This Is How It Always Is

by Laurie Frankel

There was no way to fall in love with a woman just for her body in Wisconsin in January.

“Shark Cave!” four boys chorused. Roo, aged eight on the night Claude became, had named his room himself. Rigel and Orion, aged four and a half, were just next door in a room everyone called POH but which only Penn and Rosie knew to stand for Pit of Hell. Again, her christening. Ben, aged seven, lived in Ben’s Room. Ben was a literalist.

“Girls in fairy tales are losers,” said Roo. “No they aren’t,” said Claude. “Yes they are. Not like losers. Losers. Girls in fairy tales are always losing stuff.”

“You’re too old to be open-minded and tolerant,” said Rosie. “I’m too old not to be.”

Claude’s sentence was “I hope to learn about science including stars, what kind of frogs live in Wisconsin, why oceans are salty, air currents and other winds, and why peanut butter is not allowed at school.”

Real

“No one will know who you’re supposed to be,” Ben warned. “No one ever does,” said Claude.

“So, gender dysphoria,” Mr. Tongo began. “Congratulations to you both! Mazel tov! How exciting!”

“It’s enigmatic.” Claude shrugged. “Or I am.” Rosie considered that his youngest-of-five vocabulary must confuse most kindergarteners. Many fifth graders. Lots of high school students.

And one tired college senior after finals week

He thinks high heels are comfortable. This is clearly not a human whose judgment should be used to make major life decisions.”

No one slept well, and breakfast was a sleepy affair. Rosie considered whether it would be good parenting or bad to pour coffee all around.

She wanted to go in and give a speech she’d actually rehearsed over and over in her head. The rest of you may be gender-conforming children, she’d say, but you’re not nearly as smart, funny, or interesting as Claude, so you tell me which is better: awesome, dynamic boy in a skirt, or tiresome, whiny child with a runny nose who has nothing to offer but compliance.

The leap from tolerant to celebrated turned out to be an expensive one.

Me moving to Minnesota

Would eating more grapefruit and less gluten help Poppy be a celebrated human? Rosie had no idea. Which was why she suddenly felt she needed a transgender nutritionist who did.

After the movie, Poppy got the bear (Alice) and the sheep (Miss Marple) who always came to bed with her so she could go to sleep, but Aggie said she missed her grandpa, and Kim said let’s hold a séance, and Poppy had that candle so it was pretty much perfect.

“Well, no one here knows who we really are,” said Rosie. “No, it’s the opposite.” Her daughter shook her head happily. “It’s like they know exactly.”

For instance, her girlfriends didn’t know she became a fairy every night. They didn’t know she could fly and light stars. They thought her hair was neon green only because she was just that cool. She felt bad about lying to them, but she didn’t want to risk losing them by telling the truth. And it was easy. If she wore a T-shirt when they went swimming, if she always changed in the bathroom, they never saw her without a top on so her wings were hidden. If they went out for brunch instead of dinner and had book club during the day, no one thought it was strange she could never do anything in the evenings.

“I dunno.” Poppy shrugged. “Something. There’s always some kind of secret message.” Aggie considered the matter. “I think your dad wants us to know it’s okay to do drugs. And not tell anyone about it.”

“Ichthyologist sounds like a wonderful job,” Rosie said. “Why wouldn’t you write about all of this?” “I can’t write about any of this. Obviously.” It wasn’t just ichthyology, apparently, about which Poppy knew more than her mother. “Marnie Alison’s already making fun of me, and she doesn’t even know about the transgender fish.”

If you told your own story, you got to pick your ending. Just being yourself never worked, but if you made yourself up, you got to be exactly who you knew yourself to be.

There’s a fork in the road. It seems like there are only two choices. It seems like the task is to figure out which way to go, left or right, forward or back, deeper or safer, but in fact any of those choices is easy compared to the real trick. The real trick is you have to forge your way straight ahead through the trees where there is no path.”