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That thought broke the dam and tears started rolling down my cheeks.
“But I love her. I do. And I don’t want to lose her at all. I just don’t see a way forward if she smokes.”
A settling breath, and I blinked the tears away, before they sprung straight back into my eyes as a fresh thought entered my head.
“Plus, the decision may be taken out of my hands altogether, anyway.” I sighed. “I think I’m non-binary. As in gender non-binary: neither male nor female. Not the daughter you thought I was, and not the wife she thought she married, either. Things were just starting to go wrong the last time I came up here. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
This was the problem with talking to a gravestone: your parents, despite being under it, didn’t answer back. Instead, I had to imagine what they would have done. I closed my eyes and imagined myself into their living room. We’d be sitting with a cup of tea, perhaps, or a glass of wine for Mum and I and a signature whisky for Dad. We would all have put our glasses down by this point, and Mum would have moved to sit next to me, perhaps even holding my hand. Dad would be leaning forward in his chair, elbows on knees, an attentive but thoughtful expression on his face.
Now I had to imagine their responses.
They would have been supportive. I just knew they would. They’d accepted my sexuality without blinking, and although we’d never really discussed gender as a topic, I knew that they’d had no objection to the rights of transgender folk. Perhaps they wouldn’t have known what to say, but they would have expressed their support somehow. Mum would perhaps have simply hugged me, and asked questions about what it meant. And Dad – ever-practical – would have asked me how this would manifest itself in daily life.
“I think…” by now I was dry-eyed, “… that I’d like to use gender-neutral pronouns. ‘They’ feels right, rather than ‘she’. There are these things called neopronouns, but I don’t feel the need to use them – ‘they/them’ fits just fine. And I’d use the word ‘spouse’ instead of ‘wife’ to refer to myself with regards to being married to Petra. If we stay married.” I gulped. “Things like that. You’d say I’m your ‘youngest’ instead of ‘daughter’, since ‘child’ implies that I’m young. ‘Shop assistant’ instead of ‘shop lady’, which is what I get a lot at work. I’m not sure how I’m going to apply any of these things to my life yet, but I’m going to try.”
Now I took a deep breath. Fly, Jean, fly.
“But there it is. You have a non-binary person for an… offspring. Shame it’s taken me until the ripe old age of fifty-two to figure it out, but there we are.”
I stood up, and my knees cracked.
Then, out of nowhere, I heard a little fluttering of wings. My first thought, bizarrely, was Is that an angel?
But then I looked properly, and a robin sat on the gravestone. On instinct, I froze, not wanting to scare the little bird, but he didn’t seem perturbed by my presence. He simply hopped from one end of the stone to the other, pecked at something known only to him, then looked up at me. The only movement I allowed myself was a smile, and then a tear rolled down my cheek. Perhaps it was the tear that did it, because he flew away, in a surprisingly straight line given the alcohol fumes that must have been coming off the stone.
It had to be a sign, I thought as I walked away. I’d never been one for signs before, but what else could that be? It simply had to be a sign.
That they were with me, and all would be well.
Surely?
Chapter Sixty-Three
Petra actually beat me to it when it came to making contact. Exactly two weeks after she left – down to the minute she walked out the door, give or take a few – my phone dinged with a text from her. I pounced on it. I’d just been thinking of texting her myself.
How do you fancy a walk along the beach tomorrow? It’ll be good to talk, and I feel like we have much to say.
Immediately, my heart began cantering in my chest. I agreed wholeheartedly with both of her statements, and the beach seemed like the perfect location for what I knew would be a turning point in our relationship.
A few more texts and we’d agreed that I’d pick her up from Mabel’s house the following evening, since I was working during the day. I went to bed in a good mood. Now I was more secure in my gender, I felt better about telling her. Hopefully then she’d realise that my emotional distance was for a reason, and all would be well on that score.
The following afternoon, I came in from work and found myself staring into my wardrobe, deliberating what to wear. Nothing seemed right, suddenly. It was August, but hopefully by seven-thirty the worst of the heat would have gone, so a jacket was possibly worth a glance. However, nothing else in the wardrobe felt right. Not that clothes had ever been my favourite thing to think about. Perhaps she’d help me with a new wardrobe, at some stage, if this went well. One that really reflected me.
Having eventually decided on a light cotton T-shirt with nautical blue and white stripes, I found myself with three hours to spare. The idea behind meeting at such a late time was so as not to disrupt whatever Mabel had planned for dinner that night, but now I sorely regretted it, for it gave me too much time to stew. I sat in the living room, channel-hopping frantically and trying not to think about what might happen. No food had managed to pass my lips since lunchtime due to the churning of my stomach, but I wondered if a peace offering from the bakery might be a nice touch. There was still half an hour before it shut. Before I had a chance to think too hard about it, I’d grabbed my phone and my keys and was walking down the hill.
Daniella – if I remembered correctly, she was the alter of Felicia’s who worked at the bakery – greeted me with a polite smile as I walked in. The stock in the cabinets was sparse due to the lateness of the hour, but I still managed to get Petra’s favourite: a Florentine, packed with fruit and almonds and chocolate. I could tell that Daniella was deliberating over whether to say anything to me – she must have known about our intention to meet up today – but in the end she must have decided against it, and gave me the cake in a little white paper bag.
When I got home, I suddenly had the thought of a picnic blanket. There were plenty of large rocks to sit on down at the beach, but it would be good to have some options. I dug it out – remembering the fraught atmosphere of the last time we’d used it – and folded it away into a bag, then sat back down again. Two and a half hours to go.
Chapter Sixty-Four
In the event, I was ten minutes early to meet Petra. I found myself standing outside Mabel’s house awkwardly, too scared to knock in case Petra wasn’t ready. As it was, the door opened by itself, and then I heard Mabel’s surprised bark of “Jesus Christ!”
“Sorry!” I said, taking a step back automatically with a little laugh. “I know I’m too early, and I didn’t want to knock.”
“Well, you’d have needed to at some point,” Mabel pointed out, leaning against the doorframe. Her posture wasn’t exactly unfriendly, but it didn’t scream sunshine and rainbows like her daughter’s did. “She’ll be out in a minute. She’s just putting on some sun cream. I forced her. Did you know that ten o’clock in the morning is the cut-off point for healthy sunlight? It’s at that point that the UV rays become damaging. I learnt it on a spa day a few years ago.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said on autopilot, trying to keep my customer-service-esque cheery smile on my face while subtly trying to look into the house behind her. As I did so, however, the door opened wider and Petra stood there.
