Love Lives Here

by Amanda Jette Knox

  When we went to visit the school, we saw “safe space” stickers on every door. The principal, Shannon Smith, was kind, smart and extremely knowledgeable about trans issues. She took Alexis on a tour, and they bumped into a few of her former classmates along the way. Most of them greeted her excitedly, using the right name and pronouns. It’s incredible what a difference a year and some education can make. Before long, Alexis had made up her mind to return to school in September.

  I was also contacted by a member of the Pride Toronto staff and invited to that city’s festivities that summer. We jumped at the chance and found a nice hotel downtown. The weekend was very rainy, but we still had a wonderful time at our first Pride event. At one point, my spouse got matching glitter butterfly face paint with Alexis. “Aww! Father-and-daughter bonding!” I said with a smile.

  The incessant rain stopped just before the Pride parade, and the sun came out to shine some light on a gay ol’ time. I looked over at my family with my own sense of pride; we had made it through a transition and were happier on the other side. My kids were pointing at floats, dancing to the music and just being in the moment. I seared it all into my mind.

  FOURTEEN

  revelations

  IT WAS TIME to tell. But the girl from Peterborough didn’t know how.

  Pride had been her undoing. Seeing so many people out and proud, living their truths while she languished inside this life that wasn’t hers, was too much to bear. Seeing her daughter thrive in a more authentic existence filled her with both happiness and piercing sorrow.

  How much time had she already wasted? How much had she invested in trying to be the man everyone expected her to be? To be someone’s husband, someone’s dad, someone’s son, someone’s brother?

  But terrified wasn’t a strong enough word for how she felt at the thought of speaking this truth. There wasn’t a word to convey what she was feeling in this moment. Terrified doesn’t keep you in the closet for more than forty years, even when it’s killing you to be in there.

  What do you call it when the urge to be yourself is so strong that you can no longer contain it, but you know that you will likely lose everything you’ve worked for and everyone you love?

  That feeling, right there. That was what this was.

  She needed to find the right time to say something. In the meantime, it was eating her alive.

  * * *

  —

  We returned from the Pride Toronto festival on June 30 and had a typical Knox family Canada Day weekend. We went to the Kanata street festivities with the kids, bought gross hot food on a gross hot day, paid way too much for carnival ride tickets, watched a C-list band perform as night fell, stayed for the fireworks and walked home. It was good. It was average. It was expected.

  It was exactly the opposite of the following day.

  July 2 is now another anniversary in our family. It’s the day when everything changed—again. That was the night my partner and I went to Quitters, the coffee shop where I couldn’t quit it. Despite the lovely ambience and great Americanos, I wouldn’t let go of what was bugging me.

  I needed to know what was happening in the mind of the person I lived with, raised children with, shared a bed with and had built an entire life with. Why the permanent Eeyore cloud? Didn’t we deserve a chance to work through it and bring out the sun?

  On the way home on that dark, rainy night, with the smell of air conditioning pouring in through the vents of our silver Cobalt and the sound of wipers squeaking against the window, I started gently pulling bricks from the wall between us. One, then another, with diligence and care. I didn’t get annoyed or raise my voice. I tried to make room for whatever needed to be said. Finally, after all these years, it was time to get to the bottom of why it was as rainy inside the car as outside.

  I started throwing out big questions—the ones I didn’t really want the answers to.

  “Are you unhappy with me?” I asked.

  “No,” came the response. “Not at all. I love you.”

  Gentle but direct. That was key.

  “Is it our life, then? Is it the whole ‘married with three kids’ thing? Because I know we started young.”

  “No, not at all. I love our family. This predates you and the kids. It’s nothing, okay? We don’t have to talk about it.”

  Now I knew it was personal, not situational.

  “Are you gay?” I asked.

  “No. I don’t like men,” came the immediate reply.

  For a while afterward, I wondered why I had asked the next question. Did I think it was impossible and just wanted to get it out of the way? Did I think it was a big enough reason for someone to be so unhappy? Did my subconscious already know the answer?

  “Are you a woman?” I asked.

  The answer came in the form of complete silence. All I heard were the tires rolling on wet pavement and the squeaky hum of the wipers moving back and forth, back and forth, wiping away the raindrops the way I wanted to wipe away the question.

  Because now I knew.

  The wall between us crumbled, and I saw what I had failed to see for more than two decades. I would spend the next few weeks wishing I had never asked, wishing I could take it back, wishing we could return to that snapshot in time at the Pride parade, back to my grad—hell, back to any time when I felt I had some control over my life. Because it sure didn’t feel like that now.

  “You—” I stammered. “You want to be a woman?”

  Want to be. A terrible choice of words. I knew better. If my spouse was trans, she had always been a woman. But I wasn’t thinking straight.

  After what felt like a lifetime of waiting, I heard a faint frightened voice just above the rain and the drone of the engine.

  “I can’t talk about this.” Eyes on the road, not looking at me, just driving into that dark, rainy night.

  I was nearly speechless—which, if you ask anyone who knows me, is as rare as a trilingual unicorn.

  “Y-you…” I tried again. “You’re a woman?!”

  “I said I can’t talk about this right now,” came the voice in the driver’s seat again.

  And I—a friend of the trans community, a voice of inclusion, a speaker of things in a positive light—answered with a poetic “Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me!”

  I hate telling that part of the story. It’s just about the worst thing I could have said to her. Negative emotions eroded empathy. Instead of being a supportive wife, I had just kicked my spouse in the shins the moment she stepped out of that closet.

  * * *

  —

  At this point, we were a few minutes away from pulling into the driveway.

  “We can’t go home now,” I said, anxiety clinging to each word. “We can’t go home like this. The kids are there.”

  The kids. The kids who thought they had a mom and a dad, and had just been through a big change a year before. Oh my God, the kids. All I could think about was them.

  Instead of turning into our neighbourhood, she drove straight, seemingly on autopilot. Where do we end up on this road if we’re not going home? Oh, right. Walmart.

  She brought the car to a stop beside a lamppost in the parking lot, the light illuminating half her face. We sat in silence for a minute, not knowing where to go next with this conversation. For the second time in my life, I wondered where the instruction manual was for this particular situation. Even a pamphlet would do: So Your Partner Came Out as Trans: A Starter’s Guide. That should be in every glove box next to the maps no one reads.

  “I shouldn’t have said anything,” she offered meekly. “I’m so sorry, Amanda. I didn’t know how to tell you.”

  “No, I’m glad you said something,” I replied, and I partially meant it. I knew it must have caused her immense pain to carry that burden for so long.

  But I was heartbroken for me. And angry for me too. Angry that she hadn’t told me sooner. Angry that I had asked what was wrong many times before and been given any explanation but this. Angry t
hat I had allowed myself to believe the dust had settled in our lives. I felt betrayed.

  Yet I knew betrayal was not what this was. She hadn’t deliberately misled me. For forty-two years, she had been trying to survive. But it was too soon to think clearly. My reasonable side was at war with my emotions, and my emotions were winning.

  “I haven’t been able to tell anyone this,” she said, and my anger suddenly began to dissipate. “You’re the first person I’ve felt safe enough to say something to in a long time.”

  “It’s good you felt safe enough to finally tell me. I just don’t know what to do now.” I looked out the window and sighed. “What do we do?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I wanted to say something, but I wasn’t planning to tell you like this.”

  “I’m sure you weren’t.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I reached for her hand. “This is who you are.”

  “It’s okay if you want to leave, you know,” she said, her voice breaking, still not meeting my eyes. “If there was ever a time when you had a Get Out of Marriage Free card, this is it. I’ll understand. You didn’t sign up for this.”

  “Honestly, hon, I have no idea how I’m feeling right now. I need to process this. But no matter what, I support you in being who you are,” I said.

  She nodded sadly.

  We sat in the rain and silence for a few minutes longer. “Let’s go home and get some sleep,” I said at last. “Try not to look upset in front of the kids, okay? Let’s figure some things out before we tell them anything.”

  We got home that night and pretended everything was fine. I could have faked anything at that point. I had no emotions to speak of. I kept expecting to have a good cry and it wouldn’t happen. I kept waiting to feel angry and want to smash things, but nothing came. The only feeling I had was a physical one in the pit of my stomach, gnawing at me, reminding me I had some big feels coming. Just you wait. Enjoy that numbness while you can.

  We fell into bed, barely speaking. Neither of us knew what to say. I waited until I could hear she was asleep, then I reached for my phone and sent off a text to my friend Liliane.

  “Hey, are you sleeping?”

  “No,” she fired back quickly. “Need to talk?”

  I did. When Alexis came out, Lil was the first person I spoke to outside the family. Now, teary and terrified, I needed her again.

  “Yeah, but let me call you in a minute. I’m going to walk down the street first.”

  I made my way downstairs, quietly slipped on my shoes and left the house. The rain had stopped but humidity hung thick in the air, a typical July night in Ottawa, sticky and uncomfortable. I dialled Lil’s number, pacing.

  “What’s up?” she said. She could already tell it wasn’t good.

  “Uh, well…” I began. My voice was shaking. “Remember all those times I said I was glad it was my child who was trans and not my spouse, because I didn’t know what I would do in that situation?”

  “Yeah,” Lil replied cautiously, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “My husband just came out.”

  There was a long pause. “Wait. What do you mean, ‘out’?”

  “I mean he’s actually she. She’s trans too.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think I’m supposed to tell anyone right now. But I’m telling you because if I don’t say it out loud to someone, I’m going to lose it. How the hell does lightning strike twice in one family, Lil? I don’t understand how this is happening.”

  “You know I’m with you,” she said. “I was with you through everything Alexis went through, and I’m with you now.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I know.”

  If you find someone like this, hold on to her. These are the ones you can count on. Brené Brown, a renowned author and research professor, refers to people like these as stretchmark friends. They’re the ones who grow with you through everything and love you no matter what. Everyone needs a Lil.

  That night, I slept poorly, my stomach in knots. When I woke up, she—I didn’t know what to call her yet; did she have a name picked out?—was already awake.

  “I didn’t really sleep last night,” she said. I knew the feeling.

  It was Friday and she was at the tail end of her vacation time. I knew we were likely in for a day of talking and sorting things out. That seemed like a high priority to me, so I couldn’t figure out why I was suddenly so angry. It took me a minute to realize that I was about to revert to a very familiar pattern.

  Just a few weeks earlier, I had started a program at the weight management centre. I was diligently walking almost every day and going to strength-training sessions three times per week. Today was one of my scheduled classes. It would be completely understandable to blow it off this one time, right? I mean, the person I thought was my husband had just told me she’s my wife.

  But I was angry with myself at the mere thought of not going. To make myself the lowest priority, especially at this juncture, screamed “bad idea.” This is where I would falter if I wasn’t careful. If I skipped this session, I knew I wouldn’t go back. I would fall right back into my old habits and routines.

  “I have to go work out,” I said in a tone that left no room for negotiation. “I’ll be back in a bit and we can talk then.” I threw on some workout clothes and walked out the door.

  At the centre, I chatted with some women in the change room. We talked about the weather and a couple of good recipes someone had tried that week. I followed them into the gym and worked out for half an hour, doing push-ups, burpees, rows, crunches and mountain climbers. I laughed at the trainer’s jokes and paired up with one of the guys for a team exercise, making conversation the whole time. I sang along to the music. From the outside, you would never know anything big had just happened in my life.

  When the session was over, I went back to the change room and said goodbye to everyone. “See you next week!” I called with a smile. Smiling me walked past the front desk, waved to the admin assistant, strolled back to my car, sat down in the driver’s seat, closed the door, took a breath and started to wail.

  I had never heard that sound come out of me before. It was a primal, devastating, hopeless cry. I now know it as the sound I make when I believe my world has completely fallen apart.

  FIFTEEN

  aftermath

  “OKAY, AMANDA. Bring it back, bring it back. You’re okay.”

  That was me, talking myself down from all the wailing. I had to be my own therapist in that moment. Besides, what exactly would I say if someone gently tapped on the window to check on me? “Well, see, I have a really hard time with change because I have an anxiety disorder and a bunch of old trauma, and I was just starting to feel good about my daughter coming out last year, and me not realizing I was actually kind of transphobic, and having to learn how not be a terrible human about things I don’t understand, and now I just found out I have a wife instead of a husband, and I feel like a terrible human all over again.”

  That would be a great way to get someone to slowly back away from the car. I was going to file that away for a handy occasion—like the next time I got pulled over for speeding.

  I needed to unload to someone I trusted. Liliane was at work, and besides, she couldn’t be my only confidante in a time of crisis. I had to call in the reinforcements. I composed myself just enough to send a text to my friend Sarah, the one who had welcomed me to Kanata two years earlier. She works in a school and was home for the summer with her kids. Sarah was a safe someone to tell news that could leave you sobbing in a Chevy Malibu Hybrid outside a weight management clinic.

  Shaky fingers typed out a message on my phone. “Hey, I’m in a really bad place right now,” I said. “Can I come over?”

  “Of course!” she wrote back. “Come on over. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Sarah met me at the door, arms outstretched to welcome me into a hug, and I practically collapsed
in her embrace. “Come on, I’m going to make you a coffee,” she said kindly, leading me into the house. She knows me well—I never pass up a coffee.

  Over the next two hours, she did all the right things. She listened supportively, and when I used up the box of tissues, she brought me another. And another coffee too.

  Sarah understood the shock I was experiencing (“How did I miss this a second time?” “What are we going to tell the kids?”), but she had no problem with my spouse being trans. She was more concerned with the fact that I was reeling from the revelation.

  In fact, no one I spoke to in the following weeks demonized my wife; instead, they fully supported her. But they also supported me by honouring where I was in this journey. And I was at the beginning, at the very hardest part, buried under waves of panic and uncertainty.

  While I sat and talked to my friend, I wondered who she had to talk to. She, the person I’d thought I knew inside and out but didn’t. She, the person I had built a life with but wasn’t sure I could continue my life with. She, the woman I had left in our bed, all alone, while I sought comfort from others.

  * * *

  —

  The girl from Peterborough had no friends to talk to. Not close ones, anyway. There was one long-time friend, the male half of a couple, who sometimes came over to play guitar. There were some co-workers she had lunch with, but they never did anything outside the office.

  Her life did not involve closeness. Keeping everyone at arm’s length was the way it had always needed to be. From the moment she’d realized she wasn’t a boy, she built that wall, brick by brick, to seal herself in. Keeping who she was locked away took every bit of emotional stamina she had. If people got too close, they might see what she was hiding. She might say too much, let the wrong thing escape from her lips, and her protective wall would crumble to the ground. If anyone found out, she would lose everything. But self-preservation involved a huge sacrifice.