For Today I Am a Boy (28 page)

In full view of the entire kitchen, he kissed me. A kiss that made me think of the woefully few people I had kissed in my life. A kiss that reminded me I had never been loved. A kiss that said I could not be John unless I risked being Dana.

 

My bedside clock rolled past eight. Somewhere, Dana on the cross. I remembered something Claire said, in a vulnerable moment, her blond hair against my mouth: “Even Jesus didn't want to be Jesus. He cried out at the last minute.” I missed her, and Margie, and Chef, and Ollie, and Bonnie and Adele and Helen—the comfort of being only partly understood. Eileen and John saw straight through me, past me, like a hole had been bored through my chest.

I tried to imagine eight people watching. Their shadows in the box lights of a deserted parking lot. Their impassive faces. Stepping back as I bled on the ground and reached for them.

I found the newspaper in my bag. John had stuffed it inside before I left. In the second picture, Dana was laughing, looking right into the camera. Who took this picture? Ten of them and one of her. Ten of us and two of them.

Teenage Daniel had dark circles under his eyes. He seemed caught by the camera, paralyzed by worry. I folded the newspaper over, tucking his picture underneath. Dana continued to laugh.

I dug through the kitchen drawer until I found the scissors. I cut both parts of the story out of the paper and sealed them into an envelope. Addressed it, stamped it, tucked it into the inner pocket of my winter coat, my down parka riddled with punctures. It left a trail of feathers. The empty fabric sagged but still kept out the wind.

 

The postcard would come weeks later, signed by both Bonnie and Adele. A vintage oil painting with
GERMANY!
across the top—a church in the far background, futuristic neon in the foreground, boxy cars rushing in between. A phone number, an e-mail address, and these words:
Come to Berlin, sister.

 

I watched them from far away, in a small crowd gathered across the street. A few police cars stood between us and the field of candles, under a barren, starless sky. Thin paper skirts between their fists and the dripping wax, their faces wrapped in hoods and scarves and lit from below. A prayer, a plea for witnesses, a song. Silence. Silence settled in like a chill.

I waited as they blew out the lights, as the onlookers around me left and the shadows on the field spread out. Two of them walked toward me, stopped short.

“You came,” John said.

 

Something quiet and solemn between us now. I slept with them in their bed that night, a heap of blankets on a foam mattress on the floor, huddled like nesting animals. The ambient lights of their phones and computers and music players glowed green and blue.

I woke sometime after midnight. I untangled from their limbs and went out into the living room, turning on one of their weak, opaque lamps. I'd spent the evening listening to them talk. Listing Dana in a long line of martyrs. Pulling out books they meant for me to read. The larger fight, against doctors and bureaucracy, against hate.

On the back cover of one of their manifestos, a close-up of a naked woman, spread-eagle on her back, showing the results of her surgery. I had started to tune out their voices. She was perfect. She held her lips open with her fingers, staring straight into the camera, straight at me, with an expression of pure joy.

I'd taken the slim book out from under Eileen's fingers to look closer. “It's not just about that,” Eileen had said. “You don't have to look like that to be a woman. That's not what being a woman means.”

I passed through the living room, sliding on my shoes, leaving my coat. I shut the door quietly and stood on the steps of their walkup, away from the close, lulling heat of John's and Eileen's bodies, alert in the cold.

I took out my phone.

“Hello?”

“Helen?”

“Peter? What's wrong? Is Mother okay?”

“Everything's fine,” I said.

The air was heavy, smelled of wet steel: the snow was coming, the one that would last for months, the one that buries, that always wins. After a moment, Helen said, “Does no one in this family sleep?”

“Bonnie went to Europe,” I said.

“To visit Adele?”

“Not only that. But yes.”

“That's nice.”

I paused, uncertain what I wanted to say.

“You know,” Helen said, “even though it was hell most of the time, I kind of liked having Bonnie live with me, back in Los Angeles. Christ, that was a long time ago, wasn't it? I had this stupid idea, when I bought the house, that . . .” She trailed off. “Never mind.”

“No, what?”

“I thought . . . I figured someday I'd buy an even bigger house, and that house, the one in California, it would be our summer place. All four of us. Like, maybe we'd retire there, a bunch of randy old ladies on the beach. It was that kind of place.” Her tone curdled. “It was all wrong for me. Too far from the city, too many little rooms. The yard had all these motherfucking
flowers
—”

“I had the same idea,” I said.

A beat passed. “It doesn't matter now,” she said. “I sold it.”

The land between us, five states, the Eastern Seaboard, a border. Helen felt near, a voice in the dark.

In John and Eileen's bedroom window, I thought I saw a flicker of movement. I shivered. “I should go.”

“Sure. Good night.”

The light came on in their room. They were probably wondering where I was. They'd looked younger asleep, their faces smooth in the blue and green blaze of idling electronics. The right people to help me, to guide me through whatever came next. And yet. “It's not just about that,” Eileen had said. Not just about me and my body. There were marches, vigils, hate crimes, unjust laws, a world that needed education. There were other people like me and Claire and Dana. There were the forces that had crushed us.

I walked down the stairs. It was still just about that, for me. Let them fight their war. I appreciated it. But I'd fought long enough. I wanted to go home. I would send them a letter, apologizing for this last act of cowardice. I would send them a picture.

 

Guangzhou and Beijing. Father in an airport, after his father bribed a doctor and a bureaucrat and a friend in Hong Kong who pretended to be a relative. The waiting plane gleams on the tarmac, propellers roaring, louder than God. Go, his father says. Go and be reborn.

 

Four grown women sit in a pub, raising their tourist steins to the camera. The waiter who holds the camera comments on how much they look alike. “We're sisters,” Bonnie says. “
Wir sind Schwestern.
This is Adele, Helen, and Audrey.”

Thanks to:

Keith Maillard and andrea bennett, my ideal readers, who understand me and my work as every writer longs to be understood; Linda Svendsen, Andreas Schroeder, and Kaitlin Fontana, for their practical advice and sustaining faith, and for repeatedly putting their names on the line; Ben Rawluk, Erika Thorkelson, Tetsuro Shigematsu, Bill Radford, Melissa Sawatsky, Kevin Spenst, Karen Shklanka, Meredith Hambrock, Margret Bollerup, Lauren Forconi, Emily Urness, Indrapramit Das, Emily Davidson, Chris Urquhart, Sigal Samuel, Michelle Deines, Taylor Brown-Evans, Anna Maxymiw, Jay Torrence, Nancy Lee, Ray Hsu, Deborah Campbell, Steven Galloway, and all the staff and students of the UBC MFA program for their talent, support, friendship, humor, alcohol tolerance, long hours, and all-around brilliance. I love you all.

Lauren Wein, Lorissa Sengara, and my agent, Jackie Kaiser, who saw the book as I wanted it to be, helped me get it there, and fought for that vision at every step; Tracy Roe, Stephanie Fysh, and everyone at HMH, HCC, RHA, and WCA; the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, for their financial support.

My loving family, who set an incredibly high bar for excellence just by living, and understand when I need to approach the bar sideways; Tim Mak and Jacob Sheehy, whose thought-provoking conversation and lifelong, globe-hopping friendship inspired much of this book.

My husband, John-Paul Lobos, who is everything.

 

K
IM
F
U
was born in 1987 and holds a master of fine arts degree from the University of British Columbia. She lives in Seattle.