Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides [222]
But the synonym pursued her. All the way out the door and down the steps between the stone lions, Webster’s Dictionary kept calling after her, Monster, Monster! The bright banners hanging from the tympanum proclaimed the word. The definition inserted itself into billboards and the ads on passing buses. On Fifth Avenue a cab was pulling up. Her father jumped out, smiling and waving. When Callie saw him, her heart lifted. The voice of Webster’s stopped speaking in her head. Her father wouldn’t be smiling like that unless the news from the doctor had been good. Callie laughed and sprinted down the library steps, almost tripping. Her emotions soared for the time it took to reach the street, maybe five or eight seconds. But coming closer to Milton, she learned something about medical reports. The more people smile, the worse the news. Milton grinned at her, perspiring in pinstripes, and once again the tragedy cuff link glinted in the sun.
They knew. Her parents knew she was a monster. And yet here was Milton, opening the car door for her; here was Tessie, inside, smiling as Callie climbed in. The cab took them to a restaurant and soon the three of them were looking over menus and ordering food.
Milton waited until the drinks were served. Then, somewhat formally, he began. “Your mother and I had a little chat with the doctor this morning, as you are aware. The good news is that you’ll be back at home this week. You won’t miss much school. Now for the bad news. Are you ready for the bad news, Cal?”
Milton’s eyes were saying that the bad news was not all that bad.
“The bad news is you have to have a little operation. Very minor. ‘Operation’ isn’t really the right word. I think the doctor called it a ‘procedure.’ They have to knock you out and you have to stay overnight in the hospital. That’s it. There’ll be some pain but they can give you painkillers for it.”
With that, Milton rested. Tessie reached out and patted Callie’s hand. “It’ll be okay, honey,” she said in a thickened voice. Her eyes were watery, red.
“What kind of operation?” Callie asked her father.
“Just a little cosmetic procedure. Like getting a mole removed.” He reached out and playfully caught Callie’s nose between his knuckles. “Or getting your nose fixed.”
Callie pulled her head away, angry. “Don’t do that!”
“Sorry,” said Milton. He cleared his throat, blinking.
“What’s wrong with me?” Calliope asked, and now her voice broke. Tears were running down her cheeks. “What’s wrong with me, Daddy?”
Milton’s face darkened. He swallowed hard. Callie waited for him to say the word, to quote Webster’s, but he didn’t. He only looked at her across the table, his head low, his eyes dark, warm, sad, and full of love. There was so much love in Milton’s eyes that it was impossible to look for truth.
“It’s a hormonal thing, what you’ve got,” he said. “I was always under the impression that men had male hormones and women had female hormones. But everybody has both, apparently.”
Still Callie waited.
“What you’ve got, see, is you’ve got a little too much of the male hormones and not quite enough of the female hormones. So what the doctor wants to do is give you a shot every now and then to get everything working right.”
He didn’t say the word. I didn’t make him.
“It’s a hormonal thing,” Milton repeated. “In the grand scheme of things, no big deal.”
Luce believed that a patient of my age was capable of understanding the essentials. And so, that afternoon, he did not mince words. In his mellow, pleasing, educated voice, looking directly into my eyes, Luce declared that I was a girl whose clitoris was merely larger than those of other girls. He drew the same charts for me as he had for my parents. When I pressed him on the details of my surgery, he said only this: “We’re going to do an operation to finish your genitalia. They’re