Saturday is awkward and strange.

Mom and I do our usual Saturday cleanup chores without speaking, while Dad works in the yard. It’s not too bad, because Mom and I can be in different rooms most of the time. When we do come near each other, I can practically feel waves of cold coming off of her.

Then, around noon, she goes to the kitchen and makes herself lunch. She doesn’t tell me it’s lunchtime. She doesn’t offer to make me or dad anything. It’s not like her at all.

What’s more, when I glance in the kitchen, she’s sitting looking at stuff on her phone. She’s never been a big user of her phone, She barely tolerates me using mine anywhere she can see it. 

Once she clears her place and leaves the kitchen, I lean out in the yard and ask Dad if he wants a sandwich. I end up making us each a grilled cheese and a bowl of tomato soup. You can’t go wrong with the classics.

I spend most of the afternoon in my room. I’ve got homework to do, and I alternate that with working on my prototype sculptures. I’m think I may be getting close to he point in welding class that I can try making one of my smaller ones at full scale.

The evening is a little less weird than the morning. We all have dinner together, and I do the cleanup as usual. Mom and Dad even discuss Thanksgiving plans a little. Mom does get a couple of notifications on her phone, though, and actually looks at them. 

She glances at me after the second one, and looks away quickly when I notice.There’s something going on there.

📎 📎 📎

Sunday morning, Mom goes to church, as usual, and Dad goes golfing with some friends of his. I’m happy because this means I’ll have the house to myself until sometime after noon. Dad says he’ll be home around two, and Mom usually has church stuff until three or four.

📎 📎 📎

I’m eating my lunch of beans and rice in the kitchen when I hear the front door open. It’s only noon, so neither of my parents should be home yet. I get a bad feeling.

Sure, enough, Mom walks into the kitchen with a woman I don’t recognize.

“Daniel,” Mom says, “This is my friend Mary Sullivan. Mary, this is my son Daniel.”

The way she emphasizes the word “son” sets my teeth on edge.

“Hello, Daniel. It’s nice to meet you,” Mary says.

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” I respond. 

I sincerely doubt I’ll feel that way soon, but my parents raised me to be polite.

“Your mother tells me that you’re a little confused,” she says. “Maybe I can help.”

I was right to be worried.

“I was confused for a while,” I say, trying to keep my tone level, “but I figured it out. Thanks anyway, though.”

“So you don’t still think you’re a girl?”

“This isn’t something I want to talk to a stranger about.”

“Daniel!” Mom breaks in, “You will not be rude to our guest.”

“I’m not being rude.”

I really don’t think I am. I haven't’ raised my voice, or anything.

“Sit down and listen to what Mary has to say.”

“I’d really rather not.”

“Sit down.” she doesn’t raise her voice, but it feels like she did.

I sit.

Mary Sullivan pulls out a chair and sits facing me.

“Now, Daniel, let me explain how the sexes work.”

I clench my jaw and prepare for a high school biology level lecture on sex chromosomes.

I don’t even get that, it’s middle school level at best.

I want to argue with her. I want to tell her how stupid everything she’s saying is. Gender is so much more complicated than she understands. Sex is so much more complicated. But I’ve seen what happens online when you argue with terfs and other transphobes. They’ll just double down on their assertions. And I’ll get mad, and say something that mom can claim is rude.

By the time she winds down, I can taste blood from where I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself quiet.

“So you see, Daniel, You are a boy, on the verge of being a man. I know that the responsibilities that come with that can be scary, but you’re a strong boy. You can handle them.”

I respond in the most overly reasonable voice I can muster.

“Wow, Ms, Sullivan. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

It’s hard to keep down my lunch.

She and Mom beam at me.

“Well, you just keep thinking on it dear. I’m sure you’ll come to the right conclusion soon.”

She gets up from the table, then continues.

“And remember, God doesn’t make mistakes.” 

Oh, fuck her.

“What about babies born with cleft palates?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if ‘God’ doesn’t make mistakes, should we just leave those babies as they are, and not give them the surgery they need to thrive?”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“That’s a deformity. It has to be fixed for the child to live a fulfilling life.”

“And I say I need to transition to lead a fulfilling life.”

“But you don’t!”

“I say I do.”

“That’s the devil speaking to you, tempting you away from God.”

“I don’t believe in your god, so I don’t give a fuck.”

Mom and Ms. Sullivan both gasp.

“Daniel!” Mom practically yells, “apologize to Mary immediately.”

“I’m sorry that I don’t give a fuck about your god.”

“Daniel! Go to your room immediately!”

I don’t argue.

As I head to my room, I hear Mom apologizing profusely to Ms. Sullivan.

In my room, I unplug my laptop and stick it in my backpack, along with my journal.

I get out my phone and text Dad.

              Me: I’m going out. Mom’s pretty mad at me. I’m ok. Talk later

              Dad: I’ll head home right away.

              Me: Finish your game. I’ll be home before bedtime

              Dad: You sure?

              Me: Yeah. I love you

              Dad: Love you, too, Maggie.

Then I write a note on a post-it. “Alex—I’m going to the park. Please come.” Then I stick it to the underside of my desk. I don’t know if that will work or not, but it’s worth a shot.

I still hear Mom and Ms Sullivan talking in the kitchen when I come quietly down the stairs. I’m careful to make little to no noise as I slip out the front door.

📎 📎 📎

The park is only a mile and a half away, so I walk. I don’t think I’m safe to drive right now, anyway.

I’m glad to find that the park isn’t very crowded. I don’t really want to be around people right now. That doesn’t include Alex; they’re not exactly a people. There’s one other exception, too. I get out my phone and send off another text. I get an answer pretty quickly.

That done, I setup my laptop at a picnic table and bring up some homework I didn’t finish yesterday. It’s hard to get started, but once I do, it does help distract me. 

I know they’re here before I hear them. I don’t bother to turn around, though. I keep at the paragraph I was working on as Alex sits down beside me. They wait patiently while I finish.

My phone buzzes right as I finish the paragraph. I send a quick response.

“Thanks for coming,” I say to Alex.

“You’re very welcome. Are you okay?” they answer. “What can I do?”

“I sort of need you for moral support.”

“Wh—”

They stop as Gina slides into the seat across from us.

“Hey, Daniel. Hey, Alex. What’s up? Is it a god emergency?”

“Um, no,” I replied. “Remember the other day how you said if I needed to talk to let you know?”

“Of course.”

I’d tried to figure out how I was going to do this on the walk here. I hadn’t come up with anything, though. So, I went for it.

“I’m trans, I’m going to start transitioning.”

Gina gets a huge smile on her face as she almost breaks something trying to get to me across the table. She partially drags me to my feet to wrap me in a hug.

“That’s amazing! Congratulations! Do you have a name picked out yet?” She pulls away, but keeps her hands on my shoulders.

“Maggie. Or, Magdalena, but Maggie for short.”

“I love it!”

Maybe I didn’t need Alex here for moral support after all. Then again, I’m not sure if I’d’ve had the guts to come out and say it. I glance over and see that they have a big smile on their face, too. I grab their hand and pull them up off the bench into a group hug.

After a few moments, the events that led to this intrude.

We break the hug and take seats at the table.

“What’s wrong?” Gina asks.

“My dad is completely on board, but it turns out my mom is transphobic. Today she brought some lady from her church home to lecture me about how wrong I am, how shameful this all is, and how god doesn’t make mistakes.”

“That sucks.”

“I almost told her that the only god that I know makes tons of mistakes.”

Alex looks offended. “Name one,” they say.

I roll my eyes.

“Anyway, I realized that I’m not ashamed of this. This is who I am. So I’m going to start telling people. Counting church lady, you’re the fifth person to know, and the first person I wanted to tell.”

She takes my hand from across the table.

“Thank you. Who was the first?”

I motion to Alex. “This nosey god read my journals.”

“I didn’t read them.” Alex protests, “I just—” They shut up. I think they realize that they were about to confirm their godhood.

I pat them on the shoulder.

“It’s okay. I’m glad you knew, however that happened.”

And I tell Gina what happened, starting with Alex getting me so worked up that I came out to Mom. She glares at Alex, but only for a moment.  When I’m done, she asks the obvious question.

“If you were so pissed at them, why did you keep hanging around them?”

Right. There’s one more thing I have to tell her.