Saturday morning, Eliza was the first one up, but not by much. She was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee, when her mother shuffled into the kitchen.

“G’morning, Elijah,” she mumbled sleepily, but not so indistinctly that Eliza couldn’t tell she was being deadnamed. She wasn’t looking at Eliza, but at the coffee maker.

Eliza dithered for a moment over whether to correct her, and then worked up the nerve to say, “It’s Eliza, please.”

That seemed to wake her mother up all at once. She focused her eyes on Eliza for the first time and seemed to realize her child was a girl all over again. “Oh.” After a long pause, she continued: “This is going to take some getting used to.”

That was a promising sign, Eliza thought. “I know. I’m not going to get mad because you slip up. Just keep trying, please?”

Her mother poured herself some coffee and then got a cup of yogurt out of the refrigerator. “Have you thought any more about what we talked about last night?” she asked as she got a spoon out of the drawer.

“Have you?” Eliza asked.

“Yes. But I just don’t understand how this makes any sense to you.”

Eliza let out a huff, trying not to let her frustration show. “I don’t know how I can explain it any better than I did yesterday… but I’ll try. I’m just happier like this, okay? I’ve been happier since I started fixing my body to be more feminine, and since I started wearing girl clothes, than I’ve ever been. This shape and these clothes fit me better than what I had before and there isn’t that nagging sense of something wrong that I used to have.”

“How can you be sure the magic isn’t making you think that?”

“I can’t prove a negative; it’s hypothetically possible, I guess. But I don’t see any evidence of it.”

“You’re too close to see it! From where I’m standing,” (still right next to the coffee pot), “the evidence is plain and obvious – you sitting there saying you’re happier as a girl.”

“You don’t think it’s possible for me to be happy as a girl without the influence of magic?”

“No! You’re our son, you’ve never shown any signs of being unhappy about that –”

“I was good at hiding it. It wasn’t like I knew why I was uncomfortable, I couldn’t pin it down, and there didn’t seem to be any point in my vague discomfort spilling over and making other people unhappy.”

Her mother looked at her helplessly. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“…I literally just said why.”

“Am I interrupting something?” Cassie said, standing just inside the door.

“No, it’s fine,” Eliza said. Her mom nodded, poured herself a cup of coffee, and went over to the kitchen table. Cassie poured herself a cup and doctored it up with sugar and creamer, then joined them. Eliza debated with herself whether to let it drop, as her mom seemed willing to do now that Cassie was here, or go on and say what she had been going to say next.

She decided against it. Her parents needed time to think about what she’d said last night (and this morning) and although that might not help, more debate right now probably wouldn’t do much good either. “So,” she said, “what are we going to do today? When we talked on the phone a few days ago, you said Aunt Krystal and Uncle Derek might come over; do you know for sure now?”

Cassie looked concerned. She probably remembered Eliza saying something about her aunt and uncle.

“They said they’d come by to see you if they weren’t too tired when they finished up with their neighborhood yard sale,” her mom said. “Around three or four, if I remember right.”

“We were planning to head over to my parents’ house about then,” Cassie said.

“Yes, Eliza told me about that.” She took a sip of her coffee, looking like she was debating with herself what to say next. “Do… do your parents already know…?”

“No,” Cassie said. “Last time I saw them, I could still pass for a guy. I’m going to tell them this afternoon – that’s the reason for this road trip, so the two of us can be moral support for each other when we tell our parents. And other relatives,” she added, glancing at Eliza.

The back door opened just then, and Eliza’s dad came in. Apparently he’d been up earlier than any of them, out walking Josh. “Hey,” he said. “Lemme wash my hands real quick.” He hung up Josh’s leash on the back of the door and headed toward the sink.

“I’ve gotten distracted,” Eliza’s mom said, getting up and heading to the refrigerator. “We’ve sat here talking and I haven’t even started breakfast.” She got a stick of butter and a tray of eggs out and set them on the counter.

“Do you want any help?” Eliza asked.

“Could you get out the grits? – Eggs and grits are okay with you, right, Cassie?”

So she can gender Cassie correctly but not me, Eliza thought, even as she got up and went to open the pantry.

“Sure,” Cassie said.

Eliza fixed a pot of grits while her mother fried or scrambled eggs to each person’s request. After cooking a couple of eggs, her mom said, “What about if we go over to the yard sale, and hang out with Derek and Krystal there?”

“Sounds good to me,” her dad said. “What do you think, Elijah? Sorry, Eliza. Would you rather they find out you’re transgender in a more private setting?”

Eliza thought about it. It might actually have some advantages – Uncle Derek might be restrained from a possible transphobic rant on first finding out about her if he was in front of potential customers browsing the clutter he and Aunt Krystal were clearing out of their house. “No, that’s fine. It would be better than just seeing them for an hour or less before we have to leave to go see Cassie’s parents. And hey, we might find something we want at the yard sale.”

After she finished cooking, Eliza’s mom called Uncle Derek and asked if it would suit for them to come over and hang out at the yard sale for a while. She didn’t mention on the phone that Eliza (or Cassie) was trans. He said it would be fine, so after they finished breakfast, everyone split up to go shower and get dressed. They all bundled into Eliza’s dad’s SUV and rode over to Uncle Derek and Aunt Krystal’s neighborhood.

They saw a big sign reading “5-Family Yard Sale” at the entrance to their subdivision, and then a couple more signs directing them to where the goods on offer were spread out over two yards and driveways, Uncle Derek and Aunt Krystal’s house and their neighbor to the left. A half-dozen cars were parked on the street and several people seemed to be browsing the clothes, books, furniture and so on. Eliza’s dad parked a little past the other cars, and they got out and walked back toward Uncle Derek and Aunt Krystal’s house.

Aunt Krystal was sitting at a card table with a cash box and a laptop, talking with a customer who seemed to be buying a bunch of skirts and blouses. Aunt Krystal saw Eliza’s parents approaching and waved to them, but didn’t seem to recognize Eliza at first. When she was done checking out the customer, she turned toward Eliza’s mom and dad and said, “Hey, Lisa and Rich, it’s good to see you.” She looked around. “I thought you said Elijah was coming?”

Eliza and Cassie had been trailing a little behind her parents, but she heard that clearly enough. She stepped up a little closer and said, “Hey, Aunt Krystal, it’s me. I’m going by Eliza for now. This is my friend Cassie.” Cassie gave a little wave.

Aunt Krystal stared at Eliza hard, and seemed like she was about to say something Eliza would regret, but fortunately, another customer approached the table with an armful of books and knick-knacks. “Are y’all in line ahead of me?” he asked.

“No, go ahead,” Eliza’s mom said.

They waited in tense silence while Aunt Krystal added up the prices of the books and knick-knacks. He paid, she made change and thanked him, and as he walked off toward his car she said, “Really, Elijah, what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking about how I never quite knew what was wrong until earlier this summer,” she said, “when I learned something about transgender people, and realized a lot of what I’d picked up by osmosis from TV and church was wrong. And it didn’t take long after that before I realized I was trans too.”

Aunt Krystal was fuming by the end of this speech. Eliza was starting to think this had been a bad idea.

“Why are you going along with this?” Aunt Krystal asked, looking at Eliza’s parents. Her mom and dad both started talking at once, then glanced at each other, and her mom yielded to her dad.

“I don’t exactly agree with what she’s doing,” her dad said, Eliza’s heart leaping as he gendered her correctly, “but insisting on calling her Elijah when it obviously distresses her seems like putting the focus in the wrong area. She needs our prayers to help her understand what’s right; just badgering her won’t do any good.”

It looked from Eliza’s mom’s expression like she didn’t agree.

“I’m not going to call her that,” her mom said. “It would look like agreeing with her. But Rich is right about her needing our prayers more than anything.”

“Yes,” Aunt Krystal said, “and a good talking-to.”

“We talked it over for hours last night, and for a while this morning,” Eliza said, finally getting fed up with them talking about her as if she wasn’t present. “I think all of us need to calm down and read about it and pray about it for a week or two before we talk it over again. Otherwise we’ll just be repeating the same arguments over and over.” Cassie gave her a sympathetic look.

Just then Uncle Derek came out of the house and made his way toward the cash register table. Partway there, he seemed to recognize Eliza’s parents, and quickened his steps.

“Hey, Rich and Lisa. Where’s –” he began, but before he could repeat Aunt Krystal’s mistake and ask where Elijah was, Aunt Krystal spoke up.

“Elijah has decided he’s a transgender,” she said, gesturing toward her.

Eliza realized her shoulders were getting tense. She glanced at Cassie, and then tried to figure out what to say to Uncle Derek. Probably nothing would do any good, but she ought to speak up for herself before Aunt Krystal had a chance to dig in deeper…

“I’m going by Eliza, Uncle Derek. I figured out I was trans earlier this summer.” Eliza wanted to be vague about how much earlier, so she wouldn’t have to explain magic and how she’d transitioned so quickly.

“What on earth?” Uncle Derek said. “Elijah, I thought you knew better than that – and Rich and Lisa –”

Eliza’s mom and dad repeated what they’d said to Aunt Krystal.

Uncle Derek shook his head. “This is what comes of going to a secular university for grad school.”

“There aren’t any Christian schools with a library science program around here,” Eliza pointed out. “And I didn’t learn about trans people at school, but during my summer internship, anyway. It was just a matter of time before I met someone who could tell me what trans people are actually like, and it happened to be this summer.”

“Lisa told me about your internship,” Aunt Krystal said. “Weren’t you organizing some rich guy’s private library?”

“Hi,” Cassie said. “I guess I’m sort of rich if you count owning a house clear of any mortgage, plus about nine thousand books, some of them kind of rare?”

Aunt Krystal stared rudely at her. “You’re a transgender too? What are you doing here?”

“Eliza and I are doing a road trip to visit our families and see some touristy stuff along the way,” Cassie said. “To celebrate Eliza finishing cataloguing my library. We’re going to my parents’ house in a few hours.”

Another customer came up to the table with an eggbeater, an onion chopper, and the Barbie Shopping Spree Card Game. Aunt Krystal checked him out and then said, “This really isn’t a great place for this discussion, is it? I’ve got another forty-five minutes on cash register duty, then Heather and Rob from across the street are taking over. Maybe y’all could go inside with Derek and I’ll join you in a while?”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Uncle Derek said, looking aside at the customers browsing the things for sale. “Come on.”

He and Eliza’s parents headed toward the house, but Cassie touched Eliza’s arm and said, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I didn’t think they’d be happy about this, but I wanted to tell them in person rather than have Mom tell them her version of it.”

“Well, you’ve done that. Are you sure you want to go inside and let your uncle rant at you for another hour?”

Eliza hesitated. “Let’s go inside, and if he gets mean, we’ll leave early.”

They continued into the house.

Uncle Derek offered them all tea or lemonade, which most of them accepted. When they had all sat down down in the living room, he said, “So back up and tell me how this started, okay?”

“It started when I met Cassie,” Eliza said, thinking hard about how to tell about her transition without mentioning the spellbook. She didn’t feel like explaining magic to him, much less explaining to him and then all over again to Aunt Krystal; the very idea of it just made her feel tired. “After I learned something about trans people from an actual trans person, I thought about it for a few days and realized that a lot of what Cassie said about herself applied to me, too. And I was jealous of Cassie for getting to be a girl, and I didn’t realize why at first, but it only took a few days to figure out, and then Cassie helped me start transitioning, and here I am.”

“Why would you do a thing like that?” Uncle Derek asked. “You’re a good-looking young man, or you were, and you were engaged to a beautiful woman – oh, that’s why Monica broke off the engagement, isn’t it? She found out you were a transgender.”

Eliza hesitated a moment, thinking about whether to say she hadn’t figured out she was trans until after Monica broke up with her, or let Derek assume she’d figured it out right after her internship started and she met Cassie. Uncle Derek didn’t seem to notice she was about to talk, and kept going.

“– And no wonder she broke it off. You need to stop this, get a haircut and get rid of those falsies, and clean off that makeup –”

“’m not wearing makeup,” Eliza mumbled.

“– or you’ll never find yourself another girl.”

“Maybe I don’t want another girlfriend,” Eliza burst out.

“Oh, honey, don’t say that,” her mom said. “I know you’re hurting over losing Monica, but you’ll get over her eventually. And your uncle was kind of tactless, but he’s right that you’re not going to find another girlfriend like that – not that you need to, any time soon, I mean,” she hastily amended, perhaps in response to Eliza’s sour look.

Eliza shook her head. “It was Monica’s idea to start dating, and her idea to get married, and I sort of went along with it because it was the sort of thing people our age are supposed to do. But then, especially after we set a tentative date for the wedding, I got more and more scared about it. I don’t want to go through that again. It hurt when she broke off the engagement, but I think it was because she didn’t want to be friends anymore – not having to get married was actually a relief once I got over the shock. I was happier when Monica and I were friends, before we got engaged.”

“Everyone gets nervous when their wedding is coming up,” her dad said, and Uncle Derek nodded. “I had cold feet the morning of the wedding and just about ran off, but your grandpa gave me a pep talk and I managed to calm my jitters enough to go through with it, and it was the best thing I ever did.” Eliza’s mom reached over and squeezed his hand, and he smiled at her.

“Maybe for you it was,” Eliza said. “Were you jittery like that every time you thought about the wedding for a year or more in advance?”

“Well, no, but we were only engaged for six months…”

“Anyway,” Eliza said, “maybe someday, because I sure couldn’t have predicted I’d be a girl six months ago, and there’s no telling how else I might change, but I don’t think so.”

Cassie looked like she was about to say something, and then closed her mouth. Eliza looked at her curiously, and she said, “Later,” in a low voice.

“Well,” Uncle Derek said after an awkward pause, “we’re getting kind of off topic here –”

You’re the one who immediately started talking about my dating prospects, Eliza thought irritably.

“– which is to say, why would you want to dress up like a girl and pretend to be a girl? You said, uh, Cassie got you into it – why’d you let her?” The way he said “Cassie” made it sound like he wanted to deadname her but couldn’t remember her deadname, if Eliza’s mom had ever told him.

“All Cassie did was clear up my misconceptions about trans people,” Eliza said. “She didn’t try to convince me I was trans or anything, but once I had those wrong ideas cleared away, I could see that I was trans, too. My body had been feeling awkward and wrong ever since puberty, but I couldn’t pin down what it was, and…”

From there, the conversation went a lot like the conversation with Eliza’s parents had gone the night before, except that Aunt Krystal joined them about twenty minutes later, leading to another rehash of the same topics. Everyone was on edge, nobody was happy.

This time it was Eliza’s mom who put a stop to it. “Let’s talk about something else,” she said. “What have you heard from Kevin lately?” Eliza’s cousin Kevin, two years older than her, had moved to New York for a job not long after graduating from NC State. So Uncle Derek and Aunt Krystal started bragging about Kevin’s promotion to assistant editor, and Eliza had a bit of a reprieve.

Finally, Aunt Krystal said, “We’d better go put some more work in on the yard sale. It was nice to see you, Elijah, even under the circumstances.”

“You too,” Eliza said, not sure whether she meant it or not.

They all headed out the front door, got back in Eliza’s dad’s SUV, and drove back to her parents’ house. Lunch passed without much talk about gender or Eliza’s confession that she didn’t want to date anyone ever again, but Eliza thought she could tell that her parents were thinking about it. She hadn’t been sure of it herself until she’d reacted in frustration to Uncle Derek’s assumptions, and now that she had some time to think about it, she was second-guessing herself. Did she feel this way just because she was still hurting over losing Monica and didn’t want to risk going through that again? No, she decided, she hadn’t really wanted to get married, she’d just thought it was the only way to stay friends with Monica. That boys and girls couldn’t stay friends for long unless they got romantically involved.

But that was over now, and she hoped she wouldn’t make that mistake again. Wouldn’t let herself get talked into getting engaged unless she really wanted to marry someone, which she couldn’t really see happening right now.