Laurustina

There’s that half-conscious moment, when you wake on the heels of a crisis or a loss or some life-changing event, and you don’t yet remember that thing which weighed heavily upon you the night before, and it is this little gift of blissful calm…a hundred-thousand people have noted it, and not without reason. It is that snippet, that half-breath, that brief, but blessed reprieve we all long for, after the fact.

The first moments of the morning of Day Two, round-about six a.m., they were like that. Gloriously shrouded and blissfully unaware of the events of Day One. I suspect it will be a long, long time before I forget the ease of the first moments of Day Two, when ever so briefly, I was still the mother of a snarly fifteen-year-old boy.

Reality seeps in slowly between the 6:05 and 6:15 alarm beeps. I fall out of bed and the collie bitch follows me down the hall. She’s jumpy in the morning, whining and pawing and generally exuding this nervous energy I’ve never quite understood.

We find G.T. curled on the giant couch in the living room, a feather blanket flopped over him and an old movie still queued on the DVD. Chloe whimpers and licks G.T.’s cheek. I pull her back by the collar, before she accidentally claws, and we stand there, the dog and I, staring down at this snoring child.

Dogs know their own by scent. When Chloe noses G.T., there is no question. Me, I can’t help but examine him as he sleeps., and the only way I can think to even try to explain how I looked at him that morning, is all wrapped up in this lenticular animation button I had from Disneyland when I was a kid. I actually still have the button, tucked away in this heart-shaped box that holds all manner of treasures. It was one of those Disney Magic kind of things, flashing Mickey if you tilted it just-so and then Minnie of you tilted it the opposite direction.

Seeing Ashlie, snoring there on the couch on the morning of Day Two wasn’t all that hard. Tilt your vision and expectations a notch or two, and there she was. My Minnie. Tilt it back, and there she wasn’t. I watched Chloe nuzzle her cheek, all intimate and nonchalant and there was this part of me that was jealous at the simplicity of it.

What I mean to say, I think, is that now, on day Thirty-Four, I can tell you without bullshitting either one of us, that I wake up in the morning knowing what I knew the night before and not feeling some horrific loss. Also, I can wake up in the morning, roll out of bed, pad down the hall with my collie bitch at my heels, poke my head through G.T.’s bedroom door and automatically tilt that Disney Magic button to check in on my Minnie, sacked out and snoring right through her alarm.

Somehow, i managed to make dinner. don’t remember what it was, some nondescript kind of slop i suspect. People ate. Laundry was washed. The garbage went out and the dogs were fed. But through it all, a hundred-some-odd questions were cycling through my head.

G.T. had retreated to his bedroom the moment dinner was over and the last thing I wanted to do was break in on him, so i waited. And I wrestled. Finally, at 9 p.m., I fell across the bed and let Keith Olberman ramble in my ear. Not ten minutes in, here he came, my sidling baby boy, watching me watch the screen, leaning purposefully against the heavy cherry dresser and casually asking, “Is there anything you want to know?”

I muted the television and rolled from my stomach onto my side, giving G.T. my full attention. His expression was wide and playful, almost mischievous. It was, quite honestly, the last expression I expected. Was there anything I wanted to know? Of course there was. But was there anything I was ready to ask. Those were two very different questions. I dove in and tried to navigate these uncharted waters.

me: how long have you felt like this?
g.t.: five, maybe six years.
me: is this because my friend Bette seems so cool?
g.t.: no. i mean, she’s cool, but no.
me: what can i do?
g.t.: you can start by calling me Ashlie.
me: wow
g.t.: what?
me: Ashlie?
g.t.: yeah
me: i guess i wasn’t expecting something quite so girlie
g.t.: well i’m a girl
me: ok, but couldn’t you just stick with your middle name? it’s kinda unisex, ya know.
g.t.: i’m not going for unisex
me: fair enough
g.t.: and i want hormones
me: estrogen?
g.t.: eventually…anti-androgens would be a start
me: anti-androgens? isn’t that what Pops is taking for the cancer?
g.t.: yep
me: well now at least i know why you were all hip to his med regime
g.t.: what else?
me: and there’s not some freaky drug thing, where teenagers are snorting anti-androgens or estrogen to get high?
g.t.: of course not
me: ok

I googled it later anyway, because I’m non-trusting like that. Or maybe because I wanted that easy-ass explanation, which would fit with everything I thought I knew about this child. And just so you know, The Google has nothing on +”estrogen” +getting high”. And I couldn’t help but wonder, late late at night, if I was the only person who had ever felt the need to check that out.

On Mondays, I pick G.T. up from therapy at 3:30 p.m. Sometimes I get there and he’s already outside waiting. Other days, he’s not, and I go up the rickety stairs and sit in the outer office and read old magazines while he and his therapist roll into an overtime session.

He’s been seeing her for eight months, and for the most part, they have a great relationship. She is unfazed by his over-the-top drug stories and calls him on his bullshit. She doesn’t buy the long list of prior diagnostic labels and has gone out of her way to talk him off a variety of cliffs. I trust that and have continued to shell out the weekly co-pay, despite the fact that they haven’t had what one would call a major breakthrough.

Until today, when I come up the rickety stairs, expecting to finish that interview with Salman Rushdie in a 2005 Vanity Fair, only to find the door to the inner sanctum opening as I enter the waiting room.

“We’ve been waiting for you”, she says, gesturing me into the office, plush with comfortable chairs and tactile toys. G.T. is curled into the chair near the window. He doesn’t look up, but continues to roll a squishy tube filled with silver stars through his fingers. I sink into the seat beside him and pick up a plastic frog from the basket between us. It is one of those toys, which belches a portion of plastic when its body is squeezed, in the frog’s case, a pink pouch of mouth. I flex and unflex, repeating the belching sound and movement, as the therapist settles into her chair.

She rambles through some brief opening, which I honestly don’t remember, and then she says; G.T. asked me to tell you what he revealed to me when he came in here today. Basically, he sat down and said, “I know why I’m always angry. It’s because I’m sad. And I know why I’m always sad. It’s because I’m a girl.”

I belch the frog unintentionally and glance at G.T.. He’s looking out the window, still rolling the tube full of stars through his fingers, except now he’s smirking, lips twisted, wide but shut, like he’s biting them on the inside. And I think; of all the things I ever imagined might lay at the core of this child, might account for the anger and depression, the drug abuse and self-harm, the violence and suicidal tenancies, I never ever saw THIS coming.

I don’t remember the exact words with which I broke the silence in that room, but it was something like; Anything I ever did to make it worse or to make you feel bad, I’m sorry for. G.T. still won’t look at me, but the therapist is staring, open-mouthed, like I’m a dog who just performed some trick she hadn’t even thought to teach me.

The rest of the meeting is a blur. There is some stipulation about me not mentioning this revelation to anyone until G.T. is ready. I agree, without fully considering the burden of such a thing. And then, there we are, descending the stairs and climbing into the car, me sneaking sidelong glances at this fifteen-year-old stranger and G.T., sans-squishy-star-thing, still awkwardly smirking and still, staring out the window.

“Of all the things,” I tell him, “I never ever would have imagined this.”
“I know.” he whispers.
“You’re not just fucking with me?” i have to ask.
“I am not fucking with you.” he answers.
“Ok then.” i say, and we are on our way.