Flesh & Blood

by A. E. Dooland

  I shook my head. “She loves all that domestic stuff.”

  Sarah looked affronted by it. “You know how some people are born housewives?” I nodded. “Yeah, well, I’m the opposite of one of those. God, it’s like she’s a different species. Do you know what a ‘table runner’ is?” I shook my head. “Yeah, well, neither did I, but she’s got all these great ideas about what would look good as one. How did this happen? How did she end up in this house? I’m so confused.”

  “Put it this way: people like that feed people like us, and ensure the survival of our species.”

  Sarah didn’t look convinced. “That’s a moot point because Mr Kellogg makes the only food I can stomach these days,” she told me, and then sighed and looked down at her stomach. “I’m probably not getting enough nutrients. I should actually care about that, shouldn’t I?”

  I looked up at her, frowning. “What do you—”

  She held up her hand in a ‘stop’ motion. “Leave it. I’m tired, I’m sick, and the word on the street is that there’s a huge project with a huge bonus coming up at work which I am 100% certain I will miss out on because my belly will pop the day we’re supposed to be assigned. We’ve been waiting forever, it’s like the universe wants me to miss out. Everyone will get their interesting project and massive bonuses, and I will be broke and destitute when I have to quit work to have this.” She gestured at her stomach. Then, she slumped. “God, and will you listen to me? I’m such a bad person. I’m a really, really bad person.”

  I gave her a big bear hug. “Aside from a housewife, you know what else you’re the opposite of? A really, really bad person.”

  “You only say that because I haven’t brutally murdered your little blonde girlfriend yet,” she said darkly, and then reconsidered. “Who am I kidding? Then I’d have to start cleaning the bathroom again. Maybe I won’t kill her after all.”

  Since Sarah was stressing out, I freed up the kitchen for a night by taking Bree out for dinner along the North Shore waterfront. From where we were seated outside, I could see the Harbour Bridge stretching along the water, and the wings of the distant Opera House. Behind them, the lights of the city—including the towering Frost building and its familiar logo—glowed against the sky. I hadn’t seen the city from this angle before. It looked so far away.

  While I was admiring the view and feeling really nostalgic about those buildings, my fucking phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it.

  Bree was examining her hands. “Look,” she said, and showed them to me. “My nails have this weird orange tinge. Did you know carrots can stain you?”

  I hadn’t touched a raw carrot in years. I shook my head.

  “Me neither,” she said, and then sat back. “Well, at least I can make really nice ones some of the time now! I’ll just have to buy heaps of carrots for Tuesday in case I get really nervous and keep fucking them up.”

  “Maybe buy some gloves to go with them this time,” I told her with a grin. “Ones you can wear to dinner.”

  She laughed. “Or maybe I’ll just wear orange and it will look like I’ve done it on purpose!”

  Content, she had a sip of her water and turned her head towards the amazing skyline. She was quiet for a little while before she sat up and pointed towards it. “Hey, look! You can see your old building from this place!” She had a big smile on her face as she sat back. “It’s so creepy to think we used to sit out on that balcony, eating dinner and looking at this shore like three months ago.”

  Was it only three months? My phone buzzed again, and I got a bit impatient with it and took it out so I could just turn vibrate off. “I wonder where we’ll be in another three months.”

  Bree watched me switch it to silent. “Well, I will have finished my exams and hopefully I’ll have my HSC,” she said, and then gave me a cheeky grin. “And you’ll probably be married to Henry, so…”

  I groaned. “Don’t. She’s sent me two messages since we got here.”

  “Don’t answer them,” Bree told me. “You’ll encourage her.”

  “It doesn’t matter if I do or don’t, she still keeps sending them.” I put my phone on the table between us. “I just don’t have any fucking idea what to do about her. I feel like I’ve tried everything, and whatever I try just makes everything worse.”

  Bree pursed her lips as she thought through what she was going to say. “I don’t want to say it, but there is one obvious thing you haven’t tried...”

  I shook my head tightly. “I’m not telling her. She’ll come here.”

  “Even if you tell her everything? Like, about your gender, too?”

  “Especially if I tell her everything,” I leant my elbows on the table and my forehead on my palms. “I don’t know how to deal with her. Henry used to, she listened to him. He used to just say in a very calm, friendly voice that everything was fine, and she wouldn’t call for a whole week. Two, sometimes.”

  Bree looked a little forlorn. “I’m sorry I can’t do that, too.” She took a breath. “Well, it’s been a month since you bumped into Henry now, maybe he feels better and you can talk to him after all? I’m sure if he knew that—”

  I cut her off. “I tried that. He told me to let him go, Bree, and then he turned and walked away from me and didn't look back. I don’t even think we’re going to stay friends.”

  Bree’s eyebrows converged. “But you were so close… I’m sure he still cares about you. I bet he’d still help you if you’re desperate, even if you did break his heart.”

  I wasn’t so sure. “Maybe,” I said. “But, Bree, you should have seen his face when I ran into him. I can’t ask him. I definitely can’t ask him and I’m not going to. After everything I did to him, it’s not fair.”

  “Well, what else do we do?” she asked as my phone buzzed again.

  There wasn’t enough oxygen in Sydney for how much I wanted to sigh. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t fucking know. I wish I could just tell her and be done with it, sometimes. A few days ago, she said she wanted a recent photo of me, and I seriously considered just sending that one of us on the trampoline.” I exhaled. “But if I thought she was bad now, when she’s thousands of kilometres away...”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, staring out at the harbour. Bree’s eyes lingered on a table up the far end of the outdoor dining area, where an extended family was singing Happy Birthday to someone. They finished the song by cheering and laughing.

  “Well,” Bree said, looking back at me, “I know you find the idea of coming out to my parents kind of stressful, but no matter what they do, it’s not going to be as bad this,” she gestured at my phone, “as what your mum does to you every day. And, like, if I thought they were going to treat you really badly, there’s no way I’d invite you over and just subject you to that. They’ll probably disapprove and grumble about it behind your back, but that’s all.” She paused. “And if they shout at me later for not telling them straight away, well, it’s not anything I didn’t put up with for two whole years anyway. But they can’t stop me from seeing you, and I think they’ll realise that. So, yeah, I know they’re not going to like it, but if they see you’re a regular person first, before you break the news, they’ll probably just let it keep happening anyway.”

  I spent a minute or so thinking over what she said. “I wish we didn’t have to tell them at all.”

  Bree pulled a face. “Well, I guess we don’t…”

  “…but then Andrej will, I know.” I sighed.

  She reached over and squeezed my hand. “I think it will be okay, Min.”

  I looked down at those carrot-stained fingers. She was probably right, wasn’t she? It was telling two people across a table who already thought I was a guy that there were some technicalities about it. I’d manage. “Okay,” I told her, and relaxed back into my chair.

  Something occurred to her and she brightened suddenly, sitting up straight. “Oh! And Courtney said that the teachers might have the marks already up early on Tuesday night instea
d of Wednesday! That would mean that not only can I introduce you, I can introduce the guy who helped me do—hopefully!—really well at school so I can stay there and graduate! That would really soften the blow of the whole ‘transgender’ thing!”

  Watching her perk up again made me feel a little better, so I just tucked my phone back in my pocket and made an active attempt to enjoy dinner.

  I talked myself out of immediately checking my messages when I got home, too: I gave my phone to Bree so I wasn’t tempted to find out what was or wasn’t happening on it. She gave it back to me before she left the following morning, right after she’d taken a couple more big notes out of my rapidly thinning wallet.

  “No more prosthetics,” I told her as I gave her a kiss goodbye.

  She giggled. “I’m going to need to spend it all on carrots, trust me,” she said, and then stuffed the notes into the pocket of her denim skirt. “God, I’m actually a bit excited? Like really nervous, but excited, is that weird? We haven’t used the dining room for years, and it’s really pretty.”

  I was half awake. “I’m looking forward to it,” I lied.

  She saw straight through me. “No, you’re not. But, fingers crossed—” she showed me two sets of crossed fingers, “—it will go well anyway!” Then, she took off down the hallway and showed herself out, leaving me to contend with that flashing LED.

  EIGHTEEN

  There weren’t any other cars parked by Bree’s place when I pulled up that evening. The sun was setting and staining the red bricks a vibrant orange, and while I was admiring the intense saturation of colour, I noticed that someone had weeded the front garden and pruned the rose bushes. It all looked so neat and tidy. I didn’t have to wonder who’d done it.

  I was early—surprise, surprise—so I didn’t get out of the car straight away. I sat there for a little while, scrutinising my body, my hair and my clothes for any sign of femininity, and then suddenly wondering if I might be really overdressed. I’d put on my best suit because it was the one that made my shoulders look the broadest, but now I wasn’t so sure I’d made the best choice. Oh well, it’s not going to matter how broad your shoulders are after you tell them you’re trans, I thought, gulping.

  How should I say it, though? ‘I’m transgender’ sounded so vague. I felt like it would raise further questions, like ‘what does that mean?’ and ‘what do you mean?’. I couldn’t tell them the full truth—about not being sure exactly what I was yet—because how did that sound to someone who’d hardly even heard the word ‘transgender’ before? I didn’t want to come across as confused, because then they’d think I was nuts. There probably wasn’t a gentle way to break it to your partner’s parents that you’re not what they expected.

  Well, I thought, getting out of the car and walking up to the door. Here goes nothing.

  I’d been pushing uselessly at the doorbell for a while before it occurred to me that it probably didn’t work, and when I went to swing the knocker, I realised the door was open a crack. I worried for a second about burglars sneaking in and stealing things, and then remembered the Dejanovics already had one of those in their own family. There was nothing left to steal. Nevertheless, I closed the door behind me as I went in.

  There was less dust in the air this time. Less on the side tables in the hallway, too; they’d been freshly wiped. The door Mrs Dejanovic had hurriedly closed last time I’d been here was wide open, and the room was neat with no dirty dishes or rubbish anywhere.

  As soon as I took a breath, I smelt cooking. Bree, I thought, and followed it.

  The kitchen door was open, too, and Bree was standing on her tip-toes over the stove, stirring a deep saucepan with a big wooden spoon. She was dressed up: in a summery yellow dress—fortunately protected by her favourite strawberry-print apron—with white knee-high socks and saggy old Ugg Boots that were probably once pink. While I was standing there, she grumbled down at her saucepan. “Why are you doing this?” she asked the contents.

  I disguised my voice. “’Because I’m scared! Please don’t feed me to your parents!’”

  Surprised, she twisted around, her face lighting up when she saw me. Then, looking me up and down, her delight turned into something else. “Whoa, okay,” she said, nodding in appreciation. She wiped her hands and turned down the heat on the jet so she could come greet me. “You look hot.”

  I grinned at the compliment, looking down at myself. “Not overdressed?”

  She held me at arms’ length. “Definitely overdressed,” she said, giving me a cheeky smile and pulling me down by the tie to kiss me a bit. “And don’t worry, my parents won’t eat you alive.”

  “I was speaking on behalf of your cooking.”

  “Sure you were,” she said, giving me a knowing look as she went back to stirring it. “Have you decided how you’re going to tell them? Like, what wording you’re going to use?”

  Hah. “I was hoping to work a bit on the wording of my final will and testament first. You know, just in case.”

  She chuckled. “Oh my god, Min, I wouldn’t get you to tell them if I thought something bad would happen to you! Do you seriously think I would do that?” She gave me a pointed look over her shoulder.

  “Not intentionally.” But she did have a history of very poor judgement…

  She rolled her eyes at me, returning to the topic. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I’ve figured out a good way to say it. Maybe you should avoid trying to explain gender altogether, because it’ll go right over their heads. Say something like ‘the doctors made a mistake when I was born’ and make it seem really medical, because that’s something people can understand. I think they’ll eventually be fine about it.”

  “It’s that ‘eventually’ I’m worried about,” I confessed, and then gestured at the kitchen, which was littered with Bree’s culinary efforts. “Can I be honest? I feel like you know it’s going to go badly and this is some sort of nice final supper.”

  She gave me a look. “Min. You’re worrying too much again,” she told me. “That’s not why. I want you guys to talk and get to know each other and all that, and the best way to get that to happen is over a three-course meal, right? And besides, we haven’t had sit-down dinners for ages. Maybe by doing this, they’ll remember how much we used to enjoy them. I can normally hardly ever get Mum and Dad in the same room these days, except when they’re yelling at each other.”

  I leant against the doorframe and put my hands in my pockets, watching her with her soup, or whatever was in the saucepan. “Is that because of Andrej?”

  Bree’s lips pressed into a tight line. “Yes,” she said. “I mean, they sometimes fought before that, but mainly over really big stuff. Now they fight over not being able to find car keys, or if someone uses all the hot water, and when Dad gets angry these days he insults everyone. He never used to do that.”

  “That must be awful,” I said, and then thought about how quiet my flat with Mum had always been. “When I was growing up, I always used to wish I had a dad, but the more I hear about people’s families, the more I realise he probably wouldn’t have been the hero I wanted him to be. Especially if he and Mum got along.”

  Bree made a face. “Yeah, no offence, but who would voluntarily choose to marry your mum?”

  I shrugged. “Well, maybe she was different back then, who knows. She probably went through a lot when she lost Dad, maybe she changed just like your parents did.”

  At the mention of my mum, I automatically felt my breast pocket where my phone was. I checked it briefly; there was a text from Mum with a picture of bathers she thought I should wear on my honeymoon, and that was it. I did notice the time, though. “What time did you say your parents would come home?”

  She looked up. “Seven. Why?”

  I showed her the screen of my phone. “Because it’s ten past.”

  She leant forward to read it and her brows dipped a little. “Well,” she said optimistically, “perhaps they’re running a bit late and they’ll be
here soon.” She grinned at me. “Not everyone is 20 minutes early everywhere.”

  She ate those words when ten minutes later, they still hadn’t come. I crossed my arms. “How many people are 20 minutes late, though?”

  She looked a little drawn. “I’m sure they’re just stuck in traffic,” she said. “They have to come all the way from over the West side, after all. Can you pass me the milk?” I went over to the fridge and opened it—it was so bare compared to my Mum’s fridge which was always expertly stacked full of everything—and handed the milk to her. She poured some into the contents of the saucepan. “My bisque is going to be gross if they don’t come soon.”

  “Turn the heat off?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t, it’ll get a skin, I need to keep stirring so that doesn’t happen, and that makes it reduce, and so I need to add milk, but—” She held up the nearly empty milk container. “—I’ve nearly run out.” She groaned, taking her phone out of her apron pocket, and trying a number. I could hear it ring to voicemail. She then tried another number. “It’s not a fucking debt collector, it’s your daughter,” she told her phone, as if they could hear her. It rang out. “Fuck! This is so fucking typical!” She put her phone back in her apron. “Andrej gets home at like nine, I don’t want to have to rush everything so we’re done by the time he rocks up!”

  I could barely say it. “Are you sure they’re definitely going to come?”

  From her expression, I could see she hadn’t thought of that. “Yes,” she said anyway. “Even if they can’t be bothered to fucking show up on time. And no matter how late they are, we’re still doing it, I’m not cancelling. I spent all day on the main course and it’s perfect, and I don’t want to waste it!” She exhaled. “Besides, I can hardly ever get them to agree to anything. It took me days to convince Dad that you should come over.”

  When we finally heard the unmistakable din of Mrs Dejanovic’s beaten up old car rattling up the street and parking outside the front of the house, Bree’s anxiety would have almost given mine a run for its money. Her obvious relief made me realise that she had suspected they just wouldn’t come after all.