Finding Tranquility

by Laura Heffernan

  Outside that room, the world was chaos. We stayed in what was really a crumbling hostel, no matter what we called it, with a woman who had helped traffic people to/from Canada, now teaching our son how to milk a cow. That had to be the weirdest sentence ever.

  Christa could face criminal charges, at home or back in Canada, and I had no idea how to tell my conservative, religious mother that my dead husband returned to life as a woman. But inside that room, the only things that mattered were me and the individual I’d known and loved since the ninth grade.

  Chapter 22

  Christa

  Tranquility gave me new life twice. I’d happily have remained there, cocooned with Jess and Ethan forever. The farm work could’ve kept Ethan fascinated for weeks, and being able to rediscover Jess was the greatest single experience of my life. I loved tracing her stretch marks, marveling at the things her body had done.

  But, alas, real life intruded. Jess couldn’t abandon her practice, and Ethan needed to be back at school on Monday. On Sunday morning, we cleaned up our rooms, and I mowed the lawn while Jess and Ethan weeded the garden. Then, having left the place better than we found it, we said good-bye to Val, thanked her again, and continued our trip southeast to Boston.

  For the first couple of days, I drifted. No one knew I was back, other than Jess and Ethan. She cancelled dinner with her mom the night we got back, preferring to talk to her one-on-one rather than spring me on her out of nowhere. The last thing we needed was to give the poor old woman a heart attack. I may have never agreed with her on a lot of topics, but she’d taught me a lot. Jess’s mom was a good person, and I loved her nearly as much as my own mother.

  My father died in 2006. I didn’t attend the funeral, of course, didn’t even know it happened until I looked my family up online years later. Jess went with Ethan, the only grandchild, who was too young to understand or appreciate what was happening.

  Jess explained that my mother developed Alzheimer’s not long after Dad passed, going downhill pretty quickly. She didn’t say that losing me and my father contributed to her decreasing health, but I wondered. Mom now lived in a nursing home as nice as many five-star hotels. When I left, Dad was doing very well. Apparently, he’d left Mom plenty of money to care for herself.

  Knowing in the back of mind that, somewhere, I still had family and they had mourned me and would probably want to know I was alive wasn’t the same as picking up the phone and calling them. I didn’t even know if Mom would recognize me if I showed up.

  When I tried to call my brother, paralysis gripped me. He wouldn’t understand. He might be glad to hear I was alive. He might be pissed that I ignored all of his “Be a man” advice. He might be high and not even care about anything. You never knew with Brad. So I stalled. But I was well aware that, at some point before Ethan graduated college, I needed to reach out to my brother. He deserved to know the truth.

  Days turned into weeks. The longer we were home, the more frustrated Jess got at my sitting around, doing nothing.

  “You should at least go see your mother,” she said one Saturday. “She doesn’t have a lot of time left.”

  “Seeing me as I am now could kill her. I’d rather not have that on my conscience.”

  She sighed. “I hate to say it, but she probably won’t recognize you, even if you looked like Brett. We stopped going because she doesn’t know Ethan. Sometimes she thought he was you, which was even worse. She has good days, but...” She shrugged. “You of all people should understand how fragile life is.”

  “But she thinks I’m dead. She mourned me once.”

  “Then maybe finding out you’re alive will bring a sick, old woman some happiness. At least talk to her doctors and see what they think.”

  Finally, I went. When I told her about my decision, Jess offered to go, to bring Ethan, but some things in life needed to be done on your own.

  Jess nodded like she understood, but I saw the fear in her eyes. She was glad I’d come home, she wanted me there, but she still didn’t trust me. Deep inside, part of her thought I’d bolt every time I got into the car. Thought something would go wrong and I wouldn’t come back.

  I didn’t even know how to assuage her fears. I didn’t have a U.S. driver’s license yet. If pulled over, a Canadian license could get me extra questioning from the cops, and I couldn’t produce a visa or valid passport. A little investigating, and I could still be charged with identity theft and fraud. For all I knew, faking your own death was a felony.

  Everyone said Canada didn’t request extradition for minor offenses, but how minor was pretending to be someone else? Besides, my crimes extended north and south of the border. Usually, I avoided this problem by making Jess drive. When I got behind the wheel on my own, I exercised the kind of care all licensed drivers throughout the world abandon the moment they passed their driving tests.

  With white knuckles on the wheel, I pointed the car toward Connecticut. What I’d say to my mother completely escaped me. I didn’t even know if I’d have the guts to tell her who I was. Maybe I should put on gender-neutral clothes and hide my hair under a hat. Not much I could do about the boobs, though. Besides, I was done living a lie.

  My stomach twisted in knots the whole way there. Twice, I pulled over, a panic attack making it difficult to focus on the road. I hated myself for putting the people I loved in this position in the first place. My parents may have been strict, narrow-minded, and unyielding, but they gave me life. I still loved them. The idea of hurting them so much killed me. The only thing that might hurt my mother more than my death was the life path I’d taken after we last saw each other.

  The time spent fretting could’ve been put to better use. When I arrived at the facility, more a resort than a nursing home, the receptionist asked for my name. Moments later, Christa McCall was ushered down the hall to my mom’s apartment. There was no sense in giving my legal name: Explanations would have wasted time and benefitted no one when you had to present ID during check-in.

  Somehow, I expected Mom to look exactly the way I’d last seen her at the wedding. Beaming with pride, short brown hair artfully arranged into a more stylish helmet than usual, hazel eyes twinkling. The woman who greeted me barely resembled the mother I remembered.

  She sat hunched in her chair, peering at some kind of needlework. Not a single brown hair remained on her head. She seemed smaller, somehow, as if the disease had eaten her body as well as her mind. Or maybe it was that she’d lost a lot of weight in the past fifteen years. I hovered in the doorway, uncertain.

  The nurse went ahead. “Helen? You have a visitor. A friend of your daughter-in-law.”

  Her face broke into a smile. “Jess? How is Jess?”

  When I approached, her eyes met mine, and I stopped in my tracks. People had always said I favored my mother, and I nodded along, not really paying attention. But now, the similarities took my breath away. We’d always had the same eyes. My long hair was now the same length and texture as hers, even though she’d gone grey. My chin, softened by surgery, was a mirror reflection of hers. At first, I couldn’t speak.

  After a moment, I gathered my courage and approached, shaking one of her bony hands. “My name’s Christa. It’s lovely to see you. Jess is fine.”

  “Do you know Ethan? A lovely boy, so much like his father.”

  My heart leapt into my throat. “Yes, he’s a great kid.”

  “What brings you to see me, dear?”

  All the answers I’d practiced on the drive flew from my head, leaving me only with a version of the truth. “She asked me to drop by and see how you’re doing. I was in the neighbourhood.”

  “I’m fine. Your voice sounds so familiar. Are you sure we’ve never met?”

  I shook my head before realizing her vision is so poor, she couldn’t see me. “No, ma’am, I don’t think so.”

  “You talk like Jess. Do you know Jess?”

  Of course I did. Years of voice training, and I taught myself to speak like the female who’d had
the most influence on my life. I’d thought about her all the time until my therapist pointed out how unhealthy and unproductive that could be.

  Not a word of that could be shared with my mother, and I couldn’t point out that the nurse had already told her I knew Jess, so I simply nodded. “Yes, Jess is a lovely woman.”

  “Yes, she is. My son loved her very much, before he died. Did you know Brett?”

  Did you know Brett? I wanted to ask but didn’t. “No, I don’t think I did. Why don’t you tell me about him?”

  She patted the seat beside her. “Such a wonderful boy. God took him from us much too soon. Sit down, and I’ll tell you a story.”

  For the rest of the afternoon, I listened to her relate long-forgotten stories of my childhood, telling the history of my relationship with Jess, as tears streamed down my cheeks. Then she told me about the first time she saw Ethan, the similarities she saw between her son and grandson.

  Finally, I got up the nerve to ask the question that had been in the back of my mind for weeks. “What about your other son, Helen? How’s Brad?”

  “Oh, he’s wonderful! We were so proud when he joined the military after his brother died. He knew the country was going to war, and he had a thing or two to say to those terrorists who killed Brett. Served two terms in Iraq before a broken leg sidelined him for a bit. He threw himself from a moving Jeep to save a young woman from a sniper. Now he’s stationed in Japan.”

  Wow. Of all the things I’d thought about Brad, it never occurred to me that he would’ve grown up and gotten an adult job, much less joined the military and become a hero. He’d certainly figured out how to “be a man.”

  “You must miss him terribly,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t crack.

  She shrugged. “Kids grow up, they move away. Life goes on. He married a nice Japanese girl and settled down a few years back. I’m happy for him.”

  For years, I’d tried not to think about my brother, to wonder what he was up to. I was startled to realize that I was happy for him, too. That I hoped one day to see him again, meet his wife.

  Before I left, we embraced for a long time. Part of me never wanted to let go. Jess was right. I’d needed to do this, even if I couldn’t tell my mother the truth. But when I pulled away, she gazed into my eyes, and I realized that she must’ve known all along. What a fool I’d been. Jess recognized me instantly. How could I have thought my own mother wouldn’t do the same?

  Mom squeezed my hands and kissed me on each cheek. “Thank you for coming to see me. You’ve brought an old lady some happiness.”

  ∞ ♡ ∞

  Jess

  The Saturday after we returned home, with Christa out of town for the day, I sent Ethan to play Laser Tag with his friends and invited my mother over for brunch. Before she arrived, I “taste-tested” about a bottle and a half of champagne. I mean, a couple of mimosas. The enthusiasm with which I greeted my mother could only be found in the bottom of a bottle with twelve percent alcohol content. She greeted me with equal warmth and breath that suggested she’d had a nip or two herself, “to ward off the cold,” as my father used to say. I wondered what made her nervous about spending the afternoon with me.

  After exchanging pleasantries, we dug into the food. It both steadied my nerves and calmed my buzz enough to remind me that we had things to talk about, and soon. Christa wouldn’t be gone all day. When my knife scraped the last bit of Hollandaise sauce onto my fork, I pushed the plate away and started the speech I’d been working on in my head for several days.

  “I’m sorry we missed Thanksgiving, Ma. I know how much you looked forward to having us over.”

  “Nonsense. For the first time in fifty years, I didn’t have to waste an entire day cooking while people talked about football in my living room. Did I ever tell you I hate football?”

  My jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

  “What a stupid game. All that running back and forth and falling down and rolling around on the ground, trying to get your neck broken for no good reason. At least basketball takes some skill. But don’t tell Ethan, I’m always rooting for him.” She sipped at her drink, which I refilled hastily. This was the best conversation we’d had in ages, and I wanted to keep her a bit tipsy until I finished what I had to tell her. “But if you could talk him into playing some other sport in college, well, that would be okay with me. Or maybe he can do baseball in the spring.”

  I chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do. He plays football because his dad played football.”

  Ma clucked with her tongue. “Well, I’m sure Brett would be proud of him.”

  “Funny you should mention that.”

  She leaned over, patted my arm. “You look so happy, dear. Did you have a nice time away? I said to Nancy at the Y, ‘My Jess has met some new guy, mark my words. Nothing else would take her away over the holidays.’ Now that you’re back and I see the sparkle in your eye, my guess is that she owes me ten bucks. You’ve lost the look of someone who hasn’t gotten any nookie in way too long.”

  My jaw dropped. “Who are you and what have you done with my mother?”

  She waved a hand. “We’re all adults. Life’s too short to be so uptight. The world’s changing. Anyway, tell me about this new guy.”

  “There’s no new guy,” I said with one hundred percent accuracy.

  “Nonsense. What else could have your cheeks flushed like that?”

  I started to point out that I was on my sixth or seventh glass of champagne, but we needed to move this conversation along while we were still alone. Instead, I took a long swallow, savoring the taste while I gathered my courage.

  No way to possibly say what I needed to say without just spitting it out. I didn’t know any way to ease someone into “your dead son-in-law is now your live daughter-in-law.”

  “It’s Brett.”

  “Brett wouldn’t mind you seeing someone new at all, dear. It’s about time, if you ask me. Long past, really.”

  “No, it’s not that, Ma. Listen. Brett is alive. He didn’t get on the plane that day. He’s been living in Canada, and when I was there in September, I ran into him.”

  Her fork clattered onto the plate. “Dear, that’s not funny. What would Ethan say if he heard you talking like that?”

  “Ethan and I just spent a week in Canada. He knows.”

  “Is this some kind of joke? Am I being—what is it you kids say—Punk’d?”

  It had been at least fifteen years since that show aired, so I couldn’t begin to guess where she heard about it. We never had MTV when I was a kid. “No, Ma, I’m serious. Brett is alive. I know it’s hard to accept. It took me a long time, but I’m learning to be okay with it.”

  As I spoke, her face lost ten years. Her eyes lit up. “That’s wonderful news, dear! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “You’re not mad? Angry that he vanished? Upset that he used a national tragedy for his own purposes? Confused at all?”

  “Life’s too short for grudges.” She sipped her mimosa. “I assume you’ve worked through those issues or you wouldn’t be looking so happy. That’s not the face of someone who just found out her husband has a new wife with multiple kids or has been in prison for all these years. I just wish you’d mentioned it earlier, so I could help you work through your feelings.”

  Behind me, the kitchen door closed. The click-clack of high heels on the tile told me instantly who had returned home earlier than expected. I shot to my feet, unsure whether to go to her, to stop her, to finish getting my news out before Christa entered the kitchen. The champagne hit me, and I gripped the table to steady myself.

  Hesitation cost me precious seconds. Before my brain even began processing the options, Ma’s eyes darted behind my shoulder. I stepped to the side, but my five-foot-four-inch frame wasn’t about to block Christa’s six feet of height. She rested her chin on the top of my head easily and put her arms around me. “Hi, honey.”

  That wasn’t the best way to do this, but we’d run out of time. I
tilted my face upward and kissed Christa on the cheek. “Hi, yourself.”

  The whites of Ma’s eyes nearly swallowed her face. She put one hand on her chest, and for a moment, I thought she was going to have a heart attack. “Brett? Jess, is this some kind of joke? What…?”

  I stepped forward. “It’s not a joke. Brett changed his name after he left. This is Christa.”

  “No. No, no, no, no,” she muttered, shaking her head.

  I glanced at Christa, who appeared saddened by this reaction, but not surprised. Of course. What on earth had I been thinking, introducing my Bible-thumping mother to my transgender spouse without preparing her for it first? I realized now how stupid I’d been, that I should’ve taken her out to brunch, to a public place where Christa couldn’t accidentally interrupt us.

  Christa stepped forward and held one hand out to my mother. “I know it’s hard to accept, but I’m home. I’m here to help raise Ethan.”

  Ma pulled herself to her feet, wobbling slightly. I didn’t know if it was from the alcohol, the shock, or both. Then she took two steps away from the table and slapped Christa so hard her head jerked backward. I gasped. “What could you possibly know about raising a son? What could you know about being a father? You’re not even a man anymore. You’re... I don’t know what you are.”

  “She’s Christa. My spouse,” I said. “The woman I love.”

  “This is wrong,” she said, digging in her purse. “All wrong. I have to go.”

  “You can’t leave like this. You’re drunk.” I reached to take her keys, but she slapped my hands.

  “I’ll get a cab,” she snapped. “You stay away. Both of you. I don’t know what you’re trying to do to me, but that’s clearly not Brett. I don’t want to talk to either of you ever again. What a cruel thing to do to an old woman.”

  We stood in shock as she stormed out, the front door shaking the house. For a long minute, Christa and I just stared at each other.

  “I’m so sorry,” I began.

  “Don’t be,” she said. “You thought she’d mellowed. And I should’ve warned you that there was a high probability she’d react this way.”