Flesh & Blood

by A. E. Dooland

  Why can’t you just be happy for me, too, Mum? I found myself silently asking my reflection, but even asking that question made me feel like shit, so I left it. This is just how it has to be, I guess, I thought, taking my laptop out into the living room and distracting myself by reading my way through transgender forums.

  It was about an hour later and I was in the middle of googling the difference between ‘transmasculine’ and ‘trans man’, when I heard Rob’s old ute pull into the driveway, followed by a very loud knock on the door. Someone opened it a fraction and then shouted down the hallway, “We’re home, lovebirds! You’ve got like five seconds to not be naked and all over each other before we come in!”

  Sarah. I could hear the big smile in her voice, and Rob said something outside on the porch behind her and they both laughed. She must have had a good weekend, I thought, and felt a bit bitter-sweet about that for a couple of seconds before I came to my fucking senses. Fuck it, I’d had a good weekend, too, hadn’t I?

  I set my laptop aside and stood up to go greet her as she wheeled her case in. She looked down the hallway at me with exaggerated surprise. “Wow. You’re dressed. That was quick.” She winked. “Where’s Schoolgirl? Naked and hiding in your room?”

  That was a pleasant thought. I shook my head. “She went home.”

  Sarah’s smile hardened. “Did she,” she said evenly, and then, as Rob took her suitcase into their bedroom, she approached me and held me at arms’ length, looking me up and down. Her smile eventually thawed. “Okay, you look way better, I forgive her,” she decided. “Did you two enjoy having the house to yourselves…?”

  Her tone of voice made me think of the hard packer and I smothered an embarrassed grin. “I think you should visit your parents every weekend.”

  Sarah laughed and gave me a big hug. “That good, huh?” she said over my shoulder, and then stepped back from me. “Well, sorry to tell you that you’re out of luck. Project assignment is any day now, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be spending the next dozen or so weekends home working. You’ll have to find somewhere else to nail cute blondes.”

  Rob emerged from the bedroom and gave me the same appraising look Sarah had. “Ey! That’s the way!” was his assessment, clapping me on the shoulder as he passed me en route to the kitchen. He then leant out of the doorway, holding a box. “I’m making some tea, want some? It’s—” he held the box up to read it, “—ginger and chamomile,” he said, pronouncing the ‘ch’ the wrong way. “It says it stops you from feeling sick and helps you sleep, so let’s see about that.”

  I had to laugh. Beer-guzzling, ocker Rob sipping branded herbal tea? “You’re going to drink it?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s good for Sares’ nausea, and if she sees me drinking it, she feels guilty about letting me suffer alone and drinks it too.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

  Sarah rolled her eyes towards me. “I hate that man,” she told me in a voice that said the opposite, and gave him a smack on the rear as she followed him into the kitchen.

  Rob did make us all tea, and then he retreated to his man cave to catch up on footy. “I’m going to check you’ve drunk it,” he told Sarah, pointing sharply at her before he disappeared.

  “I’m pouring it down the sink right now!” Sarah yelled down the hallway, and then had a sip as she turned back to me. “It’s good to see you with a smile,” she said honestly, and then reached up and squeezed my arm. “I’m glad your weekend was better.”

  I grinned. “How was yours?”

  She smiled, too. “Great,” she said, with feeling. “I’ll spare you all the gory detail, but it felt a bit like a Disney movie.”

  “Does that mean we’re all moving into a castle?” I asked her innocently as we went into the living room. “Because I was going to ask you about whether we could install a moat and fill it with a few murderous crocodiles and the odd killer shark. You know, to discourage certain visitors.”

  She laughed and wrapped her arms around me, nearly sloshing scalding tea all over my middle. “That’s the Min I know and love,” she said, and squeezed the air out of me. “Welcome back.”

  We sat down on the couch across from each other while she told me the abridged version of her weekend, finishing with, “So that’s it, then,” she said. “I told them. Family down, friends to go.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You’re going to tell everyone now?”

  She shrugged. “A few people. Gemma, a couple of the boys. Oh, and your Schoolgirl.” That made her grin. “How do you think she’s going to react? Will she cry?”

  Um. “Well, I’m sure she’ll be surprised,” I said, hoping Bree’s surprise was genuine enough to convince Sarah it was real. I changed the subject. “So what projects are up for assignment this quarter?”

  Sarah noticed my topic change, but let it slide. “Well, we haven’t got the list yet,” she began before we speculated on it as we finished our tea. Then I helped her unpack while she described in too much detail some of the things her body was doing, which included pulling down her t-shirt showing me the ‘enormous’ veins that you could see now through the skin of her breasts—Rob was leaning on the doorway by this point and we both looked a bit wide-eyed about Sarah’s oversharing—before we parted ways and went to bed.

  Despite the ‘scientifically proven!’ label on the ginger and chamomile tea, I couldn’t sleep. Not even after I got Bree’s ‘no one kidnapped me on the way home you dont have to worry!!! ;)’ message. After I’d read it, I tabbed back to the message I sent Mum and sighed at it. Then, because I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I forwarded it to Bree with a short explanation about what had happened. When I didn’t get a response straight away, I sent another message. “Did I make a big mistake?”

  “sorry i was changing into pjs” she sent back. “but speaking as someone who makes horrible huge mistakes all the time even if you did its okay because things can still work out after :) :) :)” I was busy reading over her advice and feeling better when another text came through. “how are you going to get out of this though?? its not like you can pretend youre marrying henry forever……”

  I sighed. “I kind of just hope I can keep it going for long enough, maybe a few months, and then eventually tell her it’s not working and we broke up…”

  “:| is that going to help??”

  I thought about that. “Some space will. I just need her to leave me alone for a bit. I can’t even figure out what I want because I constantly worry about her reaction to it. Like, do I want top surgery to fix my chest? I don’t know, because the second I think seriously about it, my next thought is ‘Mum would kill me!’. I’m sick of having her holding an anvil over me about everything, so fuck it. I’ll told her what she wants to hear, and now I can focus on my life and myself.”

  It didn’t take her long to reply. “well…. i dont know if you did the right thing or not but i like hearing you be really confident :) :) ”

  I grinned. “Well, I hope you’ll hear a lot more of it.”

  “me too……….. ;) ;) ”

  Those winkie faces seemed a bit suggestive to me. That was further incentive to not be the depressed train wreck that Mum frequently turned me into, and it made me even gladder that I’d been stupid and impulsive and just sent that message.

  I looked across the room at the packers on the table and briefly reminisced on my weekend of being groped and flirted with by my girlfriend, ending up with a big smile across my face. I wanted to keep doing that sort of stuff. Not just because it was pretty damn fun having a cute girl be unable to keep her hands off me, but also because I wanted to see where it led. Maybe it would give me some clarity about what exactly I was, and what I needed under my clothes to feel as good about myself as I did when I was wearing them.

  While I was thinking about that, Bree sent me another message. “its weird how she thinks henrys sister is going to wreck everything though…… does she have an evil sister or something???”

  I laughed at how she’d phr
ased that. It harked back to the Disney stuff Sarah and I had been talking about earlier. “No, no evil sisters. She’s an only child, she got all the evil.”

  “lucky for you its obviously not something you pass to your kids ;) ;) ”

  I chuckled. That was definitely the weirdest compliment I’d ever been paid: ‘you’re not evil’. “And lucky for you, your brother got it all ;)” I told her, and then caught myself yawning and checked the time. “Anyway, it’s a school night, so I should probably let you sleep.”

  “haha youre getting old its not even midnight!!!!” she said as if she wasn’t normally unconscious by now.

  We wished each other goodnight, and after that I was finally able to get some sleep.

  The following morning, I made a calculated decision to not lie in bed all day—although honestly no one would know if I did—and I got up early so I could read through all the prescribed information for uni in case there was anything I needed to do before October. There was nothing there I hadn’t read before, but for the HELP-fee stuff I needed to confirm my personal information was correct. It all was, except for one detail: Bree had listed me as ‘Mr’ Min Lee on all the paperwork. It wasn’t exactly true, but I didn’t like my other options so I checked the ‘correct’ box. I hoped it wouldn’t cause any problems; it was just a title.

  I was glancing up at the clock around the time Bree normally bounded through the back door, but instead of footsteps on the decking, I heard a ute in the driveway, followed by the sound of doors opening and closing. Then I heard the front door open.

  “We’re here!” Bree’s voice called down the hallway as the car drove off.

  ‘We’re’?

  She came racing down the hallway to wrap her arms around my shoulders. She kissed me before I could ask her who ‘we’ was, but my question was answered when Sarah bustled in and held the door open for someone who was more hesitant. I spotted red hair and pushed Bree away before Gemma could see.

  Sarah was next into the living room, dumping her handbag and taking off her scarf. She nodded towards Bree. “Rob passed a stray on the way back from the station,” she told me. “We couldn’t just leave her there.”

  I grinned. “Thanks. I really need to get her microchipped.” Bree shoved me.

  “And now if you’ll excuse me,” Sarah declared, standing at the head of the table. “I’m going to drown my sorrows in a subtle ginger blend with apple highlights since I can’t drown them in alcohol. Get this: Ghana got shelved. Right when I need the money, of course. They ‘might pick it up in twelve months’, apparently,” she said, clearly quoting someone she didn’t like.

  I winced. What bad timing. “That sucks, Sarah. Did they say why?”

  “No,” she said, obviously very unhappy about that point, “But at least, unlike Jason, Omar didn’t just wander in and casually mention it, he called a meeting. The team immediately started catfighting over whose fault it was, right in front of him. Grown men whinging like school kids, the lot of them. I’m way too sick for this crap. Ugh!” She threw her hands up in the air and stomped into the kitchen.

  “I’m… going to go help her,” Bree said, and there was a very prominent pause where she ordinarily would have kissed my head before she left. We both glanced at Gemma. “Um, yeah,” she said instead, and then took off into the kitchen.

  Gemma watched her leave, and then the very second Bree was gone, hurriedly tip-toed over to the couch and leant right in. For a moment, I panicked at how close she was to me—especially given Bree’s near kiss—but then she spoke in a loud whisper. “Do you know what Sarah’s been hiding?”

  Oh, god. I’d almost have preferred that she was trying to kiss me. “Um, what?” I asked, pretending I had no idea what she was talking about.

  Gemma made a face. “Sorry: context. Sarah finally stopped pretending everything is normal and said she had something to tell us today after work. I figured you might already have some idea what it is because you live here. Do you?”

  Shit. “Um.” A split second was not enough time to try and decide if I was going to lie to her or not.

  Gemma interpreted that as a ‘no’. “Yeah, I have no idea, either. Oh, gosh, that’s actually a relief! What do you think it is, though? Do you think it’s something to do with how sick and stressed out she’s been lately? That detox she’s on hasn’t helped at all. She says she’s fine and it’s nothing bad, though, so maybe it’s something to do with work?”

  I just shrugged mutely to avoid actually saying something that was categorically untrue.

  She looked like she was about to burst. “Can I tell you something I’ve been dying to tell someone? I’ve been planning a surprise for Sarah, too,” she said. “Don’t tell her! She’s so stressed out these days, and it’s been ages since she’s had a proper holiday. I know Marketing get two weeks off after Christmas like everyone else, so I had a look at flights and hotels and things for Thailand and Cambodia—she’s always wanted to go there—and I’ve got it all planned out. All the things we always talked about wanting to do, all places we always wanted to go together, and all the amazing things we wanted to see: it’s finally going to happen.” She had this big warm smile on her face. “Sare is always the one who plans really wonderful things for people. But she’s special, too, and it’s time for someone to plan something wonderful for her. The only thing I can’t decide on is how to tell her. I want it to be perfect.”

  Before I could pick my heart up off the floor, Sarah and Bree appeared in the doorway, ferrying our Subtle Ginger Blends or whatever they were in to us. I came over to the table and accepted mine from Bree, sniffed it, and then wished I hadn’t as my eyes watered. Subtle, my ass.

  We all sat down; well, three of us did. Sarah stood behind her chair and took a deep breath. “Okay, before you guys get stuck into Schoolgirl’s homework, I need to get something out of the way.” There was gravity in her voice.

  Gemma glanced at me in anticipation, and then back up at Sarah. She looked excited, and the ginger wasn’t doing jack about how sick I felt right at that moment.

  “I’m sure you guys have noticed I haven’t been doing so well lately—mainly because you’ve been telling me how terrible I look, thanks for that—and so I figured I should probably come clean to you about what’s wrong. I didn’t really want to tell anyone because I didn’t know how to feel about it. I still don’t know how to feel about it, but not talking about it isn’t going to make it go away. I’m sorry I kept it from you guys.” She exhaled and fanned her arms out. “I’m pregnant, and it’s due in December.”

  Bree immediately shrieked. It was the kind of ear-splitting sound that shattered glass, and she leapt from her chair and went and wrapped her arms around Sarah’s middle. “I’m so happy for you!” she said in one single syllable. “You’re going to be so happy! I’m going to make you and Rob a big, colourful cake!”

  While she was describing the cake, I stole a look at Gemma. She looked like someone had just punched her in the stomach.

  “—and I’m not going to use the colours blue or pink, because it’s stupid to force gender roles on something that isn’t even born yet, and I don’t want to do anything too baby or cutesy because you’ll get lots of that from other people, so I was thinking maybe a rising sun or something to represent a new beginning—”

  As she was talking, Sarah started to squint suspiciously at her.

  “—or I was thinking maybe I could just do a stuffed-toy-shaped cake after all? It would have to be something easy to make with—”

  “—Bree,” Sarah said shortly when she’d heard enough, cutting her off. “That’s an awful lot of detail to already have figured out in the thirty seconds since I told you...”

  Bree gulped. Wide-eyed, she tried to look innocent. “I just get excited about cakes?” she attempted in her meekest voice, but Sarah wasn’t buying it. She pursed her lips and gave me a very accusing glare.

  I threw my hands up, and before I’d thought about what I was doing, I stupidly s
aid, “Don’t look at me, she went snooping and figured it out herself!” I regretted it the second I’d said it.

  Gemma turned her head towards me, and the look on her face… “You knew?”

  I threw up my hands. “It’s not like that, Gemma—”

  “Yeah,” Sarah agreed, talking over me. “Min walked in on me while I was catatonic and holding the test, and then this one,” she said, roughly scruffing up Bree’s hair, “apparently doesn’t know how to mind her own business.”

  “I was worried,” Bree grumbled from under her mop of frizzy hair.

  Sarah sat down beside us and opened her laptop. “Anyway, I’m not telling anyone at work until I’m basically spherical, so if we could not tell anyone else—especially not Liz, by the way, that girl can’t keep her mouth shut—that would be great. Thanks.”

  That was clearly the end of the discussion, but Gemma just sat there by herself for a second, reeling. It was hard to watch. Despite all that planning she’d done, all those shared dreams she’d thought she was fulfilling, she wasn’t going to get a chance to give her perfect surprise to Sarah after all. God, my heart broke for Gemma. She didn’t make eye-contact with any of us, and Sarah didn’t even look up.

  “Isn’t this exciting?” Bree asked Gemma after she’d gone to grab her tablet from my room and shifted her chair over beside Gemma’s. “She’s going to be the first one to have a baby! Who do you think will be next? Liz, maybe?”

  “Nah, Liz says she’s not having kids while Chris is playing the league,” Sarah told us, not looking up from her laptop.

  “Well, it won’t be me,” Gemma said bleakly.

  Bree laughed politely like Gemma had made a joke, and then tabbed through a menu on her tablet, looking for a file. “You might accidentally get pregnant from some stranger, you never know.”

  “Pretty sure you need to be having actual sex to get pregnant,” Sarah said with a grin, teasing Gemma like she always did. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion, and it just kept going. Gemma didn’t even challenge Sarah on it, she just pretended to be very interested in whatever file Bree had just opened.