Chapter 2 - Maggie Jones?

Maggie? Maggie Jones. Made sense, since the name Margaret had been in my family as far back as they cared to keep track. If I had been born a girl, mom said that was the only name she picked out for me. Compared with Jacob Aaron Jones as the only choice for a boy.

Made sense, as much as anything since I woke up made sense. Crazy just crazy. Beautiful craziness though. Madness that brought heartfelt tears to my eyes and peace to my soul. Maybe that was it. Maybe…

It was hard to put into words. But if I was dead, then this finally made sense. I remembered something about bodies, pure bodies, and something holy like that. I sure looked better than usual, and I felt good. And everything with my parents.

So, the Afterlife? Heaven? Somewhere in between, like the constant media joke of weird shit explained by taking place in purgatory? So, where was God? I flinched at even articulating the question inside my head. If I might be being judged then no way did I want to be flippant or blasphemous.

But when people had all sorts of divine or near-death experiences usually there was a light and a bunch of happy people walking along or going to church or doing all sorts of stuff like that. Surely, someone would come along and explain what happened or I would just know, right?

Although, I never really looked into how purgatory supposedly worked. All I could remember about the topic specifically was a web novella about a mobster who wound up there and swapped bodies with a “dame”. I mostly checked it out for the fun part, but it seemed like he didn’t know that he was dead and actually stuck in an eternal, hedonistic realm where he had the choice to repeat the mistakes of his past or learn from them and carry on.

I dunno, I never really finished it. I just read it for a couple scenes. By now, it had probably slipped between the crevices of the old Internet.

As I reflected on all this, I helped mom tidy up with some light cleaning in the living room. I considered apologizing for the state of things, but my brain darted out ahead of my words and wondered all over the place. When did they last visit? Had it looked like this? Was it vastly different? Were they just as confused as me but taking it in stride?

As I dusted off the area under the crucifix where their urns would’ve been, I traced the stray thought that I first put up that crucifix as the beginning of a memorial for mom. Why was it still there?

“So, how were the kiddies today?” Mom organized a few things and gently opened the drapes to let some sun filter in.

Automatically, I looked towards my shut laptop, as though the summary of my workday was inscribed on the lid. “Productive. I mean they all seemed to be doing well. The usual troublemakers tried things, but I was able to keep them on task.”

It was jarring to witness my mother listen attentively and with genuine curiosity. The mother who consumed my memory languished with atrophied, twisted feet in a home hospital bed. Sure, she asked what I was up to but just as a momentary distraction before the pain returned to her thoughts. She wanted me to help her when there was nothing I could possibly do.

It just became a loop where she asked for help, said it was just a little bit of help she needed, said oh don’t do anything then, because it’s fine but yet she needed help just a little bit of help oh don’t do anything because she just needed help a little bit of help oh don’t do anything because she just needed a little bit of help just a little bit some help oh don’t worry about it it’s just a little bit of help just the help just to help just do a little bit a little bit a little bit a little bit just a little bit just a little bit…

As relentlessly as a wind-and-water shaped stone, something fundamental was eaten away inside me from those years. Something I had to talk about, even though I didn’t have words for it. Now, was it all inside my head?

I plastered over reflection to give the appearance of trying to search my memories for something cute to say about my students. Carmella was easy to talk about like that.

Mom had familiar stories about how often her family had to move at that age and how it made learning to read and be confident difficult in classes. I hinted at strategies I would just gloss over to the other version of her. This mom was sharp though, she recited all related approaches to reading. She had opinions about dual immersion, Montessori, and phonics. I trembled and fought to keep my words from wavering.

To say it was refreshing to actually talk to my mom in such a friendly way fell far short of encapsulating my emotions. Like finding a rich, cool oasis in the desert that clung perfectly to my soul. I wanted to cry again but that would just worry her.

It didn’t take long before dad had somehow brought the kitchen back in order, aired things out through the screen door without inviting the noonday heat inside, and had several cleaned electric fans with wet towels to spread a cool breeze where the AC seemed unable to reach.

Fervently, I thanked him. He laughed with easy confidence and disarming warmth, unlike the tormented hyena cackles he unleashed in the depths of his advancing dementia.

When questions came of lunch, I thought small, maybe some repeat of my salad from last night with a little fresh chicken. Mom had more ambition, presenting the idea of a thick, rich chicken stew that I could have for several meals. She also had a few recipes, which could be made with all the groceries they brought, annotated on her phone.

Who were these people? And where had they been until this day in my life? The questions sat like a sickly stone deep in my gut. I didn’t really want answers, I just wanted to shake loose my fears.

“You’ll love it. Come on, Maggie. Mother-daughter cooking time. Let’s get to work.” Fetching a broom from the laundry room, dad went out to clear the dust from around the sliding door.

And I had no words. That felt like most of my morning. What was wrong with me? Why wasn’t I happy? Why, instead of beaming at mom, did I feel I was about to hurl into the sink? Why did even tears feel like something painful caught inside me?

I had to excuse myself to the bathroom, to just sit there and tremble. Soon, I started chewing on my nearest thumbnail, nibbling off the end until it became jagged. Again, I thrust the point of it into my side, my arm, my face, anything that might truly feel it. It hurt and this time drew a full trickle of blood from my arm.

I pressed on a little bandage as I nibbled the nail down. Unlike when I usually did this kind of thing for nerves, I didn’t find any dry skin to rub off nor did it start bleeding.

The pretty girl in the mirror expressed all of my nervous fear. I tried not to inflict too much on her. In the kitchen, mom soon put me to work with vegetables, cutting and rinsing. The regular whisk sound of dad with his broom echoed from the carport.

As we got through the first part of the recipe, mom asked, “Anyone special lately?

It was a familiar question, especially from my mother. But also the sort of thing I got asked by caregivers for my parents through the years. Old ladies are terribly preoccupied with whether you’re getting any. Although, maybe that’s a cynical read. They want to make sure you’re hooked up with someone, especially someone with money and looks. It was one aspect of by-birth girlhood which I was glad not to catch the full hurricane force of.

It was noticeable to me that mom didn’t specify a special boy or a girl. We had a few chats about the sort of thing when I was younger. Firstly, she asked me for precise information about how lesbians “do it“, as if I was some sort of secret one or had other insider knowledge. Then, she asked me not to be gay, with the heartfelt explanation that she didn’t want things to be “made harder” for me. I told her that wasn’t it, but left unspoken, “If only it were that simple”.

The strange but familiar woman preparing chicken stew with me wore a kindly expression with her question.

Sincerely, I answered her, “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell.”

No matter what version of my mother I was dealing with then, that answer would’ve been easily questionable. At least this one responded reasonably with a careful iteration of my claim, “Hard to tell?”

Fortunately, my prior experiences with my mother prepared me for enhanced interrogation. It was simple to segue into, “Who were we talking about last?”

That question was a risk, especially with my mother as I knew her. But her questions were never as subtle as asking if I had someone special. It would sound like a joke to say she basically asked, “Are you fucking?” But not inaccurate. When I was in my teens she had the schism of desperation between wanting to conjure up a grandchild and claiming I should just be happy.

Not as though she wanted to speedrun grandmotherhood, but more like she was far behind and things finally fell into place, so she was mashing B to keep me from turning into anything but an inseminator. That thought process amused the hell out of me as she never played a video game in her life. Although she did enjoy Skee-Ball.

Essentially, at random times, my mother would present pointed questions about whether a girl I had mentioned in passing from class or elsewhere was girlfriend material, like I should be interviewing her for the job. Her scrutiny extended to all of my friends in a way that totally reminded me of the cliché of an Asian mother, but which was still quintessentially Eastern European by legacy.

That was the war of words I knew. Now, it seemed like there had never been a conflict. Which made my evasive questions all the more difficult to stick to. I couldn’t just pretend not to know friends and lovers mentioned to my mother.

In my head, my question felt like yanking out a critical, foundational block on a wobbly tower. The only way I could even imagine stability was by pretending my question had layers. A sense of melancholy. Romantic trepidation. And a moody sort of loneliness. I probably failed at such subtlety, but I had no other options.

“Jess, your high school friend. Her mother finally retired recently but didn’t want to have a party. Your father and I helped her pack up her things. It was nice seeing the old school. One of my kiddies is actually back and teaching. Camille Lawrence, Miss Lawrence. She had a crush on you waaay back then."

Everyone secretly had a crush on me. Half a dozen guys in high school and well over a dozen girls. And then some of the shy kids in my mother’s classes. Camille, I actually remembered. I was in high school and she was ten years my junior. While I was helping with a reading lab, she snuck up and kissed me on the cheek. I figured it was mostly a dare from that class’s infestation of girls. Half of me was embarrassed and the other half wished I lived a life like a little girl. This day, I’d gotten half that wish.

How long have I been like this, so far as my mother was concerned? Was this me on hormones? Before I could respond to the hints she’d given me, mom washed up and went for her purse and her cell phone with a plastic and metallic case showing breaching whales and dolphins in a heavenly landscape. She smoothly showed off photos taken recently that included Camille standing amidst an elementary school classroom with images of ladybugs, numbers, and words sprinkled everywhere.

My mind both acknowledged and rebelled against recognition of the young woman in the photo. On the one hand, she clearly looked like a version of the little girl I’d seen regularly when helping my mom. At the same time, she couldn’t possibly be that adult, because she was supposed to be eight years old inside my head.

Mom didn’t overtly say that she was single, but she did highlight the fact that she was “Miss Lawrence“ and she further offered to send the photo over to my phone. Jess or Jessica Katz felt a little more comfortable to discuss. I had discussed her with mom, back in college, when my relationships were her preoccupation. She had naturally red hair to challenge the radiant locks I’d been granted.

We hung out a little although I made every possible, boneheaded social mistake and she shrugged them off with a smile. All that on top of quietly, nervously wishing I could stand in her shoes. Well, not in every respect. She had plenty of health issues that I wasn’t keen to inherit along with her body. At the same time, it all felt like a fair trade-off since I had my own issues. She also fervently, earnestly held views that weren’t popular around school at that time. If only I hadn’t fucking cared so much about popularity with groups that didn’t matter. Maybe I could’ve been more of myself, or at least a better friend to her.

“There’s a lot on your mind“, mom expressed during one of the obvious lulls. I resisted grimacing but couldn’t stop fiddling with my hair. We went back to cooking and I took a few deep breaths before I found the words, “I’m just glad you’re both here. You’re special to me. Both of you.”

It was a copout answer, and I could tell from mom‘s expression that she recognized it as such. Still, she gave me a little rub on the back and the kindest look I’d ever seen from her.

“And you’re a special young lady and I just wanna make sure you have someone who complements you and understands.”

A chill, like a cold but invisible waterfall, rushed through me. I wanted to cry, as it collected into prickly fear. Either she didn’t know, or she was humoring me. It felt good. Even though it didn’t feel true.

I remembered my mother raged about how men could not possibly understand a woman’s ways. All the torments cast upon a girl, all the agonies, all the burdens, and all the inescapable realities. That’s why I kept silent. That was the baseline, and I couldn’t even get to it in this life. I still couldn’t. I had a pretty face without a girlish voice. I had a womanly shape but a small bump up top. I possessed long hair, velvety soft skin, and meager height but none of the internal complexity.

So these new words, these placating words felt so good yet so hollow. I answered simply, “Thanks, mom.” And gently assured her, “I’ll be fine. It’s okay.”

She didn’t press on this sensitive point, where I had no idea what reality now reflected. Instead, she mentioned all the little nice things around the classrooms. She discussed who on the campus was pregnant, who was in charge, who had been replaced, and all the little silly things with the kiddies she saw here and there. I offered up enthusiasm in the form of succinct answers like “Ooh”, “I see”, and “goodness”.

I could tell from mom‘s expression every so often that she was expecting more from me in reply, but I was empty. Anything I could tell her beyond this morning would be drenched in doubt. Dad’s sweeping provided an ever-present background sound.

When the stew was ready, I assisted with tidying up the spots in the kitchen we both could reach. It was still disconcerting to be on the same level with my mom and several inches below where I used to be on everything else.

Out of all changed, I didn’t mind that at all. I had some navy blue hoodies for fall. They were a few sizes too big, and I liked the way they nearly reached my thighs. Now, depending on if they still existed, they would surely feel more like a little dress with my small hands completely enveloped in their sleeves as the bottom likely reached my knees.

The weather was still too hot for them, but that was something to look forward to, especially if today persisted. If only whatever magic could work on me completely. If only I had a kaleidoscope of forms to choose from. If only I had all the clothes I could richly imagine. If only I could truly feel the words my mother shared with me. If only I had a history growing up the way that felt most natural to me. If only I could stop hating myself… if only.

But I had this at least and it was a respite. A respite from loneliness, where the flaws of myself came back severalfold. I thought about helping my dad clean up, but a sudden spell of sneezes when I approached the door led me back over to mom. She handed me some tissues.

For the stagnant air, we wiped off a few more fans with damp towels and set them to run. That circulated the central unit’s cooling. After a rinse, mom continued wiping down the dining room table. I drew in a tight breath and had to say, “I’m sorry.”

Foremost in my thoughts, that apology was for a dozen little things and countless big things. It was for the embarrassment I felt at how much the house needed this cleaning and how eagerly these versions of my parents tidied up for me. I also felt sorry that I couldn’t provide the answers and enthusiasm of this version of my life. The apology also landed on one moment that could never be reconciled.

The day my mother died was a day of shame. I had been dragging what still lived of her through all the strain and care I could bear. People came, but not often enough. Help was there but only in the worst moments. Care was provided, but only at the greatest cost.

On the day my mother died, I was afraid. She had persisted through several rough days of laborious breathing and physical strain. Naïvely, I set up a family board game around her hospice bed. All it provided was a negative memory for my dad and the assurance he would never bother with such games again. That morning, the nurse plopped down in front of me that my mother was actively dying, which seemed like an impossible notion.

Even though I watched her struggle for each breath like a pale fish cast on the shore, and sometimes stop, it didn’t make sense that she could die like this and in this moment. I wasn’t with her in those moments. Rather, I called for an ambulance, checked her out of hospice, and tried to roll the dice once more. She barely made it out the door and into the ambulance. She passed somewhere along the way, alone.

I never saw her body again as the hospital took her right to the mortuary and I needed to make sure dad was alright with all of his own health problems. At least dad was with me during her cremation and memorial.

When it was dad‘s turn, he went out with a sneeze. I was there but blindly I didn’t realize he had stopped breathing for several minutes after that last sound. As recompense, I held him tight in a hug.

Movies, shows, theater, and so many other things characterized death a certain way. He didn’t smell of anything, especially since we had just bathed him in bed. He felt lukewarm but not cold. He didn’t shit himself. In fact, that he hadn’t passed much of anything for several days was a matter of concern that morning.

It was a cruel morning, one with uneasy, achy sleep that I dragged myself from one sliver of brief rest to another. Denial followed everyone but me for several minutes. I hugged him and laid out a river of words against his ear. No way he heard me. He hadn’t said much of anything in weeks, except to plea for the same rote notes of help.

Still, as I numbly watched his forever resting face, I felt a subtle pressure on my left shoulder, as though a tender weight rested there. One of the caregivers randomly remarked that I had an angel on my shoulder. Reflective uncertainty but also stoic ease settled on me.

Perhaps there’s no way to deal with anyone’s death without the racing, continual scrutiny that you could’ve done something else or something more in the end. I didn’t deserve to hate myself, yet it was still unavoidable.

And that was just a sliver of what my apology stood for. The woman before me, who was my mom and wasn’t at the same time, gave a sweet lilting chuckle. “Oh honey, don’t you worry. It’s fine. I love you. And your dad loves you so much too. Anything that’s stressing you out is yesterday‘s news. Don’t let it get ahold of you. Tomorrow brings a new day, and let’s enjoy the precious gift of this moment together.”

Serenity swaddled me while the clearing breeze of the fans washed away the intensity of the summer. I didn’t feel like I was in my body and that was actually true. A good half of this wasn’t the body I was used to. But I also felt like I was floating on my shoulder, which my rational brain reminded me was where my brain sat. Rather, it felt like I was experiencing everything and I was separate from it at the same time and still intimately a part of it. That contradiction was exactly the point.

I expected to wake up and see that the world still made sense, in all the terrible and beautiful ways it had before. But I sat there as dad sprayed water along the side of the house to get the dirt that the broom couldn’t.

“That’s a lot better, haha,” he proclaimed, with a brush of his broad hands. I practically jumped into his arms and he didn’t wobble as he shut the sliding door behind him. When I was young, my father loomed even though my mother had the broadest, most soul-shaking presence. With almost half a foot lopped off my height, I had to reach up to embrace him again.

He rubbed my shoulders with strength shown through moderation. “How’s my little girl?”

Another tingle dropped through me. I was so happy to hear that, to feel those words.

He received my full, heartfelt apology for things he couldn’t possibly understand. His reaction was to twist his mustache and beard into the shape of bristled confusion. I tried to cling to my emotions like the edge of a receding cliff, but I soon plunged into tears.

I flowed with blubbering, incoherent words and sounds which echoed in my head and left the moment I spoke them like an incantation of desperate hope released into the world. He brushed my hair and kissed my forehead.

“It’s okay. Everything is fine. And it looks great outside too. I made sure of that. It smells fantastic in here. Is everything ready?”

Mom responded, “In a minute, just need your help serving it.”

And he went to work without complaint. I darted about and asked what I could help with. They both made sure I sat down with a napkin and a place setting.

I just couldn’t sit still though. First, I had to hop over to the bathroom, where I freshened up my deodorant and briefly marveled at my reflection. And then, I adjusted my hair, gently washed my fresh face even fresher, and considered washing my feet in the sink for just a moment.

The stew was already set when I returned. A little bit of bread with garlic seasoning sat off to the side and mom had prepared a tossed salad. I couldn’t stop grinning.

And I was asked to say grace.

“God… Thank you for this meal and the warm presence of my family. Thank you for the blessings You have given all of us. Thank you for this time that we have with one another. Thank you for health, love, and beautiful little days we treasure even though we don’t understand them. Thank you in so many ways. God bless and keep us. Amen.”

My parents thanked me. I nodded. I said so many empty or rambling versions of that before. Usually, when I was asked to say grace, I tried to offer what I thought others would want. I had no idea what to ask for or present. I couldn’t sincerely speak the needed words. They felt so hollow. I couldn’t believe them.

This day felt like an overwhelming blessing from the moment I woke up. The morning teaching session had its moments of trial, but not even divine providence could do anything about that. Just being Miss Jones, Miss Maggie Jones, left me practically stupefied.

If someone out there was looking out for me and was responsible for the opportunities of the day laid out before me then it only felt right to thank them. And the stew was good.

It didn’t have the kind of seeped in, fall apart flavor it would have if it had been cooking throughout the day, but it was good enough for a nice lunch. I started coughing at one point and realized I was eating too quickly, so I slowed down and sipped my drink between. My parents made sure I was all right and we all laughed at the fact I was scarfing it down, which mom took as a subtle compliment. I was just used to eating alone so often, ever since the caregivers and anyone who hung around afterward had left.

Sitting up in the chair was different than usual because of my height and the form of my lower body. It felt like when I had something turned the wrong way, however, it was in every angle of myself in this chair. I enjoyed the chair. It and the others around the table had been here longer than me and survived so many of my childhood antics. They were durable. A wobbly but still worthwhile one sat in the side office for many years and provided a place where I could sit and type. I preferred it to an office chair or even the couch I currently used because it was hard and numbing to all the discomfort of sitting for endless hours.

Usually, I would wind up with too much of my legs underneath and either cross them or shift them off to the side and cling to the edge of the table nervously to find a spot for them. Because of this I often wound up shaking tables when I didn’t mean to and got brow beaten by mom before. Now, with the new shape of things, it felt like I had just enough leg for this table. They still felt a little itchy where glossiness met its match.

The food was amazing, mainly because of the company. I savored the time and the flavor. Some casual conversation clued me in that my parents lived at a hybrid retirement community known as Santa Maria Crescent, a place out to the west and close to the hills where all the Basque farmers lived. They had some hot springs out that way. It was also where my grandparents lived until my grandmother passed away. I was too young to remember what she or their place was like. All I could say about that time was a story my mom recounted for me where my childish brain said that grandma was in a treasure box. In my unreliable memory, I just knew that I touched her face a lot and prayed that I could rouse her. Then she would sit up and smile. Mom told me to stop doing that.

When dad passed, I tried the same thing when he was still warm. I tried to pull open his eyes and reveal that he was just really zonked out from being moved around and cleaned. For an instant, I could imagine he was still there. I removed a disk of dry skin in his mouth and tried to see if something had blocked his airway. I never knew how he died, despite the sneeze. At his stage, accurate causes of death were like searching for individual snowflakes in a blizzard.

And yet despite that horrible way to wake up and tiredly care for him in his last moments, begging him just to hold on and bear moving back-and-forth painfully, he sat before me, in the way I knew him best, blowing on the hot stew as his silvery mustache fluttered. Part of me scolded myself for dwelling on such painful memories, but they were a foundational part of who I was and what I could be certain of.

For all my dreams where they were resurrected irrationally like this, with the dream stress that I would have to deal with making sure everyone knew they were alive again, waking reality returned to sternly remind me of what was true.

All this had to be a dream, or the biggest whoops reveal of quantum immortality anyone had ever seen. Honestly, that seemed like a silly notion. We die a million deaths in lost quantum realities. Every glitch that doesn’t match our memory is a twinkle left behind from an abandoned world.

Sure, I felt like I had cheated death in a dozen random ways that people usually attribute to a guardian angel. Breaking on a green light in an intersection only to see a crazed driver plow through and just barely miss me. Nearly choking from a fever only to wake up and hear your babysitter did the right thing at the right time. And then all the Internet stories of lives lived in an instant and deaths ditched.

The world has its mysteries, but it usually held them close to its chest. Like a girl on Reddit who claimed to remember being a boy until some random trip to the hospital where her entire life changed and she woke up totally different. I felt solidarity with that random user. She figured that she would remain as she was before or be butch and hold onto some measure of her past self. But she adapted, as though it was nothing but a fever dream and a mild imposition. The universe shifted her into line. Or she just had a moment of madness that she never forgot. Or she was just telling a story.

There were more like them though. And there was me. Would I forget that this was ever special to me? Did it matter one way or another that I remembered? I forgot so many things, from random shit on any given day and countless passwords to entire people that I knew growing up and what they looked like. Whole grades of school were a gray haze, even on a good day.

Beyond a dream or a hiccup of reality, there was one notion I felt like I had orbited but not touched seriously. Perhaps… this is what happened when someone died. Someone with preoccupations of devotion and responsibility. Get up, doubt yourself, get to work, cry and fuss over a beautiful day, and hope it goes away. Like a spirit trapped in routine. When I turned on the faucet, was it like that movie with the mother and her two kids that couldn’t be out in the sunlight? The one that tried to be a creepy twist on top of a creepy twist. If there was a real world, how much time has passed in it while I remained here? Who was I scaring with cold spots and mysterious noises?

I let the aroma of the stew, with just enough seasoning and smell wafting up to my nose, linger on my spoon before licking it off. If only due to idealized versions of my parents visiting me, the idea this was some sort of limbo or afterlife made sense. Maybe a scaffold of the mortal world to ease me towards whatever came next. I got what I wanted with parents free of pain and dementia. My body had all the cute compliments of a girl’s shape without the complication of a uterus or the intimidating pressure and presence of a resounding set of breasts. Oh, that’s sad…I would’ve preferred a cuter voice but mine wasn’t outside the range of some.

Voice seemed more about attitude. When I had the presence and preoccupation of a female self, it was impossible for me to be recognized as a man over the phone or inattentive conversation. Heck, in some of my previously treasured moments, I had to put on rebuffing amusement for walking into a restaurant with my hair grown out and the server accidentally asking, “Where would you like to sit, miss?”

I wanted it. I enjoyed it, even though I had to put on the airs of being casually amused but not offended. Plenty of padded-out self-help books seized onto the notion and power of the human mind to reshape reality. For me, it only happened when I wasn’t thinking about it. Like an idle notion crossed, like a misconception floating by. The most casual of determinations. Like thinking about a turtle in your front yard for a split second and it emanates like mental smoke into the air. Randomly tomorrow you encounter such a creature crossing your path on the stoop. It happened to me all the time, especially when I didn’t intend it. None of them could be ascribed more than random cosmic coincidence. But I like to daydream that it was the possibility of an immense, untapped human power to reshape reality.

Against dreams that didn’t wanna quit, afterlife segue, or universe reshuffling, it made the most sense. I had done this to myself, by no conscious choice but an idle fancy, since forgotten, wishing my parents were alive and like they had been decades ago with me feeling cuter and girlier.

Because I had no intimate knowledge of what everything down there was supposed to look and feel like, my spell cast on myself hadn’t done anything to that. Furthermore, my voice was an innate part of myself. However, in the shadowy recesses, I knew what it was like to be smaller, and I had some presence of hairlessness, softness, and a cute face.

Of the theories, it made the most sense in a weird sort of way. That also left it as the most terrifying possibility because, if I was responsible for all of this, then what would happen if I had another stray thought that got lodged in reality? Anything could happen to anyone at any time. A trickster God playing a kindly trick on me almost felt more reassuring.

By the time my spoon started to clink around the bowl, mom delighted in mentioning a board game at Santa Maria called Settlers of Catan. She had purchased several apps in the same vein for her phone and laid it out just to show me. The strangeness of my mother talking about games and sharing them with me left me briefly silent before I tried to wrestle up to the surface all the interesting board game knowledge I could conjure into words.

Granted, my parents were wholehearted, unabashed nerds but ones who preferred literary strangeness and William Shatner shirtless.

I liked both of those too, but games were pretty much an exclusive thing to myself aside from a simple Atari collection my dad had for several years in the 90s, more as an object of fascination that such simple collections of bits could be used for such complexity as a space shuttle simulator. Now, it turned out that dad had a space in Santa Maria where he collected snippets of every generation of game console. As he described it with a smile, I kind of wanted to see it and both of them were eager for me to visit and bring any “special someones“ I could find with me. I was just eager to make a better last game memory together with my family.

Despite all the fans, this side of the house was starting to get warm. I could really go for a trip to the small civic waterpark a mile down the road. Granted, how would that work for me? Did I have to wear a proper bikini, one-piece or two, or would they treat me about the same? I didn’t mind the idea of going shopping with my modestly-altered shape, I just wasn’t sure where I stood.

A casual mention of the water park brought mom to a similar notion of me trying on clothes. She always had that preoccupation. My focus when looking for clothes tended to be laser-tuned. It had to be material that didn’t trigger a skin reaction, which breathed nicely, and which promised a decent amount of durability after several washes without fading in color, for a fair price.

With her arms folded, mom speculated about a variety of skirts I could try on in colors ranging from a sharp red to a sea blue. I barely breathed as she sincerely listed off styles that she thought would look nice on me. Resisting my cheeks from growing flush was a quiet but challenging struggle. I spent far too much time fiddling with the material of my shorts, as though that might transfigure it into such a skirt.

Long ago, I had saved an image with many of the names given to common types of skirts. It was lost somewhere in the archives. Mom didn’t know the names either, but she demonstrated by pantomiming their shapes and descriptions, comparing some to flowers and others to curtains. We both agreed that something loose would be best.

Her phone returned as she brought up the inventories of some local stores along with the outlet mall to the north. She saved pictures of ones that she thought would look nice on me and then slowly segued into asking about my hair. Except for the occasional bright tangle that popped loose from my tie, it was easy to forget it was around. Idly, I pondered what it would be like to brighten it up to a red of absurd incandescence. Then, I immediately squashed that idea since I had fretted over idle notions becoming powerful spells.

Not that I didn’t like the idea of the color but with all the changes to me lately, I felt anxious about how many eyeballs I might catch in public. A certain part of me slyly hoped it was all of them and for all the right reasons, which immediately caused the rest of me to recoil in horror.

By the time we finished lunch, my parents had penciled in plans for, not only our usual respite by the beach over the summer, but a clothes-shopping excursion and an opportunity for dad to show off the recent greats of his gaming collection along with the outline of so many other possibilities. I was daunted by the exuberance and energy they infused me with.

Despite my pleas not to worry about it, dad snuck in tidying up one of the bathrooms before they left. Mom kept to social concerns, still mindful that I hadn’t given her much of an answer about my interactions with others. Instead of trying to confabulate something, I just told her that things were still busy and it often felt like I never had enough time, even though I worked from the house. She answered that she understood and smiled about tutoring work and even kindly alluded to my writings.

I had no sense of how this version of me and the one who went to bed last night compared so far as our writings and what stories were under their belt from their experiences versus mine, and I wasn’t quite ready to look at what places things might be posted online. However, this meant I could only tell her my thoughts about old story concepts of self-aware weapons in post-apocalyptic worlds, along with World War II retellings of alternate realities, and weird baseball games.

She enjoyed my little mentions of characterization more than anything else conceptual. And she encouraged me to keep at it. Once the table was clean, she helped me arrange leftovers and other foods for later.

I made sure they had plenty of water and they took care of themselves getting in the car and slowly driving away. The front of the house seemed a little less desolate than usual with an invisible gardener tending to things even more rigorously than my father possibly could’ve. It certainly wasn’t perfect or even as well attended as sometimes, but it looked incrementally better.

The same could not be said for my little car, which was approaching its college years in actual age. Whether there was some translation like human years to dog years when it came to vehicles, I didn’t know it.

It still bore signs of a crack on the right side bumper where I had struggled to fit my father’s wheelchair when I still ferried him to regular doctor appointments. Reality felt like a twisted bread of elements that didn’t exactly fit together. That was fine. But I would have a problem if it decided things needed to go back.

Despite the natural state, I already had warm feelings about these parents and spending more time with them. And I appreciated my reflection in the mirror. If I had to lose at all, then so be it. I just wanted some time.

It didn’t have to be years, let alone the supposed eons it was said some spent in layers of the afterlife. But just a little time, to be happy and let some regular days permeate me.

Afternoon instruction and tutoring would provide me with something to focus on for the rest of the day. Meanwhile, I stood with the full sun blazing down on me as the underside of my bundle of bright hair crawled with sweat.

Back inside, I went through the motions of a little more tidying up where it could use it as I basically flirted like a coy Narcissus with my passing reflections in the mirror. It was like puppeteering a cute girl’s expression as she lingered where I should’ve been.