And She Was

by Jessica Verdi

  Well, I wanted to say, I’m not particularly thrilled about discussing the very personal particulars of my biology and psychiatry with you people, either. I didn’t, because I knew that either way, it was time for this conversation to happen.

  William remained silent. But his jaw was clenched, and his eyes kept darting at you, as if the more we talked about this, and the more real my situation became to them, the more danger you would be in.

  I took a measured breath to both pad my emotional armor and ensure my voice remained steady, and said, “The term is transgender. Not cross-dresser.”

  They finally looked at my face. I worried they were going to lose the battle to keep their eyeballs snug in their sockets.

  “This is who I am,” I said, keeping the explanation as simple as possible. “For as long as I can remember, even when I was a very small child, I have known that I was a girl, regardless of the gender I was assigned at birth. I assure you this is not a reaction to grief, and it is not a recent development. Celeste knew. She supported me.” I left out the fact that she’d had a caveat. It wasn’t important right then.

  “What do you mean, she knew?” Ruth’s voice was markedly louder now. She’d lost the battle, or will, to remain civil, and a few people at neighboring tables turned our way. I remember you were startled by the sudden change in energy, and began to cry. I picked you up and settled you in my lap with a bottle. You were warm and still had that baby smell, and your nearness slowed my pulse.

  “Celeste and I loved each other very much,” I said. “We had no secrets.”

  “So, what? You’re going to get a sex-change operation?” Ruth spit out, appalled.

  “I don’t know yet.” I didn’t bother correcting her on the terminology this time. It wasn’t worth it. “But I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”

  “Of course it’s our business! You’re our granddaughter’s father. It’s not healthy for a child to grow up in this sort of environment! It’s perverse.”

  I stood up, trembling, and placed you in your stroller. Dropping some money on the table to cover our portion of the bill, I said, “I disagree. It’s healthiest for Dara—and me—that I live my most natural, happiest, most confident life.” I left the restaurant before I said what I really wanted to.

  I didn’t hear from them again for over a month. They missed their next two visits. I knew that everyone was entitled to their opinions and I shouldn’t expect the whole world to be fine with, or even understand, my transition, but there was a huge part of me that was relieved they’d disappeared from our lives.

  The world kept spinning. My name change was approved, and I got a new driver’s license to celebrate.

  Nursing school began—I made a couple friends there too. I suspected they suspected, but they didn’t bring it up, and neither did I. It was, somehow, a nonissue.

  You were thriving in your day care program, and liked televised tennis matches more than cartoons. I watched your wide-eyed, baby-faced fascination, and made a silent promise to put you in lessons when you were older, if that was what you wanted.

  I decided to move forward with gender-confirmation surgery—top surgery, trachea shave, and the facial feminization procedures—and started planning and budgeting for that. I considered bottom surgery too, but I wasn’t absolutely certain if I wanted it. And, like I said, it was expensive and complicated, so I knew it would have to be down the line, if ever. We were doing all right, living on the tennis earnings I had left and the life-insurance money we had received as Celeste’s beneficiaries, but there was no way I could justify paying out of pocket for such a major operation.

  All in all, we were settled. We were doing well.

  And then the police arrived at my door.

  Two uniformed officers, a man and a woman, and a tired-looking young man in a baggy suit.

  My first thought was that something had happened to one of my neighbors and the cops were looking for information.

  “May I help you?” I asked.

  “We’d like to speak with Marcus Hogan,” the female officer said.

  “It’s actually Mellie now,” I said. The name change was official, and I was going to use it, dammit. “But yes, that’s me.”

  The two police officers appraised me, their furrowed brows giving way to recognition. They had clearly been told I was trans. But by whom? And why were they looking for me at all?

  “I’m Officer Natch,” she said. “This is Officer Cruz and Malcolm Jones, a social worker with Child Protective Services.”

  My stomach dropped and terror tightened my chest. You were still at day care—I’d had two classes that morning and was planning to pick you up after lunch.

  “What’s going on? Is my daughter all right?” I said in a rush.

  “Don’t worry; she’s in good hands,” Jones piped up from behind the officers.

  Something about the way he said it told me that the “good hands” he was referring to weren’t at the day care center. “What does that mean?” My fingers found the doorjamb and gripped it tightly. “Where is she?”

  “She’s safe at our office downtown.”

  “You took her out of day care?”

  Jones nodded.

  How could they do that? Why would they do that? I didn’t know if you were okay. I didn’t know if you were scared.

  “What the hell is going on?” I shouted, taking a step forward.

  Jones exchanged an uneasy look with the police officers, as if to say, Want to help me out here?

  Officer Cruz stepped in front of the doorway so I couldn’t get past. He was standing too close, and his bulky, bulletproofed chest was intimidating. “Calm down, please. We need to speak with you, and it will be easier for everyone if you cooperate.”

  I stared at him, my breath stuttering wildly. Panicked, confused tears prickled my eyes. “I don’t understand what’s going on,” I said weakly.

  “Can we come in?” he said.

  I stepped out of the way. The four of us sat down in the living room. I couldn’t get my leg to stop shaking or my thoughts to focus. You were out there somewhere, and I had no idea where you were or if you were safe. Just because this random stranger said you were didn’t make it so.

  “Mr.—or is it Ms.?” Natch began.

  I nodded dumbly. I couldn’t even be happy about her obvious effort to use the correct title.

  “Ms. Hogan, we have received a call accusing you of child abuse,” she said.

  “What?” I blurted. This had to be a mistake.

  She continued. “The abuse, as told to us, is of the sexual nature. The alleged victim is your one-year-old daughter, Dara Hogan.” It was almost as if she was reciting a memorized list—her tone was inflectionless, the words nothing more than bullet points. “As I’m sure you know, we take these reports very seriously. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  Anger seized my throat. “Who told you this?”

  “I’m not at liberty to disclose that information.”

  But it didn’t matter. There was only one possibility. “It was Ruth and William Pembroke, wasn’t it?”

  All three of them remained silent.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” I said. “I know it was them. They think there’s something wrong with me.” I looked them each in the eye. “But it isn’t true! You have to believe me. I would never …” I gripped my temples to try to block the headache that was blasting forth. “God, I can’t even think about it. There’s nothing more important to me than making sure Dara is safe and healthy and happy.”

  The police officers remained impassive. The social worker watched me carefully.

  “Do you want to hook me up to a lie detector?” I held out my forearm. “Please, do it! I swear I’m telling the truth. They’re the ones who are lying!”

  “We understand these situations can be complicated,” Natch said evenly, “but like I said, we still do need to ask you some questions.”

  For the next hour, the three of them grill
ed me, writing down my answers. Their questions spanned huge distances, from my own history (Was I abused as a child? Please explain the circumstances surrounding my sexuality and gender identity.) to what my parenting techniques were (What do I consider an appropriate way to discipline a child? Please describe Dara’s typical bath time routine.).

  A small part of my brain told me I shouldn’t speak to them without a lawyer present. I wasn’t under arrest—yet—but that could change at any moment. All it would take was one wrong answer. But I was scared and desperate to get you home safe, and I figured complete cooperation would be the quickest way to make that happen.

  After the questions, they took a look through the apartment. I don’t know what they were expecting to find, but they didn’t find it.

  “Thank you, Ms. Hogan,” Jones said as they headed to the door. “I’ll let CPS know your daughter is cleared for pickup.”

  “So I can get her back? It’s over?”

  He nodded. “We have what we need for now. We’ll be following up with the day care center, and if you have any personal references you can direct us to, who can vouch for you as a parent, that would help as well.”

  I thought for a moment. My new friends hadn’t yet spent much time with you and me together. And it probably wasn’t the best idea to alert my professors and colleagues to the fact that I’d been accused of such a heinous crime.

  “I’m sorry,” I admitted. “I can’t think of anyone. I hope that doesn’t hurt my case.”

  He shook his head once. “Everything appears to be in order here, and the tip we got did not provide any specifics, so there is currently nothing to base a case on. You’re free to retrieve your daughter at any time.”

  “That’s a relief. Thank you.”

  Once they were gone, I leaped into my car, drove as fast as I could, and pulled you into my arms the second I laid eyes on you. Jones had been right—you were fine. The childcare room was nice, and you were clean-diapered and smiling. I was the one who’d been traumatized. Which was exactly what Celeste’s parents had wanted. Their aim with this asinine stunt had been to hurt me, not you.

  I thought about calling them, yelling at them, sending them a letter that said, How dare you?

  But I was lucky that whatever I’d said and whatever the police officers saw at our home, they believed me. I just wanted to forget it had ever happened, so my plan remained the same: do nothing and hope we’d seen the last of them. I wasn’t going to feel guilty about keeping you from your grandparents if your grandparents didn’t want to be involved in our lives.

  A few weeks went by, and I heard nothing from the Pembrokes. I hadn’t managed to completely go back to the place of ease I’d been in before the police knocked on our door, but I was getting there. It was comforting to know that you’d never remember any of this.

  I should have known that wouldn’t be the end of it.

  Three weeks after the police visit, I received a court summons. The process server stood in the exact spot outside the apartment door where the cops had torn down my illusion of safety, and with the handover of a simple envelope, finished the job.

  Ruth and William Pembroke were suing for full custody. They were trying to take you away from me, completely and forever.

  The lawsuit said I was a sexual deviant, that I shouldn’t be allowed around children. They weren’t going with the child abuse angle this time, but rather claiming that because I was trans I was perverted and screwed-up and not equipped to provide an adequate home for a minor.

  Standing there at my front door, staring down the hallway from which the process server had long since disappeared, I felt like the floor of the apartment—no, the earth’s very soil—had turned into fast-acting quicksand, and if I didn’t do something drastic, I would get pulled under. I’d lose everything.

  They were trying to take you from me. Do you understand how serious that is, Dara? They were not going to stop. And, this time, there was a very good chance they would win. They had money. They had influence. The transgender protection laws aren’t great now, and back then they were even worse.

  They were going to take you away. After I’d worked so hard to be okay, to provide a stable, loving home for us, you were going to grow up without parents. I’d tried to stop history from repeating itself, and yet here it was, laughing in my face.

  I let the door swing shut. The force of it rattled my bones.

  I stood in place, paper in hand, mind racing, for a while.

  What am I going to do?

  Slowly, at first, and then all at once, the answer came to me.

  I still had time. I had to take you away before Celeste’s parents could.

  My feet sprang into action, not at all rusty from the year away from the court. I darted around the apartment, packing essentials, making arrangements.

  We left town the next morning.

  No wonder your first instinct was to run when you found out I’d been keeping the truth from you. You and I are alike in so many ways.

  In the days that followed, we headed west, staying in a different motel every night until I found us a short-term, under-the-table lease on an apartment just over the New York State border. I changed our last name and my cell phone number and wiped away all the traceable details I could think of. I dropped out of school.

  We stayed away from the city and any place where we may have known someone. We lived in a few different places in Pennsylvania and New York, all small towns where it would be hard to trace us to, but none too far away from Philly—my first surgeries were coming up, and had been scheduled far in advance, so I needed to be able to travel into the city for them. I felt confident knowing you wouldn’t be coming with me, that Philly was a big city and the Pembrokes rarely left Cherry Hill. There was little to no chance I’d run into them while spending a day or two in the hospital.

  I considered canceling the appointments, but then I realized that going through with the procedures could only help us. This was a long-term decision I was making. You were still a baby—you were going to grow and age and soon you’d be unrecognizable. It would only be beneficial for the same to be true for me. If these alterations, which I’d already planned and already wanted, would help leave the person they knew behind, at least on the surface, I needed to try. I told Kelly Ann what was going on—she was the only one I told—and she offered to help us. She knew what it was like to be treated unkindly, unfairly. She was a fighter, and approved of my becoming one too.

  I feel like I should clarify something here. Up until this point, going stealth—that’s when a trans person lives completely as their gender identity, not informing most people of the fact that they’re trans—had never been my ultimate goal. I know I’ve said it before, but it’s really true: I hadn’t intended to live such a private life. When I dreamed of transitioning, and when I finally began the process, all I’d wanted was to feel like me. That’s one of the wonderful things about being trans—you know yourself, because you have no choice but to confront your identity head on. What other people saw in me didn’t matter as much. But now the stakes had changed. I’d taken you away from people who’d told the courts that I was a danger to you. I’d dodged a court summons. I didn’t know what would happen if Celeste’s parents or their lawyers found us, but it couldn’t be good.

  So I vowed to live under the radar, be as unassuming as possible, and never breathe a word of any of this to anyone. If there were people looking for us, all it would take was one slipup.

  Every reason you’re unhappy with me now can be traced back to the moment a single piece of paper was handed across my threshold. I know it’s irrational to hate that process server—he was only doing his job—but I do. I hate him.

  Over time, I took voice lessons over the phone with an expert in California, and did electrolysis on my facial hair. Turns out you can take all the hormones in the world, but once hair grows, it’s pretty impossible to make it stop. I went back to school—a different one this time—and completed my quali
fications.

  By the time we moved to Francis, you were three, you had no memory of where we’d come from, and we’d left our old life—and everyone and everything in it—far behind. We’d said good-bye to Kelly Ann two moves prior; it was difficult, but she understood. No one knew our secrets now, and no one suspected a thing. I allowed myself to keep those few photographs and papers from before, but that was all. I suspect the Pembrokes called off the search eventually, though I don’t know for sure.

  I think the first true breath I’d taken in years was on the front porch of our house.

  There was just one step left in my transition process, and it was arguably the most important and symbolic one: I wanted to have the gender and name changed on my birth certificate. I’d had such a fraught relationship with that thing for so long, the document that dictated to the world that because I was born with a certain physicality, I was expected to perform a role for the rest of my life. Though I didn’t have a copy of the original certificate, I knew it was out there, and I wanted it gone.

  It took a few more years for New York State to pass the law that would allow the update of gender markers on birth certificates without bottom surgery. But once that happened, I still didn’t take the step. It didn’t feel right to allow myself that final gift of peace and safety—not until I was certain we’d found peace and safety together, as a family. The house in Francis had brought us closer than we’d ever been, but there was still the smallest possibility of the Pembrokes finding us. So, I’ve waited.

  I hope this helps you understand, Dara. You thought I was being selfish and took you away from your grandparents and that life with no concern for how it would affect you. I get why you thought that. But now that you have the whole story, I hope you can see that it was actually the complete opposite—I did it all for you. And I’d do it all again. I also hope you can understand that despite the lies, I never lied to you about who I was. I’m Mellie Baker. I’m a woman; I’m your mother; I’m your mom. And I love you—always.