As she lay in bed alone that morning, she thought about what she was losing. The life she had built up—the wife, the kids, the house, the career—was now a pile of rubble at her feet. The wall was gone, and she lay bare with nothing to protect her.
She had never been so afraid and sad and free in her life.
* * *
—
I had to go back home. She needed me.
Feelings are stupidly messy, aren’t they? I was angry with her and with the situation, but I was also worried sick at leaving her by herself at her most vulnerable. I needed to process what had been said, but I felt like a terrible person for doing so. Would I have wanted to be left alone after telling someone my biggest secret? How must she be feeling?
I get pegged as a “nice person” a lot, and the label makes me uncomfortable. There are times when I’m embarrassingly self-centred and oblivious to the needs of others. That morning was one of those times. So I wiped my tears, gave Sarah one last hug and climbed back into my Malibu for the shortest and longest drive of my life. I had to get home to the person I had made promises to in front of all our loved ones eighteen years before. The person with whom I had built a life and had babies. She needed me.
I just didn’t know how to help her through this, or if she even wanted me to. I didn’t know anything anymore.
The unknown. Unpredictability. Instability.
I have tricks for dealing with my anxiety, but none of them were working that day. I couldn’t eat a thing. My body was unpleasantly humming from a mix of adrenaline and caffeine. My hands shook as I unlocked the front door, then shook more as I clutched the railing and ascended the staircase. I took a deep breath before opening the bedroom door, unsure of what I would find on the other side.
She was still in bed, lying in a fetal position, staring at the wall, our muted beige duvet pulled over her. She looked so small that my heart sank in shame for having left her alone.
“Hi,” I said faintly, unsure of what to say at all. What are the talking points for the day after you find out your husband isn’t your husband?
“Hi,” she replied quietly.
“I had to get to my workout,” I said awkwardly, with a hint of defensiveness.
“I know. I’m glad you went.”
“That was a lot to take in last night,” I said, switching gears.
She had yet to meet my eyes and showed no signs of doing so now, instead staring out our second-storey window to the quiet street below. “I shouldn’t have said anything at all,” she replied hollowly.
“I—” I began, and was interrupted by a knock.
“Mommy? Daddy?” Jackson’s little voice came through the door. “Can I come in?”
Jackson burst in, jumped up and landed on the bed. “Hey, Dad!” he said, peeking under the covers with a grin. “Are you still sleeping, sleepyhead?”
There’s a part in the movie Love, Actually where a married woman finds out her husband is having an affair. She’s blindsided by the revelation, utterly devastated, but doesn’t show it to anyone. She mentally pencils in moments to get real about it, to tell her husband she knows, to fall apart, to scream into a pillow. Then she composes herself, wipes her tears, puts on a smile for her kids and rejoins her family. The children remain oblivious to any marital turmoil, which is just the way she wants it.
I kept her image front and centre. If there was one thing we were not prepared to do yet, it was to let the kids in on what was happening. What would we tell them at this point, anyway?
“Did you have any breakfast?” I asked Jackson as he squirmed on the bed.
“Yeah, Aerik gave me cereal. I didn’t want to wake Dad up.”
Dad. That word was a punch to the gut. Was she their dad? When Alexis came out, it was apparent very quickly that she wasn’t the boys’ brother but their sister. Did the same rules apply with a parent? I couldn’t wrap my mind around anything in its murky state, so I decided not to try. I went into Love, Actually mode.
“That brother of yours is pretty great!” I smiled. “How about I make you some lunch and we let Dad rest?”
“Okay!” he said, jumping out of bed and scooting downstairs as only an eight-year-old can.
“Let’s go for another drive later and talk some more,” I said to my spouse, who was still looking lost as she stared out the window.
“I guess,” she replied from the bed. “Sure.”
We drove around later that afternoon. The car was becoming a cocoon of sorts, shielding us from the outside world while we figured out what this metamorphosis would look like. It was quiet as we left the suburbs and made our way out into the awaiting Eastern Ontario countryside, the two-lane highway sandwiched by fields of corn and soy, not quite ready for harvest.
“I want to stress one important thing,” I said, looking straight ahead at the dusty side road, my hands gripping the wheel tightly. I was trying not to cry. “No matter what happens, no matter where this leaves us, I want you to know I support you in being you one hundred percent. I will always have your back on that.”
One of the gifts Alexis had laid at my doorstep was a deeper understanding of what being transgender meant. Long gone were the misguided ideas I’d held about confused and ill individuals seeking perverted pleasure. In their place came the knowledge that trans people are simply trying to lead the lives they were always meant to live. They were born one way, told they were another, and then did their best to fight their way back to authenticity, however they could.
I was not in doubt about my partner’s authenticity. This was who she really was. I needed to step aside with my pile of feelings and let that process unfold. I needed to show compassion, understanding and support. As a loved one, that was my job, no matter how it might affect me.
“I don’t have to do this, you know,” she said to me.
“Do what?” I asked, although I already knew what she was going to say.
“Transition.”
Sometimes after telling someone your deepest secret, you wish you could take it back. If she hadn’t told me the night before, we wouldn’t have been having this conversation. If I didn’t know what I now knew, this would have been a drive in the country with two Starbucks lattes in the cup holders and a happy playlist full of cliché top-forty music from 2008. If she could go back and tell herself not to let the secret out, there wouldn’t be two heartbroken lovers having a conversation neither of them wanted to have.
But my Chevy wasn’t a DeLorean, and there was no going back in time. So what else could she do? Well, she could try to take it back. She could try to stuff herself back in the closet, sealing it shut again. We would both know, of course, but maybe we could pretend it never happened, and life could return to some semblance of normalcy.
But it wouldn’t. It couldn’t, and it shouldn’t. We both knew that. She was desperately grasping for something to pull us out of the quicksand, to make everything right again. The problem was, it was never right to begin with. Denial is not what solid foundations are built on.
“Are you a woman?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied quietly. “I think so.”
“Then how can you not live as one?”
“Well, I haven’t so far, have I?”
“Yeah, and that’s worked out really well,” I said, every word coated in sarcasm.
I could sense her deflate even more at my reply and instantly felt bad about it. Of all the times, this was not the moment to be sassy.
I took a breath. “Sorry. I’m just trying to understand why you would even want to do that. Can you explain?”
“Because being who I am will hurt the people I love. It will hurt you and the kids.”
“This isn’t something you can just stuff back inside you,” I said. “We both know that’s not the case.”
“I can try,” she replied, sighing deeply. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. It was a mistake to say anything.”
“No, it wasn’t. I wish you had told me sooner, but it wasn’
t a mistake to tell me. It’s good you did,” I replied.
But it didn’t feel good. Not good at all. We drove in silence for a while longer, distant farm silos the only observers of the pain trapped inside our metal cocoon.
SIXTEEN
shattered
MY MARRIAGE IS OVER.
That was the only firm thought in my mind. There were many things I didn’t know—like how this revelation would play out in our lives—but I was sure I needed to find a divorce lawyer.
There was no way our marriage could survive something this big. Not after everything we had already been through. Maybe—and it was a big maybe—we might have been able to work through this if we had been more solid to begin with, if we had been happier together. After years of enduring a relationship that teetered between mediocrity and misery, however, I couldn’t see a way to make this work. Transition can be tough in the best of situations, and we were certainly not in that. Healthier marriages broke up every day under far less stress.
I had years of pent-up resentment toward the person I’d known for so long as my husband. Years of wishing I had married someone who seemed to appreciate what we had. Years of trying to make things better. Years of wondering where the fun and engaging person I first met at a party had gone.
And my spouse? Well, she seemed to have nothing but years of unhappiness to draw from. Did she even know what happiness looked like? Was it something she could even feel under the right circumstances? Would living as a member of one of the most marginalized groups of people on the planet create that happiness for her, or would it only bring about a whole new kind of misery?
That was if she even decided to transition, of course. Some people don’t. They fasten new hardware to the closet door and climb right back in to stay. From what I had learned in my brief time making friends in the community, it can be enough for some simply to acknowledge how they feel; they might not have a burning desire to transition, at least not yet. Most do have that desire, but they realize the losses in their lives would be too steep, or it would simply be too dangerous.
Knowing how unhappy my partner’s life had been before, I was fairly sure she didn’t want to go back into the closet. She might be afraid to transition, but I didn’t think that would stop her.
Good.
Not necessarily good for me, I thought, but good for her. I didn’t want anything to stand in the way of her living the life she was meant to live. We both knew that the life of father, husband and everyday white suburban man with a garage full of tools and a golf bag in the trunk did not fit. That life fit her about as well as my jeans from grade ten fit me. It was a mask she wore and clung to tightly with both hands so it wouldn’t fall off. Now she had finally let it fall away.
But what if, out of fear, she returned to the closet? Would that make things okay between us?
No. It wouldn’t save our marriage. It couldn’t save our marriage. We would both know we were living in a fabricated reality. It might look like real life, but it could never be. It might be someone else’s truth, but it wasn’t ours.
This—all of this—broke my heart. It tore at my insides to realize that whatever happened from this point on, we’d be going our separate ways. From the night we met, at a party where all we could see was each other, to dividing up our assets and making custody arrangements. That’s where we were now. I knew it. I felt it. And a flame that had been lit up inside my heart since that night in 1993 flickered for the final time and went out.
I didn’t know where to go from here.
* * *
—
The problem with having three kids is they don’t exactly provide a lot of opportunities to talk privately about the demise of a relationship. Not only that, but they’re little empathy sponges who pick up on everything. There was so much to say and so little space to say it. Over the next few days, whenever we started talking in the kitchen, one of our little sponges would walk in, soak up the mood and ask what was wrong.
“Nothing,” one of us would say. “We’re just talking.”
“Uh-huh,” would come the reply, and concern would cloud that juvenile face.
We’d move to our bedroom and speak in hushed tones. “Look,” I would start, “I’ve been doing some thinking…”
“I have too,” she would say. “I just want you to know—”
There would be a knock at the door, followed by a “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” one or both of us would call, quickly trying to cloak any stress in our voices. “We’re just hanging out.”
We would hastily plaster smiles on our faces, trying to look relaxed. Just your parents, chillin’ on the bed. Nothing to see here.
I don’t think they bought it—not even once. They knew something was wrong from the moment we walked in after our miserable date night; they just couldn’t figure out what. We had no idea what to tell them because we still had no idea what to tell each other. We needed more time.
So we took it. Today, our kids would tell you that their parents were out of the house a lot in the summer of 2015. We took to the car as much as possible, making our way into the country or to Ottawa’s Greenbelt, a stretch of nature filled with lush trails and wildlife. The Saturday after she came out to me, we drove out to one of the Stony Swamp trails and walked along its wide, family-friendly paths. It was sunny and warm, but without the usual humidity that plagues Ottawa in the summer months. Kids ran ahead of their parents, chasing birds and climbing on rocks, fearless and carefree. Everywhere I looked, couples walked together, enjoying each other’s company. A young man and woman strolled hand in hand, her belly round and full with maternal expectation. A jolt of pain ran through me, a memory of simpler times. This is what I thought we had, what I thought we were: a man and a woman, making a family. I was wrong. Everything I thought I knew was wrong.
“I think you’re right,” my spouse said to me.
“About what?” I asked, still transfixed by the expectant couple.
“I need to go through with this. Transition, I mean.”
I couldn’t understand why my heart was sinking, except that hearing those words made it real. I could almost reach out and grab them floating through the summer air and hold them in my hand like palpable, painful truths. My spouse had been in hiding for a lifetime. She was going to transition now. Our kids were going to be hit with another big adjustment. Life as our family knew it was about to change—again.
I hurt for all of us, but especially for her. This wasn’t going to be easy, and I knew I didn’t have the strength to ride it out with her. I just didn’t know how to tell her that yet.
I had once read that you should wait six months after any significant changes in your life to make big decisions. Don’t move. Don’t change jobs. Don’t leave your partner. Just sit with it for a while, wait for the dust to settle and then see where you end up.
For some reason, amid all the floating clutter in my brain at the time, that piece of advice bobbed to the surface. Even if I felt like things were over—a statistical probability, according to the internet—now was not the time to make that decision. It wouldn’t hurt to give things half a year. Our emotions would settle. We could focus on building up a friendship, free of resentment and full of support—a far better relationship than the one we had now. We could do this amicably, giving the children time to adjust to their new normal and ourselves time to build new lives on this fresh pile of rubble. Most importantly, it would allow my partner to start her transition without having to begin life as a single parent at the same time. She deserved better than that.
“So if you’re transitioning, I guess you need a name,” I said, as we walked under a patch of trees. “Have any ideas?”
“Well, a few.” She smiled.
“Lay them on me,” I said. “I’m ready!”
“I was thinking of Suki,” she said.
I laughed. She didn’t.
“What?” I asked, “No. Seriously? You’re kidding me right now.”
&nb
sp; “What’s wrong with Suki?” she countered.
“What isn’t wrong with Suki? It sounds like a fifteen-year-old’s name! Why is this your first choice?”
So much for being Non-Judgmental Amanda, here for you every step of the way. Apparently, I draw the line at names.
“There was a girl in my high school named—”
“Exactly my point!” This time, we both laughed. “I veto Suki.”
“Wait! You can veto my names?” she asked, a false look of shock crossing her face.
“I can. It was in our vows,” I said.
We came to a marshy area and stood watching jolly toddlers feed ducks.
“What about Michelle?” she asked.
“No, I can’t be married to a Michelle,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Why not? I could totally see myself as a Michelle.”
“Ninety percent of the Michelles I’ve known have been total bitches,” I explained.
“That can’t be true. There are statistically far too many Michelles for them all to be terrible people.”
“Not all,” I countered, rolling my eyes for dramatic effect. “Just most. Like the girl who used to punch me in high school. Or the one at the house I was living in on Gloucester—she used to eat all my cheese and deny it.”
“That’s only two!”
“Look, every time I say your name, I’m going to remember face-puncher Michelle or cheese-stealer Michelle and sneer a little. Is that what you want? Do you want me to sneer when I introduce you to people?”
“You should meet more Michelles,” she said. “You need some kind of exposure therapy.”
“That exposure should not begin at home.”
“Okay, picky one,” she said, making a grand theatrical gesture with her arms. “What do you think I should name myself?”
“Oh, I don’t really care,” I replied. She gave me the finger. “Okay, I do care, but not as much as you might think. Just not Suki or Michelle. Oh! And could you try to stay away from ‘A’ names? We already have Amanda, Aerik and Alexis. Poor Jackson will feel totally left out.”
Love Lives Here Page 13