out. They do, but they won’t ask. And they’ll probably be angry with me for saying this. But honestly, you can contribute. You just need to figure out how.”

My phone rang; I pulled it from my back pocket to make sure it wasn’t someone I had to talk to. I didn’t recognize the number, but . . . the ID said that the call originated in New Rochelle. I felt a stiletto of fear pierce my heart, an echo of my panic attack.

“I’m sorry,” I said absently, “I think I need to take this.”

She stood still, watching me.

“Hello?” I said, answering the phone.

An accented male voice that I did not recognize said, “Hello? Is this Cameron Savin?”

“Speaking,” I said.

“Are you Iain’s brother?”

I wasn’t going to quibble about gender. “Yes. Is he okay?”

“My name is Mahmoud Masoumi. We haven’t met, but I’m Iain’s roommate. He . . . I don’t know if he’s okay. He was okay yesterday, but I came home from my shift last night and he wasn’t here. He left a note saying that he thinks he has the COVID, you know? The virus?

“The note, he said, he didn’t want to infect me. I don’t know where he went. He won’t answer his phone. I’m worried about him. He mentioned his brother was a lawyer in DC, so I was able to find you. Not too many Savins, I think. Do you know where Iain is?”

As soon as he started speaking, I knew. I knew what he was going to say. I knew that COVID had finally hit home. And my mind immediately clicked into hyperdrive, eliminating all emotion, stripping away everything but purpose. A decision tree began to unfold in my mind, which began clicking down the list of things that suddenly needed to be done. Right away. Now.

Click. Click. Click.

To be continued.

~o~O~o~

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“E in un momento torno a gelar”
– Mozart, Le Nozze di Figaro, Voi che sapete (Aria)

College Park, Maryland, March 14, immediately following

“I’m sorry, Mahmoud,” I said, “I haven’t talked to Iain for days. I don’t know where he is.”

As I was talking my brain relentlessly clicked through an unfolding list of things that I needed to be doing. “Is there any chance he went to the hospital?”

<< click - try calling Iain. Maybe he’ll take my call >>

“I called around,” Mahmoud said, “but he hasn’t showed up anywhere.”

<< click – but he won’t answer. Of course he won’t. so . . . need to get to New York >>

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll try to reach him. But if I can’t – and, maybe even if I do – I’ll be there as quick as I can. Can I reach you at this number?”

<< click – driving would be faster. And, I’ll need a car when I get there >>

“Yes,” he said, “but . . . I’ll be on shift from 4:00 until midnight. I won’t be able to talk to you while I’m on the job.”

<< click – I don’t know how long I’ll need to be gone; I’d better rent a car >>

“I understand. I should be up there before you get off shift. Let me know if you hear anything; I’ll do the same. Okay?”

“Yes. Yes. I’ll do that. Thank you.”

“Thank you, Mahmoud. Talk to you soon.”

I punched Iain’s number. No answer. “The mailbox you have reached is full . . . .”

I shot him a text: “Iain – where are you? Call me!” My mind continued to march through my next steps.

I looked up.

Tina was still watching me, face again unreadable.

I had no time, but this was something I needed to deal with before I left. A loose end. “When Javier first told me about you, he said you were the sweetest, kindest person he’d ever met.”

Her face turned hard. “‘Sweet and kind’ get you dead in the looney bin, Boo. That girl’s long gone.”

I nodded. “You became who you needed to be, just to survive.”

“Fuckin’ A, I did!”

I focused on her intently. “Then you know you can do it. Become who you need to be. Do what you need to do. You’re that kind of strong.”

Now she looked wary, sensing a trap.

“You said Al and Javi were everything. You shittin’ me?”

She shook her head, defiant. Still silent.

“Then become who you need to be now. To help them. You’re not in the asylum anymore. You’re out, you have friends who love you. Who need you. You need to do more than just survive.”

Unconvinced but . . . maybe? Wavering? I didn’t have all day to bring her around with sweet reason though, so I hardened my voice and challenged her. “Or, are you just going to sit on your scrawny butt and watch while their business dies? Then hit the street once they can’t afford to put a roof over your head or food in your gut?”

She stood silent, rigid, holding my eyes with a lava-hot stare that seethed with contempt for the pampered, privileged princess she saw whenever she looked at me. Her look positively screamed, “You have no right!!! No idea what you are asking!!!”

I looked back, unflinching. Unrepentant. Unyielding. My eyes said, “Life’s not fair. Deal.”

She blinked first.

“You some kinda bitch,” she said, disgusted. “But . . . . Yeah. Fine. You’re right. Happy?“ She dropped her eyes for a moment, thinking, then looked up. “I heard your call. Get outta here. I got this.”

There was nothing more to be said. I nodded sharply, jumped in the car and sped off. One loose end, taken care of. Make that three.

There was no way to sync my phone with Nicole’s older car, so I broke the law and called her using the handset. It was going to take me forty-five minutes to get back to Opera House, and I didn’t want all that time to be wasted just on driving.

“Hey Cami!” she said, answering.

“Hi Nicole . . . . I’ve got some bad news – Iain’s gone missing and apparently has COVID, or thinks he does.”

“Oh my God!”

I just kept going. “I know. But look, I need to get up there and find him. Can you do me a couple of favors?”

“Name them.”

“First, I need you to pack a bag for me. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Find my practical stuff. And . . . something work-like, from what we just bought, in case for some reason I need to get official. Underwear. Cosmetics. My pills.” I thought a minute, then said, “I remember seeing a package on the shelves in the utility room. Some sort of masks?”

“Yeah,” Nicole said. “From when Mags and I were building the sound room. Something from Home Depot.”

I said, “I don’t know what kind they are or whether they’re any good, but could you throw in one or two?”

“I’ll give you the whole package,” she said.

“One or two. They might be hard to replace.”

“Ohana, Cami. You get the whole package.”

No time to argue. “Okay,” I conceded. “Second, could you call a car rental company and get me something to drive? Reserve it for . . . a week, maybe? If I don’t need it that long I can suck it up; if I need more I can extend it.”

“Take my car,” she offered.

“Your car can’t talk to my phone, and I’ll need to make calls while I’m driving.”

“Problem solved! I’ll drive you. You can make all the calls you need.”

I had been afraid she would volunteer. “Nicole. Sweetie. Thank you. But you can’t. You need to take care of Maggie. And she needs to take care of you. And both of you need to get started on the things we talked about this morning. So we’re launched when I get back.”

She was quiet for a long moment, then said. “You don’t think you’re coming back, do you?”

I could tell from the sound of her voice that she was crying.

“I may get COVID,” I said, evenly, “But I’ll be careful, and most people who get it have survived. I have to take the risk; Iain needs me. But I wouldn’t forgive myself if I got either of you two sick as well. Please, Nicole? Please understand?”

The line was silent for an even longer interval before she responded, her voice choked. “Okay. Fine. But promise you’ll come back, Cami. Promise! Iain’s not the only one who needs you!”

I thought of all of the risks, all of the “unknown unknowns” revolving around this virus. If this week had taught me anything, it was that the future was unpredictable and fortune was fickle as a bitch in heat. Literally anything could happen and probably would.

But I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I told her, “We’ll get through this together, just like we talked about this morning. I will come back. I promise.”

Her voice eased. “Okay. That was stupid, I know. But thank you anyway. Thank you. . . .” Becoming determinedly matter-of-face, she added, “Now. You’re going to need a place to stay in New York, right?”

I knew her parents lived in the city, but I had to forestall her from going down that path. I wasn’t going to risk infecting them either. “Yes. Someplace that I can bring Iain, once I’ve found him. What I want is . . .” I thought a moment. “A motel. Something with a separate bedroom; a two-bedroom suite would be best. Where I can drive to the door, away from prying eyes. He may look sick; I don’t want any questions.”

“Got it,” she said. “Any preference on location?”

“I don’t want to have to go far. So, near New Rochelle, but I’d rather not be in it.”

“Okay. Price range?”

“I don’t need fancy, but I don’t want skeevy. Whatever that costs, I’ll pay.”

“Okay: Bag, rental car, motel. Anything else?” Her voice sounded strong again.

“I can’t think of anything.” Then I said, softly, “I’m sorry, Nicole. Thank you, for all of this. But also, for understanding.”

I drove on, risking one more call. I used the speech function on the phone to say, “Call Hutchinson Investments, Boston.”

The automated voice responded, in its usual inhuman cadence, “Do you want to call Hutchinson Investments, Inc.?”

“Yes,” I commanded. When a receptionist answered, I said, “Good afternoon, this is Camryn Savin,” effortlessly adopting the slightly different version of my first name that Nicole had proposed hours before. “May I speak with Henry Hutchinson please?”

“Is he expecting your call?” she inquired.

“No; I’m his fiancée’s sister. Something’s come up and I need to alert him. If he isn’t available, please ask him to call as soon as possible.”

“He’s in a meeting right now. Do you need me to interrupt him?”

I thought about that. There really wasn’t anything Henry could do this instant. “So long as he gets the message in the next hour, hour and a half, that should be fine.”

“I’m sure his meeting will be over by then, Ms. Savin. I’ll let him know.”

I thanked her and ended the call.

The rest of the calls could wait until I could do them legally. I drove on.

~o~O~o~
Baltimore, Maryland, fifteen minutes later

Maggie and Nicole were waiting in the front room when I arrived. Maggie jumped up and ran to give me a hug; Nicole followed more slowly.

“It’s okay, Maggie,” I said, soothingly. Looking at Nicole over Maggie’s shoulder, I said, “I’ll be back.”

“You’d better be,” Maggie responded, “or I’ll kill you.”

“Your bags are packed and I’ve sent you an email with your hotel information. I reserved a car from National at BWI for a week; I know you do the Emerald Aisle. Soon as you’re ready, we’ll drive you there.” Nicole had come through – not that I’d had any doubt.

“I forgot to ask you to pack my laptop; I’ll go grab it.”

Nicole pointed to where three bags were standing. “We thought of that; it’s in the blue bag, along with your pad, your portable printer, and your power cords.”

Maggie pulled away. “The last bag has cleaning supplies and whatever cold and flu remedies we had in the house, along with some Gatorade.”

I wanted to stay; I needed to go.

“Go use the restroom,” Nicole said. “We’ll load the car.”

I popped upstairs, did my business, and was down in minutes. They were just closing the trunk.

Maggie hopped in the driver’s seat and pointed Nicole and me to the back. “I’m the chauffeur tonight.”

Nicole slid in and put an arm around me. As we got underway, she said, “You’ve been Superwoman for Maggie and me since we got our bad news yesterday. And now you’ve got to go be Superwoman again. We understand. I understand. But you’ve got fifteen minutes, right now, to just be Cami. Rest your mind. Let go. We’ve got you.”

Nicole accomplished the impossible and broke my brain’s emotionless hyperfocus, its relentless analysis of the things I needed to be doing. I closed my eyes and leaned my head on her shoulder. She stroked my hair gently.

Suddenly released from my mind’s rigid and frozen grip, I found myself weeping. “I’m so scared,” I confessed through my tears. “I don’t know where he is. New York is huge. And I’m not sure what to do when – if – I find him. If I screw it up, he could die. And . . . and . . . God, this thing just terrifies me!” I was sobbing.

She gently lowered my head to rest on her breast and continued to stroke my hair and back. “I know, Sweetie. I know. You’ll be strong and smart and competent when you need to be. I know you will be.” She cradled my head and held me in her arms.

I poured out my anxieties, my fears, my terrors . . . a torrent of tears.

We drove.

From the driver’s seat, Maggie quietly said, “We love you, Cami. We’re here if you need us. If you need anything.” She paused, then said, with evident reluctance, “Five minutes, Honey. Time to get your cape back on.”

Nicole gave me a final, fierce hug, pressing my head against her bosom, then let me go.

I straightened up, gave a sniffle, and smiled when she handed me some tissues. I dried my eyes and my cheeks. “How much of a wreck am I?”

Nicole gave my face a critical look. “Not as bad as it might have been. Lucky you just had a light day look going. When we stop, I’ll do emergency repairs.”

I took a few deep, steadying breaths. It had worked before. I closed my eyes. Breathed.

Breath in hope. Breathe out fear.

Breath in strength. Breathe out weakness.

Breath in life. Breathe out death.

Breathe. Just breathe.

I reopened my eyes, feeling a restored sense of calm. My emotions were subsiding, but my mind had not yet resumed its relentless march through the decision tree filled with possibilities and choices. Poised between past and future, holding only this moment, I looked into Nicole’s soft brown eyes.

She returned my look, equally calm. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I replied softly. “I may have ruined your blouse.”

“I’ll live. . . . I like your haircut. Very pretty.”

I raised my hand and lightly brushed her cheek with my finger tips, committing every line of her perfect face to memory.

Maggie said, “Here we are,” and parked.

Maggie got the bags out of the trunk while Nicole fixed my face, then we got out, each of us took a bag, and we went to the Emerald Aisle to select a car. I’d liked the Rav4 I’d rented back in January and it had versatility that might come in handy, so we popped the hatch on one and stored the bags. I fished out my pad and charger cords and put them in the passenger’s seat.

Maggie and Nicole each gave me both a hug and a kiss. They told me to be safe.

“Take care of each other!” I ordered.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Nichts soll mich erschüttern”
– Mozart, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Martern aller Arten (Aria)

Interstate 95, shortly after

After Nicole and Maggie left, I turned on the car and did the steps required to sync my phone. My brain whirred back to life and started functioning smoothly, but I still felt human. Bless my roommates for that!

I lined up the calls I wanted to make, ensured that I had the phone numbers I needed, and got underway. It was about 3:45, I hoped to be in the city by 7:00 – 7:30 at the latest. I wanted to leave the line clear for Henry, so I held off making other calls.

Henry’s call came while I was crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge. His voice was warm, but he went straight to business. “What’s up, Cami?”

“Henry, Iain left a note for his roommate saying he has COVID and he needed to get out because he didn’t want to infect him. He’s not answering his phone, and hasn’t gone to a local hospital. I’m driving up right now to do what can be done and I should be there in about three hours.”

“Ooof,” he said. “That got ugly fast. What’s your plan, and how can we help?”

Thank goodness; Henry understands that someone has to go, and that I’m the logical candidate. Fiona may be less rational on the subject.

“I’ve got to find him first,” I answered. “But assuming I do, I’ll get him to a hospital if he needs one, or to a motel if he doesn’t. My roommate already reserved a place for me. When I find him, I’ll need some guidance from Fi on what I should look for to decide whether I need to take him to the ER. But, like I say, I haven’t even gotten to New York. I don’t need that info right away.”

“Got it,” he said. “What’s your plan for finding him?”

“I’ll make a few calls; try to get some ideas from some other friends of his. It’s not the best, but I can’t think of anything else. I’d report a missing person, but he hasn’t broken any law and we don’t suspect foul play. He just doesn’t want to be found, so the police won’t care. If you can think of better ideas, I’ll try them.”

“Nothing’s coming to me, but I haven’t even met him.” He paused for a moment, then added, “I’m assuming you called me because you want me to decide when it makes sense to tell Fi.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I could have texted her, but I don’t think there’s much she can do until I find Iain. I don’t want to distract her for no purpose.”

“Understood,” Henry said.

He knows his woman, I thought.

But after only the briefest pause, he said, “I’m going to bring her into the loop now anyway, Cami. She might have some notion of where Iain might be, and I suppose there’s also a remote possibility that he might take her call even if he didn’t take yours. You may get your ears pinned back, though. Just be prepared.”

“Roger,” I said.

“Send me your hotel info, and call if you hear anything. I’ll be in touch.” We rang off.

My next call was to Eileen. She picked up after two rings. “Hello?”

“Hi Eileen, It’s Cam Savin. Cami. I’m sorry to bother you at home, but something came up in a hurry. Do you have a couple minutes?"

“Hold on a moment.”

I heard the sound of muffled voices, footsteps, and a door closing. “Yes, I’ve got a couple minutes. What’s up?”

I filled her in, then I said, “So, I don’t know how long this will take. But even if I find him tonight and have to take him straight to the hospital, I’ll need to quarantine until I’m safe. That’ll be two weeks, minimum. I’ve got my laptop with me, and I could do some work, at least, while I’m bottled up. But I don’t actually have any assignments right now. And, I don’t know whether or how this should impact the timing of my gender change announcement.”

“Listen, you focus on what you need to do to get your brother safe,” Eileen said. “I’ll talk to the management committee on Tuesday like we discussed, but I’ll otherwise keep the news on your gender change under wraps. I’ll also let them know why you’ve had to go to New York. We’re going to be dealing with a lot more of these COVID-related disruptions, I think. We’ll need to think about best practices.”

I said, somewhat diffidently, “Would it make sense to send out a firm-wide email, telling people to work from home if they have any COVID symptoms, or have been in contact with someone who has the virus?”

“It might. We’ve generally disfavored working from home. During normal office hours, anyway. And we have a ‘power through it’ office culture about coming in when you feel a bit under the weather.” She added, ruefully, “I might have had something to do with that attitude, being honest about it. But it could bite us in the ass right now.”

Turning back to my own situation, she said, “I’m sure we can find you some discrete projects to work on, if you’re in a quarantine situation. Just keep me posted on your progress in finding Iain.”

“Will do,” I said. Thinking just how important my income had suddenly become to my whole household, I added, “Thanks, Eileen. That’s a real weight off my mind.”

She said, “Good. Then I’m doing my job.” Sounding suddenly less formal, she said, “Be careful, Cami. Stay safe.”

“I’ll do that,” I promised, and we signed off.

I thought, I’m making a lot of promises that may be very hard to keep.

My next call was to the restaurant where Iain worked. He might not thank me for that – but he would have to live to get pissed off about it, and making sure that he did live was the bigger priority right now.

The person who answered the phone said, “Sorry; he’s not here. Hang on, though, let me get my manager.”

That told me a lot right there. When the manager came on, he confirmed it. “This is Mike Parker. Ang said you were calling about Iain. You're his sister?”

When I said yes, he said, “Listen, he called out sick yesterday. Told me he was afraid he might have COVID, so he thought he’d better stay away. Have you talked to him?”

“No, and he’s not answering his phone. His roommate doesn’t know where he’s gone. Do you have any idea?”

“I don’t — and I can see why you’re worried. It’d be just like him to crawl into a hole somewhere and try to deal with this on his own. Shit.”

“Do you know if he got tested? They were going to set up a testing station in New Rochelle, weren’t they?”

“He didn’t say anything about it. And . . . well . . . he doesn’t trust authorities much.”

That, I thought, was like saying cats aren’t inclined to trust dogs. Accurate, but insufficient to capture the virulence of the emotion. “Can you try getting in touch with him? You’re his friend and his boss, maybe he’d be more likely to answer.”

“Of course. But, what do you want me to tell him?”

“Tell him I’m on the way, that I’m here to help, and I’m not leaving until I find him. Have him call this number.”

“Okay, I’ll try. And, I’ll keep thinking about where he might be hiding out. I’ll call you if I’ve got anything.”

“Thank you!” I said, grateful to have someone who might be able to help. But I felt compelled to ask, “Mr. Parker . . . when was Iain’s last shift?”

He said, “I know where you’re going with this. It was Wednesday; he got off at 4:00. But he wasn’t showing any symptoms. He was fine.”

“There have been cases of people being contagious before they show any symptoms. You might want to check with doctors. Get your people tested.”

“Yeah,” he said, sounding heartsick. “Yeah, I know. But, if they shut us down, what’ll we all do?”

“I don’t know,” I said, aching. “Sure as hell wish I did.”

“Well . . . thanks for calling,” he said. “I’ll be in touch if I’ve got anything. Will you let me know if you find him?”

I assured him that I would. Another promise.

Next I called Ian’s prior roommates, Aidan and Tina. I got a machine and left a message. Hopefully the $5,000 check they had gotten from me as restitution for Iain’s drug-induced temper tantrum would at least earn me a return call.

I drove for a while in silence, thinking about my next steps. I was passing by the Joyce Kilmer rest stop when a call came in.

Fiona.

I was relieved, but also almost afraid to answer. She was probably not going to be happy about what I was doing, and Fi could be . . . percussive when angry. Kinetic, even.

I steeled myself and accepted the call. “Hey, Fi,” I said. “Don’t be too hard on me, okay?”

But it turned out I was unduly worried. Or at least, worried about the wrong things. The person on the other end of the line was my sister, but she was also Fiona Campbell Savin, M.D., and on the battlefield I was about to enter, she was a brigadier.

“Listen, Cami, I’ve only got a couple minutes so I have to make this short and I’m not going to argue with you. I don’t have any better ideas on how to find Iain. Before you go looking, I want you, at a minimum, to get a mask and disposable gloves. Use them. Don’t touch your face when you have them on. When you find Iain, get him masked too. Good so far?”

“Good,” I replied, matching her crispness. “Go.”

“Okay, next. If you can get him tested, great. But the results will take three days anyway. Assume he’s got COVID if he’s showing any symptoms that you might normally associate with a flu or a cold, and act accordingly. Understand, he may have a flu or a cold. But you have to assume the worst. With me?”

“Assume the worst, right.”

“Okay, next. There’s not much we can do in a hospital for people who have mild or moderate symptoms, and right now I’d avoid hospitals unless you have to go. We’re ground zero for every virus known to man, and COVID’s no exception. So, if you’ve got a place to park Iain and keep him isolated, that’s great.

“He’ll need to go to the hospital if you can’t keep his fever down below 103. If it gets to 103 and you can’t get it down, bring him in. If he becomes incoherent, bring him in. If he gets the shakes and you can’t get them under control, bring him in. Severe chest pains, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, same. If he starts having trouble breathing, it’s time for 911, and don’t hesitate for a second. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Repeat it to me.”

“Keep him isolated. Bring him to the hospital if he has severe chest pains, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, uncontrollable shakes, becomes incoherent or spikes 103 and we can’t get it back down. Call 911 if he’s having trouble breathing.”

“Good. Next. Treat fever with alternating Tylenol and Advil. Use cough and cold medicine on the secondary symptoms. Make sure he gets lots of fluids. And eats. Best keep it bland, but he needs to eat. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Okay, next. Keep him isolated from you. When you go in to check on him, or give him medicine or food, make sure you’re both masked. Wear gloves. I’d feel better if you got a poncho that you only wore when you saw him; it’s crap for PPE, but it’s probably better than nothing. Limit your exposure to as few minutes at a time as possible.

“When you’re out, remove your protective gear and scrub thoroughly. Rinse your hands, lather up and sing yourself the ABC song while you rub your hands together. Use hot water to rinse off. Clear?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

She paused, then said, more softly, “It should be me, Cami. I should be there. And I hate myself that I can’t be. But I can’t leave. God help me, I can’t. I’ve got a hospital filling up with scared people, and I’ve got a job to do. Please, please be safe? And take care of that idiot brother of ours?”

“Fi, you are where you need to be. Don’t blame yourself.” Echoing Tina, I said, “I’ve got this. Now go!”

But I could sense that she was still on the line, saying nothing. Not hanging up. “I’ll find him, Fi. And I’ll be careful.” Deep breath. “I promise.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ve gotta go. Love you, sis.”

“Love you too, Fi.” I said, and ended the call.

That had been a lot to digest, but her recommendations had pretty much tracked what I expected. It was very useful to have the punch list of symptoms that would trigger escalatory action, though. I should be in pretty good shape, all things considered. I didn’t have any disposable gloves, or a poncho, but otherwise I had what I needed.

It was full dark and I was on the approach to the GW Bridge when I got a return call from Iain’s boss.

“Hello?” I answered.

"It’s Mike – Mike Parker. I just heard from Iain; he called me back.”

“Thank God!”

“Well, not so fast,” he replied. “He told me to tell you to go home, that he wasn’t going to infect anyone, and if you thought you were going to guilt him into letting you get him, you were forgetting Penrose Park. I don’t know what he meant by that.”

I didn’t either, but I hadn’t given my name and Iain must figure Mike had been talking to Fiona. She would probably get the reference, but it didn’t matter.

“Anyhow,” he continued, “the important thing is, I heard church bells in the background while we were talking. I’d know them anywhere, ’cause I grew up three blocks from Trinity Episcopal. He’s still in New Rochelle, and he’s got to be pretty close to there. I’m going to go drive around and see whether I can spot anything. How far out are you?”

I checked the display. “Twenty-five minutes, give or take. I’ll drive to the church and call if I haven’t heard from you before then.”

“Got it,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Ricercheremo, ritroveremo”
– Rossini, La Cenerentola, Si ritrovarla io giuro (Aria)

New Rochelle, New York, half an hour later

I parked. The massive stone tower of Trinity-St. Paul’s loomed overhead as I stepped out of the car. I went to the trunk, opened the bag that Nicole and Maggie had indicated would contain medicines and cleaning supplies, and found the package of masks. I pulled out a couple and put them in my purse. Then I locked up and called Mike Parker.

“Hey – it’s Fiona, right?” he answered.

I said, “Hi Mr. Parker. I’m here.” No sense wasting time on the misidentification. “Any luck?”

“Nothing so far,” he said. “I was just checking over in Ruby Dee Park.” Through the speaker I could hear the sounds of him walking.

“Where should I check next?” I asked.

“I was going to look at the underpass for the ’95.”

“I’ll check that,” I said. I had just come off the highway and it was close. “I’ll call you.”

“Likewise,” he said.

I went back to the car, got in and drove back the way I came. There was nothing under the piers of the highway, so I just started to turn around.

“Oh, fuck me!” I whispered, and found a place to pull over.

I knew how to find Iain. I’d been carrying it with me all along, like Dorothy and her stupid ruby slippers. I pulled out my phone and opened up the “Find my” app. I had linked Iain’s phone to the app when I got him out of jail at the end of December, and I hadn’t remembered to disable the link.

Iain had a lot of talents, but he was no tech geek. No way he thought to do it.

He hadn’t. Looked like Mike Parker had the right idea, but the wrong park. Iain was down by the water, at a place the map identified as Hudson Park. It was just over a mile away; I was there in three minutes. I parked the car by the marina and, following the GPS, walked briskly into the park.

It was dark and cool, and the bare trees looked skeletal in the light of the three-quarter moon. I walked deeper into the park, deeper into the shadows. There was some sort of building ahead – a greenhouse, maybe – and more trees to the left of it. Near as I could tell, he was in that area. Somewhere. Probably toward the trees.

Moving more slowly now, I began to walk that way.

My GPS had done what it could; I had to be close. I thought a minute, then called his number rather than his name. A light appeared in the trees ahead, and I heard a muffled curse followed by a cough. I walked that way, keeping to the shadows and moving as quietly as I could, thankful for my sneakers.

I was close enough. I stood in the long shadow of a dark, old tree. In my normal female voice, I said, “Iain.”

I heard his voice and saw him move.

“Shit!!!!” he exclaimed, lurching to his feet, coughing, looking at me from a distance of no more than twenty yards. “Damn it, Fi, I don’t know how you did that, but stay the fuck away! I’m sick! Go save the world, or something.”

I stepped forward, walking toward him at a normal pace, into a pool of silver moonlight. He looked scared. And angry. When I got to within fifteen feet, I stopped. He continued to glare at me, until suddenly his expression changed completely and he looked like he’d been standing in the middle of a railroad crossing when a train plowed into him.

“Fi is saving the world, jackass,” I said conversationally. “And you’d be the first to agree that the world can spare a lawyer, or five. So stop being stupid, will you?”

Finally he stopped staring. “Jesus H. Christ!”

“Strike two,” I said. “The Bible says He was male. Plus, He wasn’t a lawyer. You’re slipping.”

He chuckled. Chuckled harder. Then, he started to cough, but had the presence of mind to do it into his elbow. When he stopped, he said, “Sonofabitch. You were actually telling me the truth? I will be damned.”

“I wouldn’t bet against it,” I said fondly, “especially if you don’t stop being an idiot.”

He tried to say something but I stopped him. “Iain, listen. I get what you’re trying to do. I admire it, even. But I can help you do the same thing while improving your chances of surviving. I’ve got a motel room just a couple of miles from here; it’s got two bedrooms and I can keep you isolated until you get better. I can keep an eye on you there, make sure you don’t get worse, and get you food and medicine.

“And before you say anything, Fi’s given me instructions on how to keep you from infecting me. So . . . you won’t be hurting anybody, and you’re improving your chances of getting through this. That should take care of any reasonable objections, and anything else is just sheer Savin pigheadedness. Living’s more important, Iain.”

Finally he stopped trying to interrupt me, and actually listened. Might even have been a first. He stood silent for a minute, just looking at me standing in the moonlight, as the light breeze ruffled my dark hair. Then he raised his hands in a hopeless gesture. “They never should have let you learn how to argue. Big mistake. Okay, you’ve got me. This place was kinda creepy anyway.”

I smiled, relieved, then reached into my purse and tossed him a face mask. “Don’t blame me,” I said. “Fi insisted. And I’ve got to wear one, too.” I slipped one band, then the other, over my head and brought the semi-rigid fabric cup over my nose and mouth. “Wow, these things are uncomfortable.”

He was still fussing with the straps. “We wear ’em sometimes on construction projects. It’s better if you pinch the metal part over your nose.”

I discovered I had the metal part under my chin, and had to take it off and put it back on again. “This is going to take some getting used to.”

“Work on that bedside manner of yours, doc,” he chided.

I winced. “I’m sorry, Iain,” I said. “I want you to know, Fi would be here if there was any way, any way in the world, that she could be. But her hospital’s swamped. She can’t leave all of her patients.”

“I know. I was just teasing. You’ll do fine, kid. After all, you weren’t even supposed to find me. How did you manage it?”

I waved him toward the car, angry that I felt it was unsafe to give him a proper hug. I thought of a line from an old movie Gammy Campbell had played for the three of us every Christmas season. “Does Macy’s tell Gimbell’s?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “Gammy.”

On the way to the car, I called Mike Parker.

“Fiona?” he asked.

“I’ve got him, Mr. Parker.”

“Oh thank God,” he said.

“I’m going to take him to the motel and look after him. Thank you so much for all of your help!”

“Thank you,” he responded. “Keep him safe, will you? He’s a knucklehead, but we’re fond of him.”

“I’m on it.”

He told me to let him know if I needed anything.

I said I would. It was possible we might need it.

Iain had overheard enough of both ends of the conversation to say, “He thinks you’re Fiona?”

“There wasn't a good time to fill him in on the complicated story of how you acquired another sister, so I just didn’t say anything. Now, let me text Fi. And Henry.” By the time I had done that, we were at the car. “It’s cool out, but let’s keep the windows open. We don’t have far to go.”

Around twenty minutes later, we pulled up to the motel where Nicole had booked us a room, located in nearby Mt. Vernon. I had all the details, so I parked the car by the room and went to get the key.

“Stay here,” I told Iain.

He was feeling the cold, even though I had blasted the car heater. I got out, removed my mask so as not to attract attention, and walked around the building and across the parking lot to reach the office. Nicole, the wonderful Nicole, had even gotten a room that was not in the line of sight of anyone in the office.

A stout man with a shiny head and fringes of white on each side was at the front desk.

“I’m Cameron Savin,” I said, giving the name on my drivers’ license. “I’ve got a room booked for the week?”

He checked the log. “You sure do, Miss Savin. I’ll need an ID and a credit card, and I’ll get you a key.”

“Great,” I said, handing them over. “I have it booked for a week, but could you tell me what the monthly rate would be? We might need to be in town for a while, and if it’s cheaper I’d rather do it that way.”

He gave me the rate, which was significantly cheaper, so I took it for the whole month. I figure I would need to stay for fourteen days after Iain recovered, so it could be a while.

He handed me two keys. “I hope you enjoy your stay.”

I smiled, thanked him, and went back to the car.

I got Iain through the door just as quickly as possible, then checked the place. Nothing fancy, but everything was clean and well-maintained. It had a central living space with a couch, a chair and a TV, a small kitchenette, a table for two, and two bedrooms. One of the bedrooms had an attached bathroom with a shower; the other bathroom served both the common area and the second bedroom.

Iain was tired, filthy, and looked sick and frankly miserable. I said, “Can you manage a shower?”

“I’d kill for one.”

“Okay. Here’s the plan. Get yourself a shower. Dump your clothes; I’ll take care of them later. When you’re out of the shower, get in bed and under the covers. Go commando for now. I’ll ask your roommate to drop off some of your clean stuff later; he’s working now. I’ll get you some Tylenol and some cough medicine. Okay?”

He sketched a salute.

I said, with real regret, “Iain, doc’s orders – the real one, not me. We’ll need to keep this door closed, and we’ll both need to be masked when I’m in there with you.”

“Good by me, Cam. You don’t want this, trust me.”

I turned to leave him to his shower, but before I closed the door to his bedroom I turned back. “Iain? Could you do me a favor?”

“Depends on what, squirt,” he said, smiling.

“Call me Cami.”

He looked startled. “Okay, if that’s what you want. But I won’t be able to use “Spam” as a put-down nickname anymore, and ‘Spammy’ is just gibberish.”

“I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ll miss that,” I said dryly.

He chuckled as I shut the door.

While he showered, I sent a text to Mahmoud, his roommate, letting him know that I had found him and asking whether he could drop off some of Iain’s things. My mind was still going like a piston engine. I needed to get some supplies to comply with Fiona’s mandates, and we were going to need some food. Now and later.

I thought about it and decided in a completely cold-blooded way that I should run out as quickly as possible and hopefully hole up thereafter. I had only just met up with Iain. Maybe I was already infected. But I wouldn’t be contagious yet. I don’t know how long it might take, but I was pretty confident it would be more than a few hours.

I’d better find out what I had with me first, I thought, since I had left all the packing to Nicole and Maggie. But first things first, and start right. I spent a couple minutes thoroughly washing my hands. Then I brought my bags into the other bedroom and unpacked.

On the clothes front, I had jeans, yoga pants, t-shirts, a fleece, a light waterproof jacket that must be Nicole’s and my heavier wool coat. I had my dark red full skirt, a black jacket and cream-colored shell in case I needed to look businesslike. They had thought to pack some exercise clothes. There was also an assortment of footwear and underwear. My flannel nightgown. Also, my light green nightie and dark green dressing gown, with a little note attached (“Maybe not the most practical thing, but you need to stay sane, too!”).

I had cosmetics, hair care products, and toiletries. Some medicines, but not a lot. My pills. Some Gatorade. Lysol and some antibacterial wipes. No gloves. Unsurprisingly, no poncho. Okay. I had a good notion.

I no longer heard the shower running, so I put my mask back on and knocked on his door. “Mask up – coming in.”

“Hang on . . . . okay. Got it.”

I opened the door and found him in bed, covers pulled to his chin. “Any better?”

“The shower was great,” he said. “I'm not as cold, but I’m wiped. Completely.”

I came over and put a glass of water, a couple pills and a couple ounces of cough syrup by his bedside. “It’s 9:00, so the Tylenol should hold you for a bit. Take all that. I’m going to run to Target and get us some supplies. Kindly stay put, would you?”

He looked up at me, his expression hidden by the mask. “I’m done running. I didn’t know how I was going to get through this one. I wasn’t even sure I how I was going to get through another night. Thanks, kid. . . . Cami.”

He could not see my smile, so I just put my fist over my heart, then left him.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“se guardo il suo cimento, palpitando il cor mi va”
– Mozart, Don Giovanni, In quali . . . Mi tradi quell'alma ingrata (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 14, immediately following

I was back in the car and headed out; Target was open until 10:00. But I had time, now, for one more call.

Nicole picked up immediately. “Cami! – How are you?”

“I’ve got him, Nicole. And the motel is perfect, and the packing you guys did was perfect, and you're both perfect, too. How’s that?”

“How is he?”

“A mixed bag, I guess. He’s got some chills and a cough, and spending last night on the street – well, in a park – didn’t do wonders for his appearance. But he’s actually in a bit better shape than last time I saw him. The rehab facility got him clean and sober, but they also had him eating properly. He’s a long ways from strong, though. If you saw him, you’d probably guess he was closer to 42 than 32.”

“You sound like you’re on a speaker phone,” she said.

“Just a run for supplies. I want to hole up as much as possible.”

“Makes sense.”

I told her about my conversations with Fi and Eileen, and how I had figured out how to find him.

That made her laugh.

“Nicole, I’ve arrived at Target and I’ve got to go. I miss you both. God, I miss you!”

“We miss you too. Now, cape up, girl! Do your thing!”

I wasn’t a superhero in the store so much as a whirlwind. Big cart. Food – keep it simple; make sure it lasts. More fluids. Tea. Honey. Lemons. The room had a Keurig – ghastly, but even medicinal quality coffee beat tea. So, K-Cups. More cold and flu medicine. More Advil. Digital thermometer and caps. Batteries.

On the chance that Mahmoud couldn’t help or that Iain had very little, a fresh toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo. A harsh but powerful soap. Disposable rubber gloves. I thought a bit more and tossed in an electric razor. Pricey, but no one who is shaky likes the other kinds. Paper towels. Strangely, the store appeared to be out of toilet paper, but we had enough for now.

Then I went into the men’s section and found a couple pairs of pajamas, a flannel bathrobe in the wrong tartan (Neither Ross nor Campbell, much less Cameron, were generally available, so the Black Watch would just have to do). Slippers. A packet of underwear and a couple clean T-Shirts. A packet of fresh socks. A pair of cargo pants; his jeans had been 36-34 (I had checked), but they’d been baggy. So, 34-34. I found a rain slicker that would have to serve as my “PPE.”

I was about to call it quits, but I had a dark inspiration. I dashed over to the infants’ section and found a relatively cheap baby monitor. Iain wouldn’t like it, but it would allow me to keep tabs on his condition without being in the same room.

I went to the self-checkout, since anyone with half a brain could figure out from the totality of my purchases what had brought me out, and I didn’t want to raise an alarm. I was out the door and on the road by 9:45, and back in the room by 10:00.

I brought everything inside, put away the groceries, donned my mask and checked in on Iain. He was out like a light. As quietly as possible, I laid out the PJ’s, bathrobe and slippers in the chair, put the thermometer on top of the dresser, dropped off the toiletries and razor in the bathroom, and plugged the monitor in by his bed.

Then I left, closed the door, and washed up. I would take care of the rest of the unpacking when Iain was awake.

I was finally done with my tasks for the day. Had it really been this morning that I had made a quiche for my housemates and talked strategy for how we were all going to thrive during the present unpleasantness? Had I really spent an hour at a salon having my hair cut, just this afternoon? It felt like a lifetime ago.

It was, too.

I went into the bathroom not attached to Iain’s room, laid out my toiletries, removed my makeup and moisturized. I changed – somewhat defiantly – into my light green nightie, and took my estrogen pill. Then, finally, I was able to sleep.

~o~O~o~
Mount Vernon, New York, March 15

I woke in the middle of the night to muffled sounds coming from the monitor by my bed. So I put on my dressing gown, cinched it up, and crossed to Iain’s room, pausing to snag my mask before tapping on his door and entering.

He was tossing and twitching, muttering in his sleep. I checked the time: 12:30. The Tylenol would last another two and a half hours, in theory, but it looked like he needed the Advil dose.

I grabbed his glass, went back to the common room, poured him some water and got the pills. Then I stopped, muttered at myself, washed my hands thoroughly and put on both my rain slicker and a pair of thin, disposable rubber gloves before returning to his room. I turned on the light by his bed, reached out and grasped his restless arm. Even through the gloves, his skin felt warm.

“Iain.” I gave him a shake. “You need to wake up.”

His eyes popped open, looking a bit wild. “Fi?” he asked groggily.

“No, it’s Cami. I’ve got to take your temp and you’ve got to take some Advil.”

He focused. “Oh . . . ah. Yeah. Okay.”

“Can you prop yourself up for a minute?”

“Yeah, hang on.”

He got the pillows behind him and pushed up a bit. I handed him the pills, then the water. When he was done, I checked his temperature. 100.5. Not great, definitely a fever. But well below the danger zone.

”How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Still tired. Cold.”

“Okay. I got you some warm pajamas. Get those on and I’ll get you another blanket."

“Okay. Great. Thanks.” He sounded a bit out of it.

I went and got the blanket off of my bed and brought it into his room. He had the pajama bottoms on and was struggling a bit with the buttons on the top, mostly because his hands weren’t completely steady and he was coughing.

“Stick your elbow over your lower face for a sec,” I ordered.

He did, and I quickly did up his buttons. I made him take another shot of cough syrup, got him back into bed, and dropped the second blanket over him. He was asleep again before I even got out of the room, though he was still coughing some.

I went out, removed my slicker, mask and gloves, washed my hands, and went back into my room. Pulling a small pad from the bag that protects my laptop, I made notes of the times I had given him medicine, his temperature, and his condition. Then I looked at my stripped bed, sighed, and changed into my flannel nightie. I added socks to keep my feet warm, and got under the too-thin sheets. It was 1:20.

I was up and in his room again at 3:30 (coughing; fever 100.7) and 6:00 (coughing; fever 100.6). At that point I gave up, took a shower, and got dressed. It warmed me up. The chair in the common area was cozy and I thought I might doze for a bit, but my phone rang back in my bedroom. Fi had responded to my text last night and had indicated she would call first thing, before she went into work.

So as not to wake Ian, I went back into my room, closed the door and flicked accept. “Good morning, Fi.”

“Good morning, Wonder Woman! Good work last night! I’ve got fifteen minutes, so tell me first, how’s he doing? Be as detailed and specific as you can be.”

I gave my summary, checking my notes for specific readings.

When I was done, she said, “Okay, I think you’ve got the situation under control. Keeping notes is a good idea. I don’t see any reason to bring him in at this point. Only thing I’d say is to keep a closer eye on hydration.”

She paused, apparently checked her watch, and said, “I’ve got six minutes. What else can you tell me? How are you, how is the place you’re staying, and do you need anything?”

I did what I could to answer, but we ran out of time and she had to go.

I went back to the common area, sat in the semi-comfortable chair and tried to catch up on the news, but found myself dozing off.

Iain was awake again by 8:30. He took some medicine, I took his temp (100.9) and he went in to get another shower. While he was in the bathroom I put the clothes I had bought him in the room, made up the bed, then went back to the common room, closing the door behind me. I made a couple cups of coffee and brought one into Iain's room.

The shower stopped and a few minutes later I could hear him using the electric razor. Good. And also coughing, which sounded deeper. Less good. Later, I heard him moving about the room, then I heard a knock from the inside of his door.

“Mask up, Cam . . . Cami.”

“Okay, hang on.” I got the thing on properly and retreated to the kitchenette. “All clear.”

He came out as I was putting on my rain slicker, moved to the other side of the small table in the eating area and sat down. “You look pretty silly in that.”

“Ah well. I used to be ignorant of fashion too, when I was merely a guy!”

The banter had its desired effect. He took a pull from his coffee. “You’re convincing as hell, you know. And I never had a clue. Not one. Did you always feel this way?”

I was getting a bit tired of explaining it, but Iain wasn’t unsympathetic. And, unusually for him, there was no underlying effort to vie for superiority, to put me down. So, I told him more or less what I had told Eileen a few days – years, it seemed – before. He sat and listened, coughing occasionally but not saying anything.

When I finished and before he could say anything, I said, “Fiona’s orders, you need to eat, and you need a Gatorade. So, eggs and toast or oatmeal?”

“Doesn’t matter. Wait. Not toast; I don’t want anything scratchy on my throat. Hurts enough as it is.”

As I was making him some oatmeal, he said, “I’m trying to picture the old man’s face. Does he know?”

“I haven’t said anything. Fi hasn’t. So unless Gammy told them, no. But she said she wouldn’t.”

His eyes got big. “You told Gammy?”

“I went and visited her at the place in Morgantown. Back in January.”

“Holy shit. What did she think?”

I handed him the bowl and retreated back to the far side of the room. “On the whole, I can’t say she was impressed. Thought I was being self-indulgent. But she made it clear that she wasn’t going to stop loving her kin just because she didn’t approve of their life choices.”

He said, with more force than he should have (since it triggered his coughing), “Being trans isn’t a ‘choice!’”

I wondered how many trans people he had known; he had hinted that there were more than one when I talked to him in January. For whatever reason, he appeared to hold them in high regard. But I decided not to pry.

“I know, but convincing her of that . . . she’s like a ninety-year old Scottish oak. She’ll fall someday, but she will, by God, never bend.”

He nodded, scooped up the last of his cereal, and washed it down with coffee.

“Thanks, Cami. I’m going to retreat back to my lair; I’m already tired again. This COVID really sucks. I can’t even taste anything.”

“Okay, but take the Gatorade with you and drink it down, okay?”

He got ponderously to his feet, waved a hand in acknowledgement, and went back into his room, closing the door behind him.

I added to my log entries: Raging sore throat; impaired sense of taste.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Notte e giorno faticar”
– Mozart, Don Giovanni, Notte e giorno faticar (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 16

Another bad night, another morning. Iain had spent almost all of Sunday in his room, mostly lying down. The fever had stayed below 101 but crept up overnight. The cough was still bad; I couldn’t say it was worse.

He reported that his throat was still sore, he couldn’t taste or smell anything, and his joints ached.

I reported all this to Fiona first thing in the morning; she counseled patience and said I was doing fine.

Mahmoud had dropped off some of Iain’s things, but it was a very small bag. I just had him leave it outside.

He was very happy with that arrangement.

I was already tired, and this was only day two. But Iain was back in his room and I had some calls to make.

First I called Eileen and told her my news, concluding with, “So, I don’t know how long I’ll need to be here, but it’s two weeks after he recuperates, and he hasn’t gotten better yet.”

“Understood. I’ll talk to the Management Committee tomorrow, but we’ll work something out. How are you getting by?”

“It’s actually been pretty exhausting. He’s not sleeping well, so I’m not sleeping well. But I’m managing.”

I called Maggie (it was too early to call Nicole!) and filled her in.

She told me that the other two operas she was scheduled to be in this season had also been canceled, which wasn’t a surprise, and that Dottoressa Trelli had suspended vocal lessons. She and Nicole were on the fence about doing the same thing, to protect their students, but two of their students had canceled already.

I called Dr. Chun’s office to alert them – belatedly – to the fact that I had started the estrogen therapy.

Iain started coughing again, and was having trouble getting it controlled. I went in to help.

~o~O~o~
Mount Vernon, New York, March 17

Another bad night, another morning. After Iain had his morning shower, he just got back into his pajamas and went straight back to bed. He was still coherent, but he was more monosyllabic. I forced him to eat, take medicine. Drink Gatorade. His fever had passed 102 overnight, but it was back down to 101.6 in the morning.

I gave Fiona the morning report. She stayed calm, but sounded more and more like Dr. Savin. Not a good sign.

I got a call from Al and Javi, wanting to know if I was okay. I filled them in. They were excited to tell me that Tina had actually gone out and applied for three jobs.

“I really think she’s making progress!” Javi said.

I thought to myself, honey may catch more flies than vinegar, but sometimes nothing works better than a hard whack with a fly swatter.

I called Nicole, who was determinedly cheerful and upbeat. Dear woman. But she had another student cancel.

“What’s the state of the cookie jar?” I asked.

“We’re okay for this month, Cami. Don’t worry about it.”

But I had just gotten paid, so I got her to agree that I could make a contribution. She told me that she and Maggie had been researching the podcast idea and were getting excited about it.

I thought, I want to go home!

After my call to Nicole, I sat quietly and thought for a few minutes. I had promised Nicole and Maggie that we would get through this, and we should be able to. But I could only contribute emotionally if I was there, and I could only contribute financially if I was employed. What if I lose my job? What if . . . I faced my fear . . . I get COVID, and I’m not one of the survivors? What would come of my promise then?

After a few minutes of brooding about it, I fired up my laptop and went to the website for my bar association. They had a deal with The Hartford for life insurance without underwriting. A simple questionnaire. One that I could fill out honestly — this morning, at least, if not necessarily tomorrow.

I had never bothered with it before. What was the point? But now there were people who needed me. I filled out the form and made the premium payment. Just the fact that the insurance company hadn’t suspended taking new customers made me feel better.

The day was more of the same. Iain needed medicine and liquids every two-to-three hours, and I was able to get him to eat simple foods. I was going to need to do something about laundry in the next day or two.

Eileen called around 4:00. The Management Committee was on board with the idea of a general memo announcing my gender change, to go out a few days before I came back. Eileen would send me a draft in advance, though there was clearly no present rush. The Committee also approved paid sick/sick family leave through the end of the month, as well as remote work during my quarantine period.

She told me they were very supportive. “They had no issues at all about your being trans. Really, the bigger concern is the leave issue. If this virus continues to spread we could find ourselves hemorrhaging money through payroll while our billables collapse. We’ve got three more employees who are in similar circumstances already; two in the New York office and one in Brussels.”

Well, I thought, I’m covered for now. The future will just have to do what it’s going to do.

Later that evening, I saw an “all hands” email from work, telling employees to stay home if they had symptoms or were in close contact with someone who had COVID, and to report in if this was the case. For now, leaves of absence and requests to work remotely would be approved on a case-by-case basis by the Managing Partner for Personnel, Evan Barksdale. Employees were reminded to be careful about hand-washing and general hygiene.

The memo went out under the joint signatures of Barksdale and of Raphael Oliveira, the chairman of the Management Committee. The biggest of the big guns.

Iain was coughing, sounding weak. I went to help him.

~o~O~o~
Mount Vernon, New York, March 18

Another day, another bad night. Iain was no better, but his temperature was still in the range of 101.5 - 102.3. The cough was the same; maybe a bit more frequent. And for longer intervals. He was staying in bed. Had chills, then sometimes felt very hot. On the whole, he seemed to be holding steady. But I was getting pretty run-down.

I kicked myself. Stop whining. Nurses do this every day. Doctors do this every day. Fi does it. Get over yourself.

Fi had sounded even more doctor-like when I gave her this morning’s report. “I’m going to prescribe something to help him sleep.”

My mind was feeling a bit wooly. “Can you write prescriptions in New York?”

“I can write them in Massachusetts. Rob has to go down to the city today to meet with some pharma bigwigs. He’s going to stop by your motel this evening and drop off the prescription. If there are any other supplies you need, text the list to Henry.”

I’d met Henry’s brother Robert at Christmas under less-than-ideal circumstances, but he’d been very helpful and I was appreciative of his help. Of any help, for that matter. “Fi, you’ve always been my hero, but I had no idea. How do you do this every day?”

She laughed softly. “Same way you get to Carnegie Hall. Now, hang in there, kiddo.”

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Dolce speranza, freddo timore, Dentro al mio core
Stanno a pugnar”
– Rossini, La Cenerentola, Si ritrovarla io giuro (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 18, later that day

The day was more of the same. I thought about supplies and sent a list off to Henry to forward to Robert. I monitored Iain, got my protective gear on, got him medicine, got my gear off, scrubbed up. The same routine for food.

I did it all again. In between, I read work emails and tried to follow the news, cleaned every surface in my room, my bathroom, and the common area. My delicates got hand-washed in the bathroom sink and hung them to dry in my shower.

It was almost 6:00 when Robert gave a diffident knock on the door. Anyone who was familiar with the Hutchinsons of Boston would know in a single glance that he was part of the tribe. He had short, straight, jet-black hair, a stockier build than his father or brother, and a younger, beardless version of his father’s ascetic face.

When I had seen him last, he had been a bit at sea, having to deal with drafting an affidavit attesting to actions taken by his cousin Jonathan. He had been tense and uncertain, most unlike the confident king of the prior night’s dance floor.

But while Robert, like Henry, had been keeping long hours as they helped steer Hutchinson Investments through one of the crazier markets in fifty years, he looked rested, poised, and mercifully competent. When he saw me, whatever he had intended to say died on his lips.

“Robert!” I said, hoping to help him out. “Thank you for coming.”

He shook his head, as if clearing cobwebs. “Cami, I’ve got the stuff on your list in the car, but it’ll wait. I’ve got something hot for dinner and you’re going to sit down and eat it, right now, before we do anything else. You look great, by the way, except for the tire tracks across your body from where the truck ran you over.”

This wasn’t the Robert I had dealt with at all, and I was sufficiently bemused that I did what he had asked me to do. I sat.

He came in, bringing a take-out bag and a wine bottle with him. He set it on the table, then went to the kitchenette and grabbed three plates.

I said, “Just you and me. Iain had some soup and is sleeping.”

He nodded, put one plate back and grabbed two glasses. Then he served chicken pad thai. It was piping hot, spicy, and tasted like heaven on earth. He poured two small glasses of wine and silently clinked glasses with me.

“How did your meetings go?” I asked, trying to make conversation.

“Very productive. Now eat, for the love of God. We’ll talk when you’re done.”

I did. We finished it, and I easily had more than half.

I swallowed the last of my wine. “Thank you. I think you’ve saved my life, and I didn’t even know I was dying. Now, let me get the rest of the stuff and get you on your way. As far as I know, I’m perfectly healthy. But I know I could have COVID, and that I wouldn’t need to have symptoms to be contagious.”

He shook his head. “No. That was my plan, but I’m changing it.”

I started to protest but he held up a hand and said, urgently, “Listen to me. You’re run down, you haven’t been eating well and you’ve been sleeping worse. That’s the best recipe on earth for getting sick, which will make you far more susceptible to the virus. And if you’re sick, you’ll be no good to Iain anyway. So you are going to go, right now, and get some sleep. I’ll cover through midnight, and I’ll wake you up before I go, okay?”

“Robert. I don’t want to infect you.”

“I’m just as likely to be infected as you are. We’ll be careful with Iain.”

I tried a different argument. “You aren’t driving to Boston at midnight."

He smiled. “No; I’ve got the room next door through Sunday. I’d spell you through the morning, but I’ve got two more days of meetings and I’ll need to be rested myself. Now, walk me through the drill, then Go. To. Sleep. Or, I’ll rat you out to Fiona.”

I wanted to fight, but I knew it would be futile. Robert was right; I did need some uninterrupted sleep, or I wouldn’t be functional. So I conceded with as much grace as I could.

He got the supplies from his car, including – praise be – an extra blanket – then I ran him through the protocol, gave him my log notes and the monitor, and showed him where I was keeping the medicines, gloves, and masks.

He pulled a mask from his back pocket. “That part, at least, I’ve got covered.”

I was glad, since I was on my third mask and only had two more. I went into the bathroom, removed my makeup, washed, and moisturized my face, brushed my teeth and retreated into my bedroom.

Before I closed the door, I looked back and saw that Robert was sitting on the couch with a laptop open, reviewing something with a look of intense concentration. I decided not to disturb him.

~o~O~o~
Mount Vernon, New York, March 19

It felt like Robert woke me minutes after I had gone to sleep. I opened my eyes to find him perched on my bed, lightly pressing my upper arm. His face was shadowed; the room only illuminated by moonlight.

“I’m sorry, Cami,” he said with real regret. “I’ve got to go catch some sleep. It’s 12:15; Iain had Tylenol at 11:00 and is currently sleeping. His 11:00 temp was 102.1. Intermittent coughing. It’s all written in your log. The monitor is on your bedside again.”

I smiled and lightly touched his arm. “Thank you, Robert. Thank you! Go get some sleep.”

He stood, looked down at me for a moment and smiled. “Okay. I’ll check in on you in the morning. And Cami?”

“Yes?”

“It’s just Rob with friends. Okay?”

“I’ll remember that.”

He left, and I drifted back to sleep.

When he stopped by at 8:00 the next morning, I had already been up twice, given Fiona my morning report, showered and gotten dressed. I had taken advantage of both the blanket and the chance for uninterrupted sleep to wear my nice green nightie rather than flannel the prior night, and perversely felt better for it.

Robert – Rob – asked how the rest of the night had gone and I filled him in. I thanked him again and said, truthfully, that I felt a million times better.

He smiled. “Yeah, the tire tracks are mostly gone, I think!” He told me to pull together the laundry and he would drop it off on his way to his meetings and pick it up on the way back.

I put on my gear and went to see Iain. He was awake, but still doing no better.

“Who’s out there?” he asked. “Is it the guy who was here last night?”

“Yes; that’s Fiona’s fiancé’s brother. He spelled me so I could get some sleep.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding disinterested. “Just was wondering, that’s all . . . .” His voice kind of faded away, as if he forgot he had been speaking. He refocused. "I’m feeling pretty cold. Is it time for a shower?”

“Sure. Can you manage it?

“I think so.”

“Okay, you do that. I’m going to strip the bed and we're going to get your sheets and pajamas laundered. So I’ll need you to dress in street clothes today, okay?”

“Sure, sure,” he said, shivering.

I pulled all of the laundry together, excepting only my delicates, bundled them up and put them in Rob’s trunk.

“Text me what you want for dinner,” Rob suggested, and drove off.

Three minutes later, I heard coughing, and Iain calling my name. I grabbed my mask and rushed into the bathroom, to find Iain sitting on the floor of the shower, knees to his chin.

“Sorry, Cami, I just can’t manage to get back up.” And he coughed some more.

“I’ve got you, bro.”

I shut off the water, then got a towel and helped him get a bit dry. It was going to be a lot harder to get him up if he was wet. When that was done, I crouched down, put my arm around him and maneuvered him to his feet.

Once there, he was able to take his weight. I had him lean against me while I finished toweling him off. Then we got him back into his bedroom. Sitting on the bed, he was able to get his underwear, pants and a T-shirt on, then fresh socks followed by his slippers. At that point, he just lay back on top of the covers, tired by his exertions. He closed his eyes and coughed, holding his elbow over his mouth. Even the cough sounded tired.

I folded the half of the covers he wasn’t lying on over him, then took his temperature. 102.5. Worst reading yet. He wasn’t due for the Advil for half an hour, but I decided to advance it. I propped him up long enough to take the pills, then eased him back down. He closed his eyes wearily, then opened them again.

“Cami,” he said, his voice weak. “I’m trying. For Fi. For you. I’m trying. But I’m so tired. So tired . . . .” Without waiting for my response, he fell back into sleep.

But he slept right through for six hours, and when he woke, his fever had gone down to 101.7. He was still coughing deeply, but his sore throat was better and he seemed a bit stronger. I made him soup and he managed it, got Gatorade into him, gave him Tylenol and cough syrup, followed by more water. He got to the bathroom with me there to spot him, then went back to bed.

“Sorry if I gave you a scare this morning,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt that bad before.”

“Well, I said, “I don’t want to sound like Pollyanna, but just maybe you’ve turned the corner.

He knocked on his skull. “Knock wood and fingers crossed!”

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Und wecken mich aus düstrem Traum”
– Wagner, Tannhäuser, Dich, teure Halle (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 19, later that day

Iain was again sleeping when Rob came back, but I woke him so we could put fresh sheets on his bed and put his now clean clothes and pajamas away. Rob had brought sushi, but also some miso soup, which suited Iain fine. He went into his bathroom while I got his room ready, and I heard him using the electric shaver. I made his bed, put the soup in a bowl by his bed, and went into the common area, where I stripped off mask, gloves, and rain slicker, and then went to wash my hands.

“H-i-j-k-l-m-n-o-p . . . .”

My reverie was broken by Rob’s chuckle.

“I’ve heard of singing in the shower, but I’ve never heard of singing children’s songs at the sink!”

“Oh!” I said, self-consciously. “I almost forgot I was doing it. Fiona suggested I sing that to make sure I spend long enough washing my hands.”

“Doctors!” he snorted.

When I finished removing yet another layer of skin from my hands, I sat down and joined him at the table. He had, once again, poured us each a small glass of wine; again we clinked glasses.

I said, “Listen, I’m not famished or severely sleep deprived, so perhaps we can have a conversation while we eat. It’s considered civilized.”

“Is it?” he said with mock surprise. “Imagine! You sound like Dad.” He grinned, then turned serious. “So tell me how today went.”

“This morning was scary. I really thought I was going to have to take him in. He sat down in the shower and couldn’t get back up. I managed to get him dried off, dressed, and back to bed. He was completely exhausted and practically collapsed. But then he slept six hours and woke up stronger, with a lower fever. So . . . I just don’t know.”

We talked about it a bit more and concluded all we could do was to continue monitoring his condition and doing the best we could. He hadn’t crossed any thresholds.

So I said, “Please. Tell me about your day. I feel like I’ve disappeared down a black hole. What’s going on in the wild world?”

“Oddly enough, good things. Exciting things.”

He told me about messenger RNA, or mRNA, technology, and how some companies were using it to rapidly develop vaccines that could be used to fight COVID. “And by rapidly, I mean, incredibly rapidly. They are starting clinical trials now. That’s unheard of. It’ll still take months to complete all the necessary tests, even if everything goes well. But that’s months – not years. No vaccine has ever been developed that quickly.”

“But it seems to be spreading really quickly. Will even that be fast enough?”

“The $64,000 question. Except that it’s more like the trillion dollar question. We need to buy some time. We’re starting to do things – like, you heard that New York City closed down the public schools, right?”

I nodded.

He continued, “We’re going to have to do a whole lot more. We need to stop a lot of activity, get people to stay at home as much as possible. Wear masks. That’s what this mammoth relief bill they're working on in Congress is all about. If we can find a way to keep non-essential people home without losing everything – their homes included – maybe we can keep the virus from getting out of control, until we’ve got the vaccines.”

We had a long talk about it, and when we were done I felt incredibly more optimistic.

I said, “You know, I’ve just been living with this thing for weeks, feeling powerless, hopeless. Feeling it coming, like . . . l-l-like . . . .”

I stammered and stopped, and felt the blood drain from my face. The memory ripped and tore at my mind, the sound that had driven me to my knees in the middle of the day in a conference room in DC. That massive, inexorable, pulsing beat, a vast bellows . . . . the vision of dark wings . . . .

“Cami!” Rob said sharply.

His voice was low, but cracked with command. He was next to me, holding my shoulders. “Cami!” he repeated, urgently.

I blinked my eyes, blinked again. Took a breath. He released my left shoulder and lightly guided my head until I was facing him, looking directly into his eyes. Eyes that suddenly seemed much older than they had before.

“I don’t know where you went just now, but you shouldn’t be there,” he said, quietly but very firmly.

“No.” I reached up and pressed the hand still gripping my right shoulder. “Thanks for pulling me back.”

He held my eyes for a minute, making sure I was really back from that place of horror. He stood, letting me go and looked down at me. “That’s happened before, hasn’t it?”

Reluctantly, I nodded. “Yes. Mostly at night. One other time during the day. That . . . that was what I was remembering.”

“Fi doesn’t know?”

I shook my head. “I am seeing a different doctor about it. It’s pretty recent.”

He gave me a shrewd look. “Since Christmas, maybe?”

I winced, then nodded.

“I wondered whether you’d gotten off as unscathed as you wanted us all to believe.”

“Rob. I’d really, really appreciate it if you didn’t say anything about this. I want Fi and Henry – and you, for that matter – to forget about what happened that night. Or, understand that at least it’s been dealt with. It's done. Finished.”

He looked at me thoughtfully. Coming to a decision, he held out his hands, palms up, in invitation. I took them and he raised me up and looked me in the eye.

“Okay, Cami. If that’s what you want. All I remember about that night is that I got to dance with a very pretty girl. Like this, I think.”

He raised one of my hands above my head and pulled the other, effortlessly bringing me into a twirl. When I faced him again, he said, “Or, wait . . . maybe it was more like this?”

More magic of hand and foot, and I spun in a circle that ended with my back pressed against his chest and his arms around me, while one of my arms was free.

He held me for a moment and said, thoughtfully, “Yes; pretty sure it was that one.”

Then he reversed the maneuver, spun me back out to face him, bowed over the hand he still held, then let me go.

He smiled. “Yep. That’s what I remember. Great evening!”

I gave him the biggest smile in my toolkit. He had earned it, God knows. He could have just agreed to what I had asked, but he had somehow found a way to really snap me out of where I’d gone.

I dropped a deep curtsy (thanks, Liz!), then came back up and said, seriously, “Thank you, Rob.”

He tipped an imaginary hat to me. “Always a pleasure. Now – I’ve got this watch. I’ll get you at 2400.”

I quirked a smile. “Yes sir.” Then I marched off to bed.

He woke me at midnight, just as he had done the night before.

“His temp’s crept back up to over 102," he reported, "but it seems to be holding steady. The coughing’s worse, so I gave him the cough medicine along with the Tylenol. And he took a Gatorade. All logged.”

“Thanks, Rob. See you in the morning.”

He touched my shoulder and slipped out.

I went back to sleep.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Mon rêve n'était pas un rêve!”
– Charpentier, Louise, Depuis le jour (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 20

I was falling, falling, whipped by the wind, drenched by the rain, the grace and purity of my dive dissolving into wind-driven cartwheels. The boiling black sea seemed to get no closer as I spun, helpless, seeing sky, then sea, the sky again. Lightning streaked through monstrous clouds, so close that I smelled the ozone frizzle of its passage. I steeled myself for the thunderclap, but all I could hear was the pulse, the steady beat of those massive wings.

Then I could see it, rising from the depths, cresting from the waters, wings stretching wide to engulf the whole world, beating, beating, sound like a bellows . . . . I felt the crushing despair, the terror, rising with every beat.

With an effort that took every ounce of my strength, I wrenched my eyes open. I was panting and damp with sweat. I was back – back in my bed, in the motel. In my body. In my right mind.

But the sound had followed me. Was with me.

It was coming from the monitor by my head. The sound of a man gasping for air, of lungs heaving for breath, spasmodic, tortured. I was in Iain’s room before I’d even thought about it, unmasked and uncaring. His skin was hot and dry and his eyes were wild.

“Fi!” he gasped out, “Fi, help!!”

I grabbed him with one arm, pulling him to me. With the other, I grabbed his phone and dialed 911.

When the dispatcher answered I said, “My brother has COVID and is struggling to breathe. The doctor said if that happened he needed an ambulance, stat. We’re in room 128 at the Westmont Motel.”

“Your name please?”

“Camryn Savin. My brother is Iain Savin.”

“Can we reach you at this number?”

“Yes.” I also gave him my cell phone, then said, “Please, please hurry!”

Iain continued to struggle.

“An ambulance is on its way and should be there in six minutes.”

“Thank you!” I said, and he hung up.

“Hang on, Iain!” I pleaded. “Hang on!”

He was weeping through his efforts to breathe. “I’m . . . sorry . . . Fi . . . sorry!”

“Just breathe, honey. Just breathe. Don’t talk. I’ve got you. I’ve got you!”

My ears were straining, straining to reach into the dark, the uncaring dark, desperate to hear the bugles of the cavalry topping the rise. Dammit!

“I’ve got you,” I crooned, channeling Fiona. “I’ve got you.”

An eternity later, I caught the sound, at the very edge of my hearing. It faded out, then returned, stronger, growing more strident, more insistent by the second. The blessed sound of a siren, wailing through the sharp darkness of the Bronx night.

As the siren’s auditory blueshift reached its crescendo and stopped, I released Iain. “Two seconds, Honey!”

He cried Fiona’s name as I streaked out his room and ripped open the door to the outside, preempting the paramedic’s knock.

“This way!” I shouted and ran back into Iain’s room.

They followed, dark shapes, faces covered by masks and goggles, hands gloved. “Stand aside, Miss,” the second man said.

They got to Iain, and the first of them grabbed him and brought an oxygen mask to his face, covering his mouth and nose. He struggled for a moment, then began to take gasping breaths that slowly began to ease into something more regular.

As soon as he stopped struggling, the other paramedic began getting vital signs, then trotted back outside and returned with yet another man, pulling a gurney. They got Iain up and onto the gurney, then began to move it quickly toward the waiting ambulance.

They put him in back and I moved to join him.

One of the paramedics held me back with a firm hand. “I’m sorry, you can’t ride with him. And you can’t go into the hospital. COVID protocols. I’m very sorry. You’ll need to call.” He gave me a card with a number, slammed the doors of the back, then jumped into the passenger’s seat.

The ambulance sped off, its wailing siren now red shifting.

I was standing in the parking lot, barefoot, nearly blind with tears, wearing a flannel nightdress and holding a piece of cardboard, my only link now with my brother.

I felt a pair of strong hands on my shoulders, and Rob’s voice said, “Let’s get you inside, Cami.”

I let him lead me back into the room. Vaguely, I saw other faces, staring at us from other rooms. From windows. From doors.

Rob closed the door behind us.

I ran into my room, grabbed my phone, and dialed the number on the card. When it was answered, I gave my name and said, “My brother was just taken away by ambulance. He should be arriving any minute. Is there any information you need?” I answered their questions then asked if there was any news. But he still hadn’t arrived, and we ended the call.

I was cold. I put on my slippers and, somewhat awkward over the flannel, my green dressing gown. Back in the common area, Rob had just finished making some green tea. He was wearing some sort of robe over pajamas, and he’d managed to put on slippers before coming outside.

He had me sit in the room’s only comfortable chair and brought me a mug, put it in my hands and made sure that I had it before letting go and getting his own mug. His deep eyes held mine. “Tell me.”

“I woke up to the sound of him struggling to breathe. The trigger for 911. He was hot – very hot – but I wasn’t able to take a reading. And . . . he thought I was Fiona. I called dispatch and they were here – God, it must have been no more than ten minutes after I woke up. They gave him oxygen, then took him off. I can’t go with him. I can’t even go inside the hospital.” My voice cracked.

“Yeah, I heard that part.” He thought a minute. “It’s 2:30 now; he probably started having the attack by 2:00 or so. I gave him medicines at 11:30, so it’s not like we were late.”

“No.” I sighed. “I really thought he had turned the corner this afternoon. A false hope, I guess.”

We were silent, sipping our tea.

He said, “Nothing to do but wait, I guess.”

I wanted to tell him to go ahead and get some sleep, that he needed to be fresh in the morning. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to wait alone, and I knew, somehow, that he wouldn’t let me anyway. I was too tired to say the polite things and hear the polite things in return. We sat silently.

He was very still and his eyes were dark and distant.

“What are you seeing, Captain Hutchinson?” I asked softly.

It took a moment, but his eyes finally blinked and refocused, back in the present. “You knew?”

“Of course. I needed your affidavit, so naturally I reviewed your bio. Two tours in Afghanistan?”

He nodded, saying nothing.

“You don’t belong in that dark place either, Rob.”

“No,” he answered, then said ruefully, “though I don’t think we can make it vanish with dancing this time, can we?”

I returned his crooked smile.

My phone rang and I almost spilled tea all over myself as I jumped to answer. Iain had been admitted, they had stabilized his breathing and were waiting for an ICU bed to open up. Meantime they were keeping him on oxygen.

The nurse had more questions about when he had become sick, and I got the log and provided very detailed information indeed. She said they would keep me posted, but I could also call the number I had been given earlier if I needed an update. I thanked her and ended the call.

It was about 3:30. “Rob, I don’t think we’ll hear anything else tonight. Let’s try to get what sleep we can and touch base in the morning before you go in.”

He agreed that made sense.

I saw him to the door, where he turned unexpectedly and gave me a hug.

He held it for a moment. “You did everything that could be done, Cami. You had the best advice, from one of the best experts, and you followed it exactly. This is not your fault. Understand?”

I nodded. “I know. . . . But somehow, I don’t believe it.”

“Roger that,” he sighed.

Then he kissed me on the forehead and went back to his room.

I went back to bed, certain that I would never be able to sleep. But I did.

Eventually, I even dreamed, though not the same dream as before. I was in a Starbucks. What was I doing in a Starbucks? I don’t like burned beans. But Tina of all people was standing behind the counter, grinning like a fool. “Wake up and smell the coffee!” she smirked at me.

My alarm got me up at 6:20, since I normally made my report to Fiona at 6:30. I checked to make sure that I hadn’t received a call from the hospital. Seeing that I hadn’t, I speed-dialed the number and confirmed that Iain’s condition was unchanged, and an ICU bed had not yet opened up. Apparently he was sleeping.

Fi called at 6:30 and I took the call in bed. “I’m sorry, Fi. He’s at the hospital, waiting to be admitted to the ICU.” I gave her the short version of yesterday’s events.

“He’s in good hands, and you need to trust my colleagues now,” Dr. Savin replied. “There wasn’t anything we could do for the symptoms he had that you weren’t doing, but for more serious symptoms we’ve got a bigger toolbox, that’s all. I’ll call over and get the technical details; I can probably find out more than you can. I want you to get some rest. You’ve been through an ordeal, too. Okay?”

She had her metaphorical stethoscope on, and was being reassuring in a medico kind of way.

“Thanks, Fi. Will do.”

I’m sure she was blaming herself for not being here, just as I was blaming myself for being here, and not being sufficient. And somewhere the pagan gods were laughing at our folly. The bastards.

I couldn’t get back to sleep and didn’t want to miss Rob before he went in for his meetings. So I took a quick shower instead and got dressed, sticking with stretchy jeans, a t-shirt, and a fleece. After putting on some light morning makeup I fired up the Keurig, poured a cup and took a sip, then another.

My phone rang. I was surprised to see it was Rob.

“Hey, Rob.” I sounded a bit distant even to myself.

“Cami, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I woke up with a nasty sore throat. I’m going to need to isolate myself, starting immediately. So I’ll be staying here today, and advising the folks I’ve been with that they should quarantine and get tested.”

I took another sip.

“You might as well come over, Rob,” I said, sounding resigned. “I’ve lost my sense of taste. And, I can’t even smell the coffee.”

To be continued . . . .

~o~O~o~

BOOK ONE
In the Valley of the Shadow
Spring, 2020

~o~O~o~

CHAPTER ONE

“Verstossen sei auf ewig”
– Mozart, Die Zauberflöte, Der hölle Rache (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 20

I was pouring water for tea when Rob knocked on the door. Tea for two. I’d gotten my caffeine fix, and given the fact that my taste buds weren’t functioning, I might as well drink tea. I let Rob in.

He was wearing classic business casual – khakis and a white button-down shirt. To all appearances he was fine. He was giving me the same appraisal.

“You don’t seem to have fallen apart – yet,” I said. “Do I pass?”

“So far, so good.”

I gave him his tea and we sat at the table.
“Are your taste buds working?” I asked him.

He put the tea under his nose, sniffed, and then took a sip. “They seem to be okay.”

“In that case,” I said, “do you actually want tea? I only drink it for therapeutic reasons, or to be sociable. Or, in this case, because I can’t taste anything, so what the hell.”

He smiled. “Henry mentioned that you’re a coffee snob, and he would know. I usually prefer it myself, during the day. But the way my throat feels, the concoction you made is a lot better.”

I had added honey and lemon to his tea; I remembered my mother using it as a home remedy.

We sat silently for a few minutes, sipping our tea. Then he said, “I sent emails to the people I met with yesterday already; I’ll need to call them soon. But I’m also going to need to notify the people I was in physical contact with in Boston the last two or three days before I left. That will include Henry. So your sister’s going to know very soon. I’m guessing you haven’t told her yet?”

I shook my head. “And I really, really wish I didn’t have to. She didn’t give me a hard time for dropping everything and coming, but she thinks it should have been her job. If Iain doesn’t make it, she’ll never forgive herself. And . . . .”

I hesitated.

But he finished my thought. “And if anything were to happen to you, it would destroy her, right?”

I nodded, feeling miserable.

“I’m sorry, Cami. But I really do have to tell Henry. And if he quarantines himself like he’s supposed to, Fiona will certainly know. Anyhow, no way he’d keep this from her.”

“I know.” I sighed. “And I understand. But I told her I would look after Iain, and I failed, and I told her I would keep safe, and I failed there, too.”

I held up my hand to stop his protest. “I’m not not saying I did things wrong, Rob. I did it by the book, as far as I know and as far as there is a book. But it’s objectively true that I was unsuccessful. Fi is going to want to come down here and fix everything, even though she is desperately needed where she is. And whatever choice she makes is going to tear her apart.”

“I know. I get Fi. Believe me, I do. But you can’t shield her from this.”

I nodded.

He asked whether I had been in close contact with anyone.

I shook my head. “You and Iain are the only people I’ve been within ten yards of since coming here six days ago. I’ve got lots of people to call, but not for that reason.”

“Okay. Why don’t we make our calls, then get together at, say, 11:00? I think we’re going to need a plan to get through this, and two heads are better than one.”

“I’d like that. I don’t mind telling you I’m less worried about this – a lot less – than I would be if I were alone here. Not that I wish this on you!”

He stood. “Likewise, on both fronts. Uncle Chip doesn’t hand out compliments cheaply. Or, really, at all. And he says your ability to think under pressure is . . . commendable. Yes, I’m sure he said ‘commendable.’ We’re going to need that!”

Becoming more serious, he said, “It’s a great comfort to me that you’re here, Cami, even if I’d have spared you, if I could have.”

He left and went next door.

~o~O~o~
Fiona first. She probably wasn’t in a position to take a call, but I would text the essentials and ask her to call when she was free. So I typed, “Fi, Rob and I both woke up with mild symptoms. He has a sore throat and I’ve lost taste and smell. Otherwise fine. We have to stay in place anyway, so we’ll look after each other. DO NOT WORRY. Call when you’re free, but no rush. We’re not going anywhere.”

So easy to write. But I knew what devastation those few words would cause. Just as I felt I had failed, Fiona would feel it even worse. She would kick herself for not dropping everything to take care of Iain. For not telling me to just drop him off at the ER as soon as I’d found him. For any of the many choices we had made, the calculated risks we had taken.

Sometimes, all you can do is place your bets and spin the wheel.

The next call wouldn’t be easy, but it would be better than Fiona. I decided to use FaceTime. Nicole’s image appeared. I took in her breathtaking smile and cheerful “Good morning!” I felt like I’d gotten a huge hug. I wish I could bottle that smile and have it forever.

I smiled back, cheered. “Hey, Nicole!”

Maggie poked her head into the camera’s field of vision and waved. “Hi Cami!”

My smile got bigger. “You two are a sight for sore eyes! God, I’ve missed you!”

They assured me the feeling was mutual, then Nicole asked how Iain was doing.

“I’m afraid he’s worse. I had to call 911 last night – this morning, technically. He’s at the hospital, waiting to go into the ICU.”

“I’m so sorry,” Nicole said. “You were both fighting so hard. Are you okay?”

Well, nothing for it. “I’m still holding together. Mentally. And Rob” – I had mentioned him to Nicole when I had spoken with her the prior morning – “has been a big help. But, it turns out we’ve both got some COVID symptoms. Nothing much.”

Nicole froze; I might have thought it was a technical glitch, but Maggie didn’t freeze. She just looked like she’d been sucker-punched.

No one said anything, so I decided I had better. “Nicole. Maggie. I’m twenty-seven years old. I’m healthy. Unlike my older brother, I haven’t spent ten or fifteen years weakening my body with recreational drugs or living on poverty rations. COVID is serious, but it’s not like it’s an automatic death sentence. Okay?”

Finally, Nicole moved. “You’re right, Cami. I know you are – we know you are. But we’re worried for you – scared – and . . .” She paused, took a breath, and continued, “. . . and we’re not there. We can’t help. We can only wait. And worry.”

I knew how I would feel if our positions were reversed, and I ached for her. “I’m sorry. I really am. I know this is hard. But please don’t come up here, Nicole. New York may be the least safe place in America right now.”

She looked miserable. “I know, I know. Even my parents are going to go stay with my aunt in the Berkshires. They were hemming and hawing about it and I told them that if they didn’t do it I would come and stay with them in New York. The threat worked, but if I come up now, they definitely won’t go. And, I want them out of there!”

“Too right!” I said. “So listen. I’ll keep you posted, but there’s no sense worrying about it. We’ll follow the doctor’s orders, and do everything that can be done. So enough about that for now. Tell me what you’re up to.”

They looked at each other and Nicole seemed to slump.

Then she nodded, reluctantly. “Okay. I have a bit of a hard time talking about a podcast while you're dealing with everything that’s going on up there. But maybe it’ll help us all if we do.”

So we spent fifteen minutes or so doing that, and it actually did help. I thought the ideas were really creative, and I did my part, asking stupid questions that neither of them had thought about because they know too much.

When we had wrapped that up, I said, “Great ideas! Great energy! This is going to be fun! And I can’t wait to get down there to help!”

They smiled bravely.

I smiled back. Fantasy Island, and "Smiles, everybody." We signed off.

It was now 9:45, and the next person on my list was Eileen. I explained how my situation had changed.

“I’m so sorry. So, your plan is just to stay at the motel and self-quarantine?”

“Pretty much. My sister’s fiancé’s brother – if you can follow all of that – came down in part to do work in the City and in part to help with Iain, and unfortunately we’ve both got COVID symptoms now. The silver lining is that we’ll at least be able to look after each other and, ah . . . pull the rip-cord if things go south.”

“That certainly seems like the best of a bad set of options,” she agreed.

“Eileen, I know I’m approved for leave through the end of the month. And, I don’t know what this is going to be like. If I get as sick as Iain, I won’t be good for anything, and if Rob does, I’ll probably need to do the same sorts of full-time care that I did this past week. And God help us, we could both get that sick.

“But, it’s also very possible that we’ll both have mild to moderate symptoms and I’ll just be sitting in my motel room going mad with boredom. If there are any projects I can work on – maybe ones that aren’t time-sensitive, I would love to be useful.”

She chuckled. “That’s a lot of ‘if’s’ – but I’ll see what we can come up with.”

After I signed off with Eileen, I stared at the phone, gritting my teeth. No call was going to be harder than this one, but it had to be done. Iain was critically ill and I had to face the possibility that he very well might die. I had to call his father.
My father.
I got a recording, so I left a message. “It’s Cam. I’m calling about Iain. It’s urgent, so please call me right away.”

I put the phone on my lap and closed my eyes. Who else should I call? I hadn’t talked to Liz in a while. And Liz would want to know. She would probably have some hard-headed notions on how to straighten out my crazy life, too! I smiled. But it was Friday and she would be working. It wasn’t urgent. The same was true of Al and Javier.

And wouldn’t I just be worrying everyone to no purpose? Like Nicole, like Maggie, like Fi, even, there wasn’t anything they could do. I thought, I’ll call Sarah. She can pray for us, at least, though I tended to think Sarah prayed through action. But she could ask my sisters in our small community to add me to their prayers. They would normally meet tomorrow evening. I wondered if they would cancel.

The whole country seemed to be grinding to a slow, uneven halt. Like a train that’s jumped the track and is in the process of burying itself, car by car, into an avalanche field of tumbled snow and ice.

My phone buzzed with an income text. “What is it?” The number was my father’s cell.

“Iain has COVID. Please call me.”

The response, a minute later, was another text. “What is it that you want me to do?”

I thought about that. Texts were hard to interpret; his could be read as either a genuine inquiry or a snide rebuff. So I wrote, “I want you to CALL me.”

Two minutes went by, then three. Then I got a longer text. “If there is anything we can do for his physical care, we will do it. Let me know. Apart from that, Iain chose to leave this family. I can’t unmake his choice.”

My blood was starting to simmer. I typed, “He made that choice AFTER you disowned him!”

The reply this time was instant. “He severed himself from our family by his actions. Our later words just acknowledged that reality.”

I was getting really steamed, and I knew that was counterproductive. I took a deep breath to calm myself, then tried calling him again. He didn’t answer.

I texted, “Please pick up the phone. This isn’t a good way to communicate.”

He texted back, “I have nothing more to say on this subject, Cameron.”

I was incredulous. He hadn’t even asked how Iain was doing. I texted, “You could at least pray for him. Or, would that be too much to ask?”

Introducing religion had been a mistake. He replied, “The Lord’s purposes will unfold in time. I pray every day that all of you will be numbered among the elect. I fear, in Iain’s case, that the course of his life reflects reprobation.”

Now I was furious. To hell with being productive, to hell with trying to build bridges. And to hell with him.

“When you meet your maker, old man, you will not recognize Him!”

“It suffices that He recognizes me.”

I shot back, “Your own CHILDREN don’t recognize you!”

But he made the obvious retort. “My soul is not in their keeping.”

I was getting drawn into a fight very much on his turf, and it was stupid. But I thought of his son, gasping for each breath, shivering in my arms as I desperately listened for the sound of the ambulance. I thought of my sister, weeping bitterly that her daddy had disowned her and labeled her an ingrate.

I was too angry to even consider pulling back.

Furiously typing, I wrote, “Jesus CELEBRATED humanity. He fed the hungry, made wine for a wedding, broke bread with sinners. Cared for the sick. You turned your back on Him and created a god more to your own liking. One who looks like YOU. Have you traded your humanity for your bankrupt theology? YOUR SON MAY BE DYING, YOU PRICK! DON’T YOU CARE?”

His response, equally hot, was almost instant: “Blasphemer! You are no son of mine.”

There. This time he’d said it. But I chuckled nonetheless. I might be wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but I was also wearing panties, a bra, lipstick, light morning makeup and nail polish in a really fetching shade of rose. His precise statement was accurate, discounting, of course, his self-serving accusation of blasphemy.

But I agreed with him on a deeper level too. I typed back my response, as formal as a judicial decree. “On that point we agree. I will no longer honor you as a father, nor will I bear your name in this world. As the Lord says in Matthew’s Gospel, ‘I do not know you.’ Goodbye.”

I paused, reviewed it. Took a deep breath. Thought about it. Was this really what I wanted to do? What purpose would be served?

I hit send.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWO
“Io ti darò valore”
– Verdi, MacBeth, Nel di della vittoria (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 20, immediately following

I put down the phone, feeling strangely tired, like I had been wrestling with a demon. Maybe in a way I had been. I had known that Dad would never accept me as a woman, but I hadn’t told him, or my mother, what had been happening in my life. We hadn’t been speaking to each other at the time, and that had suited me just fine.

But, like all children, I carried my parents inside me at all times. Bore the weight of their silent judgment. Well, I’m done with that.
My phone rang. I thought, You should have called me earlier, you bastard. Too late now.

But it wasn’t Dad. It was Fiona. Please God, I prayed, help me to do better with this call! I gathered myself together, put the last few minutes behind me, and accepted the call.

“Good morning, Fi,” I said, projecting all of my love into the words. All the warmth in the world, to unfreeze the chill I had put in her soul. The warmth of sunlight dancing on ripe wheat, or of a merry fire on a winter evening. The warmth of a fuzzy blanket, shared with your dearest friend. Any warmth I could imagine.

“Cami, you’re killing me!”

Doctor Savin was gone; it was just my sister, devastated, wounded to the core of her being, torn between her duty and her family.

I wanted to weep. I wanted to apologize to her for failing, but the last thing she needed was to bear my guilt along with her own. I wanted to tell her everything would be okay. But she would know, even better than I did myself, exactly what those assurances would be worth. What comfort did I have? What possible solace could I give? Because right now, the world needed her.

Even more than I did.

“Fiona. Fi. Listen to me. We did everything right, just like you would have done if you’d been here. We did. You have always told me that in medicine, doing everything right doesn’t mean nothing will go wrong. That’s what happened here. You couldn’t have prevented it.”

“You don’t know that, Cami!” She was weeping.

“Maybe not, but I know I followed your instructions, right up until I had to make the 911 call. Are you telling me I screwed up?” Maybe that would do it.

“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t mean that. I don’t! Don’t think it! I’m just saying I have more experience. Maybe if I’d been there . . . .”

She faded to silence, and I finished for her. “. . . And maybe not, too. We don’t know, and we’ll never know. We did the best we could. You, me. Rob. Iain too. We can’t do more than that.”

She absorbed that for a moment before responding. “Okay, but now you’re both sick. I need to get down there . . . now.”

This was the thing I worried about the most. “No, Fi. We’re both in good shape, and we’ll give you regular reports. You’ve said it yourself: there’s nothing you can do for mild symptoms that we aren’t doing. And you have a crapload of people you are responsible for right now that don't just have mild symptoms.”

“They aren’t my family, God dammit!” she broke in. “They aren’t you! It’s . . . It’s . . . Christ, it's too much, Cami. Too much! I can’t!”

Okay, I thought. Time for steel. It had worked with Nicole. It had even worked with Tina. I didn’t want to hurt Fi, but I couldn’t think of another way to reach her right now.

“Yes, you can. You can. They are your family, just as much as I am, and they need their doctor. Right now, today, their need is greater. You would be appalled if Iain’s doctors just vanished because they had family to deal with. So would I. So get back in there and save your patients!”

The line was suddenly silent, and I prayed . . . prayed . . . that someday she would forgive me for that. When she finally spoke, she sounded like she had been hollowed out.

“I know, Cami. I do know. And, I’ll do it. I just don’t know how long I can keep this up.”

“Fiona. I love you more than I can say. I would give anything to keep from hurting you. Anything. I will be careful, and we’ll give you regular reports. Set your mind at rest. You are exactly where you need to be.”

“Okay,” she said, sounding flat. Resigned.

“You’ve always been my hero, Fi. I’ll stay as safe as I can; you do the same, okay?”

“I will, Sweetie.”

We ended the call.

~o~O~o~
Rob arrived exactly on time and gave me a critical appraisal. “The tire tracks are back. Big damn truck, this time. Your calls must have been worse than mine.”

I handed him a fresh cup of his doctored tea. “Yeah, I’ve had better mornings. I think I prevented my roommate and my sister from coming to save me, at least for the moment, but they weren’t very happy about it. Oh, and I disowned my father. I mean, he disowned me first, but I made sure mine would count.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus.”

I sat down at the table, but he came around behind me. “Lean forward for a moment, Cami. You look tight as a snare drum.”

He put his hands on my shoulders and started digging his fingers into my taut muscles, starting softly but increasing the pressure until they went deep. I leaned forward, put my forearms on my thighs and lowered my head. He worked silently for a while, down my shoulder blades and up the back of my neck to the base of my skull.

After a few minutes he stopped, then walked around to the other side of the table and sat down. “A little better, I hope?”

I straightened up slowly, moved my head left and right and shook out my arms. “I didn’t realize how tense I was. Thank you. I’d return the favor, but I don’t think I’ve got that kind of strength in my fingers.”

He smiled. “I’ll show you sometime. It’s not all about power, though that helps. Mostly, it’s about applying increasing levels of pressure in the right places, and in the right sequence. But I’m good just at the moment.”

He took a sip of tea, then another. “Thanks. This really helps; my throat is seriously raw.” Another drink, a bit more liquid this time. Then he put down the mug and looked at me. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I thought about that, and shook my head. “It’s a bit raw still. But thanks. I appreciate the offer.” I had a sip of the odorless, tasteless, thin, hot liquid in my own mug. “I’d rather think about something else. Almost anything else. COVID, even. So . . . I was able to use you as a bit of a shield against Fiona and my roommates. I said we could look after each other. I hope you don’t mind?”

He shook his head. “It’s pretty much what I said to Henry as well. And to Mom.”

“I think we won’t find a better place to hole up. I’m still close if Iain needs me, and the set-up works. In fact . . . .” I stopped, and then blushed.

His eyes twinkled. “In fact, yes. I was thinking that, too, but wasn’t sure how you would feel about sharing the space. It really is the smart thing to do. If either of us has an episode like Iain did last night, we’re going to want someone close.”

I nodded, still embarrassed. And not entirely sure why.

“Then it makes sense for me to check out of the room next door,” he said. “May I suggest that you move into Iain’s room? The attached bathroom will give you a smidge more privacy.”

“Okay, that makes sense. I’ll get everything properly cleaned before you move in, and you need to make sure you thoroughly disinfect the room you’re currently in before you vacate it. I’ve got everything you need for that.”

It was his turn to nod. “I hadn’t even thought of that, but of course you’re right. The cleaning staff won’t be protected.”

It was part of the reason that Nicole had selected the “no intra-stay cleaning” option when she booked my room. It had also saved a few dollars.

Just then my phone buzzed – Nicole was FaceTiming. I hoped we had no new disasters to worry about. “Let me take this.”

Rob stayed where he was and I swiped accept. “Hey, Nicole! Rob and I are strategizing on how to get through this. Is everything okay?”

She smiled – warm, genuine, but still worried. “Yes, but I’ve got an idea. Mom and Dad are leaving tomorrow. They can drop supplies on your doorstep on their way out – you are very much on their way. Would that help?”

“Absolutely!”

Rob was nodding an emphatic agreement.

“There’s one other thing, too,” I said, “if they would be willing. I extended my car rental, but it’s stupid to hang on to it now. If they could drop it off at National Car Rental, that would be a big help.”

Nicole’s smile got wider. “I’ll ask. I’m pretty persuasive!”

“True!”

We spent a couple minutes discussing details; I promised to send her a supplies list, and we rang off.

“Your roommate sounds like a lovely person,” Rob said.

I agreed wholeheartedly. We talked about logistics and decided Rob should check out of his room Saturday morning as originally planned. He was going to spend the afternoon in conference calls with the people he had intended to meet with today, and he would do that next door.

“I’ve felt better,” he acknowledged. “But I don’t think I’m in any imminent danger, and that’s what we have to be concerned about.”

We decided to start our own logs, just as I had kept for Iain, so we would be able to chart what was going on. “It will help keep Fiona sane,” I added, “and that ain’t nothing.”

We started with our initial symptoms. As of 8:00 am, loss of taste and smell for me. Same at noontime, coupled with unusual fatigue. Temperature at noon was 99.1; elevated, but barely. I didn’t even know what my baseline temp was; 98.6 is average, but people have natural variability.

Rob woke with a sore throat at around 7:00 am; it was worse by noon. In addition, he felt some deep muscle pain and some fatigue. His temperature was 99.7.

We had some instant soup (or to be more accurate, Rob had soup and I had a flavorless, hot, viscous liquid substance which I ate with a soup spoon). Then we each took Tylenol and Rob went off with some throat lozenges and Gatorade.

For almost the only time since I arrived in New Rochelle six days before, I was actually alone.

I called the hospital. Iain hadn’t been admitted to the ICU and I could not speak to him because he was sleeping. They weren’t willing to tell me anything else, because I didn’t hold his durable power of attorney and he hadn’t signed a waiver of his confidentiality protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, also known by the acronym HIPAA. I asked if I could email a HIPAA waiver to them and have him sign it when he was awake.

They hemmed, hawed, and agreed, while cautioning that they weren’t certain he would be in any condition to execute a valid waiver.

“Please try,” I said. “My sister and I are all he’s got.”

So I spent a bit of time doing some research, then drafted a HIPAA waiver that would allow hospital personnel to discuss his condition with Fiona and me and emailed it to my contact.

It was 1:30 and I was feeling weary. I decided the best medicine would be rest. Even if I wasn’t sick, my daily sleep deficits this past week had cumulatively created a sleep debt that would give the Chairman of the Federal Sleep Reserve nightmares, if such an official existed. I set an alarm for 3:30 and laid down.

My phone went off a bit after 3:00, however, so I fumbled around groggily for a moment and grabbed it.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hello, this is Sylvia Thomas from the Westchester County Health Department. I’m calling for Cameron Savin.”

I sat up, suddenly very awake. “This is Camryn.”

“Good afternoon, Cameron. I’m calling to follow up on a 911 call you placed at 2:12 am this morning. You had an ambulance sent for your brother, Iain Savin, and reported that he had COVID-19. Is that correct?”

“Yes, that’s correct. Has something happened to him? Is he alright?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, “we don’t have any information about his current condition. I’m actually calling as part of an effort to track your brother’s close contacts so that we can try to get them isolated. Do you have a couple of minutes?”

I thought, sourly, that in fact I had nothing but time, but what I said was, “Of course.”

“Well, you know that you’ve been exposed to the virus. Have you been experiencing any symptoms?”

I decided I could speed this up. “I’ve kept my brother in isolation since this past Saturday. I was joined two days ago by Robert Hutchinson, who came to help out. Both of us began experiencing symptoms this morning; so far, they’re mild. I have had no other contacts since last Saturday. Mr. Hutchinson has, and he has contacted them this morning. We’re both planning to isolate in place while the virus runs its course”

I heard the sound of typing as she took down my information. She asked whether any of us had been tested, and I said we hadn’t.

“There is a drive-through testing facility in New Rochelle,” she offered. “We’re encouraging people who have been exposed to get tested.”

“I understand that. But it’s pretty clear that Mr. Hutchinson and I are infected, so it probably doesn’t make sense to risk other people in order to confirm it.”

“Hmm,” she said thoughtfully, typing in more information. “Can you give me contact information for Mr. Hutchinson, please?”

“If you give me your contact information, I’ll ask him to call you. I’m also aware of two individuals who were in contact with Iain in the days before he became symptomatic; I’ll give them your information, too.”

Sounding a bit put out, she said, “It would really be better if you just gave me their information; we can contact them.”

“The hospital doesn’t want to tell me my own brother’s medical condition because of privacy concerns.” I kept my tone pleasant . . . but firm. “I need to be at least as careful. I promise I will give them your information, I will urge them to call you, and I will stress that this is a public health emergency. They’re all good people. You’ll get more cooperation from them this way.”

She grumbled, but didn’t have much choice.

I got her contact information and ended the call.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER THREE
“io l'ombra d'un sorriso”
– Puccini, Turandot, Signore ascolta! (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 20, immediately following

I called Iain’s roommate and his boss, filled them in on Iain’s status and asked them whether they were okay. Neither of them had experienced symptoms, but neither had quarantined either. Mahmoud’s job was still going, but Mike Peters said the restaurant had closed, for now.

“We weren’t told we had to, but no one was coming in. This place is a ghost town. I’m on half pay and all the staff have been laid off so that they can get unemployment.” Mike sounded lost. He didn’t know of anyone else at the restaurant who had gotten sick.

I urged them both to call Ms. Thomas and they both said they would. Given that neither of them had developed symptoms, it seemed likely the contact tracing effort would not go past them.

It was now almost 4:00 and I was still in bed, still feeling tired. But not out for the count, yet, so I got up, put on my slippers, and went into the common room. I grabbed a Gatorade (thin, cold, tasteless colored liquid) and decided to take another temperature reading. 99.6. Directionally incorrect, but not surprising. I added general achiness to my list of symptoms and wrote it in the log.

I had an email from Eileen indicating that she had spoken with Russ Gardner, the head of the insurance practice group; he would have an assignment for me to work on by Monday, but I shouldn’t feel any pressure.

“Getting better is the most important thing," she wrote. "If some work will help take your mind off things, do it. Otherwise, rest!”

I sent back an acknowledgment and thanks. I had an email from my colleague Daviana as well. Eileen had passed along the news that I had COVID; Daviana’s email was lovely and supportive. I responded to that one as well.

I was tired, but not really sleepy; achy, but not debilitated. I was annoyed at the hospital. Worried about Iain. I was tired as all hell of the four corners of this motel room that had become my whole world.

I groaned. This is just day one! Like, mile one of a marathon, I thought. I needed an attitude adjustment.

But I had no brilliant ideas that way, so I decided to take my mind off my woes by researching the process for changing your name under Maryland law. Westlaw is my friend. I was deep into case law interpreting Rule 15-901 of the Maryland Civil Code when I got a text from Robert asking if it was a good time for him to come over.

“Please do,” I texted.

He knocked on the door a minute later and I ushered him in.

“How was your day, dear?” I asked, jokingly.

He smiled. “Oh, you are booooored!” But he looked tired; much more tired than he had five hours earlier.

I took pity on him. “Here, sit in the comfy chair and put your feet up. You’re acquiring your own tire tracks.”

“Thanks, Cami,” he said gratefully. He sank down into the chair, slowly put one foot, then the other, on the ottoman that went with the chair, and momentarily closed his eyes. “I haven’t done anything more stressful than talk to people all day, but I’m beat.”

I put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “Let me take your temperature. And tell me where your symptoms are at. I’ll do your log entry, then we’ll see about getting you some food and rest.”

He didn’t fight me.

“You’re at 100.4, so up a bit. How’s the throat?”

“Still sore. My joints definitely ache, my head aches and my muscles feel fatigued, like I’ve been exercising them hard. My eyes are sore, too.” He thought a minute. “That’s about the full list, I think.”

I wrote all that down. “I’m doing a bit better, and I got some sleep. Why don’t you just rest there a bit. I’ll get you some Tylenol and a Gatorade. Are you hungry?”

He shook his head, eyes still closed.

I got him to take the pills and he leaned back in the chair. I went around behind him and very gently massaged his temples with the first two fingers of each hand. The look of pain and tension in his face began to ease.

After around ten minutes he said, “Thanks. That’s helped a lot. I have a really hard time functioning with a headache.”

I patted his shoulder. “We’re even. Stay here and I’ll make some soup. Our bodies will need the fuel, even if we don’t have much appetite.”

“Okay, boss,” he said, with something a bit closer to his normal smile.

Nothing fancy; just more chicken and vegetable soup that might as well have been dish water as far as I was concerned. But we both ate with more appetite than we expected. I made Rob some tea with honey and lemon and, on a whim, made myself a cup too. Naturally, I needn’t have bothered. It just tasted hot and wet.

Rob nursed his tea and looked a lot better.

I said, “The fever will drive some of the fatigue and achiness. If we can keep it down, it’ll help with everything else. So let’s do Advil doses between the Tylenol, like we were doing for Iain.”

“Makes sense. It doesn’t feel like it worked in his case, but we really don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t been getting the extra doses.”

I nodded. Then I told him about Ms. Thomas’ contact tracing call.

“I talked to Henry this afternoon,” he said. “Apparently one of the guys I work with had been feeling a bit under the weather most of the week but didn’t think anything about it. He went home early yesterday and called in sick this morning. Based on his current symptoms, it sounds like COVID.”

His uncle’s response to the news had been to send all non-essential personnel home at noon and to tell everyone who worked with Don that they should isolate.

“If no one else develops symptoms over the weekend, we’ll open up on Monday, but Henry said the leadership team is discussing ways to have people work remotely for a while.” Rob shook his head in wonder. “You know, I don’t think Hutchinson Investments has ever closed its doors.”

He told me that Henry had hired someone local to give us assistance when needed. “He’s going to come tomorrow at 8:00 and drop off new sheets, towels, and blankets that match what we have – I sent brands and photos. He’ll give us heavy-duty plastic bags for our laundry, including all the current bedding. We’re to fill them, seal them, and disinfect the outsides of the bags. He’ll be by an hour later to pick everything up, and he’ll handle getting everything properly cleaned and disinfected. He’s got the right gear so that he can do it safely.”

I gawked at him.

“Cami,” he said, very gently, “I’ve grown up stupid rich. We have resources that most people don’t have. I try – really most of us who have any self-awareness try – not to let it warp us too badly. Not to flaunt it or rely on it too much. But in an emergency, it’s there and we use it. I think this qualifies; Henry does too. And, for what it’s worth, I think it will ease Fiona’s mind to know that help is nearby.”

I nodded, slowly. “I hope so. I’ve never heard her so distressed. . . . Well . . . one other time.”

Rob decided he was going to crash early, so he went back to his motel room armed with Tylenol, Advil, Gatorade, and something for his throat.

It was only around 7:00 and I decided I would hold off sleeping for a bit and clean. I stripped Iain’s bed and put my sheets and blankets on it for the night. After cleaning and disinfecting Iain’s room and its attached bathroom, I moved my stuff over. Then I cleaned and disinfected the room I had been staying in.

By that point I was dragging. But I took a moment and sent Fiona an email with a copy of Rob’s and my log entries. I checked my temp; it was holding steady.

In my new bathroom, I stripped, removed my breast forms and cleaned the area where they attach. I paused and looked at myself in the mirror. I’d only been taking estrogen pills for just over a week and it was too soon to see any changes, but that didn’t stop me from wishing for it. Longing for it. I gently ran an index finger over one of my nipples, yearning for some sign, some increase in sensation. Some sense of progress.

Nothing.

On the bright side, I hadn’t noticed any unusual mood swings, though I wasn’t exactly living in a period of calm. I sighed, lifted my light green nightie over my head and let it slide down my body, a silky caress, a hope for better days. The bed beckoned and I dove under the covers.

A headache, a raging thirst, and a full bladder forced me awake in the middle of the night. I blearily took care of all three and went back to bed. For once, I was not troubled by dreams.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER FOUR
“Mi piaccion quelle cose che han sì dolce malìa”
– Puccini, La Bohème, Sì. Mi chiamano Mimì (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 21

I woke up at my normal time – normal, that is, for when I was working, exercising, and doing voice lessons. 5:00. I smiled sadly, thinking of how many things I had let go over the past week, forced to focus all of my energy on the emergency at hand.

The aches in my body told me I would not be able to exercise right now even if I had the space, and even stretches would be painful. For all that, I didn’t feel horrible. I had slept well and my headache was gone.

I raised myself in the bed, a bit more gingerly than usual. My skin felt sensitive. Getting out of bed, I was steady, but definitely felt a little weak. I pulled my thin lingerie strap back to my right shoulder where it belonged, slipped into my dark green dressing gown, and went into the common area to take my temperature. 99.8. Well, it had been five hours or so since I’d had any medicine. So, not too bad.

I was thinking about my last night out with Nicole. How we had gone shopping at the mall and had a nice dinner out, knowing that we might not be able to do such commonplace things again for some time. Maybe I should spend some time this morning taking care of my appearance. I was strong enough to do it, right now. Steady enough. I had the luxury, at that moment, to care about it.

Who knows when I might feel good enough next?

I used Nair liberally. I showered, slowly, luxuriously, taking time to use the moisturizing soap all over my skin and even followed the shampoo bottle’s injunction to lather, rinse, and repeat. Applied conditioner and simply let the hot water massage my body while I waited for the conditioner to do its thing.

Out of the shower, I put mousse and curlers in my hair, turbanned up, then sat on the toilet and rubbed baby oil all over. When that dried, I reapplied my breast forms, concealed the seams, put on my robe and went into my bedroom. My toenails, then my fingernails, got treated to a warm, rich shade of brown.

While they dried, I sat, sipped some hot liquid beverage, and listened to Chopin.

Nor was I finished. I styled my hair, parting it slightly to my right and allowing curls to spill down my back and over my left shoulder. Imagining Javier beside me, giving me lessons in the mysteries of cosmetics, I took unusual care of my makeup, and applied the barest hint of scent behind each ear and in the hollow of my throat.

Rather than the practical underwear, jeans, and T-shirts I had been wearing, I pulled a pretty pair of lacy boy shorts over my panty gaff, with a matching bra and a pair of nylons. I had one skirt – my favorite, full skirt in a red wool — and Nicole had packed one cute top that was neither utilitarian or work-related, a soft white cashmere sweater with a v-neck and half sleeves. A pair of drop earrings, my watch, and a pair of pumps finished the look.

It was a completely inappropriate, wildly impractical outfit for the day, and it lifted my spirits tremendously.

Fiona called promptly at 6:30. She had calmed down after yesterday’s shock, but the detached professional of the past week was still not much in evidence. I told her that I had not heard from Rob yet this morning, but that the virus had been hitting him harder, especially by the evening.

She warned me not to get too confident: “CIVID’s weird, Cami. People’s symptoms are wildly different, their incubation periods seem to be different, and the course of the virus is different. He may do better than you today, or not. No telling.”

I told her about the trouble I had getting information out of the hospital. She cursed. “Goddammit, they know better. HIPAA does not prevent giving patient information to next of kin in situations like this, so long as the treating physician okays it.” She promised to call them, again.

“Fi, I should probably tell you that I tried to call Dad yesterday. To tell him about Iain. He wouldn’t take my call, so we had a lengthy text exchange. He said we should let him know if there is anything Iain needs for his physical care, so that’s good. But he otherwise made it clear that Iain was on his own.”

I thought carefully how to say the next part. “We had a bit of a theological dispute which, ah, resulted in our excommunicating each other. So to speak. He said I was no son of his, which I couldn’t exactly dispute. And I said I would no longer consider him my father.”

She was quiet for a moment, then started to chuckle. She was clearly trying, and failing, to suppress the laughter, and eventually it overwhelmed her completely.

Finally she was able to say, “I’m sorry, Cami. Really I am. I certainly know how much that experience hurt when he did it to me. But the mental picture of you texting thundering denunciations at each other . . . . And, he doesn’t even know you're trans?”

“No, we didn’t manage to get to that part,” I confirmed. “But, yeah, we did get a little Old Testament there by the end.”

“I’ll bet,” she said, then added, “But I have to say, good for you. For reaching out, which was more than I thought to do – and for sticking up for yourself and for Iain. He’s been bullying all of us for too long, and I’m glad you spanked him.”

“I told him I wasn’t going to use his name anymore. I’ve started researching how to change it.”

There was a pause before she responded. “Wow. You must have been pissed!”

“I was,” I agreed. “But I’m not now, and I still feel the same way. It’s time to make a clean break.”

“Have you chosen a new name?” she asked, sounding almost shy.

“I’m mulling it over. In the spare time the Lord has seen fit to provide in ample supply.”

She laughed. “Well, keep me posted, sis. I’d hate to not know your name. . . . Look, I’ve gotta go. Again. Rest, lots of fluids. Send regular reports. Text if you need me in a hurry. Okay? If I know you’ll do those things, I won’t go out of my mind or get in a car and come haunt you!”

“I will. And Fi . . . I love you, sis. You’re my hero.”

I had been up for almost two hours, and I was already feeling fatigued. I checked and discovered that my temp was still 99.8, or possibly was 99.8 again. I decided I’d take the Advil dose at 7:00.

In the meantime, I stripped everything off my bed and made a neat pile of the sheets, pillow cases, blankets, towels, and my own pile of laundry. I decided to surrender modesty and added my delicates to my laundry pile. I’d rather not have strangers going through them, but it was more important that the job get done. I might never even meet the person who was going to help us.

I waited until 7:15 before contacting Rob; I didn’t want to wake him prematurely, but he would need to be ready when Henry’s guy arrived.

He responded to my text by calling. “Morning, Cami.” He sounded congested. “How’d you sleep?”

“Pretty well. Temp’s creeping up, and I’m a bit tired and achy, but not too bad. You don’t sound so good.”

“My head feels like someone’s pumped water into it,” he said. “I slept straight through, which is good I guess, but it also means I got behind on the drugs and fluids. The headache’s pretty bad.”

“I’m up and dressed, so come over whenever you're ready. I’d say you’ll love your breakfast options, but you won't. Tea or coffee today?”

“Let me start with some coffee; it’s possible some of this headache is caffeine withdrawal. I’ll be over in ten.”

When I opened the door in response to his knock, he did a double-take and dropped the handle of his suitcase.

“Are we expecting company?” he asked, sounding confused.

I got him inside, grabbed his bag and pulled that inside too, then closed the door. He had come in and turned around, and was giving me a very appreciative look.

“Well thank you, sir! But no. I just knew I could do it today, and . . . and who knows? Maybe tomorrow I won’t have the stamina. So I decided to indulge myself while I could.”

I could see understanding in his eyes. He said quietly, “Yeah. I get that.” Then he slowly sank into one of the chairs in the eating area. “You mentioned something about coffee?”

I handed him a mug of what the Keurig produced. Normally I didn’t care for Keurig coffee, but now it was all alike to me, and I wasn’t going to add a caffeine headache to my woes. I joined him.

I had him go through his symptoms, taking notes. His sore throat was maybe a bit better, but he was stuffed up, had a headache, body ache, and overall weakness. He was at 100.9.

“I really don’t like where your fever is. When was the last dose of medicine, and what was it?

“I had a Tylenol just before I came over. Call it 7:30.” His voice caught and he coughed.

“Okay, Rob. Take the comfortable chair and sit still for a bit. Give the Tylenol a chance to kick in. Meantime, I’ve got something for your stuffed head; it should help a bit with the sore throat, too.”

I handed him a mug of a cold and flu medicine that came in the form of a powder which was mixed with hot water. He took it, looking weary, and started sipping it.

A few minutes later, we heard a car, then a car door, then the thump of something being dropped by the door. There was a sharp wrap on the door.

From the inside, I said, “Mr. Hutchinson is here. We’ll have the laundry ready for pickup in an hour.

A male voice responded, “You got it,” then I heard him walk away.

I opened the door, waved to the man as he drove off, and pulled the bags into the room. There were four large shopping bags with blankets, sheets, pillow cases, and towels that matched what was in the motel, as well as several large bags, in an opaque heavy-duty plastic, that were clearly intended for our laundry.

“The Tylenol is definitely kicking in,” Rob said. “As well as this other stuff. If you can give me twenty minutes, I’ll help you pull everything together.”

“Sure. Take half an hour, even. I’ll be generous. But what I’ll really need help with is making the beds. I can pull the stuff together for the laundry run in the meantime.”

So I did that, and as I was getting back from his unit with a bag of laundry, he got himself out of the chair.

“Hold on a sec,” I said. “I’d like to get another reading.”

His temp was back down to 100 even.

“Outstanding,” I said, relieved.

The laundry was all set, so we sealed the bags, then we both put on our masks and I sprayed down the outside of each bag with Lysol. Promptly at 9:00 we put them outside the door, and they were picked up moments later.

Rob was definitely feeling better, so we went next door, put our masks on, and cleaned and sanitized every surface. We took the new linens out of the bag, put the towels in the bathroom and made the bed. Rob made a last check, then we closed up and he went to turn in the key.

I went back into the unit we were now sharing and took a turn in the comfortable chair. It was 10:00 and I’d been going for five hours. I took off my shoes – why had I decided to wear pumps? – tucked my feet, and closed my eyes for a minute.

Something brushed my cheek lightly. I blinked stupidly for a moment, then saw Rob perched on the arm of the chair.

“Sorry about that,” he said softly. “I hate to wake you, but I think you need more medicine. I’d like to check your temp, too. Then I’d suggest you lie down for a bit. I’ve made the beds.”

“I was supposed to help with that!” I protested.

He looked serious and put his fingers back against my cheek, holding them there. “Each of us is going to need to do what we can when we have the strength to do it. I was useless earlier and you wore yourself out. So it was my turn. Now sit here a minute.”

He got up, invaded my ear with the thermometer, and said “100.7. Okay, Cami. Time for Tylenol, then go lie down.”

I took the pills, smiled and said, “Aye, aye, Cap’n.”

He chuckled. “Wrong service branch, Cadet. Fifty demerits!”

I went to go lie down.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER FIVE
“Mild und leise, wie er lächelt”
– Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Liebestod (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 21, afternoon

I woke up at about 12:30 in the afternoon, rolled out of bed and used the restroom. Fixed my makeup. Rob wasn’t in the common room. He had left the door to the bedroom he was using slightly ajar, so I was able to check on him. I thought, I should make a point of doing that, too.

He was sleeping. His breathing was a bit louder than one would expect, but otherwise he seemed like he was okay.

I felt less tired. My temp was back down to 100.1, but the aches were still there. I filed another log entry, opened my laptop, and checked emails. Then I spent some time on my name change research.

At 1:00 I took some Advil and made a log entry. I checked Rob’s log and saw that he would be due for Tylenol at 1:30. If he weren’t awake by then, I would bring it.

I called the hospital. Iain still hadn’t been admitted to the ICU, he hadn’t signed anything, and they remained close-lipped about his condition. HIPAA.

My phone rang. I checked the screen and was shocked to see the caller ID from my contacts pop up. It said “Mom.” She hadn’t called me since just after Halloween.

This one could get loud, I thought. To avoid waking Rob, I took the call in my bedroom.

I answered it with a noncommittal “Hello?”

“Cam? That you? You sound like Fiona.”

“It’s Cam,” I said, though I didn’t make any effort to drop to a lower register. Consistency would probably work better.

“Did it occur to you that I might want to know how Iain is doing?” she asked.

I bit back a retort; instead I said, “Let me tell you.” She didn’t try to stop me, so I plunged in.

“He was living in New Rochelle. Started feeling symptoms eight days ago. I got him into a motel where I could look after him while he isolated. Fiona gave me instructions. He had ups and downs, but he had an attack early yesterday morning where he was struggling to breathe. I called 911, and they took him to the hospital. He’s been admitted. They were giving him oxygen and waiting for a bed to open up in the ICU.”

She was quiet for a bit, absorbing all of that. “You’re still up there? In New York?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll be there if he needs you?”

“Yes.”

Another pause. “Is there anything we –anything I – can do? I want . . . I want to be there. I want to see him. Your father says ‘No.’” She sounded like she had poured out a lot of tears.

I said, gently but firmly, “I think he’s right this time. New York isn’t safe right now, and they aren’t even allowing visitors into the hospital. If you came, you’d be no closer to seeing him than you are in St. Louis.”

She blurted out, vehemently, “I HATE this. I HATE hospitals. I HATE being helpless. I just have to sit here, and wait, and do NOTHING!”

There wasn’t really anything to say to that, other than, “I know. I know.”

She pulled herself together. “All right. I’ll wait. You keep me informed, understand? I’m going out to see your Gammy, so don’t be calling the home phone. Your dad’s not speaking to you.”

“Are you?”

She said, stiffly, “You’re father’s the head of the household. It’s his call. This doesn't count. S’an emergency.”

“Understood,” I sighed. If I remembered my Sunday school lessons correctly, Christ was the head of the household, but I wasn’t going to repeat my mistake of arguing theology with my dogmatic parents. Dad knew a chapter and verse to support whatever he wanted to argue; Mom just knew stubborn. “I'll tell you if I hear anything.”

“You do that.” She hung up.

It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that she wouldn’t follow Dad’s lead on this. But I was glad that I had misjudged her to a degree. She still cared enough about Iain that she was willing to defy the “head of the household” where her son’s life was on the line. Sometimes you take victories where you can get them.

I left the bedroom and got some water heating in case Rob needed an infusion.

~o~O~o~
When Nicole’s parents came by around 2:30, Rob and I were both awake and doing about as well as we had been since yesterday. His cough was getting a bit worse. They dropped off groceries and got back in their car; Rob and I went out, picked up the groceries, put the keys to the rental car on the stoop and pointed to it. We went back inside; one of them got the keys and got the rental car.

Before they drove off, I went outside and blew them both kisses. They had given the world Nicole; they must be lovely people. Then I went back inside and put away the things they had brought.

Rob was working intently at the table in the eating area; I went into my room, FaceTimed Nicole and thanked her properly. She was relieved that I still appeared to be doing well.

I laid down again at around 3:30, this time leaving my door slightly ajar. Rob was again resting when I got up around 5:00. Our cycles were a bit off, but that actually seemed to work. We were both awake at the same time for dinner.

When we were done eating, I asked Rob if he would witness my signature on an HIPAA release I had prepared. “I don’t want Fiona to have to fight hospital bureaucrats like I’m doing to get info on Iain. In case . . . well. You know. I’ve drafted a durable power of attorney for her as well, but I want to find out if someone in the firm’s T&E practice can look at that one first. It’s trickier.”

Rob watched me sign the document, then added his signature.

“It seems strange – kind of melodramatic – to be thinking about this stuff.” I asked if he had a DPA then blushed when he gave me a strange look. “Of course you do . . . . I had forgotten your deployment.”

He nodded. “Yeah, you do get used to thinking about mortality over there. It takes a while to flip that switch back to normal.”

I toyed with my mug. “I should have gone too. To Afghanistan. 9-11 is almost my first memory of a public event. I grew up venerating service men and women. First responders. But when I was old enough . . . when I could make my own decisions . . . I looked away. Like Dick Cheney, I guess I had ‘other priorities.’”

His expression was impossible to read.

“I’m so sorry, Rob. I’m like all the rest of the people in this country who waved our flags, sent you off to fight for our ideals and our vengeance, and then went shopping.”

He reached over and covered my hands with his own.

I couldn’t help but notice that his hands were larger, strong and capable. Me, with my fine elfin hands, a soldier? Who am I fooling?

“Cami, no one’s ever apologized to me like that. What you said . . . there were plenty of times I thought about it that way. Over there, and even more, after I got back. Where was America? We were trying to do something big and important, and we were losing people. Some of the best people. But back home, it was ‘party on.’ There were moments I was pretty bitter . . . when I wondered what it would take to make people care.

“But I’ll tell you this, just speaking for myself. And speaking with a bit of distance. It was a privilege to serve. A privilege to be with those wonderful men and women who volunteered. And if you had met some of those people we were trying to help, in the towns and villages . . . . the women, the children . . . . Well. It was probably the most meaningful thing I’ll ever do.”

He released my hands and leaned back in his seat. “I know the President’s been eager to pull our guys out. I suppose it’ll happen sooner or later, and I don’t have a good feeling about what’ll happen then. Plenty of people loathe the Taliban, but no one likes the government. Or respects it. Still. Even if all we accomplished was to give people twenty years of something different – hopefully something better – I suppose that’s not nothing.” He was coughing a bit.

I got up and made him an infusion. While the water was boiling, I asked him what had moved him to volunteer.

He shrugged. “Good reasons and less good ones, I guess. There is a tradition of service in our family; we aren’t all syphilitic reprobates!” He smiled, but continued, “Patriotism, certainly. But probably more than anything else a need to prove myself, away from the cocoon of Clan Hutchinson.”

I nodded; that made sense to me. “I guess I went away to law school for similar reasons. But I should have volunteered. Even though I wouldn’t have made much of a soldier.” I found myself looking at my hands again – the soft, smooth skin, the delicate, tapered fingers. Useless.

He snorted. “Don’t be so sure. Remember, I’ve seen you in emergencies. You'd have pulled your weight.”

I gave him the infusion and sat back down. “Well, water under the bridge now, anyway. And, law seems to suit me, so it wasn’t a bad choice. Just . . . just a safe one. A comfortable one.”

“There’s nothing wrong with safety and comfort. And there are lots of ways to lead a meaningful life.”

We talked a bit, about our careers. Law and finance. What was interesting. What was tedious. He had gone into the army at twenty-two after college, served three years, gotten a master’s in finance and then joined the family business. He had only been employed there for three years, or so.

“I like it. We have a chance to help companies that are doing absolutely amazing things. To be a part of the development of therapies, medicines. Vaccines. And, that’s just the area I work in.”

We were both tired and called it a night. My temp was 100.4; his was 100.7. We started the night with Tylenol, and I set an alarm for three hours to take a dose of Advil at midnight.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER SIX
“Immer lichter wie er leuchtet, stern-umstrahlet”
– Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Liebestod (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 22

I still felt cruddy the next morning, but not noticeably worse.

Rob’s condition had again deteriorated somewhat overnight. His headache was back, his cough was more frequent and he had a bit of the chills. I got his information and suggested he take a long hot shower to warm up and to steam his throat and sinuses.

I had my morning call with Fiona. She was satisfied with the steps we were taking and just urged us both to get plenty of rest during the day. “The naps you both took yesterday are really important," she said. "Don’t try to power through this. Give your body all the help you can, okay?”

She was a bit concerned with Rob’s condition, though she assured me that neither his symptoms nor their severity were out of the ordinary. “I’m glad you’re there to take care of each other,” she said. “Robbie’s a really great guy.”

“Yeah. It’s certainly helping to keep us both sane.”

She must have detected something in my voice. “Ahh? And???”

I groaned. “Fiona Campbell Savin, I feel like death very lightly warmed over, Rob feels worse, and you want to play matchmaker?”

She laughed softly, but then she said, “Sorry, Cami. I couldn’t resist. There is nothing at all romantic in any of this. Believe me, I know. It just feels like forever since I was able to think about normal things, like . . . like . . . shopping, or dinner parties, or guys and girls. Or weddings . . . .”

Her voice caught. I remembered how happy she had been when she told me that she and Henry had set a date. Had that really been less than three months ago? But she had been dealing with COVID every day since – first in preparation for what might be coming, then for the reality when it hit.

“I’m so sorry, Fi. So very, very sorry. You’ve been carrying this load for a long time. I wish I could help you!”

“Well, perfect, honeybun, because you can. Get better. And get Rob better too!”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said contritely.

Rob came out of the bathroom, toweling his thick black hair, wearing jeans and a gray army sweatshirt.

“Better?” I asked.

He nodded. “It helped, for sure. But I’ve got to get this headache under control, if I’m going to function.” He sat down at the table and closed his eyes.

“Do you really need to function today? Might make sense just to rest.”

Without opening his eyes, he said, “Sunday’s really my best day to step back from what’s going on in the market every day and plot a strategy. I read reports, from our people and outside analysts . . . . “ He was pressing the heels of both hands against his head.

I went behind him, moved his hands and started massaging his temples again. “If you know a better technique,” I said, “walk me through it.”

“What you’re doing is great. It really is. But I’ve got pressure at the base of my skull, too. . . . Try putting your thumbs here” – indicating a spot just behind the ear, where the skull connects with the muscles of the neck – “and your ring fingers above each temple. Start light and slowly add pressure and a circular motion.”

I followed his precise instructions and he began to relax.

After a few minutes he murmured, “You have a good touch, Cami.”

I figured he would let me know when he had had enough, so I just kept at it.

Eventually he raised his right hand and lightly covered mine. “Thank you.” He slowly opened his eyes.

I resumed my seat across from him. “Back in the eighteenth century, I think you would have been described as a ‘man of many parts.’ You’ve been a soldier, you’re an investment banker, every woman at that Christmas Party can confirm that you’re an excellent dancer. And now, it seems like you know massage as well. What other talents are you hiding?”

He chuckled. “That’s Dad, mostly. He believed Henry, Sam, and I should be able to fend for ourselves. So we learned to cook, although neither Sam nor I are in Henry’s league. We can do simple sewing. Laundry, of course. Perform routine maintenance on equipment. Things like that. But Dad also believed we should be conversant in arts and literature. Play an instrument. Dance. Play chess.”

“Really? I can’t imagine that went over well!”

“When we were kids, we’d rebel sometimes, as you might imagine. ‘Why should we do this? It’s stupid! It’s boring!’”

He grinned, remembering. “He’d always give us this serious look and say, ‘Because it’s civilized, boys. Without civilization, we’re just a pack of apes throwing dung at each other.’ Sam and I – even Henry, I guess – always thought that throwing dung sounded way more fun, but . . . we didn’t want to disappoint Dad.”

I felt my eyes grow unexpectedly moist. “He sounds like a wonderful man. I bet you appreciate him now!”

“Every day,” he confirmed, “I mean, we always did. We just didn’t want to do things, sometimes. But Dad is the best man I’ve ever met, or ever will meet.”

A tear splashed on the table in front of me and I started to get up. “I’m sorry . . . .” I said hurriedly.

“Cami,” he said, stopping me. “That was thoughtless of me. I’m sorry. Please don’t go. I won’t pry, but if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

I eased myself back into my chair, closed my eyes and dabbed them carefully with a paper towel. Once I had myself back in control, I opened my eyes and returned his gaze. “I honestly can’t imagine what it must have been like to have a father like that. I really can’t. But I don’t have anything to complain about. My father’s a hard man. Obsessed, in some ways. Still, he kept a roof over our heads and encouraged us to use our brains and be ambitious.”

He drank off the last of his infusion without taking his eyes off mine. “But, you still disowned him. I don’t imagine that’s something you did lightly.”

“No,” I said quietly. “It wasn’t. There was no love left in him, Rob. Not even for Iain. He offered to provide whatever Iain might need by way of physical support, but he didn’t even ask how he was doing.”

I looked away. Looked down at my hands, cradled in my lap. “Fiona remembers him as being very different when she was a little girl, but I don’t. He was always rigid. Rules and obedience and consequences. He didn’t even need to know I was trans to disown me; the fact that I dared to throw his Christianity back in his face was enough.”

“‘If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.’”

I smiled sadly. “First Corinthians Thirteen. Exactly.”

Moving somewhat slowly, he got up and took our empty mugs into the kitchenette. Then he gave my shoulder a squeeze. “I’m sorry. But it sounds like you are better off free of all that.”

I nodded. “I think so. It hurts, but we’ve both hit the point where the gulf between us is just too wide, deep, and fundamental to bridge. All we’re doing now is hurting each other.”

He decided he was in as good shape as he could be to get some work done, so he brought his laptop to the table and started working.

After I took my own shower and got dressed, this time back in practical jeans, a T-shirt, and a fleece, I put my hair back into my standard loose braid and draped it over my shoulder. I was about to go into the other room when I got an incoming FaceTime call.

“Liz!” I hadn’t seen her in two months, and our communications had been a bit sporadic.

“Hey, Cami!” Then she noticed my background. “Are you traveling?”

I nodded. “Long story though. How are you? What have you been up to?”

Liz, as always, looked vibrant. Red hair, green eyes, lean frame, and a predator’s grin. I could see that she was at her dining room table; morning sunlight was lighting her face, streaming in through the windows that led to her deck. Just seeing her brought back a flood of vivid memories.

“Well . . . work’s a bitch,” she said. “The governor ordered all ‘non-life sustaining businesses’ in the state to close their offices two nights ago. Telecom isn't really “life sustaining” – at least, most of it isn’t, and my part sure as hell isn’t. So we’re closed down. And, my project has been put on ice for now. ‘Not a good fit’ in the current environment. I was on a lot of phone calls yesterday that didn’t go anywhere.”

She shrugged. “It is what it is, I guess. On the bright side, I have been asked if I would do photography for a wedding next weekend. I guess the regular photographer bailed at the last minute.”

“I hope you said ‘No.’

She grimaced. “Tempted to, but . . . it’s Tish’s little sister. I don’t want to leave them in the lurch.”

“This is no joke, Liz.”

“I know, I know,” she replied. “But still . . . .”

“Okay, girlfriend, let me tell you about my week. Maybe it’ll change your mind.”

When I was finished, she looked stunned. “So, Iain’s waiting to get into the ICU, you’ve got it and are running a fever consistently north of 100, and you’re getting long distance medical advice from your sister?”

“That’s about it. Listen . . . I called 911 for Iain because he couldn’t breathe, Liz. I was holding him in my arms and he couldn’t get enough oxygen. He was about to die. This. Is. No. Joke. Please, please be careful.”

She looked at me sourly. “You’re a fine one to talk.” When I moved to say something, she raised her hand. “I know, Cami. You didn’t have any choice, and I do. I’ll . . . I’ll think about it.”

We talked about other things. Her relationship with Derek was getting more serious all the time. Liz confessed that they were talking about him moving in with her. “I know . . . weird, right? For me? But . . . also, not weird. I’m nervous about it. Real nervous. But I’m also excited.”

“I wish,” I said, “that I could give you the world’s biggest hug. Congratulations! I’m so happy for you!”

My call with Liz definitely cheered me up. There was something about her . . . something clean and sharp and bracing. I definitely felt better.

But Rob was starting to flag again. “My eyes just ache reading this stuff,” he said disgustedly, followed by a nasty bout of coughing. “Dammit. I really need to get through it!”

“Rob, if you tell me what I need to look for, I’ll go through the reports and summarize them for you. I don’t have anything to work on at the moment, and I’m reasonably sharp right now. You can grab some rest, and hopefully I’ll be done when you’re ready to think about it some more.”

He closed his eyes and thought about that. “I hate to take you up on that, but . . . it would really be a help. I’m just having trouble with my eyes; when I read, it’s triggering the headache again.” He coughed, sounding weak.

“Okay. The things that I’m really interested in . . . .” He launched into a surprisingly brief list, which included things that I would have expected, like inventory, margin trends, and R&D spend, as well as a half dozen things that would not have occurred to me.

I took his temp - 101.4 – got him some medicine, wrapped an ice bag in a dishtowel for his head, and sent him off to his room.

My own temperature was 100.5; not all that different from what it had been. Muscle ache, general fatigue. Loss of taste and smell. In other words, holding steady. I would take it. I plunged into the reports, taking notes as I went.

Two hours later, I was starting to droop as well, and I had developed a bit of a tickle in the back of my throat. I was just finishing up my notes when Rob came out of the bedroom, looking better but still squinting his eyes against the light. His temperature was back down to 100.8 but his cough was no better.

I got him a fresh infusion, changed his ice pack and had him sit in the comfortable chair for a few minutes.

He had the ice pack on his head and his eyes closed, but he was awake and alert. “Any chance you can give me your summary orally? The less I have to read, the better.”

So I did. It took only about fifteen minutes. He had a few follow up questions about different reports and I was able to answer them from memory.

When I was finished, he said, “That . . . was great. Perfect. Give me a minute.”

He sat still; so still I wasn’t even sure he was breathing. Then he said, “Could you possibly write some things down? Between what I learned in my meetings and your summary, I’ve mapped out the moves I want to recommend on five core portfolios. It’s clear in my head right now, but I just don’t have it in me to move.”

“Of course. Whenever you’re ready.” I sat at my keyboard and waited.

He thought for a minute more, then he started going through a list. For five different portfolios, he had recommendations for buying and selling that were dependent on how the market might move over the course of the next week or two. Long positions, short positions. Hedge buys. Options contracts.

The sentences were brief, like “Pfizer: 10,000 shares if it goes to 27.50.” Or “Long call on Tommosso Pharma, six months with a strike price of 15.” When he was done, he slumped a bit in the chair and coughed. “I think that’s got it.”

I asked if he would like me to read it back to him.

“Please.” He made one correction. He started coughing again, so he drank the rest of the infusion, though I’m sure it had gone cold. He asked me to email him my notes, which I did. He started to get up.

“Wait.” I shut off the lights and drew the shades. “Okay, that should hurt your eyes a bit less.”

He opened them in a gingerly way, then nodded gratefully. “Thanks. That should have occurred to me.” He made his way to his laptop, logged in, and then sent my notes on to his supervisor. “I feel like I’ve just spent an hour in the weight room.”

I closed my laptop. “Me too. I think I need to crash for a bit.”

“Good idea,” he said. “I know I just got up half an hour ago, but I may do the same. Are we all up to date on meds?”

“Yeah. All set.”

We slept most of the afternoon away. I tried calling the hospital. Still no change, and still no detailed information. Otherwise I rested, took medicine, drank fluids, and felt like a banana slug. But I was still moving, and that would do.

I got a call from Sarah, checking up on me since I’d missed the last meeting. When I’d filled her in on the latest happenings of my life and times, I recommended that the group should maybe suspend meetings for a bit.

“Well, shit,” she said. “Don’t worry about us — we’ll think of something. You taking care of yourself?”

“I’ve got the best and most dedicated virtual doctor on the planet. I’ll be fine,” I assured her, hoping it was true. But I probably ruined the effect by asking, “Sarah . . . Do you think God grants our prayers?”

She sighed. “Scholars write whole books on this subject. You know that, right?” Without waiting for my answer, she said, “I’m guessing you’re not looking for a treatise. And anyway, the best answer I ever heard was on an old TV program.”

“And?”

“Yes, God answers prayers. But Cami . . . sometimes He says ‘no.’”

We talked for a bit longer, but her warning rang in my ears, like the sound of a deep and mournful bell.

By the evening, Rob and I were both doing a bit better. We got up to have something to eat for dinner, more because we knew we should than because either of us was hungry. Afterward, we sat in the comfy chair and the couch, respectively, having some Gatorade.

“It’s a shame we don’t have a chess set with us,” I said. “If I’d known you played, I might have asked Nicole’s folks to bring one.”

A slow smile spread across his face. “Oh, don’t tell me you need pieces!”

I thought, Oh, my God! I used to be good – really good, back in college – and I prided myself on my ability to play blind. But that had been a while ago. And, I had just gotten quite the exhibition of Rob’s powers of concentration. Still, a challenge is a challenge.

“White or black?’ I asked with an answering smile.

“Oh, ladies first,” he replied gallantly.

“Pawn to king four,” I said, beginning the Ruy Lopez opening. He countered with the same move, then pivoted into the Berlin defense. Soon we were deep into the game. I was rusty.

But I was still good.

After five or six moves he just closed his eyes, seeing the board better without distractions, a small smile on his handsome face. I kept my eyes open, observing him as we played. Even with his eyes closed, his face displayed a lively intelligence and an active delight in exercising a skill that had clearly gone dormant.

We had been playing for over an hour when I said, “Knight to queen’s bishop six. Mate in three.”

He was quiet for a moment, internally looking this way and that. Then he laughed and opened his eyes. “Concedo. Well done! I haven’t had a game that good in a long time.”

“College, for me. None of my friends in law school were into it. Damn, I’ve missed it. Your dad was right. It’s civilized.”

“It is that,” he said.

We took out final temp readings and medicine and headed for bed.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stelle!”
– Puccini, Turandot, Nessun Dorma (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 25

7:00 p.m., and I was dragging. The past three days had been a series of short periods of activity followed by shorter or longer periods of resting. When working, Rob was on his computer or on calls; I was using the Westlaw database to do research.

Russ Gardner had a team preparing a fifty-state survey of caselaw interpreting the impact of epidemics and government shut-down orders on business interruption insurance. The more states I could do, the fewer his team would need to cover, but they did have people to do it, if I wasn’t able. So far I had finished with Kentucky, Oregon, Ohio, and Wyoming. Light lifting, really.

But light lifting was all I could manage. I got tired after two hours of research, my throat felt strange and I had a mild, dry cough. Body ache was unchanged, but it was getting old. And my sleep was once again troubled and restless, filled with chaos and dark imagery. If I was in a marathon, it was a long way from over, and I wasn’t sure I had the stamina to keep going.

However bad I was doing though, Rob was worse. He managed to work for two hours in the morning and a bit more in the afternoon on Monday, but only managed an hour and a half in the morning and a half an hour in the afternoon on Tuesday. He’d beaten me in chess Monday evening, but we’d just talked quietly before going to sleep on Tuesday. He was too tired for mental gymnastics.

He had been markedly worse this morning and spent most of the day in bed, though he had taken a few calls and sat in on a conference call. No amount of ice, massage, or drugs could beat back his headache; his cough was worse, and his temp was now firmly over 102 degrees.

I had a brief call from Fi around 1:00, telling me that Iain was in the ICU, and that she had been able to speak with him briefly before he went in. “He was pretty out of it,” she cautioned, “but he knew who I was, and . . . well. He took comfort from hearing my voice.”

I thought, I’m sure he did. He’s convinced that Fi will save him. The hospital was not having much luck improving his condition, and they were worried. But at least she had been able to talk to a treating physician, so we had some real information.

Henry’s man had been by again today. Laundry and towels out, fresh towels in, and we had fresh bedding whenever we were ready for it. We also had a fresh supply of medicine, food, and Gatorade. But I’d taken care of collecting the laundry and getting the fresh things where they belonged because Rob had been sleeping.

Rob went straight to bed after dinner and was asleep again within minutes. I went into his room and observed him carefully. His brow was clammy and his sleep did not look very restful. His skin was blotchy, color uneven.

I really didn’t like how he looked or sounded, so I decided to plug the monitor back in. Back in my room, I got myself ready for bed. Brushed my teeth, removed my makeup, moisturized. That was all I had energy for. My green nightie tonight; the flannel was off getting washed. But even that failed to lift my spirits. I was tired, achy, and deeply worried.

However tired I was, I couldn’t get to sleep. A sense of deep foreboding had been growing all day, and as the sun went down it increased dramatically. I felt isolated, alone and terrified. I was still awake at 10:30, so I got up, slipped into my green robe, and got Advil for us both.

Rob barely woke, and looked no better. His temp was 102.2.

I went back to bed and tried again.

~o~O~o~
Mount Vernon, New York, March 26

At some point I must have dozed off, but this was every bit the mistake I had known it would be. My nightmare returned in full force. Again, I was tossed up, down, and sideways by wild winds, like a damned soul in the midst of a hurricane. The seas raged black beneath me; lighting split the sky, and the wind and thunder were a mad symphony of fury, the soundtrack to the apocalypse.

But I knew worse was coming, and that was what I had dreaded so much it had kept me from sleep.

As always, I became aware of the sound first. The slow, powerful beat. Then, once again, I saw the creature rising from the depths, immense, titanic, lifted up by carrion wings that were vast and dark. The pulsing beat of the creature’s wings became louder, louder, blotting out even the sounds of the storm, the barreling roar and crack of the thunder, pounding at my mind, shredding my consciousness. My will to resist.

I opened my mouth and screamed, terrified but still defiant. “NOT THIS TIME, YOU BASTARD!!!!”

I tore myself from the clutches of the dream and practically fell out of bed. Stumbling forward, getting my feet under me, pushing for the door . . . . I was across the common room and inside Rob’s room in an instant. Only once I was inside did I realize that there had been no repeat of the prior incident. Rob was not struggling for breath. But he was bathed in sweat and shivering.

I stopped long enough to catch my breath and get my heart to stop hammering and the wells of my chest. Then I got water, Tylenol, and the thermometer from the common room, went back and perched on the side of his bed. “Rob. Rob! You need to take some medicine.” I shook him gently.

His eyes popped open and he looked momentarily wild. “NO! GET BACK!” But then he slumped, boneless but aware. “Sorry Cami. Seriously bad dream there.”

“Roger that,” I sighed. “Hate to do it, but we need to prop you up so you can get some Tylenol, okay?”

He shivered, tried to pull himself up, and failed. I cradled his head and shoulder in one arm, and brought both up high enough to manage. With my other hand, I put two tablets on his tongue, then brought the water to his parched lips. He drank deeply, then I laid him back gently onto the pillows.

I took his temp I saw that he had hit 103.2.

“I’m so cold,” he said. “So cold!!!” He was shivering badly.

I set the remainder of the water by the table, pivoted and brought my legs up onto the bed. I propped myself up against the pillows and the headboard, then pulled Rob over, cradling him to my chest. Covering us both under the two blankets, I wrapped Rob in a fierce embrace.

I growled to my inner demon, Not this time, you bastard. Not on my watch!

I fought off sleep. I told myself that I needed to carefully monitor his temperature. Fiona said I needed to bring him in if we couldn’t get it down once it spiked 103. She hadn’t said how long to try. So I held him, and I kept sleep at bay, and I prayed.

At 1:30 his temp was 103 on the button.

I held on, fighting sleep. He was still at 103, but it was moving in the right direction. I sang songs in my head to try to stay awake. Happy songs and stupid songs and anything with complicated lyrics that required concentration.

At 2:00 am, he was still at 103. His temperature hadn’t moved, but at least it wasn’t going up. I would wait longer.

Not tonight. Not on my watch. I tried recalling each of the moves of Monday night’s chess game, to try to figure out where I had gone wrong. There is usually a critical move – one which, in retrospect, is the hinge point for everything that happens afterwards. Usually in mid-game. I thought about it, focused, pushing against the tidal pull of sleep.

2:30. Finally, 102.8. He was no longer shivering, and I eased my death grip. As long as his temperature was not rising, I would wait to give him Advil until the three hour mark. He was below 103!

But now I had to confess to myself that I wasn’t staying just to make sure we could get his temp below the critical mark. I was staying because I knew, deep down, beyond any logic, that the dark angel would come for him if I left, if I slept. Would come for him as it had come for Iain.

And he would be in the hospital, and I would get no word, and bureaucrats in starched white uniforms whom I would never meet would tell me over the telephone that, so sorry, we can’t give you any information. HIPAA, you know.

Not on my watch!

3:00 came. He was holding at 102.8. No change.

I had figured out the chess problem. Now I was trying to think up limericks. “There was a young lawyer from . . . .” Well, where was I from, now? I couldn’t really think of St. Louis as home; it was just my point of origin. And even that was, in a sense, debatable. Cameron Ross Savin was born there, certainly. I had the birth certificate.
But Cami/Camryn – the terrified girl who had no last name – she wasn’t born in St. Louis. There was a young lawyer from . . . Pittsburgh? Well; arguably. And, it scanned. But what the hell rhymed with Pittsburgh? Shitsburgh, I suppose, but that seems a bit unfair . . . and anyway, I would need two rhymes for the limerick to work. . . .

3:30. Still no change in his temperature. I gave up on limericks. I dredged up prayers I had learned by rote when I was very young. Ran through them all. Tried making changes to adapt them to the present circumstances. “But Cami,” I heard Sarah say, “sometimes He says ‘no.’”

Not on my watch!!!

I had an argument in my head with my father about the theology of my modified prayers. Now, that was fun. But it also made me mad, and mad was good, because it kept me awake. Sleep was the enemy. Sleep was the demon’s ally.

4:00. 102.4. Hallelujah! I rolled Rob back into the crook where my left arm met my shoulder, propped him up a tiny bit, and slipped him two Advil. I grabbed the water and again brought it to his lips.

“Take just a little, Rob. Come on. You’re going to make it!” I murmured.

He managed a couple sips, then lapsed back into sleep.

I decided I would wait until 5:00 to get another reading, so I had to get through another hour. I started writing a convention speech in my head. Something that might bring peace to a fractured nation. Something that might give comfort to a frightened girl, fighting sleep and hoping that the Angel of Death might pass over.

5:00, and his temperature was down to 101.8. I positively sagged with relief. Almost there, I thought. Don’t give up now! I was out of mental tricks. I was just pinching myself, biting down on my tongue, my cheeks. Blinking furiously. Moving my jaw; easing my cramping legs. Sleep called, tempted, cajoled. And I fought back, with every ounce of my dwindling strength.
Not tonight, you bastard. Not tonight!

By 6:00 in the morning, miraculously, he was down to 100.7; neither of us had been under 101 since Sunday. I found myself weeping uncontrollably.

He had made it.

Through my tears, I saw him looking at me.

He was alive, and awake, and his keen intelligence was back in his eyes, re-animating his face.

I was overwhelmed with relief. With joy. I bent my head and whispered, “Oh, thank God. Thank God! You made it!” I leaned over and gently, almost reverently, planted a soft kiss on his parched lips.

I straightened. His gaze held my eyes. Touched my heart.

“Oh!” he said. “Do that again!”

To be continued . . . .

~o~O~o~

BOOK ONE
In the Valley of the Shadow
Spring, 2020

~o~O~o~

CHAPTER EIGHT
“In den Sternen, da steht es geschrieben”
– Lehár, Giuditta, Meine Lippen (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 26

What color were Rob’s eyes? I was looking down at them through a prism of tears, and they appeared to be the most welcome, and the most welcoming, sight in all the world. Dark gray, perhaps? But there were shades of blue, flecks of green, a small spray of gold near the pupils . . . they were, I decided judiciously, quite possibly the most fascinating eyes I had ever seen up close. Worth a great deal of inspection. And I could think of few things, right then, that I would rather do.

But there were two things that had an even higher priority. One, I desperately, desperately needed to sleep. I had forced myself to keep vigil, to keep alert throughout the long night that just ended, waiting and hoping and praying for his COVID-induced fever to break. It finally had. He had come through. But my own fevered body craved sleep like an addict craves a hit.

On the other hand, my most urgent priority was blessedly simple. I had kissed Rob, and he asked me to do it again, and right now there was nothing – absolutely nothing – I wanted to do more.

He was pinning my left arm, but my right was free. So I cupped my hand along the curve of his left cheek, bent down and touched my lips to his. Softly, at first, but I seemed to sink, to melt, into the kiss. I felt the palm of his hand – his left hand, my mind irrelevantly insisted on informing me, since I was pinning his right arm – slide behind my neck. Holding me close, drawing me deeper and deeper into that truly remarkable kiss.
Eventually, my overstimulated, sleep-deprived brain managed to generate a thought that was both germane to the situation and actually important: Rob was still stuffed up, and he was going to need to breathe. Eventually. Probably even soon.

So with great reluctance I pulled my lips back, retreated. Maybe two inches. I had an even closer view of one of those remarkable eyes. Both, really, but it would make me cross-eyed to try it.

“I think I could get used to that,” I said.

“I think we should find out,” he murmured in reply.

I bent to his lips again, slipping my free hand into the thicket of his coal black hair, while his own free hand slid lower, caressing my bare shoulder. This time I felt my whole upper body mold itself to his.

We broke our kiss again, and this time I rolled back to my side and he rolled forward to face me, separated by no more than a foot, our free hands resting on each other’s shoulders. Those remarkable eyes again . . . .

“Rob, I was so scared for you last night. It took a long time . . . a long time . . . to get your fever back down under 103. I probably should have brought you in, but I couldn’t. I just had such a bad feeling. Like I wouldn’t see you again if I did. You were burning up, but you were shivering . . . .”

I must have sounded a bit hysterical. “Shhhhh, Cami. Shhhhh. Hush now.” His left hand slowly circled my right shoulder. “Hush. I’m back now. You brought me back. It’s okay.” His lips – very kissable lips, it turns out – cracked into a smile. “I suppose it was too much to hope that a beautiful, scantily clad woman slipped into my bed to seduce me.” His fingers played with the delicate shoulder strap of my light green nightie.

I found myself blushing. “I really hadn’t thought about it. But now that you bring it up . . . .”

He chuckled. It was throaty and full of amusement. Of merriment.

God! I had made it through that awful night, and to hear such a sweet sound in the morning!

“Cami, dearest, you look like you are trying to force a truck to go uphill with nothing left in your tank. Just close your eyes. We’ll have plenty of time, you and me.”

I said, “Fiona” but he cut me off, saying, “Calls at 6:30. I know. I’ll tell her you're sleeping and give her a full report. Okay?”

I smiled. “A full report?”

He pretended to examine the spaghetti strap of my nightie carefully, rubbing it thoughtfully between thumb and forefinger. “Oh, I might leave a few unimportant details out. . . . However, if I leave medical details out, your dragon will incinerate me, and then where will we be?”

I brought my foggy brain to momentary focus. “Ah. Right. Okay. I didn’t make log entries last night, but the information is kind of lodged in my brain, you know? Your temp was at 103.2 at 1:00 am, 103 at 1:30 and 2:00; 102.8 at 2:30, 3:00 and 3:30, 102.4 at 4:00, 101.8 at 5:00 and 100.7 just now. You had Tylenol at 1:00 and Advil at 4:00. Got all that?”

He looked startled, then tapped his head and nodded. “I do. But, while that’s very useful, I doubt your dragon will be impressed. What are your own stats?”

“Oh! Sorry. I was busy. But . . . I had . . . Tylenol? When you did . . . . I think.”

He shook his head. “I am so doomed. She’s going to kill me.” He raised himself, reached across me and grabbed the thermometer. We were both getting adept at changing the disposable cap. He checked me and said, “101.6. Still not good. So, you’re going to take your Tylenol, Right Now, and then you are getting some sleep. Okay?”

Putting down the thermometer, he grabbed the pills and placed two gently on my tongue. He propped me up and had me finish the glass of water that was on the nightstand, then eased me back into the pillows. Last, and by far best, he bent down, kissed my forehead, and said, “Sleep.”

I smiled one more time before sleep reached up and pulled me under.

~o~O~o~
Mount Vernon, New York, later that morning

I woke up, feeling disoriented. I was back in the room I had stayed in while I was caring for Iain, and I had a moment’s sleepy thought that the last several days had only been a dream. My dreams were so vivid, sometimes. But this morning’s triumph – that had been no dream. Nor what had followed. I found myself smiling at the memory.

Once I’d maneuvered myself into a sitting position I took stock. My phone was by the bedside; presumably Rob had talked to Fi. She would be worried, I know, not having heard from me. I should send her a text and let her know I’m okay.

Rob had thoughtfully brought my dark green dressing gown and slippers from the other bedroom and laid them on the chair. I took the hint and got up, tugged my way into my robe and slippers and picked up my phone. 10:26 am. My goodness! I couldn’t remember the last time I slept so late.

My throat felt raw and there was no diminution in my body’s deep aches. I could tell that I was still running a fever, which I confirmed it with the thermometer: 101.7. Bah! I still felt gritty and sleep deprived, but I needed to use the facilities, and I needed a shower . . . and fresh clothes . . . and something to eat.

I poked my head out the door, feeling a little nervous. Would Rob regret this morning’s incident? God knows, I don’t! But if he did . . . Oh, I didn’t want to think about that. Not at all. But Rob wasn’t in the common area.

He had, as usual, thoughtfully left the door to the other bedroom slightly ajar so I could assure myself that he was still here, and all right. He had taped a note to it: “Hi Cami - Fiona told me to let you sleep a full six hours if possible, then wake you up for more drugs. If you get this first, I’m just taking a short nap. Wake me up if you need anything.”

I smiled, confirmed that he appeared to be sleeping peacefully, then carefully closed the door so as not to disturb him. I would be due for more medicine in around half an hour; he should be on the same schedule.

I went and took care of business, then went to get something for my throat. Some liquid; it didn’t much matter which since they all tasted the same. My phone buzzed on the counter of the kitchenette.

“Hello? I answered.

“Is this Cameron Savin?” a very official voice inquired.

My heart skipped a beat. “This is she.”

“Cameron, this is Ida Spear from Mount Vernon Hospital. I’m very sorry. Your brother Iain passed this morning.”

She was still speaking. Saying something. I tried to concentrate on it, but her voice sounded far away. Redshifting, like the sound of a siren as an ambulance races away, speeding towards a hospital . . . fading. My peripheral vision was narrowing, black at the edges, turning into a long, dark tunnel. I felt a powerful, bone-jarring pain against my knees, like someone had hit them with a crowbar, and the floor began to rise up, up; I threw out an arm just before it hit my face. I couldn’t hear the voice anymore . . . . I could hear nothing but the pulsing beat of dark wings. What was she saying? Everything was black.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER NINE
“Nell’ora del dolore”
– Puccini, Tosca, Vissi d’Arte, Vissi d’Amore (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 26, immediately following

I saw light. Not much, at first, but it was real. And I was back, yet again. Storm-tossed, my body falling and rising, buffeted by winds created by those monstrous, ink-black wings. I spun this way and that, my will gone. Tossed forward, I saw the creature’s face for the first time. Shockingly beautiful, a perfection of line and form, instantly conveying knowledge, wisdom, power . . . . A noble face. The face of a leader, a ruler.

Or a judge.

I had failed. Failed Iain. Failed Fiona. Failed, failed, failed. The creature raised a hand and the buffeting winds ceased. Without the wild winds’ support, I plunged, headfirst, then feet-first, twisting and cartwheeling faster and faster, until I finally hit the water and slipped below the surface of an inky sea that instantly enveloped me in dark and cold. So very cold!

I could not stop my descent through the icy water, going deeper and deeper. My dream vision began to fray at the edges, failing just as my earthly vision had failed.

Light returned again. But now I was in a snow-bound clearing, surrounded by deep, dark, majestic pines. Figures began to emerge from the silent trees. Walking towards a hole in the ground . . . a hole that held a box.

Oh, Iain!

But the figure in the box was not my brother. It was me. My image seemed peaceful. Eyes closed, hair meticulously arranged, as if Al had done it. The makeup showed Javier’s finesse. But I was pale and thin, and my curves would never be real.

I looked at the people who had come to stand by the hole. Robert, in a black suit and long coat. Rob! I so wanted you to teach me how to dance! And my wonderful, beautiful Nicole, her angel’s face streaked with tears, holding onto Maggie with a desperate grip. I won’t be there to help make our podcast. Another promise broken. Sarah was there, and Al and Javi, grief ridden, silent. Liz – vibrant, sharp Liz – stood out in red, her face carved in bitter lines.

And closest to the hole, to the box, Henry stood, despair eroding his handsome features, his arms wrapped protectively around a figure in black, suddenly fragile, fey and frail, the shattered remains of a once-heroic spirit.

Fiona! I failed you!! I could not even bear to look at her grief-ravaged face.

But there was one figure who displayed no sorrow. Instead, her face was consumed by seething contempt and scathing, magma-hot fury. She brushed past the mourners like they weren’t there, ignoring the hole, the box, and the pale figure inside it. Her hot gaze looked straight at me, wherever it was that I stood as I observed the scene. Looked me right in the eyes.

Tina.

“Coward! Quitter! Loser!” She spat the wods at me, unleashing her fury. “You turned your back on these people!!!”

“Dammit, Tina,” I said, finding my voice. “Iain’s dead. I failed, don’t you understand that?” I answered her rage with a cry of despair: “FAILED!”

She looked singularly unimpressed. “Oh, that’s never happened before? Well surprise, Boo. Shit happens. So where’s your steel now? Fine for your sister. Fine for Nicole. Fine for Tina. Sure. They can suck it up and take more, can’t they? But not you, huh? Not the princess?”

She leaned forward, spat, and spoke with a precise, clipped voice. “Get. The Fuck. Up!”

I was shaking. “Let me go! You don’t know what you’re asking! You have no right!!!!”

Her eyes blazed white hot. “I have no right? Me? Please.” Summoning years of bitterness – distilled, bottled, and consumed to the dregs – she added, “Life’s not fair, bitch. Deal.”

I wanted to punch her, pound her. Wring her scrawny neck. But she was gone. They were all gone, and the clearing was gone. I was once again foundering in the depths, surrounded by the frigid, deadly water.

Spurred by Tina’s contempt, I forced myself to fight – clawing, struggling, kicking with my legs, pumping with my numbed arms, trying to stop my fatal descent. Trying to reverse it. I could see light above me and I pushed for it. Pushed, and pushed and pushed, lungs bursting, throat burning. Vision contracting. Growing weaker now. Pushing.

My head crashed through the surface into a world made new, then suddenly my eyes were open, and my lungs were drawing in air in great, gasping heaves.

Rob was holding me in one arm while he desperately tried to dial something on my phone.

I reached up, still gasping, and weakly grabbed his wrist. “No, Rob!” I got out between the straining of my abused lungs. “No.”

“Yes! You were turning blue! You need an ambulance NOW!”

“No,” I said again, still heaving. “It’s not COVID.” Panting, I tried again. “Shock.” Pant, pant. “Shock. Give me . . . .” pant, pant . . . “give me a minute.”

He dropped the phone and used both arms to bring me into a sitting position, holding me firmly but loosely. His voice was suddenly calm and professional. “Lean forward. Lower your head. Take slow breaths. I’ve got you. Breathe. Easy.”

I followed his directions, let his voice guide me. The pounding of my heart began to subside and my labored breathing grew longer, deeper. Eventually, I reached up and squeezed his arms. “Okay.”

He helped me to my feet, my knees for some reason screaming agony, and got me to the couch and eased me down. Then he went to the kitchenette and got me a glass of cold water. He held it while I drank down a few mouthfuls, then set it down and squatted in front of me, looking at me carefully with his remarkable eyes. “Talk to me.”

I said, simply, “Iain.”

His eyes closed briefly, in pain or prayer or maybe both. Then he got up, sat beside me and gathered me into his arms.

I wept, and I wept some more, until I had no tears left. For Iain, and for Fiona. For our mother. Even for our father, who refused to see his son, and now never would. And for all the families in all the countries in all the world, for all the people who were losing their fathers and mothers, their brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, lovers . . . . I did not have enough tears for them all.

The world did not have enough tears.

Through my anguish, I heard a voice, soft and comforting. A chaplain’s cadence, unhurried, calm and formal. “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth. After my awaking, he will raise me up; and in my body I shall see God. I myself shall see, and my eyes behold him who is my friend and not a stranger. . . .” Rob’s voice.

I let the words wash over me. “I don’t know if I can bear it all. And I have to tell Mom. And . . . and Fi.” My voice cracked and I clutched him tight. “Please, Rob. Please. Help me!”

He held me close and stroked my hair, my back, saying nothing. Simply being by my side, sharing the grief that was tearing me apart.

My phone buzzed again. I slumped.

Rob bent, picked it up and looked at the caller ID. “It’s Fiona, Cami. They must have called her, too.”

I nodded, took the phone in numb hands, and accepted the call. “I’m so sorry, Fi.” I had no more tears, but my throat remained constricted, choking my voice.

“I talked to the doctor,” she said. “They did everything they could. Everything I could have done. But . . . but I wasn’t there for him. He trusted me, and I wasn’t even there. He was all alone!”

“I know. Not me, not you, not Mom or Dad or even a friend. No one.”

“I don’t know if I can keep doing this. Sitting here, doing nothing! I can’t bear the thought that I could lose you, too. I can’t.” Her voice shook. Fiona, at least, still had tears to shed.

In my mind’s eye, I saw again that small, shattered figure by my bier in the frozen woods. That would not happen. That would NEVER happen.

Slowly, deliberately, and forcefully, I said, “Fiona, I swear to you. I will get better, and I will get out of this damned motel, and I will, by God, dance at your wedding, and no angel or demon in heaven or on earth will prevent me. Swear to God!”

The line was silent for a moment, then Fiona said, softly, “I believe you, Cami. I don’t know why, right now, but I do.”

We were quiet a moment. Quiet, but still very much present.

There were some practical things that we needed to discuss, but, pulling myself further and further back from the brink, I told her that I would take care of whatever needed to be done on the administrative side. “I couldn’t save him. Maybe no one could. But I can at least take this off your hands while I’m sitting around here waiting to get better. Please, Fi. Go save some other people from what you and I are feeling right now.”

She took a deep, deep breath and exhaled explosively. “Okay, Cami. Okay. I don’t know how long I can keep it up. I don’t. But I’m on it.”

Rob had kept his arm around me throughout. As I signed off with Fiona, he gave my shoulders a squeeze. “You need some medicine. And some food. And probably, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, a hot shower. Let me give you a hand.”

I nodded. He got us both some Tylenol and took our temperatures. 100.1 for him; 101.8 for me. I said, “Thanks, Rob. I’ve . . . I’ve got to tell Mom. First.”

He nodded and sank down beside me. I called her number.

“Cameron?” she answered.

“Mom, I’m sorry. Iain didn’t make it. We lost him.” Dead silence, as still as a grave in a dark, deep wood . . . .

“Damn it!” Her voice was clear and cold, bitter and biting. “God damn it to the hottest hell!”

The line went dead.

“I don’t think I can remember hearing her swear.” I tried calling her back, but she didn’t answer. I put down the phone. Closed my eyes, exhausted. Like I hadn’t had any sleep at all.

~o~O~o~
I ate. Something. Showered, and took a moment to hand-wash my nightie and hang it in the shower to dry. Mechanically, I dried my hair, reapplied my prosthetics. Put on a bit of makeup, hiding the haunted look around my eyes. Jeans, t-shirt, fleece. Basta.

I stuffed my feet into my slippers and went back into the common room. Rob got up from behind the table where he had been doing something on his computer and folded me into his arms, holding my head to his firm, warm shoulder. We stood there a long while, silent.

Not moving my head from its resting place, I said, “I’m going to have to call the hospital now. Make the arrangements.”

He didn’t move. “What are you thinking?”

“We’ll have to do cremation. If we sent his remains to a funeral home, no one could be there. I’m contagious, you’re contagious, and no one else is available. It’s the only way.”

“Maybe it’s the best way,” Rob said into my hair. “It’s what I would want. Clean. Like . . .” Uncharacteristically, he stopped; didn’t finish the thought.

“Like what?” I asked his shoulder.

“I just remembered a verse. From Malachi. ‘But who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire . . . . He will purify them and refine them like gold and silver.’ I imagine cremation is like that. A refiner’s fire. I’d want that.”

I thought about that for a bit. “For me as well. For Iain, though . . . Iain might prefer a Viking’s Funeral. Something dramatic.”

“I expect longships are hard to come by these days. . . . But it’s fire just the same, right?”

“Fire,” I confirmed.

Finally I sighed and pulled back to look at him. “Thank-you, Rob,” I said. “For everything. If I was alone here . . . well. Thank you.”

He traced my cheek with the fingers of his right hand. “Go make your calls. I’m here if you need me.”

I sat on the couch and made calls. The hospital wanted me to come in and confirm the identity of the body. I explained that I was in isolation. No, no one else was available. I suggested we do it by video call. They sputtered. Not permitted. Did they want me to come in? No, no! Not permitted.

I gave them some time to square the circle. In good bureaucratic fashion, it took them almost half an hour to come up with the idea that I could do the identification remotely. By video call.

I assured them that they were wise, very wise, to suggest it. We arranged a time. However, they could not release the body to me until the death certificate was issued. Things were very busy. Apparently. It might be a few days.

I called the Medical Examiner’s Office about the death certificate. They said they would get back to me.

Next, I called the Cremation Society. Yes, they could do it. But, I was supposed to be onsite, to positively confirm the identity of the body before the procedure. I explained the problem of being in isolation. They said they would need to get back to me.

Time for some Tylenol. My temperature was down to 101.1, but I had a nasty headache, on top of everything else. This time, the headache was not caused by COVID. At least not directly.

Rob passed on the medicine. His temp was down to a remarkable 99.7. His headache was gone and his throat felt much better, but he still had a cough, some body aches, and general fatigue.

I called Iain’s roommate. Mahmoud was very distressed, and lapsed into Farsi. Iain’s friend Mike was more stoic, but equally shaken. I had the impression that maybe Iain had been a different person, a less angry person, when family wasn't around. I hoped so.

It was 1:30 and I was out of gas. I struggled to get up; my knees were really bothering me. Rob was suddenly at my side, helping me up, guiding me into the bedroom. I pulled my feet from the slippers and sank down on top of the bed.

Rob said, “I’m going to leave this door open completely, and I’m going to be in sight. I am right here. No dreams this time, Cami.” He touched my face lightly.

I looked up at him, so solid. So warm. I touched the fingers that had brushed my face. “Rob. Someday – when all of this is over . . . will you teach me how to dance?”

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TEN
“Ogni luce in lui m'è spenta”
– Donizetti, Lucrezia Borgia, Era desso il figlio mio (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 26, afternoon

Rob woke me up at 3:00 to give me some Advil. I was holding steady at 101 degrees; Rob had crept back up to 100. I sat up. “No backsliding!” I said sternly. “Get some medicine, right now. And some rest. You’ve been up for five hours.”

I could tell he wanted to protest, but he didn’t. “Okay, Cami. Give me an hour, but no more than that, okay?”

“One hour,” I said. “Don’t bother getting up; stay where you are.” I bent down, slipped his feet from the loafers he was wearing, then stood up. He was sitting on the bed, looking slightly bemused. I leaned in, kissed him lightly, and murmured, “One hour.”

He slept, and I kept an eye on him through the open bedroom door.

I checked my phone – no voicemails – and cleaned the daily junk from my emails. Russ Gardner liked my insurance analysis. His email included some follow-up questions and I sent a response. I sent a second email to Eileen, letting her know that Iain hadn’t made it, but that I was still in isolation and symptomatic.

I received an immediate response: “I am so very sorry for your loss. My prayers are with you and your family. Be safe.”

When I woke Rob at 4:30, his temp was back down to 99.6 (I was still holding steady). He took care of his business and emerged a few minutes later.

My video call to identify Iain’s body was at 5:00. I made some tea for both of us and we talked quietly. Waiting.

At 5:00 exactly, I received a FaceTime call on my iPad from an unknown caller. I set the pad on the table and swiped left. Rob came around behind me and rested his hands on my shoulders.

The man on the other end of the line was older, silver gray hair and a lined face. “Good afternoon. I’m Doctor Sykes. Let me first say how very, very sorry we are for your loss. And, I’m so sorry we have to do this over the phone. It feels so impersonal.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” I responded. “I want you to know – I want all of you to know – how much we appreciate everything you’re doing. And everything you did for Iain.”

He bobbed his head in acknowledgement. “I have to ask a few questions for the record, to establish who you are and your relationship with the deceased. I apologize for the formality.”

I nodded.

“Could you please state your full name?”

“My given name is Cameron Ross Savin.” His eyebrow rose a fraction at my phraseology, but he didn’t comment on it.

“What is your date of birth?”

“September 7, 1993.”

“What was your brother’s name?”

“Iain Frances Savin.”

“And when was he born?”

“July 2, 1988.” I had a sudden recollection of Iain at a beach house. The Jersey shore. Making a production out of blowing out candles on a cake. I must have been four. Where had that memory come from?

“When did you last see your brother?”

That memory was permanently seared into my brain. Iain, desperately trying to breathe, calling for Fiona. I struggled to keep my voice steady. “Last Friday morning. March 19, around 2:10 a.m.”

Rob’s fingers pressed on my shoulders.

“Okay, Cameron,” the doctor said. “We’re going to take the camera into the other room. I will show you the body and ask you to confirm that it is the body of your brother Iain Frances Savin. If you are not completely sure, or if the video image isn’t clear enough, please say so. It’s very important that we be certain.”

I nodded again, not trusting my voice.

The doctor got up and walked to a door; someone offscreen followed, holding the camera.

On the other side of the door, a body was laid out on a table, dressed only in a thin hospital gown. Cold. Lifeless. So pale the features might have been carved from wax. In death, he appeared calm, even peaceful. So unlike the passions that had animated his face in life. But there was no doubt.

None.

“I confirm that this is the body of Iain Frances Savin, born to Howard and Aileen Savin of St. Louis, Missouri on July 2, 1988. My brother.” My voice held steady, though tears were beginning to blur my vision again.

The camera moved to focus again on Dr. Sykes. “Thank you for your assistance, Ms. Savin. Cameron. And again, I am so sorry for your loss.” We ended the call.

Rob bent down and wrapped his arms around me. Then he guided me to the sitting area, put my mug of tea in both hands, and sat across from me. “Still can’t taste it, can you?”

I shook my head.

He took a sip of his own mug, then set it down. “Tell me about your brother.”

So we talked about Iain. The childhood prankster. The angsty adolescent. The passionate, often angry, man. The guy with the permanent chip on his shoulder. The mobile face, the powerful voice. Always dramatic, Iain. The only person in our family who would go toe-to-toe with Dad and not back down. Iain never backed down.

“I’m sure Fiona has better stories,” I said. “They were much closer in age. . . . I just hope she has a chance to sit down with your brother tonight and tell some of them. It . . . it helps.”

We sat quietly for a bit, then I sighed. “He was a complicated guy, and we didn’t have a great relationship. To some extent, we got along better in this motel room than we ever had before. Maybe he liked having a little sister better than a little brother. I don’t know. But I’ll miss him.”

We had some dinner and we talked some more. The day faded, and I felt a rising apprehension. I feared the night; feared sleep and the terrible dreams it might bring. When Rob suggested I should turn in, I resisted.

He looked at me evenly. “I understand that fear, Cami. I’ve seen it. Felt it, lived with it. Sometimes it helps to talk through the terrors. Not always. But I’ll help you if I can.”

I looked down at my hands. “It started after Christmas, like you guessed.” My voice was low. “At first I seemed to relive what had happened and what I’d been feeling in that library, when . . . when Jonathan came at me. But before long, the images went away. The only thing left was the feeling . . . the fear. I was terrified for Fiona.”

He broke in, surprised. “For Fi? She was downstairs, wasn’t she?”

I nodded. “She was. It wasn’t a physical threat. He was going to try to destroy her relationship with your family. I knew how much it mattered to Fi . . . especially since her own family was such a hot mess. I don’t think you realize how important family is to her . . . .” It’s impossible to convey just what family can mean to someone like Fiona.

I gave up with a shake of my head. “Anyway, once this damned pandemic hit, my fear has just gotten bigger and more generalized. It started invading even pleasant recurring dreams I used to have.” I blushed and decided I wasn’t going to describe those pleasant dreams in any detail.

“What I keep coming back to, over and over now, is a crazy scene where I’m falling toward a deep body of water, and I’m getting tossed around like a ragdoll by some sort of massive hurricane. And . . . .” I stopped, having trouble going further. My breathing felt uneven.

Rob was beside me; I hadn’t noticed him move.

He wrapped his right arm around me and held my hand with his left. “I’ve got you, Cami. You’ll get through this. What comes next, in your nightmare?”

I shivered. “A huge creature – I think of it as the Angel of Death. It rises up out of the water and spreads these massive, dark wings, like they would cover the whole world. I can hear them beating . . . .” Even the memory shook me.

He held me tighter.

“Anyhow, that’s what woke me, when Iain had his attack. And again last night. And this morning, when I heard the news, I was back in the nightmare, just like that. But this time I hit the water and sank like a rock, and then suddenly I was at my own funeral. And you were there, and Nicole and Maggie, Al, Javier, Sarah. Tina. . . . And Henry. Henry was holding Fi. What was left of her.”

I was weeping at the memory of Fi’s agony, crying uncontrollably. But I felt like I had to get through it. “Tina came and chewed me out. Then I was back in the water, trying to get to the surface. Running out of air. I was sure I wouldn’t make it. But when I did . . . .”

I paused, thinking about it, trying to recall what had happened next. It had been so quick. . . . But when it came back to me, I was filled with wonder.

“I hadn’t focused on it, Rob. Because just after, I was back with you, trying to breathe and stop you from calling an ambulance. But when my head broke through the surface of the water I saw the most beautiful thing . . . . No storm. No dark angel. Just a clear blue lake, a perfect, cloudless sky . . . snowy mountains . . . air so clean it almost hurt. It felt like the first day of the world.”

He just held me tight while I processed everything. At some point I dabbed the tears from my eyes and nestled into his protective arm, laying my right hand against his chest.

He kissed the top of my head. “Better?”

I gave him a little smile. “What? You aren’t going to tell me what my dreams mean?”

He chuckled. “Not a chance. You’ve got enough anxieties bouncing around your head to create a whole highlight reel of nightmares. Look. I’ve had friends of mine who were absolutely certain that they weren’t going to survive a mission. Positive. They knew it, and nothing anyone could say would change their minds. They were almost always wrong. Almost. Who am I to say? But I do think your dreams have shown your greatest fear.”

I nodded. “Fi,” I admitted, my voice heavy.

“More precisely,” he said, “that somehow, harm comes to Fiona through you.”

I chewed that over before saying, “I guess that’s right. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. But . . . I am petrified that somehow I’ll hurt her.”

“Have you always been close?”

I shook my head. “Not really. We were when I was small, but in a way a babysitter might be close to the child she’s watching. Fi’s seven years older. And when she went away to college, she didn’t just walk for the exits, she ran. We’ve actually become much closer since I’ve discovered I’m transgendered. In some ways, I think she saw it long before I did.

“But . . she’s always been my hero, even when she wasn’t there. The smart, beautiful, vibrant sister who would save the world. Who would reach for the stars . . . .” As the memories hit me, my voice grew soft and distant. “So long as she had a safe place to stand. A place to call home. A warm hearth. Family. Peace.”

He squeezed my shoulder gently. “Let’s see that she gets them, then. You need to get better, like you promised her. But no demon will come for you tonight. I will see to that personally.” He kissed me again, this time on my lips.

His kiss was soft and sweet.

I found myself responding, kissing him back with intensity and passion. I broke off, honestly a bit embarrassed.

But he chuckled, snagged some stray strands of my hair and tucked them behind my ear. “And here I was,” he said, “worried that I would go out of my mind with boredom being cooped up in a motel for weeks!”

My flannel nightgown hadn’t come back from the cleaner and my green nightie wasn’t dry yet, so I had to settle for yoga pants and a sleeveless ribbed t-shirt. I slipped into bed and he snuggled against my back, spooning against me. No angels or demons disturbed my sleep; the only dream I remembered when I woke up involved Albert Pujols returning to the Cardinals and playing like he had when I was young.

Sweet dreams.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“croce e delizia al cor”
– Verdi, La Traviata, E strano! e strano! (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 27

At some point in the night, between the last time we took some Tylenol and the time I woke up, we must have rolled a bit apart. I propped myself on my elbow and studied Rob as he slept.

His Hutchinson heritage was apparent in the squarish face, strong jaw and nose. But the bones seemed finer, sharper than those of his brother or uncle. His eyebrows, too, were thinner, less bushy. He did resemble his father very strongly, though I didn’t remember anyone in his family having those remarkable eyes.

Rob knew exactly who and what I was. Yet he had never, not once, treated me as anything other than a woman. Yesterday had definitely and dramatically altered our relationship, in a way that I found myself welcoming without reservation – but not without worry.

Would this new aspect of our relationship – what I was afraid to jinx by calling it ‘love’ – survive the bizarre moment in which we found ourselves, thrown together in a small space, helping and being helped? And, even more deeply worrisome, could it survive an encounter with the physical limits of my body?

Would he . . . could he . . . want me?

I tested my feelings, as carefully as Cameron Savin had always tested everything, unwilling to simply trust what I felt deep down. But no skeptic’s eye could shake the conviction that had lodged in my heart. It hadn’t happened when I kissed him; instead, it was when he had kissed me back. Oh, yes. I definitely wanted him, in every way that any straight woman has ever wanted a man.

I ached to reach over, to caress his fine features. To trace the line of his jaw with my fingers. To wake him with a kiss, welcoming the day. Instead, I slipped from the bed and let him sleep.

At 6:30 I spoke with Fiona and gave her the status of my arrangements for Iain. She agreed that cremation was really the only option and thanked me for handling everything. Then she grilled me on my condition and Rob’s, where at least I had better news to report.

“Rob really seems to have come through it,” I said. “His fever broke the night before last, and it’s stayed below 100 degrees since yesterday afternoon. The last reading we took at midnight was 99.1. He’s still pretty fatigued, but the other symptoms seem to be getting a lot better. Even the cough isn’t as bad.

“I’m doing better as well, but not as much improvement as Rob. My midnight reading was 100.8, I’ve still got all the muscle and joint aches, and I’m tired, and have some coughing. And, still no taste or smell.”

I got my shower and got ready for the day, sticking with jeans, T-shirt, and a fleece, together with a simple high ponytail. I didn’t have much energy for more. Rob was up and in the shower when I got out of my bathroom, so I fired up the Keurig. He came out of the common bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist and damp hair clinging to his temples.

“Oops!” he said, “I thought I’d be out before you were!”

I couldn’t help but notice his well-formed shoulders and chest, the latter with a modest amount of curly hair as black as what was on his head.

I swallowed my doubts and grinned wickedly. “I’ll let you know if I have any complaints!”

He returned my smile, put a hand behind my neck and brought me in for a kiss. “Hey,” he said gently. “Sleep okay?”

“I did. . . . Thanks for being there.”

He smiled again, then went to get dressed.

~o~O~o~
I called Nicole around 9:30, when I knew that she would be up. Rob was working at the table and I made the call from my bedroom. I hadn’t spoken with her since Wednesday, so I filled her in on the news.

She was warm and supportive and wonderful. She asked about the arrangements and I told her about the progress I had made so far.

She said, “So you’re supposed to observe the cremation?”

“That’s the rule, yeah. Apparently some places were making no efforts to actually give people the right ashes, there was a huge scandal, and everyone had to establish rigid procedures to give the practice credibility again. But I don’t know how I can do it if I’m in quarantine.”

“If you do it, you shouldn’t be alone. I know I can’t be there with you in person, so don’t start on me! But, even if I could only be there by FaceTime . . . I want to be there for you. Think about it, okay?”

“If I haven’t already said this, my bad, but you are the most wonderful person in the world. Thank you. I don’t know what the arrangements will be, but I would feel a thousand times better if you were with me, even if you can’t be physically present. I miss you so much. You and Maggie both.”

“Then get well, girl,” she said softly. “Get well, and come home.”

I was a bit teary when we ended the call. I popped out to get something hot to drink, to help open my throat.

Rob looked up and raised an eyebrow. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just a bit weepy because my roommate is really wonderful. Which sounds strange when I say it – the weepy part – but I can’t help it. She wants me to FaceTime her if I have to observe Iain’s cremation, because she doesn't want me to be alone.”

“That’s a really good idea. Fiona and Henry might want to participate the same way. It could be a long time before anyone is holding any kind of funeral or memorial service. . . . But you won’t be alone, Cami. I’ll be there with you – if you’ll have me.”

“Now don’t you get me weepy, too,” I scolded. “But thank you. I . . . of course I want you there, Rob. Assuming, of course, that I can be there.”

I went back into the bedroom and made some more calls. Still no death certificate. The person from the Cremation Society said they were trying to figure out how to manage our situation, especially recognizing that it was likely to become a more frequent occurrence. He promised to call me back.

Mom still wasn’t answering her phone.

I went down for a nap around 10:00. I was getting tired of being tired. When I got up at 11:30, Rob was asleep in the other room. We both seemed to need a lot of sleep.

I was just getting myself some Tylenol when I got a FaceTime call from Liz. I took it in my room.

As soon as she saw my face, she knew. “Oh, no. He didn’t make it.”

“No,” I said. “He died yesterday morning.”

Her green eyes were more serious, more grim, than I had ever seen them. “I’m sorry, Cami. You tried so hard – fought so hard. All of you did.”

We talked a bit about Iain, and the arrangements I was making, and Nicole and Rob’s idea about being present by video. Liz suggested I try a new app that her company was now using for video calls, something called Zoom. Apparently it worked better for having multiple participants. She also said, “I’d like to be there, too, Cami.”

We talked a bit more. I listened carefully and determined Rob must still be sleeping, then I said, “Liz. Could I talk to you about something?”

She gave me a look that said both, “What do you think we’re doing right now,” and “of course.”

I dropped my voice. “I shouldn’t even be thinking about this right now. I know I shouldn’t. But I can’t help it. I . . . . I’m . . . .”

I stopped, frustrated, tongue-tied, feeling like a child. Or, I thought suddenly, like an adolescent girl. Just great.

Liz observed my efforts to get through a sentence. “Boy trouble? Rob?”

I blushed to the roots of my hair, and my voice got even lower. “Yes. Or, no. Not trouble. Not that. But . . . I think I’m falling in love with him, Liz. Which is crazy, I know it’s crazy. We’re stuck here in this motel room, day after day, and we can’t see anyone else, and my brother just died, and . . . and . . . . Oh, dammit, Liz! What am I going to do?!” I sounded like an idiot and I was embarrassed as all hell.

Liz looked uncharacteristically understanding. “Cami. Honey. Slow down. Take a deep breath. I don’t know why you expect your heart will wait for a convenient time to jump the rails; no one else's does. Don’t feel guilty about it. Now, suppose you tell me what’s been happening?”

So I gave her the details, ears all the while straining to catch any sound from the other room. I told her about our talks, and our chess games. About my vigil Wednesday night and how it resolved. About yesterday, and last night. About this morning.

Through it all, she was patient, listening carefully, asking a few clarifying questions. When I was done, she asked, “So . . . what’s the problem, Cami? You seem to be doing just fine.”

I stared at her, dumbfounded. Hasn’t she been listening?

She saw my expression and smiled slightly. “I’m serious. Listen. You're a wonderful person. Take that as a given; I know you won’t agree but everyone else does. If he wasn’t attracted to you, he wouldn't be kissing you. Oh, maybe the first time – you had just spent the night keeping him alive – but not the third time, or the fifth time.”

“But . . . .” I interjected.

“. . . but nothing!” she retorted. “Based on everything you’ve observed about him, is he someone who just goes around kissing people for no reason? Do you think he’s just having some fun?”

That stopped me. “No. Rob is . . . . I mean . . . . I’ve obviously been around guys all my life. Compared to Rob, most of them seem like boys, even the ones that are older than he is. Like Tim. Rob is serious. Solid. He’s, I don’t know. Substantial. I can't describe it. I don’t want you to think he’s not fun – you should see him dance! – or funny, or clever. But he’s the last person on earth I could imagine just playing around with someone’s feelings. He’s not wired that way. At all.”

Liz smiled and shook her head. “Oh, girl, have you got it bad!”

“I know,” I said, miserable. “I know. And I suddenly find myself wanting to be everything he could ever wish for, everything he could want in a girl. In a woman. But . . . but I’m trans, Liz. You know what I look like, under the makeup. Without the padding. I can’t be what he wants!”

“Learn something from my experience, would you?” Liz suddenly looked serious, even severe. “You need to be yourself. Never waiver from that. Never. If he’s attracted to who you are, great. If he isn’t, that’s his loss. As far as your being trans, it hasn’t fazed him yet. I’m not saying it will be all wine and roses, but don’t buy trouble. You are absolutely capable of satisfying a man, so long as he’s interested in you. And it sounds like he is.”

Liz’s hard-headed common sense finally managed to put some hairline fractures in my armor of self-doubt. “I hope so. I really do.”

She softened. “Give it time. This is all coming at you so fast. And you’re still sick, and you’re dealing with Iain. If there’s something there, let it grow at its own pace, and don’t tie yourself in knots if everything isn’t wrapped up in a bow by lunchtime. Okay?”

“Okay. . . . What would I do without you?”

She laughed. “That’s easy. You’d think too much and worry yourself silly. You’re in lockdown with a good-looking guy who wants to kiss you. Just enjoy it!”

I have amazing friends.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Wie Todesahnung Dämmrung deckt die Lande”
– Wagner, Tannhäuser, O du mein holder Abendstern (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 27, afternoon

Rob was up again at noon and we had a bite to eat. I wasn’t positive, but I thought that maybe . . . maybe? I could taste something. It wasn’t enough to be certain, but I was encouraged, nonetheless. My temp was down to 100.5, and Rob’s had gone back to 98.5. He said he normally ran a little cooler than the average, but if he wasn’t completely at normal he was close

After lunch Rob tried to get some more work in. I sat across from him at the table and checked my work emails. One from rafe.oliveira flagged as “Urgent” immediately caught my eye.

TO: All Personnel, All Offices

FROM: Raphael Oliveira, Chairman of the Management Committee, and Evan Barksdale, Managing Partner for Personnel

DATE: March 27, 2020

RE: EMERGENCY OFFICE CLOSURE

As a result of the growing threat of the COVID-19 virus, the firm will be closing all offices to in-person work for two weeks, effective COB today. We hope to be able to reopen on Monday, April 13. However, if it is not reasonably safe to do so at that time, we will extend the office closure for an additional period.

All employees should bring their laptops home with them at the end of the day today, as well as other equipment and materials necessary to work remotely during the office closure. Employees who are not in the office today should contact the office manager for your location to arrange delivery of necessary equipment or material to your residence.

Our IT Department is working to evaluate software solutions that will allow us to function more efficiently from remote locations for a period. When they are ready, they will upload the necessary software to your laptops remotely. Details will follow.

This is a difficult time and we are sure you all have lots of questions. It would be most efficient if you emailed them to Lynn Oster; she will compile a list and we’ll work on getting everyone answers as soon as possible.

We will be in touch in the near future with additional information. Until then, we hope that you and your families stay safe.

When I finished reading, I said, “Well, I’ll be dipped in shit.”

Rob looked a question at me and I explained.

“Do you think the two weeks is real?” he asked.

“Seems unlikely, but we’ll see. I’m glad I’ve got my laptop here. But I just can’t imagine what this is going to be like. Everybody working from home? All at the same time?” I shook my head, thinking of a staggering number of complications. “How on earth can we do litigation when we’re scattered all over the place?”

Rob said, “I can see where that might pose more of a challenge than running my office with everyone working from remote locations. But I guess that the machinery of justice has to grind on, so you’ll all have to think of ways. On the bright side, it’s going to give more tech-savvy lawyers like you a bit of an edge.”

“Maybe.” I chewed it over. “I should definitely start thinking about how we can make technology help. I was talking to my friend Liz while you were sleeping; she was saying good things about an app for multi-person video conferences. I think she called it ‘Zoom.’ Maybe it would help. But it won’t be the same popping into someone’s office with a quick question. Or having a good litigation team meeting.”

Rob ran a search on his computer. “Yup. Zoom Video Communications, Inc. A good product, by all accounts. And the stock’s been nuts since early this year. Looks like we used it as part of our hedging strategy. Not my area, of course.”

He went back to work.

I was debating doing the same when I got a call from the medical examiner’s office, telling me that Iain’s death certificate had been issued. I needed to get things set with the Cremation Society, but the hospital agreed to hold the body while I did that.

Back in my room I tried calling Mom again. She still wasn’t answering and I was getting worried. After going back and forth, I decided I had better try to do something to make sure she was alright. I did a search and then put in a call to the assisted living facility where Gammy Campbell lives in Morgantown, West Virginia.

When I asked the receptionist if there was a way that I could speak with Catriona Campbell, she was apologetic. “She doesn’t have a phone in her room.”

“Would it be possible for someone to bring her a cell phone? It’s a bit of an emergency.”

“Who’s calling, please?”

“Her granddaughter, Camryn.”

“Camryn, we don’t ordinarily bring phones to residents. Can we take her a message?”

“It really would be better if I spoke to her. Her grandson Iain passed away yesterday. COVID. And, I can’t reach her daughter Aileen, so I’m worried she might not be okay.”

“Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry! Poor Cat is going to be devastated! But you’re absolutely right. I’ll see if I can’t get someone into her room with a phone. Can we reach you at this number?”

I assured her that they could.

Five minutes later, I got a call back; the ID said “Sheila Tinsdale.”

“Hello?” I said, accepting the call.

“Is this Camryn?”

“It is.”

“Let me put your grandmother on.”

There was a pause, followed by a familiar voice, dry and matter-of-fact. “Cameron?”

“Gammy . . . I’m very sorry. We lost Iain yesterday. He didn’t make it.”

She was silent for a moment before saying, “Oh, the poor, poor, boy!” Her voice was brittle with pain. “Aileen told me you were looking after him?”

“I was. But we had to send him to the hospital a week ago. He just . . . he couldn’t get enough oxygen.”

She was silent for a moment. “This’ll hit your mother hard. You told her?”

“I did. Yesterday. She, ahh . . . swore a bit. Then she hung up, and I can’t get her to answer my calls. Will you try to reach her?”

“Aye, I’ll do that,” she said. “Iain . . . oh, he was such a scrappy, headstrong hellion. God, I loved that boy!”

“I know, Gammy. And he loved you too.”

“Thank you for being there for him. I’m so very glad you were. That he didn’t think he’d been disowned and abandoned by everyone.” She sighed. “Well, let me try to call Aileen. I’ll get you a message somehow.”

We ended the call.

Later in the day, I got a call from Gammy’s facility. She had reached Mom, who was grieving but otherwise okay. It wasn’t much, but I couldn’t expect more. No one should have to outlive a child; Mom had outlived two.

“I get that,” Rob said. “But why wouldn't that make her closer to the children who are still alive? Your sister is in the middle of this whole pandemic. You’re sick with the virus right now. She could lose you too. Is that what it would take for her to show any love?”

I had no answer to that. “I don’t understand her, either Rob. I never have.”

~o~O~o~
Mount Vernon, New York, March 29

Two more nights, sleeping by Rob’s side. Sweet, dreamless sleep. Mornings looking at him, wrestling with my feelings. Wondering what he was feeling, but afraid to ask. Days living by Liz’s wisdom to simply let this evolve in its own time. To enjoy it.

We had been taking things easy. Resting, talking. Simply being in each other’s company. There had been touches, kisses, and tenderness. He would catch me looking at him; sometimes, while I worked, I felt his eyes on me.

Neither of us talked about it.

I had been uncharacteristically emotional. Memories of Iain would catch me unaware and leave me crying.

Rob was always there, providing comfort and support. Sometimes words; more often just a warm presence, a touch.

After a lot of back-and forth, the Cremation Society had offered to let Rob and me into the facility for the cremation so that they could adhere to policy, subject to certain precautions. We would be masked, and Rob even had Henry’s guy drop off face shields and gloves when he did our latest laundry swap.

The facility was the size of a small warehouse and the process was largely automated, so they decided that they could handle it without putting anyone at risk. We would almost never be closer than fifty feet from any of their personnel, who would also be masked.

Fiona had approved the plan as well. “I don’t know when you’ll stop being infectious, so you will absolutely need to take precautions. But, based on the layout, and the masks, face-shields, and gloves, it should be safe enough. Of course, you both have to stay well enough to actually do it.”

They scheduled the procedure for Monday at noon.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Oh, Gioia ch'io non conobbi, esser amata amando!”
– Verdi, La Traviata, E strano! e strano! (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 29, evening

By Sunday evening, even my temperature had gotten back under 100 degrees and my aches and pains were receding. My sense of taste and smell were still impaired and I still had a lingering cough.

Rob was almost as good as new, though still fatigued.

Rob and I were discussing plans for the next day following a dinner that I was positive I could actually taste, though it tasted funny.

“That’s not you. Or else it’s both of us. That did taste funny.” He picked up the dishes, put them in the sink, then came back and started massaging my neck and shoulders.

I stretched forward, put my hands on the table and my head in my hands, and let him work.

“You are tight, tight, tight,” he said, as his fingers worked down my shoulder blades. He stopped after a couple minutes and rested a hand lightly on my back. “Let me do this properly. Go lie down. And remove your fleece; the fabric’s too thick for me to get through properly.”

I decided I would not read anything into his offer beyond what he had said. Don’t force it, Liz had said. So I took off my fleece and laid face-down on the bed. But I had worn a camisole under the fleece today; my T-shirts were off being washed.

Rob came and sat on the bed. He began, slowly and methodically, to give my back a thorough, deep and therapeutic massage.

I found my tension draining away. All my worries. It felt like even my grief became a dull ache as his fingers loosened every muscle group. After half an hour, I was not remotely sleepy, but I was fully, deeply relaxed.

I felt his lips brush my shoulder blade, then the top of my shoulder close beside my lingerie straps, then the back of my neck. I felt his warm breath in my ear, and heard his voice, low, husky, almost trembling. “You are so beautiful . . . so perfect! I don’t know how to love you properly. But I want to learn. God, I want to learn!”

Am I dreaming? Is this real? I rolled over, finding myself inches from those amazing eyes. Eyes filled with love. And . . . could it really be? Desire? Was it possible that this beautiful, wonderful man might actually want me?

I held his eyes in my gaze, pouring everything I felt for him into it. “Are you sure Rob? You know I’m not . . . .”

He stopped me. “I know. But you are all the woman any man could ever want. Could ever hope for. For the rest, for how we go about making love, you and me . . . the mechanics don’t sound complicated. People manage. The question is, are you sure?”

I framed his handsome face with both of my hands, somehow feeling his strength, his passion, his tightly controlled will through the sensitive nerves of my fingers.

“I’m sure, Rob. I could not be more certain.”

This time his kiss was fierce, exultant, full of his own desire.

I returned it with equal fervor, then parted my lips and felt his tongue, urgent, mix and mingle with mine.

Then he raised his head and shoulders, breaking the kiss. “I want you this instant, girl, but not like this.” His breath was ragged. “Let me do it right. I can . . . I can hold on.”

My laugh was low, intimate. “Not for too long, I hope.” I brought my hands in – my soft, slender hands – and slowly, teasingly, began to unbutton his shirt. He was using both arms to hold himself over me. I wriggled lower, continuing my work, then raising my head to kiss his chest where I had freed it. When I had the last button undone, I ran both hands up his abdomen and over his well-formed pecs.

“Okay, love,” I said. “Sit up for me.”

He pivoted into a sitting position and I followed him up, kneeling on the bed. I drew off his shirt and began to explore his fine, strong body with my hands. My lips. My tongue. His arms came around my back, digging into the muscles he had loosened, quivering.

“Oh, God, Cami!” He buried his head into my neck, my shoulder, kissing the sweet spot where the two joined.

It was wonderful . . . amazing. I was on fire, and I wanted more. Wanted everything. I brought my hands down, undid the clasp of his belt. Tugged and undid the button below. Pulled down his zipper, becoming clumsy in my own urgency.

He groaned.

“Lie down now, Rob. Lie back.” My voice was throaty, almost unrecognizable.

He lay back against the pillows, allowing me to pull his pants down, down, then off of his bare feet. His underwear, black and tight, was straining to hold his erection. I ran my fingers over the front panel, lifted the waistband and pulled them down, then paused to give him a most intimate touch, and a delicate kiss where it would make him writhe. I pulled his underwear past his knees, then off.

I stood up to admire him, lying there, so perfect. So desirable. I unbuttoned, then unzipped, my own jeans and – with somewhat greater difficulty (women’s jeans!) – pulled them off.

He was staring at me with wonder and desire. At me!

I didn’t remove my lingerie, wanting to preserve, as long as I could, the illusion of my feminine curves.

He raised his right hand, palm up, inviting me to take it.

I reached out, lightly resting the tips of my fingers over his.

He pulled himself to the sitting position, swung his legs on either side of mine, and pulled me close, his engorged penis crushed against the sheer silkiness of my camisole. He kissed me hungrily, tried to break off, then buried himself again.

My fingers were in his thick hair, and I was squirming sensually, straining to mold myself to him even more closely.

He managed to pull free, then lifted me up effortlessly, one arm behind my knees, the other behind my back. He kissed me again and tenderly laid me back on the bed.

“I had a few things dropped off with the laundry and the faceshields, Cami. Just . . . just in case. Things that will help. Give me a moment.”

He stepped to the door of the bedroom and came back a moment later with a package of condoms and a tube of something. He came back to the bed and sat beside me, excited but still in control. “Lie still now, love.”

As thoroughly as he had massaged and soothed my tense muscles, he now worked to bring every one of my nerve endings to a pitch of intense excitement. He stroked, he squeezed. He caressed. He kissed my arms, my throat, my ears, my belly.

When I couldn’t take any more I cried, “Please Rob! Please!”

Gently, tenderly, he removed my panties, then my padded panty gaff.

It was the moment of truth, but I was too far gone to be embarrassed.

He did not shy away from the evidence that there were, after all, parts of me that remained male, even if unimpressively so. He gave a single soft caress to the front of my penis, then he scooped up my knees with one arm, raising my ass off the bed. After sliding two pillows under my lower back, he gently pulled my knees apart. He looked in my eyes, not breaking contact, as put lube on his fingers and then probed, touched, and found my hole. I whimpered as his finger probed deeper, making circles.

Finally done with foreplay, he rolled between my legs, put protection and gel on his penis, and then set it against the hole he had teased open.

“This will hurt, Cami,” he warned. “At first. I will be slow. But when you’re ready . . . you’ll let me know.”

I looked at him with love, with desire, and wholly without fear. “I’m yours, Rob,” I said simply. “Take me.”

We began to push, and yes, it hurt. And my muscles wanted to fight him, and we had to work at it. But his eyes, like mine, were filled with love, desire, and sorcery.

The mechanics were not, after all, tremendously complicated.

Then he reached a point, a depth, and I felt something ringing within me like a great bell, deep and pure and powerful. I cried out, and I bucked, and the world was fire and beauty and magic. The magic of love, which finds a way.

He pounded in and out, driving my singing nerves to a whole new pitch. Then I felt him explode inside me, felt magma in the core of my being, and we clung together and wept for the pure, unadulterated joy of it.

A few moments later, he slipped out of me, then rolled off, capturing my limp body as he rolled. When his maneuver was complete he was on his back and my head was on his chest. His fingers stroked my hair, my back, my shoulder.

I kissed his chest tenderly, even as I brought up my hand to fondle his other pectoral muscle. “I think,” I said thoughtfully, pausing to take a contemplative nibble, “that you figured it out. Clever man.”

He chuckled but did not answer for quite a while. When he did, his voice was both warm and serious, “I don’t play around, Cami. Ever. I didn’t intend this to happen tonight; I was going to wait until after tomorrow, after you had said your farewells to Iain. I hoped that something might happen later, when you weren't dealing with everything. With your brother and your sister and your mother and grandmother.”

He sighed. “But I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted you too badly. Loved you too much. I’ve wanted you since the first moment I set eyes on you.”

I put both my hands on his chest, palms down, and rested my chin on them so I could get a better look at his remarkable eyes.

“I’ve cross-examined myself mercilessly, you know. Worried that my feelings might be, I don’t know . . . somehow colored by this crazy situation we’re in. Maybe even by hormones, God help me. But I’m certain my feelings are real, are true. If this isn’t love, I don’t know what love is. And I’ll tell you this, Robert Gould Hutchinson: I wouldn’t have missed this moment for anything in the world.”

His eyes were warm, but a twinkle reappeared, softening some of his seriousness. “If you’re going to make a declaration like that, you’ll have to tell me a secret.”

“A secret?” I had my share of secrets. Not all were mine to tell.

“Oh, yes. . . . One you haven’t told me. Or anyone else, as far as I know.” He was smiling fully now, but he wasn’t teasing. “What is your name?”

Rob had always called me Cami, but he wanted the formal as well. Because serious occasions would require it, and he was a serious man.

A memory flashed through my mind. A mall at Christmastime . . . my voice, saying, “Names are powerful . . . . When someone tells you what they want you to call them, they are trying to tell you something about themselves. About who they are . . . .” Was that really just three months ago?

“My name,” I decided, “Is Camryn Elizabeth Campbell.”

He answered back, formal as an attorney appearing at the Supreme Court’s lectern. “Camryn Elizabeth Campbell. . . . I love you.”

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“e diedi il canto agli astri, al ciel”
– Puccini, Tosca, Vissi d’Arte, Vissi d’Amore (Aria)

White Plains, New York, March 30

Iain was laid out in a box. He was shrunken, smaller and paler than he had been in life. But I would know that face anywhere. Would remember it forever. I placed my hands on his cold, unmoving chest. A chest that would never draw another breath. A final touch.

I nodded to the distant technician, exaggerating the motion so that it would be visible through both mask and face shield, confirming the identity of the remains. Then I stepped back and rejoined Rob, twenty yards away from the conveyor belt.

We had an iPhone facing the furnace, and my iPad was open and facing Rob and me. On the screen, in a series of stacked boxes, were those dear faces. Nicole and Maggie, together in what appeared to be the sound room at Opera House. Liz, standing outside on her deck, sunlight turning her hair to flame. Fiona, wearing her lab coat, in the hospital’s chapel, Henry behind her, holding her shoulders.

The technician threw a switch and the conveyor belt came to life, slowly moving Iain’s remains towards the chamber.

Maggie looked at the camera, raised her head slightly, and began to sing:

“Come to me, all you weary,
With your burdens and pain,
Take my yoke on your shoulders,
And learn from me.
I am gentle and humble,
and your soul will find rest,
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Nicole joined Maggie in the chorus, their voices joined in a tight harmony:

“We shall rise again, on the last day,
With the faithful, rich and poor,
Coming to the house of Lord Jesus,
We will find an open door there,
We will find an open door.”

My eyes misted over as I listened to them and watched Iain’s final journey. I thought of my brother, always scrapping, fighting, striving . . . bearing the burdens and pains of rejection. So weary, at the end. I prayed that he would, at last, find a home where he was welcomed, cherished. Simply loved.

But it was the next verse, which Nicole sang solo, which brought my tears to full flood.

“At the door there to greet us,
Martyrs, angels and saints,
And our family and loved ones,
Every one freed from their chains.
We shall feel their acceptance,
And the joy of new life.
We shall join in the gathering,
Reunited in God’s light.”

My family. What would they be like, freed from the chains that bent and sometimes broke them? Grim Grandfather Ross, tormented by memories of battle. My parents, freed from whatever had turned the wine of their faith and love into vinegar, making them bitter and angry. Iain, freed from the burden of expectations he was never suited to meet?

Would we all, someday, freed from all that, feel the love and acceptance that had so often eluded us in life? God, I hoped so. Especially for Iain. I looked at Fi, weeping as freely as I was, sharing a communion of understanding with me. I knew that she joined my prayer.

And the doors of the chamber closed, consigning Iain’s remains to the inferno of a Viking’s funeral.

The Refiner’s fire.

Maggie took the final refrain while Nicole’s coloratura floated high above the melody, ethereal and otherworldly, a descant composed of repeated alleluias.

“We shall rise again, on the last day,
With the faithful, rich and poor,
Coming to the house of Lord Jesus,
We will find an open door there,
We will find an open door.”

Through the flood of my tears, I whispered, “Go with God, big brother. Safe home.”

. . . . To be continued

~o~O~o~

BOOK ONE
In the Valley of the Shadow
Spring, 2020

~o~O~o~

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Plein de fureur, il court!”
– Bizet, Carmen, Votre toast (Aria)

Mount Vernon, New York, March 30, immediately following

Rob’s Audi was both quiet and understated and Rob, bless him, was giving me the quiet I needed to process all of the emotions from Iain’s cremation. I cradled the box that held his remains in my hands. So small a box, in the end.

Rob pulled smoothly into the parking lot of our motel and drove around to the back side where our room was. But when he rounded the corner, we saw a police cruiser parked in front of our room. The door of our unit was open, and the motel manager was outside.

“What the hell . . . ?” Rob sounded more puzzled than anything else.

I had thought from the time that I asked Nicole to book me a room that no one would rent to me if they knew I was isolating with someone who had COVID, and I had gone to great lengths not to advertise that fact. But clearly, someone thought something suspicious was going on.

Looking at the manager’s worried face – doubly worried, as he watched us pull up – I thought I could guess who the someone might be. “I wasn’t expecting police or an invasion, but I figured we would get questions at some point,” I said. “Timing sure could have been better.”

“You got that right,” Rob replied. “How do you want to play this?”

I thought about it. “By ear. Cool, if possible. We haven’t done anything wrong. But we’ll have to see how it goes.”

Rob touched my hand. “You’ve got the legal expertise. I’ve got your back.”

I gave him a smile of thanks, carefully set my brother’s remains on the floor in front of me, and stepped out of the car. We were both looking formal and professional. That would help.

Probably.

I paused to put my N-95 firmly in place, and Rob did the same. Then we walked over, stopping a good ten feet from the manager. Using a gentle tone I said, “I’m assuming you’ve got an explanation for this. I’d like to hear it, before deciding whether to take legal action, Mister . . . ?”

He didn’t take the hint and give me his last name. “Look, I gotta protect my customers. Protect the owners. You come here, you never leave, except when an ambulance comes in the middle of the night. A guy coming here every couple days making drops and pick-ups. I don’t know what you’re up to, okay?” He sounded very defensive.

“I see,” I said. “Please ask the officers to join us outside. I don’t want them to catch COVID.”

His eyes bugged out. “WHAT!!! Fuck!!! You goddamned . . . .” He stopped speaking abruptly. Something in Rob’s face, or his stance, made him think twice about whatever he had been about to say.

His pause gave me the opening to say, “Now would be a good time. I don’t want to explain this twice. And you are needlessly exposing those officers, right now.”

He was sweating seriously now, and he had backed up until he bumped into the wall. He just repeated, “Fuck!”

Fortunately, the police didn’t wait for him to call them. An officer came to the door, took in the tableau with a quick scan, and stepped outside. “Are you threatening this man?” he asked us.

I hurried to reassure him. “No, officer. We’re staying in this unit. We just asked the manager to pull you and anyone else out of the room; we’ve been sheltering in place there because we’ve both had COVID.”

“Ah, shit,” he said, then called back, “Kelly, out now. Now!”

Hearing his urgent tone, his partner came out of the room very quickly indeed, her hand on her service weapon. She had not, mercifully, drawn it.

Time to defuse the situation.

“I’m sorry you were called, officers,” I said, soothingly. “If the manager had spoken to me, we could have addressed any concerns. We aren’t engaged in any illegal activity. I’m an attorney from Washington, D.C., and Mr. Hutchinson is an investment banker. We’ve been experiencing COVID symptoms for the past ten days so we’ve been sheltering in place on the advice of a highly qualified doctor. We’ve had supplies dropped off. That’s all.”

“I don’t want no fucking COVID in my place!” The manager’s voice was loud, frightened, and sure to upset every resident within a hundred yards.
Idiot.

“I understand that,” I said patiently, “but, the terms of the month-long contract that I signed in your office don’t say anything about evicting people for reasons related to health or disease. I looked at them very carefully. You might want to do the same.”

He was sputtering.

The first officer – Dwyer, his name plate said – asked, “What about the ambulance, and the guy that was taken away?”

I kept my voice level. “That was my brother. He died in the hospital last week; we’re just returning from cremating his remains. Is there anything else?”

Officer Dwyer still looked uncertain.

The manager was still raging. “I want them out. Right now!!! We got rights!!!”

I kept my attention on Dwyer; he seemed to be the senior officer present. “I assume that you searched the room. And found nothing more interesting than a whole lot of flu and cold remedies, a thermometer, and a log book?”

His partner, Kelly . . . McDonald? . . . said, “I saw the medicine. For sure. And the thermometer. Didn’t see any log book, but I didn’t look at papers. No contraband or anything.”

I nodded. “Again, I’m very sorry. You should probably check in and find out whether you’re required to isolate. If you weren’t in the room long, it might not matter, and we’re masked and keeping our distance. But my sister’s a doctor up at MassGeneral, and I can tell you they don’t have a good handle on exactly how contagious this is.”

Officer Dwyer was no longer looking twitchy. “We’ll do that, thanks.” He sounded resigned. Turning to the manager, he said. “I know you don’t want them here, but if they’ve paid for the room we can’t evict them. You want them out, you’ll need to get a lawyer.”

The manager squawked.

Officer Dwyer was unsympathetic. “I get it. But there’s nothing we can do. There’s no evidence these folks have done anything illegal.” Looking at his partner, he said, “C’mon Kelly, we’d better report in.” He headed back towards the cruiser, ignoring the manager’s increasingly panicked protests.

Officer McDonald gave me a compassionate look. “I’m sorry for your loss, Ma’am. And, thank you for the warning.” She got in the passenger’s seat of the cruiser and they drove off.

“Fucking useless fucking police!!!!” The manager, amazingly, still sputtered like an old and poorly maintained engine.

I had had an emotional day and decided I had been a good girl more than long enough. “You heard Officer Dwyer. We’ve paid for that room, so get away from the door and stop harassing us. Anything else you want to say, I recommend you do it through your lawyer. Now MOVE!”

He didn’t stop cursing, but he moved. Quickly, once we started to approach him. I don’t know whether he was more afraid of Rob, radiating silent menace on my left side, or of catching COVID.

I’d take it, either way.

As I closed the door behind us, Rob chuckled. “Remind me,” he said, “not to piss you off.”

I pulled him into an embrace. “You did a pretty good job without saying a word.” I pulled back just far enough to give him a kiss. “Thank you for backing me up like that. Most guys . . . . “

“ . . . would have felt the need to take charge?” he said, finishing my thought. “That would have been a bad move, for lots of reasons that I mercifully don’t need to explain to you, oh chess master. There was more than enough free-floating testosterone in that encounter to get ugly. And dangerous. I had every confidence that you could handle the situation better than I could, and you did.”

I could only stare at him in wonder. “If I wasn’t already, I think I’d fall in love with you for that. You and Henry . . . my God, why didn’t your parents have twelve kids!”

“Well,” he said with an evil chuckle, “they had Sam, you see . . . .” Sam was the middle brother; I hadn’t met him.

The immediate emergency resolved, Rob went back outside and brought Iain’s remains in; we put them on the bureau in my room. We made some coffee, which I was absolutely positive I could now both smell and taste. Not strongly, but at least some. Some of the shortfall was almost certainly the Keurig.

Rob took off his coat and tie; I slipped out of my pumps, and we settled into the couch. His left arm snaked behind me on the back of the couch, leaving his hand free to play with my hair and my earlobe.

I snuggled into him, enjoying the closeness.

“You roommates have amazing voices,” Rob said, moving back to the really important events of the day. “I’ve been to a lot of funerals. Too many. I’ve never gotten numb to it, but . . . sometimes it just hits harder. Today . . . well. I’m really glad I was able to be there for that.”

I nodded. “Yes, me too. I know we had to do it this way, but I can’t think of any traditional service that would have been more suitable for Iain. And having everyone there made all the difference.”

I looked into those remarkable eyes of his. “Thank you for being there . . . and for thinking to invite people to join us. I know it meant the world to Fi to be able to be there, even if it was just by video.”

He gave me a lingering kiss, then we sat quietly for a few moments. Eventually, he said, “You know, we probably have to isolate another two weeks. But we don’t have to do it here. I don’t doubt you can keep that moronic manager out of our hair, but we do have other options.”

I thought about that. We had been staying close because of Iain – and because, for some significant period of time, we had been too ill to go anywhere. But neither of those reasons applied any longer. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well . . . ” he said carefully, “My apartment is only about three and a half hours from here. I don’t live with anyone else, so we could isolate there as easily as we can here. It’s nothing fancy, but I’m comfortable saying it’s better than this place.”

He was watching me carefully. There was more here than met the eye, so I thought about it before making an easy response. Why was Rob dancing around?

I finally decided there were too many variables, and just decided to ask him. “You seem very cautious about this, Rob. Can you tell me why?”

He smiled. “Always the observant one. It’s really just because I don’t know how you would feel about moving in with me.”

A serious man deserved a thoughtful answer. “If we’re just talking about our two-week isolation period, it certainly doesn’t faze me. At all. I have some very fond memories of this place, but some others will be in my nightmares forever. I’m more than ready to leave, and I’d love to see your place.”

“But . . . ?” he prodded gently.

“But. My life, and my work, aren’t in Boston. I . . . I don’t know where we’re headed, Rob. I have hopes, and dreams, and you’re in them. I want you to be in them. But how we work out life outside of these four walls . . . . I don’t have any answers for that yet.”

His features displayed nothing but calm and understanding. “I don’t either. I’ve enjoyed this moment and I haven’t wanted to think about what happens after. We’ll have to, eventually. But all of that can wait. Right now, we just have to decide where to stay for the next two weeks. If it’s my apartment, there’s no commitment involved.”

I smiled. “My friend Liz told me that I shouldn’t be worried if I couldn’t get everything figured out by lunchtime. I should listen to her.”

“Sounds like a wise woman . . . she was the redhead? The one who was outdoors?”

I nodded, then said, very shyly, “She’s the one who helped me discover who I really am. Who helped me understand that I’m a woman.”

“Then I have a lot to thank her for.” He leaned in and kissed me again. “That’s why you chose Elizabeth as your middle name?”

I nodded, then I kissed him back. And our kisses grew more intense, and our hands began to wander . . . .

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Se vuol venire nella mia scuola, la capriola le insegnerò”
– Mozart, Le Nozze di Figaro, Se vuol ballare (Aria)

Mt. Vernon, New York, later that day

I was naked from the waist down, wearing nothing at all except my bra, snuggled into Rob’s chest and sleeping soundly, when my phone went off. I propped myself up, searching for it. I saw a name I didn’t recognize on the caller ID and answered with a simple, “Hello?”

“This is George Devine from the Cabot law firm. Is this Cameron Savin?”

“Speaking,” I responded in my professional voice.

“Mr. Savin, or Ms. Savin, or whatever you are, I’m calling on behalf of my client, the Westmont Motel, Inc.”

“How can I help you Mr. Devine, or George, or whatever you are,” I answered. Pretty calmly, if I do say so myself.

“You can help me by immediately vacating my client’s premises and paying damages. You rented the room under false pretenses and I will expose your game in a New York minute if you aren’t out of there in one hour.”

One of the partners I’d worked with once said that people tend to hire the lawyers they deserve. Sure enough, this guy was like the manager, but with a law degree.

I was going to enjoy, in a way I probably shouldn’t, taking him apart.

“I rented the apartment in good faith, I gave your idiot manager a valid ID, and nothing in the contract that you probably drew up says anything about evicting guests who have contagious diseases.”

“I checked out your profile on your firm website, ‘Mizz’ Savin,” he said in a tone that could only be described as a sneer. “And I don’t think you’ll want your employers knowing about your double identity.”

I had a sudden image of Rob’s Uncle Cornelius warning me that maintaining my original gender at work would expose me to blackmail. He had been right, but I’d already defanged that threat, so I laughed at him.

“They already know. If you don’t believe me, dig a bit further on the website and find the names of the members of the management committee. Feel free to contact them. All of them.” I was really enjoying myself.

“Bullshit.”

“I encourage you to test that hypothesis, Mr. Devine.” My voice was soft as velvet. “I can promise you that the only thing you’ll get back from Cavandish, Edwards and Gunn is a copy of a letter they will send to the grievance committee of the New York State Bar. Advancing your client’s interest through extortionate means is a sanctionable offense. It might even cost you your law license. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

The line was silent for a moment, so I said, “Your move, ‘Mister’ Devine.”

He decided – wisely, if a bit late – to try a different tack. “Look, my client has a duty to his employees, his customers, his reputation. You have no right to put all of that at risk.”

“If you got around to reading the contract, you know that I do have the right. And your client has a duty to me, because I am one of his customers. If motels, and hotels, and apartments get to evict people just because they’ve caught COVID, just exactly where do you expect all of those people to go? And how is that going to help stop the spread of the disease?”

“That’s not my client’s problem . . . .”

“Yes it is,” I cut in. “Because your client rented me a room, and doesn’t have a right to terminate under the contract, it is your client’s problem.”

He started to say something, but I cut him off again. “But, if you’ll stop making stupid threats and acting like a jackass, we might actually be able to have a conversation about how to solve your client’s problem. So what’s it going to be?”

I could practically feel the anger radiating from the other end of the receiver. He wanted to fight me, but he had to answer to a client who wanted me out and didn’t have a good way to obtain that result. “Fine,” he snarled. “Are you willing to talk about leaving?”

“Of course,” I said, sweetly. “If you fully refund all the money we paid, I will not only vacate the unit tomorrow morning, I will thoroughly clean and disinfect every surface and leave freshly-cleaned linens and towels that haven’t been taken out of plastic.”

“A full refund!!! That’s absurd!!! You’ve been there for weeks!!!” he blustered.

“Mr. Devine,” I said patiently, “you are asking me to surrender my legal right to remain here through April 12, which is the period I’ve paid for. And, not for nothing, but your client had our belongings searched by the police, without any reasonable basis to believe we’d committed any wrongdoing. There are claims I could pursue, and you can bet your license – whatever it might be worth at this point – that Cavendish, Edwards will represent me for free.”

“That’s not remotely reasonable!” he replied hotly.

I was losing patience. ‘I’m not going to debate the reasonableness of my offer. New York’s Rules of Professional Conduct must require that you convey offers of settlement to your client – every jurisdiction does – so stop barking at me and do your job. Ethically, for a change, if you can manage that for a few minutes. Let me know what they have to say when you have an answer.”

I ended the call.

Rob was sitting beside me. “I caught most of that. I like your style, girl!”

I kissed him. “I don’t care about the money . . . Well, I do; it’s not nothing. But mostly it’s the principle of the thing. And, he was acting unethically. Very unethically.” I thought for a minute. “Rob, I think that I need to call Eileen. Right now.”

“Good idea.”

I called her cell and she picked right up. “Cami, I’m glad to hear from you. I was so sorry to hear about your brother. Are you alright?”

“Thank you, Eileen. I’m doing okay. We had a ceremony for Iain today, and it was really, really helpful. My sister was able to be there via a video call, and some friends. And, I’m starting to recover from COVID. I’ve just got a couple lingering symptoms at this point.”

“I’m very glad to hear that. . . . So now it’s just a question of isolating until you aren’t contagious?”

“Yes . . . or, more accurately, until everyone is pretty sure I’m not contagious. Based on what Fiona tells me, there’s a fair bit of guess work in that. But, I think I should be cleared more or less when the firm is scheduled to open back up again. And, of course, I can continue to work remotely until then.”

“I don’t know how likely it is that we’ll reopen right after Easter, but we’re monitoring it. In any event, that’s very good news.”

“I’m actually calling for a different reason though,” I said. “The manager at this motel I’ve been staying at discovered I’ve got COVID and wants me out. I’m going to oblige them – I’ve already made other arrangements – but they had a lawyer call and threaten that if I didn’t clear out, he’d tell the firm that I was passing myself off as a woman.”

“WHAT!!!!” I knew that Eileen’s sense of professional honor would be as outraged as my own, and she was predictably livid.

“I know,” I said. “I told him to go ahead and contact anyone on the Management Committee, but I doubt he will since I also pointed out that attempted extortion was at the very least sanctionable.”

“What’s his name?” Her voice was positively icy.

“He called himself George Devine, from the Cabot law firm.”

“I think I may send Mr. Devine a little love note. On firm stationery, of course.”

“I’m not going to even try to dissuade you,” I chuckled. “But I also think it’s time to just send out that firm-wide blast. And get my name and photo on the firm website changed.”

Eileen took no time at all thinking about that. “Agreed. We should have just done it earlier, anyway. You approved the earlier draft, right?”

“I did. I just needed to give you the name that I wanted to use professionally, but that’s when life got complicated.”

“Great,” she said. “The Committee already approved it, so I can have it sent out tonight. Actually, within the hour.”

She was clearly relishing putting a stake through that toad’s threats. Sometimes I think that the people who give lawyers a bad name vastly outnumber those who don’t.

“So what name should I put on the memo, Cami?”

“Camryn Elizabeth Campbell,” I responded. “The last two spelled just like you would expect; the first spelled C-A-M-R-Y-N.”

“That’s lovely! I didn’t realize you were changing your last name as well?””

“I had a bit of a theological disagreement with my father. It wasn’t about my gender issue; he doesn’t even know about that. But the upshot is, yes. I won’t go by Savin anymore. Campbell is my mother’s mother’s maiden name.”

After a moment, she said, “I’m sorry, Cami. It sounds like this has been a really horrible week for you. Let me get this taken care of. We’ll take down your current picture too. We’ll need a new one eventually, but that can wait.”

I thanked her profusely and we ended the call. “I’m glad to have that taken care of.”

Rob had stayed with me throughout the call. He just gave me a one-armed hug, then helped me get up.

Less than half an hour later, having gotten myself half decent by putting on a nightie and a dressing gown, I got two emails:

TO: All Personnel, All Offices

FROM: Raphael Oliveira, Chairman of the Management Committee and Evan Barksdale, Managing Partner for Personnel

DATE: March 30, 2020

Re: Personnel Matters

One of our litigation associates, Cameron Savin, has decided to make a name change to align with her gender, and is taking the name Camryn Elizabeth Campbell. We are delighted to support Camryn’s decision and wish her all the best as she begins this new chapter of her life.

As many of you know, Camryn has been out on sick leave, having contracted the COVID-19 virus along with her brother. While Camryn is making a full recovery, her brother has been an early casualty of the pandemic. Please join us in extending our most heartfelt condolences to Camryn and her entire family.

They hadn’t run the second paragraph by me, and I was very touched by it. Leave it to Eileen. And speaking of Eileen . . . .

TO: George Devine, The Cabot Law Firm

FROM: Eileen O’Donnell, Cavendish, Edwards and Gunn

DATE: March 30, 2020

Re: Your Recent Communications

Please see the attached correspondence concerning your potential violations of New York’s Rules of Professional Conduct.

The pdf attached to the email would have peeled the hide off of a brontosaurus. Mr. Devine would know, first, that his threat to “out” me had no teeth, and second, that he had exposed himself to serious professional jeopardy, regardless of whether he resolved my issue with his client.

Forty-five minutes later, I had a call from Jacob Cabot, the sole named partner in the Cabot law firm, informing me that their client had accepted my offer. He then apologized for any ‘misunderstanding’ his colleague’s earlier statements might have caused.

“The two issues aren’t connected,” I said bluntly. “If you send me an email containing the terms I discussed with Mr. Devine, I will confirm that agreement and I’ll vacate the premises once the credit is received.

“But with respect to Mr. Devine’s unprofessional conduct, there was no ‘misunderstanding.’ His threat to tell my employer that I am transgendered if I did not vacate this motel room was very clear. Both I and Cavendish Edwards will need to independently evaluate whether we have an affirmative obligation to report his misconduct. The settlement of this other matter won’t, and can’t, affect that determination.”

The line was silent for a minute. Then Mr. Cabot said, “I know. And I appreciate that. . . . We’ll keep the matters separate. But . . . look, I’ve known George for fifteen years. He’s a bulldog, but he’s not a bad guy. If an apology will help . . . ?”

I felt for Cabot, as I hadn’t for his partner. He seemed genuine, and he was clearly distressed at what had happened. I said, gently, “We do have an obligation to evaluate it, Mr. Cabot, to satisfy our own obligations under the rules. But I promise we’ll consider what you said.”

He had to be content with that.

~o~O~o~
Mt. Vernon, New York, March 31

Our belongings were all packed in Rob’s Audi and the motel room was spotless. I was standing at the threshold, my hands still in plastic gloves, my face still masked. I gave it one last look. The place where I had last seen Iain alive. Where I had kept vigil, making sure Rob survived his worst night. Where I had heard the news that Iain had died. Where Rob and I had first made love. Such an ordinary place, to hold love and death, fear and hope, medicine, magic, and faith.

“Will you miss it?” Rob asked, coming up behind me.

“No . . . Not exactly. But there’s just so much history here for me. It feels strange to turn the page.”

He was quiet, and the world seemed to hold its breath. In the momentary stillness, I heard a high, thin cry, far overhead, and looked up to see a raptor soaring against a vault of purest blue, the morning sunlight catching its wing and tail feathers.

I squeezed Rob’s hands, resting on my shoulders. “Okay. Let’s go.”

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Amor è palpito dell´universo intero, misterioso, altero”
– Verdi, La Traviata, Sempre libera (Aria)

Boston, Massachusetts, April 1

I woke up in a strange bed, in a strange place, and it didn’t matter at all because I woke up next to Rob. He was sleeping completely naked, which I heartily approved of him doing. I was back in my light green nightie, and I approved of that, too.

It was around 5:00, I could tell that by my internal clock. What’s it going to be, Cami? I thought to myself. Do you lie here and fret about the future, or do you get up and start making it? Put in those terms, I slipped quietly from the bed, snagged my dressing gown and slippers, and left the bedroom.

Rob’s place was perfect for a young executive; nothing about it screamed “trust fund.” It had two smallish bedrooms, the second of which served as his study. A nicely appointed kitchen, open to the combined living room/dining room area, and one (very nice) bathroom. It was extremely tidy. Rob’s taste in furniture ran toward wood, leather, and comfort.

We had parked my things in the closet in the study, so I went there and changed into my yoga pants and a (kind of flirty, truth be told) blue sports bra with complicated string straps in the back. I left my feet bare; today I would only try doing stretches. There was room in front of his couch for that; doing a cheer routine might result in my breaking something. And anyway, I probably wasn’t recovered enough for that.

I felt fine – symptom free – but illness and a couple weeks of inactivity had really set back my physical fitness.

Even twenty minutes of stretches seemed like a lot. My muscles were positively screaming protest when I called a halt. Damn. It felt like I’d be starting from square one. I pulled myself upright and went into the kitchen, muttering all the way. Water to start. Rob had pointed me to the coffee supplies yesterday. I heated the water, got his coffee (tsking at him in absentia for buying it pre-ground), and set up the French Press.

I was focused on my task and did not notice Rob come up behind me until he planted one hand on my ass, while the other played with my flirty bra’s string back. “Good morning, gorgeous,” he said.

I turned and kissed him properly and thoroughly. So he would have no doubt about how I felt. We were both a bit flushed when I came up for air. “Good morning to you, too,” I said, smiling like a daisy at sunrise. “I didn’t expect to see you this early!”

I pushed the plunge on the French Press and brought my face down towards the pot, slowly sniffing the scent. It was real, genuine – this time, there was no doubt. My sense of smell was back. “One of the things that really got me, when my COVID symptoms started, was the thought that I might never smell fresh coffee again. I realized how important it was to me, something that small. I hope I never take it for granted again.”

His hand continued to caress me through the straps of my bra, but there wasn’t anything urgent about it. Just a wordless message that he found me beautiful, sexy, and desirable. All that, with nothing more than a touch.

Something else I hoped I would never take for granted.

His mind was going down a similar track. “We take a whole lot for granted now, and I think everyone of us is going to get a reminder of how precious all of those little things are. And, how vulnerable.”

“I assume you’ve been through that before, in the service.”

He nodded. “Yes . . . but you knew somehow that it was all still there, waiting for you. When I got home, I appreciated everything so much more than I ever had – people especially. But it’s amazing how quickly it all starts to feel normal again. I guess that’s just how humans are.”

We sat in silence for a bit, sharing the morning and drinking our coffee, then he asked whether I was talking to Fi at 6:30.

“I think we’re past the point where it’s necessary. But I’ve kind of gotten used to our morning calls. I’ll see what she says about it.” I drank some more of the rich, beautiful, perfect coffee. “Rob . . . do you mind if I talk to her about us? She will tell Henry. Will this cause issues with your family?”

He gave me a look that was hard to read and shifted a bit uncomfortably. “She already knows. I talked to her.”

I must have looked as astonished as I felt.

Though he was uncomfortable, he didn’t look away. “It was a couple days ago. Before we made love. I knew what I wanted, but I was so afraid that I would hurt you, somehow. Especially because of your issues with PTSD. So I talked to Fiona. She’s your dragon. I figured if she thought there was any likelihood of a problem, she would wave me off. She . . . ah . . . well. She didn’t.” He was blushing, bless the man. “She also wasn’t surprised.”

I wanted to come up with something clever to say, but I couldn’t. “I’m so touched, Rob. You are the most thoughtful person!” I could easily get weepy about this, but I clamped down on my hormones. Estrogen or no estrogen, I thought grimly, I am not a pubescent teenager!

Rob looked relieved. “I wasn’t sure how you would take it, so I didn’t say anything. It’s not that I think of you as some sort of child that needs protection, but . . . .“

“. . . but you knew that was an area that I actually might,” I said. I put my hand over his. “Don’t worry about it. . . . I’m grateful. But . . . that doesn’t answer the other part of my question. What about your family?”

“The only people who I really care about, on this issue anyway, are Mom and Dad. Henry matters, but you already know where he stands. Sam will follow Mom’s lead; he always has. Mom and Dad met you at the party and liked you, and of course they adore Fiona. So I talked to Mom about bringing you ‘round to meet them.”

“WHAT?” I thought, My goodness, Rob moves fast!

He looked at me with those remarkable eyes, eyes that were dark gray but somehow so much more, and dropped his light tone. “I told you, Cami. I don’t play around. I’m serious about you. About us. It may work and it may not; time will tell. But in the meantime I’m not going to hedge my bets. Sure as hell, I’m not going to hide our relationship.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Well, actually, yes I did. “I love you, Rob. And I’m proud to be seen with you, anytime, anywhere. I just don’t want to be the cause of any hurt coming to you. And, plenty of people will be scandalized.”

“The only people whose opinions would cause me any hurt are the ones I mentioned. . . . Which brings me back to bringing you ‘round to meet Mom and Dad.”

“But we’re quarantined,” I said. “We can’t . . . .”

He stopped me with an upraised palm. “Thought of that, actually. We should be clear – barring any relapses – by Easter Sunday. And, based on my conversation – just laying the groundwork, you understand – Mom and Dad have been isolating as well, and will through Easter.”

Rob’s office had also gone to remote work “until further notice,” so his dad would be working from home. “Sam can’t, so he won’t be able to join us. And unfortunately Henry and Fiona can’t join us because Fi is exposed to COVID every day, as you know. So, it’ll just be the four of us.”

“You’re too devious for your own good,” I said, faintly. “Aren’t you supposed to call mate in three, or something?”

He smiled wickedly. “I would, but it’s almost 6:30 and you need to talk to your dragon. So mating will have to wait. Such a shame!” He pulled a face.

I groaned, then went to talk to my dragon.

I had assured Fiona that neither of us had suffered any relapse and turned to what was really on my mind. “So, you knew what Rob was up to?”

“I did. And I approved. Wholeheartedly.” I could practically see the satisfied smile on her face, even though we weren’t doing a video call.

I growled at her.

She giggled in response. “Look, Cami . . . I wasn’t playing matchmaker. Rob was very concerned that he would hurt you – a concern that showed a lot of sensitivity on his part. I gave him an honest answer. I didn’t think your bad experience at Christmas would cause you to have a strong negative reaction if he let you know how he felt, even though I’m sure that trauma left scars.”

She shrugged. “Beyond that, I figured you were capable of saying ‘No’ if you weren’t interested. And I know that Rob’s adult enough to handle a rejection, so I wasn’t worried for you that way, either. What did you want me to say?”

“Something – almost anything – to me? You know? Your little sister? Just maybe?”

But she could tell from my tone that I wasn’t really upset. She giggled again. “What? And spoil the surprise? C’mon, Cami, dish! How’d he do?”

I laughed. “All right, you win. And . . . he was wonderful.” Becoming more serious, I said, “I’m in love, Fi. So much it scares me, especially because it’s come so fast. The last two weeks have been intense. I feel like I’ve lived half a lifetime since I left Baltimore.”

“You kind of have. I mean, sure, you’ve only really known each other a couple of weeks, discounting your brief encounters last Christmas. But it’s not like you’ve just been on a handful of dates. You’ve been living in the same space 24/7, you’ve helped each other recover from a life-threatening illness and you’ve dealt with Iain’s death. I’d think you know each other better than most couples who’ve been dating for months, if not longer.”

“Yeah . . . It’s not that I don’t think we know each other, exactly.” I was trying to articulate what was troubling me, but it wasn’t coming.

“Are you worried that the intensity of your feelings – or Rob’s – is somehow bound up in everything that’s been going on for you both?”

“I’ve been asking myself that for over a week,” I admitted. “And I’m sure the answer is ‘No.’ Positive. But how would I know? It’s like trying to judge your own boat’s speed when you don’t know how the tide is running.”

Fi, thankfully, did not simply laugh off my worries. “That sounds like a good reason not to leap into a long-term commitment tomorrow. Give yourselves time. You’re still planning to go back to DC, aren’t you? Not quitting work to become a kept woman?”

“I have to go,” I said, with extreme reluctance. “And I hate the thought of going. But . . . I think . . . .” I paused, doing just that.

Fiona waited, silently.

Finally I said, “I think this girl stuff is hard, Fi. That’s what I think.”

“That it is.” I could feel her smile in her words. “But you’re doing fine at it. Really. Just . . . don’t wait so long to reach out, okay? I’m here for you.”

“Thanks. I just know how busy you are, and how important what you are doing is. I don’t want to be a distraction. But on the other hand . . . .” I stopped again, this time because I found myself choking up.

I pressed on. “On the other hand, it kills me that you are five frickin’ minutes from where I am right now, and I can’t even see you and give you a hug.” Then I added, “Dammit, I told myself I was not going to cry!”

“I know, Sweetie.” Suddenly she sounded bone-tired, all the late nights and early mornings and weekends and holidays and the long parade of the sick, the scared, and the dying, grinding her down like golden wheat tossed between great, grim millstones. “I know. But talking to you, talking to Henry . . . it’s keeping me alive. Until the day when I can hug you both again. Don’t stop.”

“I won’t Fi,” I said, my voice reduced to a horse whisper. “I won’t.”

We signed off before I remembered that I had meant to ask her about Rob and Henry’s parents.

It was a busy day. I had to get back to my insurance research, and I needed to send off forms to finish my name change petition. I had to give the firm’s IT wizards remote access to my laptop to install additional software (including, I was amused to see, Zoom). And, I needed to respond to emails from work colleagues expressing support and condolences. I received particularly lovely emails from both Daviana and – more surprising still – from David.

But I managed to squeeze in time for a video call to Nicole and Maggie; I hadn’t spoken to them since the cremation. “I can’t begin to tell you how much that meant to me – and to Fiona, too. Where did you find that music?”

“Even Opera singers do weddings and funerals,” Maggie said with a laugh. “We’ve both sung verses of that piece before, but the verse that Nicole sang seemed especially right, given everything you’ve told us about Iain and your family.”

“Oh, it was! It was!” I told them about my temporary relocation to Boston following my issues with the motel in Mt. Vernon.

Nicole was mortified – she had picked the motel – but I was quick to reassure her.

“It was a perfect motel,” I said. “Couldn’t have been better in terms of the rooms, the layout, the location. They freaked out about COVID, but everyone’s doing that right now. It didn’t surprise me. I would have paid up and left quietly – we didn’t need to stay in that area after Iain passed. But they really pissed me off. I’m afraid I took a pound of flesh.”

“You sound like you regret doing that,” Nicole said, puzzled. Not “disappointed” puzzled. Just puzzled.

“I wouldn’t say I regret it, exactly. I don’t react well to bullying, and I don’t like to reward bullies. But I also know that people are scared right now, and they’re lashing out in ways they probably wouldn’t otherwise. It’s an especially good time to cut people a break, and I couldn’t bring myself to. I actually enjoyed roughing up that douchebag lawyer. And . . . well. I guess that’s not being my best self.”

Nicole said, “When you’re good you’re good . . . “

Maggie flawlessly finished the quote, “ . . . and when you’re bad you’re better!” They giggled.

Then I giggled. “All right, you got me,” I said, wiping my eyes.

Maggie said, “Girl, the world’s full of jackals. You shouldn’t lose any sleep over . . . ah . . . thinning the herd, now and then.”

Nicole, perhaps more attuned to the things I wasn’t saying, asked how I was getting along with Rob. “You guys were kind of thrown together. That could’ve gone really badly but obviously didn’t, since you're at his place. Are you guys an item?”

This was kind of tricky ground for me. In part because Nicole and I had been intimate (even though we’re both attracted to men, mostly), and partly because the three of us had made plans concerning getting through the pandemic. But I also wasn’t going to lie.

“We’re an item.” I was pleased to see that both Nicole and Maggie were genuinely thrilled for me.

But when the hubbub died down, I said, “It’s been very intense, these last few weeks. I don’t think I could have made it without Rob. But we haven’t talked about what comes after our quarantine period. I’ve got a life down south. A job, and friends. Ohana. He has a job, and friends, and family, here. People manage long-distance relationships. I’ve done it myself. I don’t know how that’ll work with a pandemic going on, but . . . we’ll figure something out.”

Nicole looked at me with her soft brown eyes – eyes that always seemed to see and understand me. “Cami – promise me. Do what’s right for you this time. Not what you think we want, or Rob wants, or your sister, your firm, or anyone else. You. You have such a big heart, but sometimes, you have to be reminded to show yourself some love, too. So I’m reminding you. Okay?”

“Okay, Nicole. I promise. Pinkie swear, even. God, I love you guys!”

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“L'arte schermendo, l'arte adoprando”
– Mozart, Le Nozze di Figaro, Se vuol ballare (Aria)

Boston, Massachusetts, April 3

I set up at Rob’s dining room table, a strong, steady light source in front of me. My face made up in a very understated, professional look that nonetheless allowed my blue eyes to pop. Black blazer over a cream-white shell. Liz’s watch. Tear-drop earrings. Hair in my favorite over-the-shoulder loose braid. I had even FaceTimed with Al the previous evening so that he could walk me through the process of thinning and shaping my eyebrows.

It was my debut as Camryn Elizabeth Campbell, Esq. A Zoom debut, but still.

And, it was going to be a doozy, because the only other people on the call would be the members of the Firm’s Management Committee. Which is to say, the people who actually ran the business where I worked, managing over a thousand lawyers in nine different offices. They were naturally focused on finding ways to navigate the pandemic, and were interested in my experience with COVID – with isolation and quarantine, and with the illness itself.

So I had spent a chunk of time the previous day just learning the new technology. What it could do, what it couldn’t, and how to optimize it for work. I had done test calls with Rob and with Liz (who had been stunned when I told her that I had taken the long version of her name as one of my own; I do love surprising Liz!). I had spent some time learning about backgrounds, and Rob had called a local photography shop and gotten a green screen delivered.

Eileen was acting as the “host” for the call, and she had arranged to have the two of us join first, a few minutes before the scheduled meeting. I joined the call and was put in the virtual “waiting room.” But she didn’t know that establishing the waiting room meant that she had to affirmatively let me in, so we had a side call where I explained it.

This was a work call and Eileen was all business. But the twinkle in her eyes and the smile that periodically danced across her lips told me that she was enjoying the chance to finally see the flowering of my female persona. It looked like she was calling in from her house; sunlight was streaming across her face, highlighting the left side and casting the right in shadow.

The other seven members of the committee began to join. All very senior attorneys with storied careers and decades of experience. Highly respected, both in their specialized areas and within the firm.

As a result, it was what Rob might call a Charlie Foxtrot.

Rafe Oliveira, the Chairman of the Management Committee, couldn’t figure out how to turn on his video feed. Three members were so badly backlit that their faces were essentially invisible. Two had audio issues – one couldn’t hear, the other was mute. It took fifteen minutes and some step-by-step instructions – mostly from me – just to get to the point where everyone could see, hear, be heard, and (mostly) be seen.

Oliveira smiled wryly. He had a broad, dark face, hair as dark as Rob’s, and a deep, powerful bass – the kind of voice you would cast to sing the role of a villain in an opera. “I’m sorry, Ms. Campbell,” he said. “You don’t appear to have caught us at our best.”

“Please, call me Camryn,” I responded, adding, “and there’s no need to apologize. This software isn’t intuitive. But it is very good.”

“You seem to be very familiar with it?” His inflection made a question out of the statement, and he raised a bushy black eyebrow to reinforce the query.

“I’ve only used it once before yesterday, but I’ve used Skype and FaceTime quite a bit. I spent several hours really learning how to use it yesterday, and honestly I think it will have a huge impact on the practice of law, even after the pandemic.”

“God, I hope not,” groaned one of the other committee members. William Hoskins. I knew the name from having looked up all of them before the meeting; his square on the screen was one of six that lacked a name identifier.

Trudy Wilson, somewhat more diplomatically, said, “I can see advantages compared to voice-only calls, but it doesn’t seem like a very good substitute for in-person communications. Not sure that’s a revolution.” Since the issue was above my paygrade and wasn’t why they’d asked to speak with me, I decided to keep a demure and respectful silence.

Eileen had other ideas. “Can you explain your thinking, Camryn?” Her face showed nothing but curiosity. Others, not so much.

But Oliveira said, “Yes, I’d like to hear it,” and I assumed he was in charge. At the very least, the primus inter pares.

Fortunately, I had been thinking a lot about this, weaving together insights from Fiona about the likely course of the pandemic and insights from Rob – and Henry – concerning financial and business matters.

Trying to project both humility and confidence – not the easiest of combinations! – I said, “Of course. But, there are a couple of factors that lead me to that conclusion. It may take a few minutes to explain. If you’d prefer, I can write it up; I know you have other things you wanted to discuss.”

The Chairman looked at the images of his colleagues on the screen. “I think we can spare a couple minutes. Please go ahead; we might ask for a write-up later.”

“Thank you. The first factor is savings in cost and time. Calls like this aren’t as good as in-person meetings. But they’re pretty good, and they are much, much cheaper. And more efficient, and logistically simple. You can have a one-hour meeting with people all over the world, and it will take one hour, everyone who has that one hour available will be able to attend, and it’ll cost you around $50 a month. Planning the meeting will take almost no time. And once clients see that those cost savings are available, they will push hard to have them adopted. Certainly by outside contractors, like lawyers.

“Second, the main barrier to widespread adoption of these cheaper technologies is that they aren’t familiar, and everyone has to be trained how to use them. That takes time, and the time it takes feels wasteful, and busy people always have better things to do. People like judges are particularly resistant to spending time that way. They don’t have to worry about how much trouble it is for parties and their lawyers to attend a hearing; they just order them to appear.

“But – and this is the most important point – everyone is going to have to learn the technologies now, whether we want to or not. We’ll have to. These lockdowns are going to be ongoing for some time. Until we get effective vaccines or therapeutics – and that’s going to be months away. Worst case scenario, years away.

“I’m not a doctor, but my sister is. And, she works in the infectious disease department at MassGeneral. This won’t be over by Easter, or Memorial Day, or Labor Day. At the very least, people can’t assume it will be. And that means they’ll have to learn how to operate remotely, including through video conferencing. Once the tech is widespread and understood, there will be no way to go back. The economic reality won’t allow it.”

I stopped talking. No one else started.

They were all looking at each other, a bit shell-shocked. A few looked rebellious; a couple looked sad.

I felt my confidence waiver. Had I been too outspoken? Especially for a very junior associate? But . . . the conclusion seemed almost inevitable to me, almost like a math equation. Or the point in a chess game when the number of good moves becomes vanishingly small.

But of course, there are always bad moves . . . .

Finally, Oliveira shook his head like he was clearing it. “Well, you’ve given this a lot of thought and I think it’s fair to say we haven’t. But it’s pretty clear to me that we need to. Perhaps we can put together an ad hoc committee to look more closely about possible long-term practice impacts and how we can prepare ourselves for them?”

His colleagues were nodding; their looks ranged from intrigued (Eileen) to resigned (including Wilson and Oliveira) to positively sour (Hoskins). But they all saw the need.

The Chairman said, “Eileen, will you set it up? And Camryn, will you be on the committee?”

We both agreed.

He segued easily to the real topic for the meeting. They asked me questions about my recent experiences. They wanted information they could use to help formulate policies on when people should not be in the office, regardless of lockdowns, how long people should be out, what work expectations might be reasonable for people in lockdown or quarantine.

I explained that, of the three cases I was personally familiar with, our experiences had been wildly different.

Iain and I had quickly lost our senses of taste and smell; Rob never had. Rob and Iain each had pretty bad coughs and periods of very high fever. My cough had never gotten as bad, nor had my fever been as high though it had lasted longer. Iain had, of course, gotten progressively weaker and eventually had so much trouble breathing that he had to go on oxygen, then be intubated. Rob alone had experienced severe headaches and sensitivity to light.

Trying to give a sense of work during the illness was hard. “For both myself and Mr. Hutchinson, the fever and muscle aches left us pretty fatigued; we couldn’t work for more than an hour or two at a time before needing a couple of hours of rest. And, even before I was sick myself, looking after my brother was very time-consuming. Just trying to keep his fever down meant he needed medicine throughout the night.”

I explained that the post-sickness quarantine period was a completely different story. “At this point, I can work remotely while in quarantine as much, and almost as efficiently, as I’d be able to do at my desk.”

Mr. Hoskins interjected, “Well, you certainly found a nice place to set up shop.”

I shook my head. “Actually, I haven’t, if you’ll forgive me. I only appear to be working in a big, beautiful library. But that’s only one of the benefits of this technology. The library is just a background photo that I found online; it’s at Princeton, I think. I’m currently in an apartment in Boston.”

I turned off the wallpaper and the greenscreen appeared behind me.

This time their eyes really popped. “Ha!” said Jason Tandy, one of the younger members of the committee (he might be no more than fifty!). “Now that's useful!”

After a few more questions, Oliveira took a silent poll of his colleagues with his eyes and wrapped up this part of their meeting. “Camryn, thank you for your time today. You’ve been through quite an ordeal, and I’m sure you would rather not remember it. And on behalf of all of us, we’re very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you, sir. And let me also thank all of you for the firm’s support when I was looking after Iain, and when I was sick. But most of all, for supporting my transition. Lots of places have good diversity policies on paper; you’ve gone way beyond that. I . . . I’m grateful. Of course. But I’m also so very, very proud to be part of this firm.”

I dropped off the call; they had many more things to discuss.

I got an email from Eileen about three hours later asking if I had a moment.

I went back to my impromptu studio and lit it up.

This time Eileen had proper lighting on her face and a non-distracting blank wall behind her. She looked gleeful. “Cami, you were great! Even the people who didn’t like what you were saying had to concede that you made good points!”

“I was pretty worried that I’d overstepped my bounds.” Bill Hoskin’s sour face came to mind.

But Eileen thought not. “No, they didn’t think you were speaking out of turn or too big for your own britches. Or skirt, I suppose.” She grinned. “You didn’t come across as arrogant. More thoughtful, really. It’s just that a number of our members don’t like the thought that they, personally, might have to change. To learn new things, and to learn them from our juniors.”

She shook her head. “Don’t be too hard on them – on ‘us,’ more accurately. We’ve all been successful in the world as it existed before. We know how that world works, and we know our place in it. So it’s natural that we might hope the world would just stop spinning. But it never has.”

One of the things that Eileen was happiest about was that I had demonstrated that it wasn’t enough for the firm to just buy new software and tech. People had to get trained in it.

“Everyone on that committee is bright and capable. But not one of us took the time to actually learn how to use Zoom after IT installed it. We figured we’d just muddle through. And you popped in looking like a TV anchor in a studio, and made us – the best of the best, legends in our own minds – look like the Beverly Hillbillies. The ‘Not-Yet-Ready-for-Primetime-Players.’ It was perfect.”

Smiling broadly, she added, “I guarantee you that the next time we meet, each one of them will have learned how to make that damned program hum, and they’ll insist that everyone they work with will, too.”

“That doesn’t sound like a career-enhancing move on my part,” I said tentatively.

She snorted. “I don’t recommend making a habit of it. Especially not with Rafe; he’s more prickly than you’d think. But – and it’s an important ‘but’ – this time was different. Since COVID hit we’ve consistently been behind the curve, just waiting and reacting, doing the minimum necessary. We need to start managing this crisis. Actively. Finding the opportunities rather than just circling the waggons and hunkering down. We needed a kick in the ass, and we didn’t even realize it.”

“And now that it’s just us girls,” she said, smiling, “You look great! And everything about how you present just seems right. And natural. I’m very happy for you.”

“Thank you,” I said sincerely. “I can’t begin to tell you how much it has meant to me, to have you as a mentor. I don’t know how I could have navigated all this. Any of this, really.”

She smiled. “Somehow, I think you’d have managed. But it’s been my privilege, Cami. Really it has.”

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“La danse au chant se mariait”
– Bizet, Carmen, Chanson Bohemienne (Aria)

Boston, Massachusetts, April 5

“No . . . No!!! Left foot, Cami!” Rob’s right foot stopped just short of my left foot, which was, alas, still in its path. My right foot was behind me, where it wasn’t supposed to be. Rob’s forward motion, and my lack of a truly corresponding backward motion, brought us even more closely together. I leaned forward and fluttered an eyelash against his cheek.

“Sorry,” I said. But I got a kiss out of it, so I wasn’t all that sorry. And anyway, I was in his arms, so it was all good.

His right hand was resting on my back and his left hand held my right. We had pushed the living room furniture back to the walls and he was, at my request, teaching me how to waltz.

We tried again. I wasn’t used to dancing with a partner, or really to dancing at all. I had done a lot of cheer routines as a form of exercise, and those were carefully choreographed and followed set patterns. This felt similar, but it was much more fun to do it with Rob.

“Okay,” he said, “Right leg back . . . left leg back . . . right leg left . . . left foot forward . . . right foot forward . . . left foot right . . . Aaaand again . . . .” He was graceful and coordinated.

I felt the need to rise to the occasion. I don’t know how I looked, but I felt wonderful, just moving together, locked close.

We did the basic box step over and over, banking it into muscle memory. Rob stopped calling out the movements after a bit, and then once we had started to look better, he asked, “Strauss or Chopin?”

“Normally I’d take Chopin any day. But, sorry . . . I’ve got to do this to The Blue Danube!”

He laughed and made the selection. Before, it had felt wonderful; with music, it was magic. I felt positively elegant, and I was only dressed in exercise clothes. But I only had to close my eyes to imagine gliding over a dance floor, wearing something that flowed and moved like a silken banner in a breeze, following the lead of this amazing dancer. That would be heaven!

The music stopped and he bowed.

I dropped a curtsy, lowering my head and holding out my imaginary skirt.

He took my hand and raised me up.

I was lost in those dark eyes again, melting my body against his, running my hands over the strong muscles of his back, his shoulders. Our lips closed together and the world was, once more, just Rob and me and the great, powerful thing that held us together – held us and transformed us. One dance ended, another began.

We needed more practice.

~o~O~o~
Boston, Massachusetts, April 6

“Good morning, Cami,” Fiona said.

“Good morning to you, too,” I responded. “Now do me a favor: Hang up, put your coat on and meet me out front. I want to see you this morning.”

“Cami, it’s forty degrees out,” she started to say, before blurting, “but forget that! I’ll be right there!” Two minutes later, she was out her front door.

I was out on the sidewalk. Fifteen feet away, masked. We both were. “I just had to see you,” I said through the fabric. “I can’t come in, I can’t hug you. But I wanted to see you, for real. In the flesh.”

Her smile was covered, but it was apparent from her eyes. “Thanks, Cami,” she said. “I appreciate it. I really do. It’s been frustrating with you here, and in some ways as far apart as you were in Baltimore. Though, I didn’t expect to see you on my doorstep at 6:30 in the morning!”

I looked at her carefully. The strain of the past months was evident in every movement, in every line of her face. But still . . . . “Damn, it’s good to see you . . . So good.”

~o~O~o~
Boston, Massachusetts, April 7

“Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, a short run is nine and his nobs is ten. And . . . that should do it!” I said, moving my peg into the cribbage board’s end zone. “Gotcha. I mean, gotcha again.” I grinned.

“Witch,” Rob replied. “Mere mortals don’t get those cards. Not three games running!”

“Well, if you can’t cover your bet,” I said, batting my eyelashes, “I think I can come up some acceptable payment alternatives.”

He leered at me. “Hmmm, what did you have in mind, little girl?”

Without taking my eyes off him, I started to slowly unbutton my shirt. “Oh, a little of this,” I sucked on my index finger, pulled it out slowly. “And maybe a little of that.”

He got that hungry look in his eyes, again. I expect mine looked no different. Rob’s continuing interest – his obvious, never hidden desire for my body – mine! – had eroded my doubts, my fears. I couldn’t believe my good fortune, but he gave me ample proof, day after day, that I should.

He had me back in his arms just as I released the last button and gently lifted the shirt from my shoulders, allowing it to slide down my arms and onto the floor. His hands went round to my back and pulled me close . . . closer. His clever fingers made short work of the hooks on the back of my bra and he eased it off, pulling the straps forward so that it, too, could slide down my arms.

To my alarm and mortification, my right breast fell with the bra. I froze, instantly out of the mood, panicked. God, I’m a freak!!!!

Rob caught me before I could flee. His hands were on my shoulders, then his right hand slid behind my neck, keeping me close. Keeping me looking at him. “Cami,” he said softly. “Don’t. Don’t worry. Don’t panic. Don’t run. I appreciate that you want me to see your body at its best. But you don’t need help to be beautiful.”

I was shaking like a leaf, unable to speak. Unable to even move my hands.

He reached down and began to stroke the skin that had just become exposed. He kept speaking, softly, gentling me as a trainer might calm a skittish racehorse. “I love you, Cami. And I want you. This doesn’t change anything.” His fingers glided across my nipple.

I felt something like an electric shock. “OH!” I squeeked, startled.

“Interesting,” he said, savoring the word like a master sommelier sampling a new and intriguing vintage. “Veeerry interesting.”

He stroked the nipple again.

Again I felt like he had found a direct nerve connection to my brain. Stroke, stroke, squeeze . . . . Suddenly, I was breathing heavily and feeling very hot indeed.

“Cami,” he said carefully, “I would really like it if you would remove your other prosthetic.”

I stared at him, still panicked.

He just squeezed my nipple again.

Almost of their own volition, my hands came up and peeled off my artificial left breast.

He gently took it from me and set it on the table beside us. Then both his hands were on my chest – my real chest – and his thumbs were teasing my nipples.

I had never experienced anything like that sensation. I felt like my insides were becoming liquid and warm. My knees felt weak.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” he murmured, channeling Lewis Carroll.

I couldn’t say anything in response.

He led me, unresisting, into the bathroom, where he soaped up his hands and began to clean the residual adhesive from my chest, in the process teasing my sensitive skin and sending me into a frenzy.

I was so aroused I could scarcely see straight, much less think straight. And, without knowing quite how, I found that I had slipped down to my knees, and my hands were engaged in a bit of payback with the hard bulge in his pants.

Before he could do much more than chuckle, I had his pants and underwear off, aided by the fact that he didn’t wear shoes around the house.

“Cami? You don’t have to. . . .”

He didn’t get a chance to finish his thought. Never taking my eyes off of his, I fondled him, then gave him baby kisses. I caressed his balls. By the time I slid the head of his cock into my mouth, he was clutching the countertop and panting even more than I had.

It’s hard to explain why I loved it so much. Many women don’t, so it’s not inextricably linked to my femininity. It did, very much, feel like an act of submission, but I felt no shame in that. It wasn’t the submission of a slave, it was the free surender of ego, an acknowledgement of the power of my lover’s regard.

Most obviously, it was driving him wild, and nothing made me feel happier, or more womanly, or more fulfilled or sexier than the knowledge that I could give him so much pure, unadulterated pleasure.

Finally, though, I simply loved the way he felt. His cock was hard and hot and alive, and for a few precious moments, it was mine. I caressed and kissed and sucked and pumped and watched him thrash in pleasure. I felt his explosion coming and positioned myself to swallow it all. I didn’t love that part, but I loved him, and that was what mattered.

He groaned and slipped to join me on the bathroom floor.

I steadied him and rested my forehead against his. “That’ll teach you. Fondling my nipples!”

He closed his amazing eyes as if he was saying a prayer. “Consider me schooled!”

Later that night, when Rob was sleeping, I went into the bathroom and examined my bare chest. I hadn't noticed any change before, but my nipples definitely looked larger, darker, and puffier than usual. Sure as hell they were more sensitive!

Is it possible that my breasts are beginning to bud?

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Non v'ha amor se non v'è libertà”
– Verdi, Rigoletto, Questa o quella (Aria)

Boston, Massachusetts, April 8

I was deep into a new project for work when I got the “all hands” memo announcing that remote work would continue until at least May 15. It was late in the workday and well past the close of the markets, so I decided I could legitimately clock off. I made a French Press full of coffee, pausing again to marvel at the aroma. At the door of the study, I knocked lightly and popped my head in.

He had headphones on, but waved me in. I handed him a cup and he blew me a kiss before I left, shutting the door.

He came out a few minutes later and found me in the living room, occupying one of his comfortable leather chairs, my legs tucked on the seat. Leaning down, he gave me a kiss. “Thank you, Sweetie. Just what I needed.” He sat facing me in a matching chair. “You done for the day?”

I nodded. “The firm’s not bringing people back until Mid-May, at earliest. But hard to say. You know Fi’s view: it’ll be longer.”

It was his turn to nod. “Probably time for us to have that talk we’ve been avoiding, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “Stay or go? I certainly can work remotely from here just as easily as I can from Opera House.” I paused, then fell silent.

Rob watched me carefully, then set his mug down. “Cami, we’re dancing around this. I think because we love each other and we don't want to hurt each other. So let me put out a few things, just to be clear about where I’m coming from. How I feel.

“I want to be with you. Right now, I can’t move. I’m needed here too much. I have people who are depending on me. I can do a lot of it remotely, but not for the kind of time frames Fi has been talking about. So I’d be delighted if you stayed. Overjoyed. Thrilled. But I can’t ask you to. I know you have the same sorts of cross-pressures I do.”

“I love you, too, Rob. And I want to be with you, and it’s so tempting to just go on as we have been going. But . . . I also need to get back. It’s not just because I promised. Nicole and Maggie would forgive me. In fact, Nicole made me promise to do what was right for me.” I was having trouble going on. It’s so hard!

But Rob just waited patiently for me to continue.

“I was in a relationship before where I became kind of a social appendage,” I said. “My partner’s friends became my friends; I didn’t have friends of my own. I’ve started to make my own life now, and develop wonderful friendships. I don’t want to lose them, or become just an appendage again.”

“I see that,” Rob said, “though there are probably ways to avoid it.”

I wanted to feel his arms around me so badly. But I needed to get through this first. “I know. And I agree. But it’s more than that. I said I would help Nicole and Maggie get through this pandemic, but this isn’t just about duty. It’s something I want to do too. We have projects we are planning, and activities, and I wanted to help make it all happen. I was excited about it. I still am.”
I took a deep breath and kept going. “And . . . finally, there’s so much I still need to learn about being a woman. It’s more than just how to dress, or use cosmetics, or even how to walk and talk. Or the medical part, though that’s important too, and all my doctors are in Baltimore.

“There’s a poetry to it, a rhythm. It’s just different. When I touch it, when I find myself in that rhythm, it feels natural. Like I’m remembering something I used to know. But I still need to work at it. Too learn, or relearn. And, in all the world, I don’t think I could find better teachers than my roommates.”

Rob stood up and held out his hands.

I gratefully allowed him to pull me up, but he didn’t immediately fold me into his arms.

Instead, he held my hands. “If our love can’t survive a period of being apart, it’s nowhere near as strong as I think it is. We’ll find a way to make it work.”

I was, finally, able to throw myself into his arms. “I love you,” I said through tears that I just couldn’t hold back. “I love you so much it hurts.”

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Ah quell'amor ch'è palpito dell'universo intero”
– Verdi, La Traviata, E strano! e strano! (Aria)

Boston, Massachusetts, April 12

We were finally, officially, out of quarantine. We could, in theory, paint the town, but the town was, to all appearances, empty and unpaintable. The shops were closed. Clubs and bars as well. There was a “voluntary” nighttime curfew and a shelter-in-place order.

There would be no joyous Easter services for us. It was like Narnia at the beginning of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, except that it felt like it would always be Lent and never Easter.

But we had survived COVID, isolation and quarantine. We had only a little while left to spend together, and we would not squander it. Which brought me, in a dress borrowed from my sister (thus requiring the use of a waist cincher), to the doors of a large brownstone in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. Rob’s parents’ house.

Rob gave me a look. “Ready?”

“Ready,” I answered, hoping it was true.

He briefly touched my cheek. “Relax. They’ll like you. You’ll like them. Really.” Then he opened the door, sang out a “Halloo,” and led me inside.

Rob’s mother was the first to greet us. Anne Shaw Hutchinson was several inches shorter than me even in modest heels. Her hair, which was cut full off of her shoulders, was a rich shade of auburn, and her eyes were a warm brown, a bit darker than Nicole’s.

Interestingly, she came to me first, captured both my hands, and said, “Cami! I’m so glad you could come! Then she gave me a gentle, but very sincere, hug of welcome. “Thank you so much for bringing him back safe.”

Rob’s father George had come in after Anne and had given Rob a hug when I was talking with Anne. Seen together, they were very alike. Rob was a smidgen taller – In my pumps, I was just under 6’1”; Rob was still a bit taller but George wasn’t. Same rectangular face, same hair and eyebrows, but George, like me, had blue eyes. Unlike Rob, George wore a short beard that made his face look longer.

He turned to me and smiled warmly. “Welcome, Cami!” I got a hug as well, and George’s hug was firm, conveying nothing but genuine warmth. The butterflies under my waist cincher finally started to settle, though they hadn’t folded their wings yet.

The room immediately to the right of the entrance was a large, octagonal parlor or living room, where the three sides facing the street held large windows set in mahogany sills and frames. The ceiling was probably twelve feet high. I thought it must be a bear to heat it, but it looked stunning. Something out of Way “Better Homes and Gardens.” The room had a large fireplace and a natural wood fire was crackling merrily.

Anne guided us to seats by the fire, where they had laid out some nibbles.

George took our coats. Then he got drink orders, poured some wine, and sat down to join us.

Talking with George and Anne was like getting one of Rob’s massages. The initial touch was feather light, but slowly and surely they slid the conversation around to topics that were deeper, easing any tensions rather than fighting them. And they did it effortlessly, because between the two of them their interests were almost encyclopedic.

We talked about medicine – a topic very much on all of our minds – and Anne was keen to hear Rob’s insights on therapeutics and, in particular, mRNA vaccines. George had apparently gotten that brief from Rob already, in his capacity as Hutchinson Investments’ chief strategist, but he joined the conversation with great interest.

Apparently the firm was contributing to the Governor’s effort to convert the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center into a field hospital. “That was Fiona,” George said. “Henry brought it to us. Hopefully it will make a difference.”

Anne smiled. “I just love your sister, Cami. She is the most amazing, most dedicated woman . . . all of this is taking such a toll on her.”
Well, anyone who loves Fi starts high in my good graces!

We talked about baseball – of course! – and George and I commiserated over the possible loss of the whole season. It was hard to imagine spring without baseball.

Anne was a tennis enthusiast, but COVID had also forced the suspension of ATP tournaments since early March.

We talked about theater, and about music. George and Anne were both very knowledgeable about opera and wanted to know all about my roommates – another subject on which I was always delighted to wax poetic.

Anne was very interested in our idea for an opera-themed podcast. “That would be fabulous!” she said. “We’re all focused on survival, and we should be. But surviving right now means brutally hard work for some people, and home detention for the rest of us. Finding ways to connect, to be able to engage with each other about life and love and beauty and art . . . that can keep us all going. Keep us sane.”

“Civilization?” I said, making it a question and directing it to George. Rob had told me why his father had insisted that his boys become culturally literate.

George immediately understood the reference, and smiled fondly at his son. “I see someone’s been telling tales out of school. But that’s exactly right. We need to save lives, and we need to keep our civilization alive, too. It was already in bad shape even before the pandemic.”

And that, in turn, led us into a conversation about America’s deepening cultural and political divisions.

We had been talking about all manner of things for over two hours when George took Rob off to the kitchen to help him with something he was cooking.

Anne smiled at their retreating backs, still charmed, as I was, by the fact that in this household, the kitchen was not an exclusively female preserve. “I do more cooking than George, but he’s got more talent and usually takes care of special meals. Which gives me more time to talk with people – the thing I really enjoy most.”

She turned those kind brown eyes on me. “And I’ve really wanted to spend some time with you. I can see how close you and Rob have become in such a short time. He’s had such a hard time connecting with people – I mean, really connecting – since he came back from Afghanistan. And I’m his mom, so I worry!”

I decided to address the elephant in the room. “Anne, I have to ask: does it bother you – either of you – that Rob is dating me? I’m not exactly what parents dream about for their children.”

Anne didn’t pretend to misunderstand me, and she was blessedly direct. “What George and I have dreamed about for our boys is that they will find someone to share their lives with, as fully and completely and joyfully as George and I have these past thirty-seven years. That’s all we care about, and I mean that. Rob is pretty obviously very attracted to you. I can’t for the life of me understand why your being trans should bother us, if it doesn’t bother him.”

Clearly she wasn’t seeing conviction in my eyes. She came over and sat by me on the couch, in the place Rob had vacated, and took my hands in hers. “Rob told us that you would be worried we might not accept you. Please don’t be. We aren’t like that, and I’m proud to say that our boys aren’t like that.”

“Thank you. I just didn’t know what to expect, from . . . well. This is all very far removed from my own experience.”

She smiled. “The whole ‘Boston Brahmin’ thing?”

I nodded.

“We’re not all like Chip,” she said with some asperity. My face must have asked a question, and she said, “George told me, second hand, about your conversations with his nibs. I got more from Gooney, of course, she and I have been herding Hutchinsons now for four decades and she’s closer than my own sisters. I guess Chip said he was uncomfortable about your being trans?”

“To be fair, he also offered me a job.”

She smiled again. “That’s Chip. Never waste good talent! But don’t think I’m dumping on him; he’s a wonderful man as well as a doting husband. He just has a black-and-white view of the world, which is part of the reason he’s the right person for his job. He makes quick decisions and doesn’t agonize over nuances. So you make Chip uncomfortable, because you don’t fit neatly into the binary categories he uses to create order out of chaos. But George and I are more comfortable with a color palette that isn’t limited to black and white.”

“Cornelius seems much older than your husband. Is that why they’re so different?”

“Partly. Chip is six years older, and he is the oldest. I think you would agree that makes a difference?”

I nodded fervently, thinking of the dynamics between Fi and me, or for that matter between Iain and Fi, when Iain was still with us.

“Because Chip was the eldest, I think he bore most of the weight of his father’s expectations, and that was a pretty heavy burden,” she said.

“The ‘Tai Pan’?”

She laughed. “Oh, you've heard that one, have you? Yeah, the old man was really something. But impressive, too. Very impressive. Just . . . well, let me just say talking to him was a bit like talking to New Hampshire’s ‘Old Man of the Mountain,’ back before it fell.”

She asked some questions about me, and seemed genuinely interested in my journey into womanhood. When I told her that I had started taking hormones a month ago, she was surprised.

“I assumed you had already gone through hormone therapy. I never picked up anything that would have led me to question whether you were female when we first met. Once I knew, I was able to look. And even then, any ‘tells’ are pretty subtle.”

She was surprisingly familiar with trans-related issues and asked questions about voice therapy that displayed a solid understanding of the mechanics and the challenges. When I asked, she said, “George and Rob do their homework; I do mine. Obviously, I know a bit about your family because of Fiona, but I wanted to know more about you. Who is this person, who finally got through Rob’s very smooth, but very hard shell? You know. Just . . . being a mom.”

I could only shake my head. My own mother was, to put it mildly, not like that. At all.

Rob and George eventually called us in to dinner. George had done a masterful job grilling some New England salmon to perfection, adding olive oil and some delicate herbs to bring out the flavor. With that, we had fingerling potatoes and an asparagus dish that was mouth-watering.

“There were times during my illness when I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to smell or taste anything again,” I told them. “When a wonderful meal like this would just be . . . food. Fuel. And I had never really thought, before then, how important good food is. How much it centers our social interactions. It’s . . . .”

I paused, looking for the word, but Rob and George both said, “Civilized.”

“Yes!” I said, “it is. And, God bless civilization!”

After dinner, George suggested a friendly game of chess, but Anne intervened. “No, you don’t! You’ll be at it until curfew, all three of you! Besides . . . George, you might not have heard, but Rob’s been teaching Cami to waltz . . . .”

George’s face lit up and he eagerly took the bait. “Oh, that’s even better!”

George and Rob pulled the leaves from the table, and put the table and chairs against the wall. The space remaining was easily enough for two couples to dance – even a space-eating waltz.

This will be fun!

George did something with his phone, and the opening strains of Chopin’s Waltz in A-flat Major came through speakers in the ceiling. To my surprise, he came and stood in front of me and held out his left hand. I took it with my right, as Rob had taught me, and he pulled me in, resting his right hand lightly on my back, below the level of my left arm. I placed my left hand on his right shoulder, and he led me into the box step.

Rob, meanwhile, partnered his mother. She laughed and said, “You’re entirely too good at this!”

If I had wanted to arrange a test to see whether I made Rob’s father uncomfortable, I would have had a hard time improving on having him waltz with me. But his dancing was smooth, relaxed, and graceful – exactly how you would expect a mature man to dance with a much younger woman when his wife was in the room. He was almost as good as Rob, and dancing with him was a pleasure.

The music ended, he bowed gracefully and I curtsied deeply. Then we switched partners and I was in Rob’s arms, and life was a fine and wonderful thing. He had the full skirt of my light blue cocktail-length dress swirling as we showed off the fruits of our practice sessions.

But as good as Rob was, and as hard as I had practiced, George and Anne put us to shame. There is no way to match what two good dancers can achieve, when they have been partnering for decades. It was like watching water flowing over river rocks, liquid and graceful and full of life.

As Rob’s arms came around me in a twirl, I leaned back into his chest, lifted my eyes towards his parents and whispered, “I want that, Rob.”

He spun me back out, and when I was facing him he smiled and held me captive with his amazing eyes. “As you wish,” he promised, making me feel like Buttercup.

~o~O~o~
Boston, Massachusetts, April 13

My rental car was packed, with Iain’s remains on the floor of the passenger seat. We had made love last night, and then, once more, this morning. The last time was as gentle, as tender, as the first time. But now I was outside and the chill of separation was seeping into my bones.

“Don’t be sad, love,” Rob said softly. “We’ll make this work.” He kissed me gently, his lips a sweet promise. “Love finds a way.”

To be continued . . . .

BOOK TWO
Trumpet Voluntary
Spring, 2022

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER ONE
“Figlia, sorella, amica, Tutto trovate in me.”
– Rossini, La Cenerentola, Non piu mesta (Aria)

Boston, Massachusetts, May 21, 2022

I woke up slowly, emerging almost reluctantly from the dream I had taken across the threshold of consciousness. It had been years since I had seen that dreamscape, but there it was, whole, healed, and perfect: Me, making a graceful dive from a wooden pier into a deep, pristine lake, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, pine forests, and the clearest air in the world. I was wearing a lime-green one-piece and curves that were, finally, all my own.

I smiled, running my hand lightly down my satin negligée. No one would ever describe me as Rubenesque, but the end result of two years of hormone therapy was – in the opinion of the only two people whose views on the subject mattered – entirely satisfactory.

Two years of estrogen and other chemical blockers and stimulants. Two years of blessed healing. Two years of loving discovery.

I had lost two inches in my waist, picked up rather more in the hips and rear end, and even achieved a bust that managed, albeit only just, to fill out the very first bras I had bought to wear with my prosthetics. I jokingly referred to their size as a “gentleman’s C.” My skin was softer, my body hair gone, and the hair on my head was finer, more full. When loose, it came down to the middle of my back.

But I won’t be wearing it loose today! As sleep left me, I jumped out of bed, grabbed my dressing gown and raced upstairs. It was all I could do to stop myself from going straight to the third-floor bedroom, but I knew I would be more welcome if I came bearing the only appropriate gift.

I had fresh coffee ready in minutes, pausing in gratitude – as I tried to do every morning – for the rich, earthy smell. Pouring two cups, I brought them upstairs, held awkwardly in one hand so I could manage the door at the top of the landing. I rapped twice, sharply, and walked in without waiting for an answer. I wasn’t really worried about my welcome.

“Good morning, beautiful!” I said, gazing at the stunning woman who was already sitting up in her bed. She was alone — but only for the one night.

Fiona returned my smile with a look of such joy that it literally took my breath away. “Good morning, Cami.” Her voice was soft, warm, and full of love. She patted the bed. “Come join me!”

I handed her one of the cups, taking the opportunity to bend down and plant a kiss on her forehead, before going around the bed to sit beside her against the pillows. “You ready?”

Fiona smiled, this time fiercely. “Ready? More like over-ripe!”

“Good thing,” I said, “because I’ve got a full day planned for you! You might regret leaving the ‘details’ to me!”

Fiona looked untroubled. Serene, even. “Girl, I have every confidence in you. I’m sure everything will be absolutely perfect.”

I gave her a look of mock horror. “Oh! No pressure!”

She laughed, then turned serious. “I would trust you with my life. I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of you. How amazed I am at the incredible, accomplished, beautiful woman you’ve become. I’m so glad that you're my sister. And so happy to be sharing this morning with you.”

I choked up, but was just able to say, “God, I love you, Fi. You’ll always be my hero!”

My eyes, like Fiona’s, were bright with tears. But they were, at last, the best kind: Tears of joy, of love, and of thanksgiving.

We had survived.

We had survived as COVID closed the country, as we retreated to our bubbles and hunkered down behind closed doors. As infections soared. As the hospitals had filled . . . and the morgues. As the date that Fi and Henry had announced with such joy came and went, just another day of grueling work for a frontline healthcare professional.

We had survived to see a new spring complete with vaccines. I had hoped, then, that maybe, just maybe, things would get back to normal. But Fiona had warned me that it wouldn’t get better overnight, and as usual she was right.

Baseball returned, but it started with empty stadiums. Stores opened, only to close again as numbers crept back up. Amazingly, there were organized campaigns against getting vaccinated, and in many parts of the country they worked. People Fiona had been trying desperately to save turned around and joined team virus.

So, summer arrived, and a new subvariant came, and we stayed locked in our bubbles.

And we survived.

But Fiona, my hero, had not given up, so I could not give up either. We kept the flame of hope alive as summer turned to fall and the brutal Delta variant took hold. We kept hope alive as Thanksgiving gatherings and Christmas parties turned into super-spreader events, as the death total continued to climb, reaching one million just two weeks ago.

But the Delta variant waned and the less-deadly Omicon variant took its place. And in an act of hope and faith, Fiona and Henry had set a new date. A day in spring, when the flowers would be blooming, even in coastal New England. When the trees would be covered in a light green, and azaleas would blossom.

Today.

“I wish they could be here today, to see you like this. Iain. Gammy Campbell.”

“Me too,” Fiona said. “Though I expect if she was here, Grammy’d have a thing or two to say about our lolling around in bed getting maudlin when there’s work to be done.”

I smiled through my tears. “She would, too.”

Gammy had passed with the turning of the year. She hadn’t died of COVID; she just went to bed one night and, wholly without drama, failed to awaken with the dawn. Maybe she had no Tina in her life, to call her sternly back to duty. But I thought the weight of the years, the fights, the deaths and defeats had been too much for her.

I was proud to carry her name, though she’d ribbed me about it. “Can’t see what good’ll come of changing your name; you’re a Savin whether you like it or not. But I suppose you’re a Campbell too, and there’s no name better.”

It was time. “Let’s get cracking, Doctor Savin,” I said. “Into the shower with you!”

“Not a doctor today,” she said as she slid out of bed. “And not a Savin tomorrow!”

I folded her into a hug before she disappeared into her bathroom. “If you’re not a doctor today, then no giving orders,” I admonished. “It’s all under control!”

I trotted downstairs to get my own shower, reflecting on Fi’s decision to take Henry’s last name. Like me, she no longer had any desire to bear our father’s.

Fi hadn’t spoken to Dad since he’d disowned her. He had caught COVID in late December of 2020, and as a result he wasn’t able to join his friends’ caravan to Washington D.C. to rally in support of President Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss.

Dad had been doubly blessed: his symptoms were relatively mild and, unlike his friends, he wasn’t facing federal criminal charges for assaulting the Capitol. God’s ways are, indeed, as mysterious as the pathway of the wind.

I hadn’t been in contact with Dad either — not since our mutual denunciations. But I kept in quiet and sporadic communication with Mom, which is the only reason I’d even known about Dad’s COVID episode and his insurrection stupidity. I had met up with Mom twice. The last time, just a few months ago, had been at Gammy’s internment in West Virginia. Dad hadn’t accompanied her.

The time before, Mom and I had each driven six hours to meet in Columbus, Ohio so I could give her Iain’s remains. To my surprise, she already knew about my transition. “Why you thought you could tell a thousand people and not have anyone bring that bit of juicy gossip to your mother’s ears is beyond me.”

I thought about that conversation as I put my hair into a shower cap and turned on the hot water. Our conversation that day had been quite the eye-opener.

We had sat across from each other on park benches, separated by a gravel path, a pandemic, and an unbridgeable chasm of mutual disappointment and unmet expectations. She had looked bitter, brittle, and far older than she had just six months before, when I had seen her at Thanksgiving.

She had asked about Iain’s final days, and I gave her a sanitized version. I left out my final minutes with him, when he was fighting for every breath, and I was straining every nerve to hear the sound of the approaching ambulance. When he had called, in his last distress, not for his mother, but for Fiona. Mom didn’t need to know that.

She had convinced herself that Iain’s death was punishment for her own sins, and she had scornfully rejected my efforts to change her mind. “What do you know about it? Nothing! You sit there, stuffed with all your big-shot schooling and proud as Lucifer, and think you have all the answers? You don’t know shit. It is my fault. My sin! I was like you – so full of myself, so sure I knew better. The rules didn’t apply, not to me. I should ‘follow my heart,’ even when it led to sin. Even when it led to a child, a perfect baby girl, who was mine . . . mine! But not my husband’s.”

Well, that had been a surprise.

By that point she had been crying – bitter, ugly tears. “Because of my sin, God took my Heather, my love child, my perfect baby girl. Took her back. But that wasn’t enough. Didn’t matter that I reformed, that I gave my life over to Him, was ‘born again.’ Didn’t matter that I was a dutiful wife. Oh, no. He wasn’t satisfied. He had to take Iain, too, and leave me with another son who doesn’t even want to be a man.”

She gave me a look then, a mixture of earnestness and sheer ferocity. “So, get this through your pretty little head, child of mine. Don’t waste your time loving God. Just fear Him. Fear Him! You hear me?”

I would never agree with her theology or her willingness to defer to Dad’s bigotry. But, I thought sadly, she should still be here today. Fiona is the only child she has left of whom she could feel unreserved pride, within the narrow confines of her own world view. While I was sorry that she would never accept that I’m a woman, I had no desire to punish her. She had suffered enough.

Fiona, however, had not been so forgiving. “She went right along with Dad when he disowned Iain and had the gall to tell me to get over it. No.” And that was that, as far as she was concerned.

Two years of crisis had distilled Fiona down to her fiery essence. She had never suffered fools gladly; these days, she didn’t suffer them at all. It didn’t matter who they were. She treated the morons, the gadflies, the anti-vaxxers; her Hippocratic oath required no less. But she didn’t coddle them.

I offered a prayer that morning for my mom. A prayer for healing. For forgiveness. I doubted Fiona would forgive her and I knew she would never forgive herself. But I continued to believe in a kind and loving God, and I trusted He would do better.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER TWO
“So lohnt der Tugend kühnen Lauf”
– Mozart, Die Zauberflöte, O Isis und Osiris (Aria)
Boston, Massachusetts, May 21, 2022, immediately following

I didn’t put on makeup because our first stop of the day was at a salon. So as soon as I was dressed, I trotted back upstairs. There was just enough time to make a couple of fresh cups of coffee and pull out the fruit and yogurt before Fi joined me.

“Perfect!” she said, looking at what I had laid out. “I don’t think I could eat any more than that right now!”

“No morning sickness?” I asked.

Fi shook her head. “Not since the first trimester. Knock wood, it’s been pretty easy for the last couple of weeks.”

“You sure you’re in the second trimester?” The question was barely out of my mouth when I realized how stupid it was. This was my sister, the doctor. Of course, she was sure.

She just smiled. “Cami, this child was conceived the night that was supposed to be my first wedding anniversary. Of that, I am one hundred percent positive.”

I gave her a broad smile of complete and total approval. “I can’t imagine you being the slightest bit worried about walking down the aisle pregnant, even if Boston’s high society requires a mountain of smelling salts!”

She sorted. “Are you kidding? After everything we’ve been through, Henry and me? I wasn’t going to wait an instant longer to get pregnant. All the better that I’m big as a house!”

“Fi,” I said fondly, “you’re barely showing and you know it. You look amazing.”

She scooped up the last of her yogurt. “Not yet, I don’t. But you’ve got a couple hours to get me there!”

I laughed, poured the remainder of our coffee into to-go mugs, and pushed her out the door. “Okay, okay! Let’s get moving!”

Twenty minutes later, we were at a salon that I had found after a diligent on-line search. The place Fi had taken me to on Christmas Eve in 2019 had closed, but at least one of the hair stylists had found a new home here. I knew Fi would be delighted to see Charli again.

Anne was already at the salon waiting for us. She gave Fi a beautiful, motherly hug as soon as she came through the door. “Good morning, love,” she said. “How are you feeling? Ready to be a Hutchinson?”

Fi laughed. “I don’t know about that . . . . But I’m past ready to call you ‘Mom!’”

Anne beamed. “You make Henry so happy, Fi. And I can’t begin to tell you how that makes me feel.”

She turned and gave me a big hug, too. “Cami, you’ve been a wonder, getting all of this organized!”

Soon the three of us were sitting side-by-side, Fi in the middle, while beauticians fussed over our nails, our makeup, and most especially our hair.

“How are the boys this morning?” I asked Anne. Henry and Rob had both spent the night at George and Anne’s Back Bay Brownstone.

“Oh, George had them both up early and got us all fed. You know, the usual humor about ‘last meals’ and all that. Guy stuff,” she concluded fondly.

“Even ‘civilized’ men are still men,” Fi said with a touch of asperity.

“Thank goodness!” I added, causing Fi and Anne to giggle.

The stylist was working on Fi’s thick plait of hair, and I took a moment to admire it. However grueling her work had been, she had adamantly refused to simplify her life by cutting it short. “It was a way of keeping faith,” she explained. “A way of telling myself that this day would really come. It felt so impossible, some days.”

“How are your friends doing, Cami?” Anne asked. “The guys who taught you the secrets of hair and makeup?”

“Al and Javi are great,” I responded. “I haven’t seen them in person since they moved back to Bogotá in early 2021, but that almost makes no difference. I mean, during lockdown, we weren’t really seeing anyone in person, even if they lived down the street. We’ve kept in touch by Zoom.”

“It’s such a shame their shop didn’t make it,” Fiona said. “I know you would’ve wanted them to be here today.”

I shook my head. “They were getting by, mostly thanks to government assistance. But Javier’s mother was fighting cancer and they decided it made sense to relocate so they could be nearby.”

“Is she still with them?” Anne asked.

“No, she passed last summer. I gather it was about as gentle a passing as Javi could have hoped for under the circumstances. And he was at least able to be there with her.”

Fiona asked if I thought they might move back at some point.

“I doubt it,” I said. “They both really like Bogotá, and apparently it has a pretty vibrant LGBTQ+ community. Tina’s happier down there, too.”

“That’s the transwoman you told me about?” Fi asked. “The one you represented?”

“I haven’t heard this story,” Anne said.

Where to begin? “Al and Javi took Tina in when she was eighteen and on the run from her family. She stayed with them a couple of years, and they were really close. She was like a daughter. But the family caught up with her, hauled her back to Missouri, and got her committed. . . .”

Anne was shocked. “Oh my God! That’s terrible! What the hell? This isn’t the Middle Ages!”

“In some parts of the country it might as well be,” I said grimly. “Anyhow, she escaped somehow and found her way back to Al and Javi. That’s why I moved in with Nicole and Maggie — so I could vacate Al and Java’s garage apartment for Tina. When I got back from New York and Boston after Iain’s death, I got in touch with Tina . . . .”

Here, I thought, I’m going to need to edit the story; there are parts they don’t need to hear, and parts I can’t tell them.

I had met up with Tina along the banks of Indian Creek in April of 2020 and offered to pay for a health insurance plan that would allow her, finally, to get gender-affirming medical care through Dr. Chun’s office. She had been deeply suspicious of my motives, to the point where I was compelled to admit that I was doing it, in no small measure, because she had come to me in a nightmare and screamed at me for even thinking about giving up.

Her response had been classic Tina: “So you want to help me ’cuz I showed up in your crazy dream, but I’m the one who’s supposed to see a shrink? That’s messed up. You know that, right?”

As I suspected, Dr. Chun had no trouble making a diagnosis of gender dysphoria in Tina’s case, and she soon had her own HRT supply. But perhaps more importantly, Dr. Chun had finally gotten Tina to open up about the abuse that she had suffered and the wholly improper proceedings that had resulted in her being involuntarily committed to an institution for years.

Dr. Chun urged Tina to tell me the story as well, and (with Tina’s somewhat grudging permission) I took the matter to Eileen.

After hearing my summary and doing a Zoom interview with Tina, Eileen personally took the matter to the firm’s pro bono committee. With her endorsement, there was no chance that the committee would not agree to take Tina’s case without charge, especially since Eileen had, with great reluctance, taken over as acting Chair of the Management Committee when Rafe Oliveira developed long COVID.

The facts in Tina’s case were horrific: fanatical parents, a religious zealot with a clinical psychology practice, a corrupt probate judge . . . . But the firm had hired an excellent investigator and, with Tina’s inside knowledge of where to look, had found damning evidence. The path to justice was complicated, however, since it is incredibly difficult to mount a collateral attack on an earlier judgment by a nominally competent tribunal.

We had a theory, though, so I drafted a detailed complaint, backed by the evidence that the investigator uncovered. I thought it looked solid.

“It might not work,” Eileen cautioned Tina and me. “Push comes to shove, it probably won’t. That’s one hell of a conservative court, and we don’t have a choice on where to file. But sometimes you’ve got to play the cards you’ve got.” She got a wolflike gleam in her eye. “And sometimes, people will pay a crapload of money not to have you lay your cards on the table where the whole damned world will see them.”

And that was just what happened. We never had to file the complaint; the named defendants called, blustered, and then made an offer. Which we rejected out of hand, countering with our own pie-in-the-sky demand.

But at the end of the day, Tina got a $1.65 million settlement, the probate judge resigned to “spend time with his family,” and defendants did not get the non-disclosure agreement they so desperately wanted. Tina could spill the beans whenever she wanted to, as could all the rest of us. And would in a heartbeat, if anyone in her benighted family ever caused Tina trouble again.

All that history flashed through my mind as I sat in the beauty parlor, primping like a princess. It was a beautiful world, sure enough, but when you turned over rocks there were a whole lot of slimy worms and venomous snakes.

I summarized, lamely, “My firm was able to get a decent settlement for her. Enough that she and Al and Javi can establish themselves in Bogotá and never have to worry about having a roof over their heads.”

“Her whole family should have been strung up with concertina wire,” Fiona growled.

“Tina would agree with you,” I replied. “Me too, for that matter. But . . . security for herself, and for the only two people in the world she trusts, was even more important than vengeance.”

“She trusts you too, doesn’t she?” asked Anne.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. She’s never going to like me, but she appreciated the work we did for her. She gave me a token that I wear every day. I’d say we parted on pretty good terms.”

Actually, what Tina had said was, “I should show up in your psycho dreams more often.” But that wasn’t a comment I intended to share.

We thoroughly enjoyed our salon time. When you’re in a salon, you can’t really be working or doing all of the things that we normally spend our time doing. You have to pause. To stop, even. It was a blessing for me — the run-up to the wedding had been pretty frenetic — but I think it was even more of a blessing for Fi. She’d basically had no time for such a frivolous, but “civilized,” activity since the pandemic had struck. More than two years.

Fi and I had opted for elaborate updos, while Anne had her hair done up in a net of gold mesh that looked incredibly sophisticated. We thanked the ladies, who fussed and wept and naturally said Fi was the most beautiful bride ever.

She was, too.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER THREE
“Nel di della vittoria”
– Verdi, MacBeth, Nel di della vittoria (Aria)

Boston, Massachusetts, May 21, 2022, immediately following

We went back to Fi and Henry’s place in Cambridgeport to have some light refreshments and finish getting ready. But we’d barely gotten ourselves upstairs when the doorbell rang.

“That’ll be Liz!” I scurried downstairs to let her in.

And there she was, dressed to the nines in a stunning full-length green dress that matched her emerald eyes. I hadn’t seen her in person in over two years, and instantly I pulled her into a fierce hug. “Oh my God,” I said, struggling to keep myself from crying. The girls had worked hard on my makeup. “I’ve missed you so much!”

“Damn, you look good, Cami!” Her hug was fierce. “You feel good, too!”

I giggled. Not quite the body she remembered! I pulled her inside and toward the stairs. “Come in, come in! Where’s Derek?”

“He’ll catch up at the ceremony. I only need one lens in here. Besides . . . I thought it would be better to keep this part within the sorority, so to speak.”

We got to the main level, and I turned to make introductions. “Fi, Anne, this is Liz; Liz – my sister Fiona and Henry’s mom, Anne Hutchinson.”

Anne was closest, and she greeted Liz warmly. “So glad to meet you, Liz!”

“Likewise, Mrs. Hutchinson,” Liz replied.

“Please, call me Anne – everyone else will, since you’ll see dozens of women who can be called ‘Mrs. Hutchinson’ today! And besides, any friend of Cami’s is a friend of mine.”

“Anne, then.”

Fiona had hung back, but she surprised me by pulling Liz into a warm hug. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for so long. Cami raves about you!”

It was interesting to see Liz and Fi together. They were fairly close in age and coloring, though Fi was a strawberry blond to Liz’s pure, bold redhead. Liz had sharper features altogether, but in both of them, the force of their personalities shone through every line and curve.

“I go a bit over the top when I describe your little sister, too,” Liz said playfully. “For a lawyer, she’s okay. All things considered!”

“Okay, okay!” I said, realizing that this could get embarrassing in a hurry. “Why don’t we have a bite to eat before we get down to business!” I made coffee – of course! – while Fiona pulled out some cheese, fruit, and pastries from one of the many wonderful Italian bakeries in the North End.

“You’re from Pittsburgh?” Anne asked Liz.

“Born and raised there,” Liz replied. “And I’ve been back now for six years. It’s a wonderful city.”

“It’s been years since we visited. George and I spent a few days there one time before going down to tour Fallingwater. The city was, I guess you would say, ‘in transition,’ back then.”

Liz snorted. “Pittsburgh is always in transition, one way or another. But I love it.”

Anne was clearly finding Liz to be fascinating. “How did you meet Cami?”

“Through work – my company hired her firm for an antitrust case, and I got roped into it. Tell the truth, I was really dreading it at the time. You don’t advance your career in a business by working on lawsuits. But . . . turned out there were a few side benefits!”

“Well,” Fiona interjected, “Cami credits you with helping her discover herself. And you have my thanks for that, as well . . . . You saw it, when the rest of us were still fooled.”

I was starting to blush furiously. This conversation could get very embarrassing!

Liz, fortunately, was sensitive to my discomfort. “However she chooses to express herself, Cami has always been a remarkable person. Though, I do think . . . hope? You’re happier now?” This last question was directed at me.

I nodded. “Absolutely. There were things about being a man that were easier, I guess. In some ways. But it’s just not who I am. As soon as I understood it – as soon as you helped me to see it,” – I threw her a grateful look – “I knew I could never go back. And I’ve never regretted it.”

Fiona shook her head. “We weren’t really close as adults, until she came out as trans. I don’t know how much that had to do with how close we’ve become since then. But I think it’s probably a lot. I don’t know . . . as a brother, Cam was kind of distant. But maybe that was me.”

“Me, I think,” I said slowly. “I was so focused on establishing myself as independent. Self-sufficient.”

I snorted at my own pretensions. “As if! One of the things that I’ve learned these past two-plus years, over and over and over again, is just how much I depend on my friends, my family, my mentors at work . . . . everybody! And I’ve learned to embrace that. . . . As long as I can give back, too.”

“That’s definitely an important balance,” Anne observed. “One thing I’ve noticed as I’ve grown older, and as I’ve watched my parents’ generation age, is that the balance point changes at different points in your life. Learning to receive with grace – that’s a hard lesson, especially in our culture.”

Liz chewed that one over. “Yeah . . . I’m not ready to learn that one just yet!”

We laughed.

“You’re recently married, too, aren’t you?” Anne asked Liz.

“Just over a year ago,” Liz said, smiling.

“What was your wedding like? That would have been before vaccines were widely available.” Fi asked.

“Oh, it was pretty much the opposite of what you’ll be doing today. Derek and I just went to City Hall one day, signed the necessary papers and got it all official with the civil authorities.”

“You didn’t want to wait any longer?”

Liz smiled, but her response was serious. “It’s my second marriage, Fiona. I did the big church, the big dress, the big party the first time around. And that was right, for the person I was then. For BethAnn, and for Jack. We wanted that. And . . . those are very, very good memories.”

She shot me a look, full of gratitude.

In my own, small, way I had helped her redeem those memories – a small repayment for the gift of self that she had given me!

Liz returned her attention to Fiona. “For Derek and I, though . . . we’re just different people. And the simple way, no-fuss-no-muss – that just seemed right for us. COVID or no COVID.”

“I still wish I could have been there,” I said. Before Liz could say anything, I added, “But . . . I understand. And I’m so glad that the two of you are happy.”

We were just about done with our brunch, and Fi brought the conversation around to the reason Liz was here this morning. “So . . . Cami showed me some of your photos – they really are amazing! How long have you been doing this?”

“I’ve dabbled for years – My Ex is a Marine, and when we were young, I’d help his friends by doing the photography for their weddings, since none of them could afford a professional.”

“Don’t tell me you aren’t a professional!” Fi laughed.

“I’m a telecom executive,” Liz answered. “This is just a side gig. I was hoping to do something with it, but demand kind of dried up when the pandemic hit. And, work got pretty crazy.”

“Which is to say, oh modest one, that you’re being groomed for a VP slot,” I said.

“That may be the first time anyone’s ever accused me of modesty,” Liz retorted. “But in this case, I’ve actually got a lot to be modest about. The main reason my career has taken off is that so many of our senior people retired rather than adapt. COVID’s pretty much changed the way the whole office operated, starting with selling our building and committing to remote employment.”

“Well, I’m very glad you were able to be here today,” Fi said. “It means so much to Cami that you’ll be doing the photography. And to me as well.”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Liz said. “And, it looks like God has smiled on you with perfect weather.”

That was a good thing, I reflected, since Fiona had insisted that the wedding be outdoors. And it would have been, even if the wedding party had had to appear in ponchos!

We spent two minutes clearing up the table and then Fiona, Anne and I started getting dressed. Once we were relatively decent, Liz pulled out her camera and began capturing some memories. Unlike the photoshoots I had done with Liz in the past, she stayed discreetly in the background and simply captured the moment without directing the action.

Fiona had chosen a style that was both simple and classic – a strapless, A-line dress in white satin with a form-fitting bodice and a fuller skirt. If you knew to look, you could definitely see that she was pregnant. Fi, being Fi, was extremely pleased about her baby bump.

Anne was wearing a long, flowing, high-necked dress with lace applique in a deep claret red. She looked beautiful and sophisticated and happy – so very happy!

Fiona had selected a fairytale dress for me in sky blue silk and chiffon. It flattered my curves and showed a fair bit of lilly-white skin above the wide and deep neckline. I was checking the effect in the mirror when Anne came up behind me.

“Missing a little something, I think,” she said. “Rob got this for you.” She was holding a delicate necklace in white gold with a heavy sapphire pendant.

My throat caught. “Oh, that man!” The gem matched my eyes.

“Good value, isn’t he?” his mother said fondly. “Here – let me.” She settled the piece around my neck, with the pendant hanging mid-way between the hollow at the base of my throat and the cleavage – the real, honest-to-God cleavage! – that the dress allowed me to display. A little present from my guy.

I looked in the mirror again, and finally saw the woman I had only been able to see in my mind’s eye for years.

We were all ready, all beautiful, and Liz had all the “primping” photos she could possibly want, when the car arrived. The four of us fit easily into the stretch limo, which took us to the harbor where we transferred to a small boat that would take us to the island where the wedding was being held.

As planned, we were the last to arrive. We were met at the dock by George and Rob, both of whom looked incredibly dashing in morning suits that emphasized the breadth of their shoulders and their trim, athletic builds. The look on George’s face when he saw his wife would melt the hardest heart.

Music played as George walked Anne up to the pavilion where the guests were waiting. At the change of the tune, Rob took my hand and led me up to the pavilion as well, passing by rows and rows of Hutchinsons and friends of both Henry and Fiona. When we reached the ceremonial arch, Rob went to the right to join his brother, and I went left to wait for Fiona.

A hush descended on the crowd as a ruggedly handsome man in the blue mess uniform of a major in the U.S. Army stood and raised a gleaming gold trumpet to his lips. The clear, bracing strains of Jeremiah Clarke’s regal Trumpet Voluntary pierced the morning, and Fiona stepped down onto the dock and made her way to the pavilion. The only person who accompanied her down the aisle was her daughter, who, being still very much in utero, had no choice in the matter.

Fi looked radiant.

She had told me once what her perfect wedding was going to be like. Rob, Iain and I would be groomsmen, her best friend Cassie would be her Matron of Honor, and Dad would walk her down the aisle.

Almost none of it had gone according to Fiona’s plans. Iain had not survived the pandemic. Cassie Johnson had, but at a personal cost that left her a shadow of the fun, vibrant woman who had been Fi Savin’s roommate and confidant.

Day after grinding day of work in an ICU filled to bursting had ruined Cassie’s health, her marriage, and her passion for healing. She had finally resigned and gone home to Birmingham, Alabama. While she had made it to the wedding, she begged off being part of the wedding party. She wished Fiona all the best, but she had no energy for it.

I took Cassie’s place as Maid of Honor. Rob was the only one of us who managed to do his assigned job.

And yet . . . it was perfect.

Just looking at Fi as she walked forward brought tears to my eyes. She had been through so much – endured so much suffering, witnessed so much death. But she had come through, and this day, so long postponed, had finally arrived. Henry, waiting for her, looked like a man who had achieved his heart’s desire.

This was a Hutchinson wedding, so an Episcopal Bishop presided. He did a lovely job, though I couldn’t help but wonder what Sarah would have said about all the smells and bells. She was rigorously low church; I could always appreciate both.

Henry recited his vows with quiet, irrepressible joy. Fi’s voice was firm and clear as the trumpet.

The highlight, for me, was the music – particularly an absolutely breathtaking, inspiring two-part rendition of “The King of Love My Shepherd Is.” The singers, of course, were the stars of the recently concluded, critically acclaimed, podcast “Opera Houseparty,” Nicole Fontaine and Margaret McGregor. My companions and housemates during the worst of the pandemic – my teachers, my partners in craziness, my dearest friends.

My Ohana.

Maggie wore a soft pink dress; Nicole, a pale yellow. As always, they were just gorgeous, but their voices were simply magnificent. There wasn’t a dry eye anywhere in sight.

They rose again to lead the recessional hymn, supported by the major on trumpet, a string quartet, and a tall, spare man with a sensitive face and the eyes of a poet, who conducted the group as he played “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” on a grand piano. Rob and I followed Henry and Fi just as the girls sang,

“Ever giving and forgiving,
Ever blessing, ever blest,
Well-spring of the joy of living,
Ocean-depth of happy rest!”

The beautiful hymn gave structure to the emotions that were overwhelming me. I felt, indeed, like I was joining “the mighty chorus which the morning stars began.” Affirming, in this beautiful service, that life and love and beauty will endure to the ends of the earth.

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER FOUR
“Recondita armonia di bellezze diverse!”
– Puccini, Tosca, Recondita armonia (Aria)

Boston, Massachusetts, May 21, 2022, immediately following

The food was served on outdoor tables, with Boston Harbor and the city’s skyline as the backdrop. Henry, who knows a thing or two about food, had suggested the caterer. The wedding party was served first, freeing the bride and groom to make the rounds while people were eating. But that left Rob and me and George and Anne alone, and I had a better idea than that. “Okay,” I said to Rob’s parents, “I want to finally introduce you to my roomies!”

Anne laughed. “I can’t wait! God, I loved that podcast! I miss it so much!”

Since I’d been in charge of the seating, I arranged this in advance. Nicole and Maggie were at a table for eight, but four of the seats were empty – waiting for just this opportunity. The other two seats . . . .

“George, Anne, let me introduce my roommates, Nicole Fontaine and Maggie McGregor, and of course you know Kyle and David.” The last mentioned were, respectively, Kyle Stewart, who had played the trumpet during the ceremony, and David Sinclair, the pianist.

Anne was positively gushing. She gave Nicole and Maggie enthusiastic hugs, then turned to the two men. “Kyle . . . David. I am delighted – so delighted – to see you both again . . . and in such good company!”

George’s greetings were more restrained, but in his own, quiet way no less warm. He smiled shyly at my two lovely roommates and said, “Thank you for your wonderful podcast. It was so very civilized!”

We sat and chatted with them while they ate. Anne wanted to get Nicole and Maggie’s take on the podcast. She already had mine.

“You know it was all Cami’s idea, of course,” Maggie said.

Anne nodded.

“Well, Nickie and I worked on it even while Cami was up in New York looking after Iain. And, more happily, getting acquainted with your reprobate son there.” Maggie smiled at Rob. “We had about fifteen episodes roughed out by the time Cami got home. You know – what the episodes would be, what topics we wanted to explore, and how we wanted to do it.”

Nicole said, “Cami had us focus first on who we thought the target audience should be. Mags and I are professionals – well, Cami calls us geeks! – but an audience of pure opera geeks would be pretty small. She thought we needed to reach more than just professionals. Said we should try to capture people who maybe didn’t know much or anything about opera, but had time on their hands and were willing to learn something new, so long as it was fun.”

“That’s where ‘Opera Houseparty’ came from,” Maggie said. “It sounded fun, and informal. And, we got my dad to take a picture of the three of us on the front steps of the house, sharing a bottle of wine wrapped in a paper bag. After Cami’s friend Liz cleaned it up, it made great cover art for the podcast.”

“I love that picture,” George said. “I would see it, of course, whenever I played the podcast on my phone, and I really felt like I was there, listening to the three of you chatting.”

Nicole took up the story. “Anyhow, as you both know, we had our big launch in early May of 2020.”

Anne and George were well aware of the timing of the launch, since I had brought them both in on it. Anne Shaw Hutchinson is a mover and shaker in the donor community that supports arts in the United States, and her enthusiastic backing for the project had helped ensure its success. Simultaneously, Nicole and Maggie had boosted the podcast through their extensive professional networks, so the launch had gone very well.

“Our scheduled episode plan went out the window almost immediately. The George Floyd murder happened just a couple of weeks after we’d launched, and it just felt like the wrong time for some of the material we had recorded. But we were able to adapt quickly, and that was a real learning experience.”

“I remember those episodes,” Anne said. “The stories that your friends told . . . they were so powerful. Really eye-opening.”

“The arts have a long, long way to go before they are anything like equal opportunity, that’s for sure,” Maggie said. “I was really glad that some of our friends from our time as students – and as singers – were willing to come on the podcast and tell people what it’s like to be Black opera singers.”

“It sounds pretty all-consuming,” George observed. “Was this basically your full-time job?”

“Nicole and Maggie put in a huge amount of time, especially at the beginning,” I said. “It did get easier over time. My job was a lot simpler. I handled the logistical elements that didn’t require any real knowledge of the subject matter. Like figuring out hosting services, recording and editing software, organizing the artwork, theme music . . . stuff like that. Once we were up and running, my job on the podcast was mostly to ask stupid questions and add a bit of comic relief when these two got too serious!”

Nicole smiled fondly. “Cami’s being modest, as usual. She kept us grounded. Effectively acted as the moderator of the show. And her questions were ones that regular people ask all the time. What our broader audience would be asking.”

“Like, ‘why does everyone die in opera!’” Anne giggled. “That was my favorite episode!”

Maggie laughed, hard. “Funny thing, too. That was the first question Cami asked back when she sold us on the idea of the podcast. Even though it’s obviously not the case. There are plenty of silly operas – it was even a specialty. French Opera Bouffe. You could put the whole Gilbert and Sullivan cannon into that category. There are other operas that aren’t just silly but no one dies, like The Marriage of Figaro or The Merry Widow. It’s just a myth.”

“Myths often have a kernel of truth behind them, though, as I recall your colleague observing during that episode,” George said.

Nicole nodded. “It’s true. The operas where people die tragically – especially when it’s the protagonist – they just stick in our memories. They remind us how fragile all of this is – all of it – art, beauty, love . . . even life.”

I could see that truth written on every face at the table. It was a truth we had all lived. We had all survived, but . . . it had been a difficult two years.

“Sometimes words by themselves just don’t seem like they’re enough to convey tragedy,” Nicole added. “And opera gives us a way to bridge that gap, a way to communicate that goes beyond language. When Tosca sings about feeling abandoned by God in Vissi d'Arte, she is touching the heart of human experience.”

David reached out and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “One part of it, anyway, my love. There’s a happier part as well.”

That earned him one of Nicole’s patented, heart-stopping smiles. “There is, indeed.”

Anne smiled at them, then at her son. “Nice bit of matchmaking, Robbie. Never thought you had it in you!”

Rob gave every appearance of innocence. “Me? Oh, no. It was all Cami’s fault!”

I blushed from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, I’m sure. “Rob!” I said, threateningly.

“Ohhhhh, I think there’s a story here!” Anne said gleefully.

“But one that Cami might prefer not to tell,” George murmured.

“Nonsense!” Anne said. “Or rather, I’m sure she’ll get over it!”

I looked sheepish. “Well . . . . See. Here’s the thing. Rob wanted to come down and see me in Baltimore after I went back. He decided that we could each isolate for a couple weeks. Or he could, on the one hand, and the three of us,” – I indicated my roommates and myself – “could on the other. Then he would be able to visit with me for two weeks. And . . . well . . . I really, really wanted to see him. But, ah . . . .”

I couldn’t go on.

Rob decided to help me out. “. . . but my darling girl here was just petrified that I would never look at her again if I set eyes on her beautiful roommates.”

Everyone was laughing and it felt rude not to join in. Churlish, even. But I appealed to George and Anne, “It’s funny, but honestly. Can you blame me?”

“Your roommates are lovely,” Anne said soothingly. “But so are you. Have some confidence, girl!”

“I think I recall saying something along those lines myself,” Nicole said. “I mean, once or twice!”

“Me too,” Maggie said. “Stubborn woman!”

“Okay, okay,” I said. Then, more seriously, “But honestly. I’m a transwoman, I was only just starting my transition, my roommates are, objectively, beautiful in every way, and Rob was – is – not just one of the most eligible bachelors in Boston. He’s also a genuinely wonderful human being.”

“And a good dancer,” his mother said, judiciously.

“Better than average at chess,” his father contributed.

“Getting ready to go in search of the bar,” Rob said, looking almost, but not quite, as embarrassed as I had been. Good!!!

But then Kyle added, “He’s also the best friend a man could ever have. Well, he and David, both.”

“Amen to that,” David said. He raised his glass and said, “A toast, then, to Rob – truly the best Best Man!”

We raised our glasses in salute and Rob buried his head in his hands.

As the laughter subsided, Anne said, “I still don’t understand how Cami’s lack of confidence got the four of you together.”

Rob recovered quickly. “Sometimes one problem can’t be solved, but two problems solve each other. I knew that Kyle and David got an apartment together in Rosslyn after we returned from Afghanistan. And . . . well. I knew they were the finest people in the world. As close to me as Henry. Closer, even, in some ways.”

He looked at them both, his eyes communicating a world of experiences they alone shared. “The three of us used to joke that we’d never find anyone; we’d all had real trouble re-integrating when we came home. And I just thought . . . based on everything that Cami had told me . . . that maybe Nicole and Maggie might draw them out. Like Cami had done for me.”

“And you figured that Cami might calm down if you brought a couple of good-looking guys along with you when you came to visit?” Anne asked.

“Yup,” Rob said, sounding satisfied. “Worked like a charm, too!”

Kyle was looking at Maggie, his expression tender. “It was love at first sight for me, I’ll tell you. She didn’t need to draw me out!”

“But I would have, if I’d had to,” she responded. “I knew that after five minutes.”

George smiled and looked at Nicole. “I’ve been able to read David like a book since Rob first introduced us. I think I can guess how that evening went for him. But how about you?”

“He was so shy when the evening started,” Nicole said, her voice warm.

“To quote Cami,” David said, “‘Can you blame me?’ I mean, first Rob introduced us to the podcast, and Kyle and I listened to every episode they'd put out at that point. So, we already knew they were stars. Then we meet them, and Nicole is just the most beautiful woman in the whole world, and she’s made this incredible seafood risotto, and she has a voice like an angel . . . hell, yeah, I was shy!”

I laughed. Time Nicole got a touch of her own medicine!

But she remained serene. “He was so quiet during the meal, it was hard to get a sense of him. But after dinner . . . we got him to play on our keyboard. I mean, you heard him today, so you have an idea of how good he is.”

She shook her head, smiling at the memory. “But it wasn’t the quality of his music that got me. When he started to play, he just lost himself in his music. The same way I do, I guess. And . . . all of his shyness disappeared. He was somehow focused and peaceful and . . . Oh, I can’t describe it. I realized I had never seen anyone so lovely in my life.”

I had happened to be looking at Nicole that night, at the precise moment that epiphany had struck her. I had seen it in her eyes, in her face . . . the sure, certain understanding, that this was what she had been looking for. This was what she had been waiting for. She had never looked more transcendently beautiful than she did in that instant of understanding.

Naturally, the three of us had talked that night after the guys had left. Nicole and Maggie’s descriptions began with the thing that had first struck me about Rob. Compared to these three, their previous encounters had been with boys. Rob and Kyle and David had a weight and seriousness that marked them as men, even when they were being lighthearted or charming.

And they had treated us with seriousness as well. They saw the grit and determination that Maggie and Nicole had brought to the pursuit of their dreams. They saw their intelligence, their maturity, and it attracted them powerfully. Because they were secure in themselves, in their own manhood, they did not see attractive and accomplished women as a threat.

Both Nicole and Maggie had ample experience with guys who found them physically attractive. But men whose attraction went deeper, went to the very core of who they were as women, as human beings – that was novel. And both of them found it a source of a strong reciprocal attraction.

“Trying to get relationships off the ground during the pandemic must have been a challenge,” George observed. “I mean, we had trouble enough integrating new people that we hired at the office.”

“We found a way,” David said. “Kyle and I were pretty isolated as it was. The think tank where I work had shuttered its offices in April or May of 2020 and we were all working remotely. Kyle had a desk job at the Pentagon and he was encouraged to work remotely, too. So, we were able to basically have both our apartment and the girls’ house as one bubble.”

“The Monastery and the Nunnery,” Maggie said, laughing.

“Really?” Anne asked, archly.

Maggie grinned. “Well, not for long! Plenty of mornings I might be over at the Monastery, or David might join us for breakfast at the Nunnery.”

“I felt so bad for Cami,” Nicole said. “Here she’d gone and found these wonderful guys for us, and we got to see them, and her own boyfriend was stuck up in Boston!”

“We found a way too, Rob and me,” I said. It hadn’t been as frequent, but I had managed a couple of trips to Boston and he had managed a couple of trips to D.C. We had isolated for two weeks before each trip, and had stayed for around two weeks when we got there. At Rob’s apartment in Boston, and at a hotel when he was in the D.C. area (my room at Opera House was pretty tight quarters!).

My body responded well to the hormone treatments, and each time Rob and I met I felt more and more like my body matched what I wanted it to be – for him, and for me. And, dear man, he made sure that I realized just how much he appreciated me throughout my development. Our lovemaking just kept getting better. Practice makes perfect!

“It sounds like a pretty ideal existence,” Anne said. “Not bad, for the middle of a global pandemic!”

David said, “I know. And believe me, I thank God every day that we were all so blessed. So many weren’t.”

Nicole was nodding. “So true. I mean, there were days I would go crazy, cooped up in that house, not able to perform . . . but I still miss Opera House. I think part of me always will. We were so close, Maggie and Cami and I – and then David and Kyle and Rob, too.”

“Never thought I’d hear you regret being in New York,” I joked.

“I don’t regret it. New York is still my city, you know.” She flashed me a grin, an echo of her exultant smile that night, so long ago, near the fog-shrouded Christmas Tree in Rockefeller Center. “And the place David and I are renting is perfect for us. But . . . I miss you guys. I always will.”

I got a bit teary at that; Nicole has that effect on me. But I was moving out too. Rob was taking a leave of absence from the firm to take a position advising the Secretary of Health and Human Services, where his deep understanding of the pharmaceutical industry would be put to good use. We were going to rent a place in D.C.

The end of the podcast and the breakup of our bubble at Opera House was partly due to the end of the pandemic and partly to the success of the podcast itself.

We had put out an episode a week for almost two years, rain or shine. Through donations and sponsorships, the podcast was able to replace Nicole and Maggie’s lost income. But it did more than that: it put their names, faces, and voices in front of every music director in the opera world. So when opera houses finally reopened, Nicole and Maggie both had no difficulty in getting parts. The girls simply did not have the time to do justice to the podcast while actually performing.

While the podcast had taken a huge amount of effort and energy, it did get easier over time and the three of us had time together for other things. “I think I’m going to miss our ballroom dancing lessons the most,” I said. “I wanted to get good enough to partner Rob, but I just loved the time we spent on it.”

“I’ll miss the cheerleading,” Maggie said with a big grin.

“Cheerleading?” Anne was incredulous.

“Oh, yeah,” Maggie said. “Cami was doing cheer routines for exercise every day, first thing in the morning. 5:00 a.m. kind of thing. And I thought it looked cool, so I had her teach me.”

Just my luck that Liz had picked that moment to wander over to our table for some candid shots, her husband Derek trailing behind her with a truly impressive camera bag. She snapped off a few before flashing her wolf’s grin at Maggie and asking, “Cami taught you cheerleading?”

“She did – I’d never done it in school, and now I wish I had!”

“You didn’t join the fun?” George asked Nicole.

She shivered. “5:00 in the morning? Are you kidding? I’m from New York! That’s when people should be going to bed!”

“How was your pupil?” Liz asked me, still smiling like the apex predator she is.

“Better’n me after about three weeks,” I said promptly. “Maggie’s a natural gymnast. She would have made your squad, no problem!”

“You were a cheerleader?” Maggie asked Liz.

“A few years back,” Liz said, her eyes dancing. “Cami may have taught you everything she knows . . . but she didn’t teach you everything I know!”

I stuck my tongue out at her, which Liz caught on camera. Of course!

Liz wandered off to the next table.

“Sounds like you guys kept busy,” Anne said.

I replied, “Oh we did . . . I was working – remotely, of course – but we also had the podcast, and dancing, and cheerleading. Nicole gave us both cooking lessons, and I gave lessons on web design. I studied voice with both Nicole and Maggie since Dottoressa Trelli wasn’t able to do my lessons once the pandemic hit.”

“It was important to keep busy, to keep moving forward,” Nicole said. “Cami saw that, from the very beginning. I mean, Maggie and I were just destroyed when all the opera houses shut down. I don’t think we had any idea how to put one foot in front of the other. If she hadn’t given us both a kick in the butt, I don’t know what we would have done.”

“You’d have figured it out.” My eyes were once again bright with tears as I looked at my roommates. “But if I managed to give something back, it was a fraction of what I received. You two – you taught me how to be a woman. I couldn’t have had better role models. Because you’re the most caring, most genuinely empathetic women in the whole world.”

“Ever giving and forgiving, ever blessing, ever blessed,” Rob said softly.

“Yes,” I said. “That. Exactly that.”

~o~O~o~
CHAPTER FIVE
“E non ho amato mai tanto la vita!”
– Puccini, Tosca, E lucevan le stelle (Aria)

Boston, Massachusetts, May 21, 2022, immediately following

Everyone had finished their meal and people were beginning to wander from table to table, so we got up and began mingling. Rob and I walked arm-in-arm across the lawn, enjoying the feel of the sunshine and the sparkle of the water. It felt like a very long time since the world had been this open.

We ran into Rob’s Uncle Cornelius and Aunt Geraldine during one of the moments when they were not swamped with other family. After we exchanged greetings, Cornelius went straight to the question that interested him.

“I understand you have left your firm,” he said, giving me an appraising look.

“Just last month,” I responded.

“I heard you have found another position. You should have let me make an offer!”

“That is very kind of you, sir.” Rob might call him “Uncle Chip,” but to me, the Tai Pan of Clan Hutchinson would always be “sir.” “But I felt like it was time for me to do something a bit more public spirited. I’ll be joining the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department in a few weeks – once I’ve recovered from all the festivities here!”

My move had been facilitated by the fact that I was the sole beneficiary of Gammy’s will, and the thrifty Scotswoman had saved over $200,000 on a bookkeeper’s salary. She had consulted my mother prior to Iain’s death, and apparently Mom had told her that Fiona was marrying money and that, contrary to my father’s constant complaints, the two of them were well off financially. So, all of my student loans were paid off.

Eileen herself had advised me to make the move. “Cami,” she had said, “this firm has multiple offices, but we started here, in D.C. Our practice has always been close to the federal government. We’ve had attorneys leave to serve as Cabinet Secretaries, deputies, line attorneys. And we’ve always encouraged it, because they often come back, and they come back with experience we can never duplicate. We do a better job training lawyers than the government ever could, but for where you’re at in your career right now . . . you should be somewhere you can be in court all the time. Don’t worry. We’ll be here when you get tired of it!”

“Remember us, when you and Rob get tired of that den of iniquity,” Cornelius said.

Geraldine just smiled.

We wandered off. Rob greeted friends and family, introducing me. I was content – more than content – to walk with him, proud to be his date on this most perfect of days. To nestle into his arm, or to walk hand-in-hand. To bask in the knowledge that, in his eyes at least, I was a pretty woman, and he was my guy. He had promised, two years ago, that we would make it work, our impossible pairing. That love would, somehow, find a way.

I had placed my trust in his certainty, and he had been right.

We were standing close to the pavilion, looking down toward the water, watching everyone mingling in the later afternoon sun. White clouds scudded against a deep blue sky, and sail boats raced across the harbor. Everyone dressed brightly, looking so at ease, so happy.

Shakespeare said that all the world’s a stage and we are but players, but I thought opera was a better analogy. We were all singing our parts – sometimes together, sometimes apart. Sometimes melody, sometimes harmony. Looking down at the gathered assembly, I thought of all of the people whose voices had joined with mine.

I would not be the woman I was today without the wonderful man at my side. Without Nicole and Maggie, together with their guys down by the shoreline. Without Liz, snapping photos with her usual unique mix of intensity, precision and flair. Without Fiona and Henry, in the center of the activity, effortlessly gathering the attention of everyone there. Without Eileen, without Al and Javi, Sarah and Tina, Gammy Campbell . . . .

But for a brief, intense five-month period from Thanksgiving of 2019 until Easter of 2020, I had stood upon the stage and sung a new song, my own song, in my work and my life and my love. I left parents and friends behind, risking everything on the crazy conviction that my physical body did not cabin, or even describe, the fundamental truth of my being.

I sang my song in Pittsburgh and Boston, in New York and Washington, in Baltimore, College Park, and Morgantown. I sang it through a pandemic, through a wild night in Rockefeller Center, and in a motel in Mount Vernon where I lost my brother and found the love of my life. It was my song, and mine alone.

My aria.

My life flowed on and my song joined with others, sometimes leading, sometimes supporting. But my aria defined me – the brief moment that changed the direction of my life and gave me a new purpose. Even a new name, one I had chosen myself, each part of which had meaning – powerful meaning – for me.

“Alright, my love,” Rob said. “Enough of your wool-gathering. The music is starting!” And there they were, forming up on the dance floor. So many of the people I loved most in all the world, together and in person, gathered around Fiona and Henry.

I ran down the hill, the pale blue chiffon of my dress streaming behind me, and called back to the wonderful man who had stolen my heart.

“Well, come on, then! Let’s dance!”

Finis

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