Fatal, Family, Album

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  And who was she, really? This woman I had trusted with my children? The woman who’d delivered my baby? The woman who’d driven my kids to school, who cooked our meals, who’d washed our clothes, who’d sat at my table, night after night, listening to me talk about my day and teaching me to crochet a granny square? Was she really any of those people? Or was she a complete phony? Was she really a man? Or had she been a man, and she was now a woman?

  It boggled the mind.

  As hard as I tried to tell myself, It doesn’t matter, an equally authoritative voice came back with, Oh, yes, it does! If I didn’t know that Brawny was a man, what else didn’t I know about her/him? What other secrets was she/he holding? How could I even understand this person, if I couldn’t find the correct way to label her/it? I remembered an anthropology lecture where the prof suggested that if we can’t name a thing, that thing ceases to exist, because otherwise, we can’t talk about it, catalog it, store it, or retrieve it.

  So who was that person standing beside me and folding the dish towel with such precision? Who was the person staring at me with sad eyes and a searching expression? That human whom I’d accepted and welcomed and shared my home with, but who hadn’t trusted me enough to give me the most basic of all information, the sort of facts I generally used as a foundation on which to build a house of friendship? Who was Bronwyn Macavity or was it possible that Bronwyn didn’t really exist?

  Worse yet…did this mean I’d spent thirty-three years, living as a fool who didn’t have the slightest idea whom to trust?

  All this angst roiled inside me, twisting my gut and pushing me to the verge of tears. Detweiler pulled me close. He slipped his arm around my waist, tilted my chin so he could kiss me, and then he said, “Honey, we need to talk.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The natural place for a candid discussion was the family room. That’s where all of us felt the most at ease. Detweiler and I claimed our accustomed spots on the sofa. After tucking an afghan—one that Brawny had crocheted for us—around my feet and loading up a plate with warm brownies, I was comfy. However, Brawny remained standing.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said before disappearing.

  The sound of her footsteps suggested she’d climbed the stairs and gone to her room. She returned with a glass bottle that caught the light from the fire, causing the vessel to glow like an oversized version of one of those luminescent sticks so popular around Halloween. Setting it down on a side table, she went into the kitchen and brought out three short drink glasses. With a quick twist of the wrist, she opened the bottle. A heady alcoholic aroma filled the room.

  At first I turned down Brawny’s offer of a “wee nip of whisky.” I could tell Detweiler was really upset although not showing it, because he accepted a short glass of the amber liquid without a second thought. As the odor of peat and oak filled the space, I realized that under any other set of circumstances, this would be a delightful evening. He and I were snuggling on the sofa, enjoying the warmth cast off by the dying logs in the fireplace while a friend sat nearby. Now and again, a rogue spark flew up from the glowing coals, like a firecracker shoots into the night sky, and then it would die, extinguished by the effort of its flight.

  But it wasn’t a happy evening. The quiet wasn’t companionable. It was tortured. The brownies were sticking to the roof of my mouth.

  Brawny glanced from me to the bottle. “The byproducts of alcohol don’t pass into breast milk. ‘Tis not to say there are no risks at all, but in truth, the bigger concern is that the mother will hurt the baby. Drop him or such. Are ye sure ye don’t want a wee nip?”

  There was no way I’d drop my baby. None. Ty was a sound sleeper, and at night I generally only lift him from the crib to the rocker. It’s not like a parade around the block with him. And golly, didn’t I need a stiff drink, considering what was to come?

  I felt my head move as I nodded, “Yes.”

  Brawny moved the bottle closer to me. The motion sent the whisky sloshing. The rich smell of fields in Scotland came my way. The gold liquid seemed ancient and wise and mysterious. Not surprisingly, it promised a dulling of the senses. I took the glass and tried a small taste. One sip convinced me I’d made a good choice. In fact, I took the second even more quickly, hoping a soft buzz would envelop me quickly.

  Brawny watched all this with serious eyes. After clearing her throat, she said, “I owe you both an apology. As often happens, the longer I waited to tell you about my past, the harder it became. One day melted into the rest, and I put the issue out of my head. ‘Twas a stupid way to handle things, and I shall regret it to the day I die. I never meant to pull a fast one on ye. I regret this with all my heart. I canna say it often enough, but I am well and truly sorry.”

  “What should you have told us?” I stared at Brawny. She opened her mouth to explain, but I barreled on ahead. First I wanted to know that my family was safe. “Who were those men?”

  “FBI agents,” Detweiler said. “They needed Brawny’s help.”

  “Are you in trouble?” I kept my gaze on the nanny, even though Detweiler had answered for her.

  “I am not.”

  “Why did you all take so long in the office? Why was Detweiler involved?” The whisky had made me bold. Boy or girl, man or woman, I needed answers to those questions before I turned my attention to Brawny’s more personal dilemma.

  “Sweetheart, they want my help on a situation that will be happening here. Soon. They are part of an advance team. But I can’t talk about it yet. Nor can Brawny. Let’s get our own questions taken care of first. Then we can move ahead to business.” With a gentle squeeze of my fingertips, my husband reassured me.

  “Okay. Fair enough.” I gathered my courage. “Who is Bruce Macavity?”

  “I should have told you,” Brawny answered. “It’s not what it seems. Yes, I was born as Bruce Macavity, but no, I wasn’t a male. Not entirely. I am not transgender. My situation is more confusing than that.”

  Detweiler stiffened at the word “transgender.” It took all my willpower not to turn and look at him.

  “Does or did Lorraine know?” I stared at Brawny.

  “No. She didn’t. At least not from me. Van might have told her.”

  Detweiler shifted his weight, acting uncomfortable. I needed to communicate with my husband in private. Usually we saved up our deepest fears, our most revealing concerns, for those relaxed moments when we lay side by side in bed. Thanks to Brawny’s big reveal, tonight would be a marathon session.

  Whether she noticed Detweiler’s reaction or not, I can’t say. Brawny took a gulp of her drink and continued, “I was born with a wee bit of this and a wee bit of that. Every baby is a miracle, is it not? When you think of everything that has to go absolutely right to make a healthy child, it boggles the mind. In my case, the best explanation is that I have a birth defect, a problem that started in my development in the womb. When the good doctor looked me over, he was stumped. Without an x-ray, he didn’t know what the situation was internally. Externally, well, I was neither fish nor fowl. Not enough of either for the doctor to be sure who—what—I was. Aye, and since the doctor was my mother’s second cousin once-removed, and he knew me da was keen to have a son, he pronounced me a boy-child.”

  “Wait a minute.” I shook my head to clear it. “How could the doctor make a decision like that?”

  Her laugh was dry and fragile. “Back then, it happened all the time. The doctor was considered the expert. Often he operated on the child to bring the child’s bits and pieces into compliance. Rather like treating a hare lip or a tied tongue.”

  “How could he just do that? He didn’t do an x-ray?” This confused me. “How could a so-called expert be so confused?”

  “I was born at home. A midwife delivered me. A doctor came after. He expected to pronounce me fine, and then to sit and down fine whisky with my da. He never expected to see a problem. Such training didn’t exist back then. He told himself I was different, but that I might grow into confo
rmity.”

  “Surely your parents noticed?” Detweiler raised a curious eyebrow.

  “Aye, my ma did, but my da never changed a nappy in his life. Ma relied on what her cousin had told her. To tell the truth, I think Ma was a wee bit ashamed, thinking she’d done something to cause my…deformity. Of course, she didn’t know what was or wasn’t there inside of me.”

  I tried to put myself in Mrs. Macavity’s place. I, too, had relied on doctors to tell me that Anya was perfectly fine and healthy, so why wouldn’t any new mother do the same?

  “I’ve been told that the doctor told Ma that a surgery might be necessary, but that there was nothing to be done until I grew to be a man. At that time, an informed decision could be made.”

  “Sounds like what we call ‘kicking the can’ down the road,” said Detweiler.

  “Aye,” she agreed.

  We were engrossed in Brawny’s saga; the three of us thinking our individual thoughts. I put myself in the place of Brawny’s mother, trying to imagine the fear and shame and guilt, because every mother carries a heaping helping of guilt for the role she plays in her children’s lives. How could we not? They were born of us.

  A small log crackled, split, and dropped onto the hearth. The noise sounded fearful, but in truth, nothing much had happened. More of a surprise than anything else. With sudden clarity, I realized the activity inside the fireplace had summed up our position entirely. There was a lot of noise, the breaking of hearts, and a loud thump as our relationship hit rock bottom, hard. To all outward indications, nothing dangerous had happened. And yet, the balance of our world had shifted. That person we’d grown dependent on, the one we thought of as indestructible, had crumbled to dust.

  The whisky wrapped my brain in a gauzy fog. Whereas once I’d felt uncharitable, now I focused on the person seated across from me. Her pain was undeniable.

  Turning away from us as she sat on the ottoman, Brawny’s cheeks flushed red. Was it heat, booze, or embarrassment?

  “I grew up as a boy-child. My parents dressed me as a boy. Of course, I knew I was different because I had eyes. My ma did her best. She told my da I was a little different ‘down there,’ but he didn’t ask anything else. I kept to myself. My school was naught much more than a one-roomed house, and that made part of my life easier. But I couldn’t use the facilities. It was a rule, you see, one my da and ma came up with, a rule that I could never break or I’d be sent away. Aye, you can guess how hard that was for a little tyke, being forced to wait until I got home. Once I even wet my britches rather than break that rule. My da praised me for making a good choice.

  “I spent most of my youth hiding. The secrecy and the shame worked on me. I became determined to be the best man I could. Since I worshipped my da, I wanted to make him happy. I knew I was different. I could see that, but I kept myself to myself. I figured that one day, I’d undergo surgery and everything would be put right. But in the meantime, I had to struggle, because the parts inside me were growing too, and so my very being was at war with itself.”

  Closing my eyes, I tried to imagine our own child, Erik, in a similar circumstance. I couldn’t, and that brought a new layer of sadness. Potty-training is a rite of passage, a step toward independence. Certainly, it can create a sense of shame if not handled correctly. To be a child and not be able to go to the restroom when you needed to seemed incredibly cruel. It takes kids a while to develop the ability to hold out, and another span of time to realize their limitations. Waiting is hard for all of us, but for a kid? Nearly impossible.

  “Don’t ye get the wrong idea about my parents,” Brawny said as she seemed to read my mind. “I don’t blame them. Not one bit. They were good people, through and through, but they didna know what to think, or how to handle a changling such as myself. My da was a proud man. As I said earlier, he’d made no secret of the fact he wanted a son. After I was born, the neighbors opened their best bottles of whisky and toasted my da for his good fortune. How could he look those same good people in the eyes and tell them his boy was something other? A thing they’d never seen, a monster of sorts? And my ma? She loved my da with all her heart. A good woman, that she was—still is—but not much education. At first she blamed herself and told my da she musta done something wrong. The doc promised her that she hadn’t. But guilt, it clings to us like lint from the dryer, eh? She couldna work out what to think of me. How to square it in her head. When I was young, she believed it would sort itself as I grew. When my classmates’ bodies changed, and mine didn’t look as it should, she took me to a specialist in Edinburgh. What he told her was horrifying.

  “I remember her keening as if someone died. I suppose in a way, someone did. She lost her son and gained a monster. I didn’t know what to think, except that I was ‘wrong’ in one way or another. I felt frightened. Sick at heart. I had questions, but they were private ones. I couldna ask them in front of my ma. Aye, no one else coulda gotten a word in. Ma was so upset that she jabbered on and on. Rather than leave after the consultation, she pestered the doc, begging him to ‘fix’ me proper. To her way of thinking, it was a small bother, not much more than a cleft palate or ears that stuck out like wings. She was that sure I could be brought into line if he’d only use his knife on me.”

  That sent a shiver up my spine.

  After topping up Detweiler’s drink, Brawny poured herself another glass. I considered asking for another round, too. But I wanted to be clear-thinking while she talked. After all, this was important. At the end of her recitation, my husband and I would have to decide what to do next. Would she stay or would she go?

  Through all of Brawny’s explanation, Detweiler had not spoken a word. I wasn’t surprised. Not really. He once told me that he’d worked hard to master the art of staying silent. His philosophy was that most of us talk too much. We’re too eager to share our opinions when we should be listening and paying attention. His discipline served him well at work; now he would test its limits in our private lives.

  “What about after puberty? How did you cope then?” I wondered out loud.

  “Ma took me straight from the doctor to her sister, Alva, who lived in Edinburgh proper, just a short walk from the high street. While I sat there red-faced, she told Alva what she’d learned. No one knew exactly how my body would change. I’d been careful, but how would I participate in sport?”

  I nodded, thinking how odd it is that she called “sports” by the singular “sport” and “math” by the plural “maths.” What was it that Clancy quipped? Two countries divided by a common language? It was true.

  “Alva suggested the Roman Catholic school on the other side of the high street. She knew the nuns were very careful about nudity. The headmistress was an old friend who’d known Alva for years. I could live with my aunt and my uncle. They had a spare bedroom so I’d have my privacy.”

  “Was Alva kind to you?” I asked.

  “Aye. She was a wonder. If it hadn’t been for her, I don’t know…” and Brawny’s voice tapered to silence. “As ye might imagine, my body and my mind was every bit as confused as my folks were. Was I a girl? No, it couldn’t be. I was not dainty like my sisters. I had this stocky build even when I was a youngster. My oldest sister, Bridget, used to say I was built like a wooden block person. And so I was. Was I a boy? They told me I was, and they presented me as such. I could run and wrestle and scrabble about with the best of them. We decided, the three of us, that I’d continue on as a boy.”

  “How did you get past the service? Surely they examined you.” Detweiler sounded like he was ticked off.

  “That’s true enough, but to them I was a sad excuse for a man. I said I’d been in an accident as a child. That’s all. Short of asking for my DNA, there wasn’t much they could do. And then, wouldn’t I have a case against them? Besides, by that point in my short life, I’d made it my goal to be the best man standing. At my new school, I threw myself into sport. I passed the physical handily. I was determined to out-man every man in her Majesty’s Service
. That burning desire gave me an extra edge over my mates. They had nothing to prove. I had everything to lose. If I wasn’t a man, what was I? A monster. Aye, I see the confusion in your eyes, but consider my position carefully. If you’re not a man or a woman, if your bits don’t look like normal bits, where does that leave ye?”

  She had a point. The late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm had said she’d been more discriminated against as a woman than as a black. From the moment of our first encounter with a new person, we attempted to size the other up, to quantify, to categorize. What was Brawny? A mistake. A blot on the face of God’s green earth.

  “But I undressed in front of you!” The words blurted out of my mouth.

  “Think back, please. I would always turn away, eh? I never undressed in front of ye.”

  “Anya.” One word. One name. That was all Detweiler needed to share.

  “The same with her. I’ve been very careful to turn away when young miss is changing. Oft times, I’ve stepped out of the room, feigning an errand or a call from her brothers. Beyond all that, ye must remember I am trained as a medic. Seeing you in your birthday suit matters naught to me.”

  “Huh.” It came out a bit more snarky than I’d intended. “It matters naught to you, but it means a great deal to me. You’ve invaded my privacy!”

  “I did a job I was hired to do. If I’d been a man, and if you’d known it, would you feel differently? I think not. You have a male gynecologist, right? You’d have found your level of comfort with me if you thought I was a man. That’s what I robbed ye of, that level of comfort. I shoulda been honest from the beginning, and I’ll live to regret my mistake until the day I die.”