Almost Perfect - Brian Katcher [70]
As I half dozed for the rest of the trip, my thoughts floated back to Sage’s room. She’d never be a real woman to me. But damn, seeing her without her robe … that had been a definite wow moment.
If parking was bad downtown, it was awful on campus. The lot Laura had directed me to was full, and every other space had ominous warning signs about towing and impounding. Eventually, we parked on the roof of a parking garage about three blocks from Laura’s dorm.
I grabbed my bag from the backseat. I was going to take Sage’s, but she had already hefted her two suitcases with no effort. We started down the stairs to street level.
“So, tell me about your sister, Logan.”
“Well, she’s a year older than me, though sometimes it seems like twenty.”
Sage laughed. “C’mon. I talked to her on the phone. She didn’t seem old or boring at all.”
“It’s not that.” I paused to tie my shoe. “When Dad left … I was about four. Anyway, things were kind of rough. Mom was working double shifts, and then when she was home, she had two little kids to take care of. Not a lot of time to read bedtime stories or play catch.” I stood up, remembering.
“At any rate, Laura really mothered me. Told me stories, played with me, made sure I did my homework. She helped me stay out of trouble, at least until high school.”
We’d exited the garage and were trekking across a parking lot. I could tell we were on a college campus just by the bumper stickers: YOU CAN’T HUG YOUR CHILDREN WITH NUCLEAR ARMS. U.S. OUT OF ____. FLIP THE BIRD (a dig at the Kansas University Jayhawks).
I continued my story. “Things got a little better in the past few years, moneywise. But Laura still ran our household. Trailerhold. She made sure the bills got paid, went grocery shopping, took care of things. When she left … well, here Mom and I are, and we don’t have a lot to say to each other. It’s not that we’re distant, it’s just that … I dunno, we’ve just been living separate lives for so long. And I worry about what she’s going to do with herself when I leave.” Would Mom suffer from empty trailer syndrome? Would she finally start taking time for herself? Would she—I could hardly imagine it—go on dates?
Sage rumpled my hair. “Believe it or not, I know where you’re coming from. The whole time I was homeschooled, Tammi really stood up for me. When I first started to transition—” She suddenly stopped talking and walking. “Sorry.”
“Sage, it’s okay to talk about that.” Previously, Sage’s gender issues were the last thing I wanted to discuss. But maybe if she told me about her life as a boy, it would help remind me she wasn’t totally a girl.
Sage glanced around for eavesdroppers, and then we sat on a bench. “When I finally told everyone that I was a girl inside … there was talk of having me institutionalized.”
I had been staring at the observatory on top of the physics building, but her comment jolted me back to attention. “Like, the nuthouse?”
“Yeah. Mom and Dad didn’t know how to deal with me and decided I needed to be sent away for a cure. I’m not sure if they thought that was the best thing for me or if they were just that humiliated. But Tammi threw a fit. I mean, screaming, hollering, kicking the walls. She refused to let them send me away. Eleven years old. She knew what an embarrassment I’d be to the family, but she didn’t care.”
Sage seemed to be collapsing into herself. Knowing better, I draped an arm around her back. She laid her head on my shoulder. Well, technically, due to our height difference, my head was on her shoulder.
“So Tammi kept me out of the asylum. I spent four years almost never leaving our house, getting taught by my mother. Mom’s ashamed of what I’m doing, but she tries to make me happy. And you know how Dad feels.
“Tammi … she looked out for me. Before I was allowed to wear women’s clothes full-time, she’d buy me clothes and hide them in her closet. She’d help me