Expo Summer


A Dawning of Hope
Copyright © 2000 by Kim EM
All rights reserved

This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between this story and any actual person, living or dead, is coincidental. Really it is. No, honest. Yup. Yup.

The story may contain adult situations and/or language. If you're not old enough to legally read this (and you know who you are), then get out of here before it's too late. You've been warned.

Permission is granted to archive or repost this story as long as the text is unaltered, and my copyright and this notice are included. Oh, and this permission is conditional upon it's being available only on free sites. No membership fee, "Adult Check", or other means of skinning money out of people are allowed.

I'd love to hear from any readers with comments. Email me at kim@kimem.net

This part of the story is dedicated to Kim Hanson, a friend, co-worker, and great role model. And yes, I did steal her name. So there.

Previously:

As he neared the door, he turned back to me. "By the way, I never did ask. If... no, when you are accepted as a girl, what name did you have in mind for yourself?"

That didn't require any thought at all. "Kimberly. I'm Kimberly."

He came back, took my hand, and said, "Kimberly, I'm glad to meet you."

Chapter Seven: THE MORNING AFTER

At least I was in a 'normal' room. Two beds, with genuine bedding (be still, my trembling heart), a strange wheeled table, and a chair. It wasn't home, but compared to the cell I'd been in the night before, it was pure luxury.

And honestly, it was boring as all get-out. I wasn't much of a TV watcher, and there were no books or magazines. There wasn't much of anyone to talk with, even if I'd been in a sociable mood. The unit was mostly empty, and the others there seemed to have problems that dwarfed mine. If nothing else, they wore their problems on the outside.

I won't go into detail about what they were up to. I'm sure that whatever you imagine would pale alongside the actuality. I stuck to my room. Honestly, I was a bit frightened to spend time in the rest of the unit.

I was laying there, staring at the ceiling, thinking again about the unfairness of life, when my parents walked in. Mom rushed in and threw her arms around me, crying and telling me how frightened she's been. Dad just stood there beside the bed, his eyes closed as he tried to suppress his own sobs.

I could hardly believe their reaction. I expected them to be angry, ready to disown me for what I'd done to them. Instead, they were treating me like I'd just returned from the dead.

Mom still held me, refusing to let me go in case I might disappear. "Thank God you're safe."

"Mom, I..."

"Why did you run away? The doctor said you were ready to kill yourself..."

"Mom, I..."

"...how could you even think of such a thing?"

I held onto mom for dear life, squeezing her and sobbing into her shoulder.

***

We talked, and I told them everything. And they told me a few things.

"When you vanished, the police did some checking, and it turned out that a number of people saw you escorted out of the mall. Tom McAddams, Chris Libby, John Truman were picked up and questioned, and Truman finally admitted to being part of the beating."

"You mean..."

"They were arrested and are being held for the beating... both beatings."

I felt a whole lot better.

"If you had... hurt yourself... it would have been all for nothing."

I guess I hadn't explained things as well as I thought.

"Dad, that's not why...

"Don't you _get_ it?" Mom chipped in.

Dad looked blank for a moment. Then his face went ashen as he realized the reason. "God, no." He sat heavily in the one visitor's chair. "This is all my fault."

"It's not your fault, it's mine. I'm the freak, the one with nothing to live for."

He wouldn't meet my eyes. "You're not a freak. And it is my fault. I wanted to follow that... quack's advice, and make you forget about being a girl. I told you we weren't going to do anything to help."

"Dad-"

"And you almost killed yourself over it."

Mom looked over at him, still holding me while I clung to her. "It's nobody's fault. You both want to blame yourselves, but it's not important who did what. What we have to do now is figure out what to do next."

"The doctor said that there are some things they can do."

Mom and I both looked at dad.

Chapter Eight: NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN

"So, how was your dinner?"

Doctor Wayne breezed into the room. Mom and Dad and I had just finished eating, if that's the right word for it. Is there supposed to be a therapeutic value in lime Jell-O?

I was feeling a lot better after the afternoon with my parents... maybe they were finally catching on. But I still wasn't totally convinced that the doctor would be willing to help me, let alone able. I was going to keep my options open for a while longer.

Dad grimaced and said, "Well, it's not home cooking."

The doctor laughed. "It's our way of trying to convince the patients to go home."

"It's working," I contributed.

He perched himself on the other bed. "I assume you've all had a chance to air things out?"

"We've talked," I said, "but I'm not sure everything's been worked out."

"It'll take a lot more than one day to work everything out. All I was hoping for today was for the three of you to air your feelings."

Dad got up from his chair and walked over to the window. He stood a long moment, staring down at the parked cars below. "If you think he should be changed, I won't stand in the way." His voice was quiet, subdued, as though he was finally realizing what that meant. "I'd rather he became my daughter than..." His voice broke.

Mom went to him, putting an arm around his waist. "All we want is what's best for him. With this, I don't think either of us know what's best."

The doctor leaned forward just a bit. "I'm here to help, but in the end it has to be the two of you making the decision. I'll do what I can to get to the root of the matter, and give you my best advice." He rose to his feet. "And now, I hate to be a pain, but I'm going to need some time alone."

Mom looked puzzled for a moment, then got it. "I suppose we should be heading for home."

***

"I.. I just don't know. I don't want to kill myself. I really don't. But what else can I do? I'm not going to grow up into a man."

The doctor had been asking me a lot of questions about my growing up, including a lot of the same questions from this morning, just asked differently. I suppose I really wasn't supposed to notice. I didn't get mad, though, I was too upset to care about things like that. He'd just asked me what I would do if the conclusion was that they should do nothing.

That was enough to make my heart sink. I was starting to get some hope back, with the idea that maybe he did have a way to make my body over into a girl's. But now... I didn't want to go to hell, but anything would be better than this.

I'd have to be careful with what I said, though. As long as he thought I might do something, he'd keep me there, where I couldn't do anything.

"...ear me?" I suddenly realized that he'd been talking.

"I'm sorry, I was thinking."

"And from the expression on your face, you weren't thinking very nice things."

I reddened a bit.

"Not very nice. If I'm not a woman, I really don't know if I can go on..." I clapped my hands over my mouth. *DAMN* Would I ever learn to shut up?

"You honestly don't believe there's any way you could live as a man and be happy? None at all?"

I couldn't meet his eyes. "There's no way I could live as a man, period."

"That's not good. If we were to assist you in transitioning, what would you like to see happen?"

I fell to the bed, a pillow clutched to my chest. "Don't play with me. You keep saying 'if'. If I should be a girl. If you were to assist. Do you have ANY IDEA what it's like to have the wrong body? This isn't a game, or something I just thought of... I'm a girl. I've always been a girl. I will always be a girl! Whether you help or not isn't going to change that. I'm not a boy, no matter what my body looks like. And one way or another I won't grow up to be a man!"

I broke down into the pillow, sobbing and miserable. If he couldn't tell that I was serious, that this wasn't just the game of an eleven-year-old, then I was lost.

"Bill... Kimberly." Gently. "I'm not playing with you. What you want me to do... it's something that can't be undone. I have to be dead certain that it's right before I tell your parents."

I could hardly force the words out. "I know. Do what you... have to. But if you can't help, then there's nothing...."

"Nothing for you. I understand."

And with that, he silently left.

Chapter Nine: DRESSED FOR SUCCESS

I was far out in the lake, the shore a distant line on the horizon. But every time I stopped swimming I discovered that the water was only a few feet deep. How far out was I going to have to go? I rolled over in the water and felt the waves wrap around me.

Wrap around me? As I sat up, the water suddenly turned firm.

*Damn* Why was I waking up so early?

***

The days had turned into a dull routine. I'd lay around the room, reading and thinking, occasionally venturing out into the unit. Saturday and Sunday Mom and Dad had been up to visit for the afternoon. In the evenings, Doctor Wayne would stop by and we'd talk about things. After a few days he stopped concentrating on my being a girl, and we started talking about my interests, my grades, and how I felt about the world in general.

Almost two weeks had passed, with nothing much happening. Then one day he walked into the room in mid-morning.

"Good morning." He had an enigmatic smile on his face, and a paper sack in his hand. "I hope you don't mind my stopping here in the morning."

"Mornings are good. It gets awfully dull around here."

"Things usually go better when it's not exciting." There was a definite smile on his face, as though he knew a secret. "I want to try a little experiment this morning. I've got some clothes here. I'd like you to go into the bathroom and try them on, and then come back out here and show me."

Weird. I took the sack, and went into the bathroom. I closed the door behind me, and then looked into the bag. I immediately popped back out of the bathroom. "Are you sure about this?"

He calmly looked back at me. "Of course. Is it a problem?"

"NO!" and I was back into the bathroom in a flash.

In the bag was a full set of girl's clothing. I lay them out by the sink, and quickly stripped out of my male clothes. This would be pretty much a new experience for me. In the past I'd dressed in my mom's clothes when I was home alone, but since she was forty-five years older than me, as well as having a very different shape, it just wasn't the same.

I pulled on the panties. Then made a bulge that I knew wasn't appropriate, but I wasn't quite sure what to do about it. So I just reached down and pulled the bulge backwards, between my legs. It was uncomfortable, but at least it got rid of the bulge. I wondered what older people did to hide it. Hopefully by the time I got to that age it wouldn't be there any more.

No bra. Well, at my age it wasn't a problem. I fumbled with pulling on the pantyhose. Hmmm. Were the panties supposed to go on top or bottom?

Then came the shoes, a pair of the kind of shoes most schoolgirls wore at the time. Then came the dress. I looked in the mirror and my face fell. I looked like a boy in a dress. I'd imagined that I'd look just like a girl of my age, but with my painfully short hair, I looked woefully out of place.

I hesitantly stepped out of the bathroom, and walked to where the doctor sat. "I guess I didn't do so well. I looked in the mirror, and..." My voice broke.

"Please, sit down, Kimberly."

I moved to the side of the bed and perched, remembering to smooth the dress below me as I sat. "You don't need to tell me how silly I look."

"You don't look silly, not at all. You're worried because of the hair? Hair can grow out."

"Then what were you looking for? Why dress me up?"

"I wanted to see how you act in a dress. How you move, how you sit. I wanted to see how natural you are."

"And?" My heart was pounding.

"Okay, with the short hair you look pretty tomboyish." My heart sank again. "But if I didn't know that you've been brought up as a boy, I'd never have guessed that you were anything but a girl."

***

I'm not sure, but I don't think I've mentioned my nurse. Her first name was Helen, but for some reason the nurses don't like to tell the patients their last names. Strange.

Helen was nice enough, I suppose, but I really wasn't much in the mood for being sociable. That day, though, right after lunch she came in and said that I'd be having a visitor in a few minutes. This caught me by surprise... the only visitors I'd had were my parents, and they were allowed to come to my room unannounced.

"Who?" I was a bit worried... there were some people I wouldn't want to see. Like most of the people I knew.

"It's someone that Doctor Wayne wants you to see. We have a vendor who performs some services for patients that have lost their hair. It's important to them that they have natural looking hair when they leave, and this gentleman makes custom wigs and hairpieces."

I sat there, staring at her in wonder. "And the doctor wants me to..."

"He wants you to be fitted for a wig, so that you can try interacting with others as a girl."

"He's not going to think I'm strange, will he? I mean, doing a girl's wig for a boy?"

"Why should you care what he thinks?"

"Because he might... he might..."

"He's just a man with a job to do," she pointed out. "Whether he thinks you're strange or not, he'll be professional and do his job. Besides, I'd bet he's seen a lot of strange things in this hospital."

Helen laughed quietly, and after a few moments I started snickering too.

"If it will make you feel any better you can put the dress back on for the..."

The rest of her statement faded away as the bathroom door slammed shut.

***

The wigmaker was a tall, thin, fussy-looking man. He didn't seem to have much personality, but then I wasn't really interested in being friends with him, anyway.

"Okay, to start with, Kimberly, I need to know what color you'd like your hair."

"Can't I just have it be my own color?"

He sighed. "Of course, if that's what you want. I'll need to take a sample for matching."

"You mean cut some of it off?"

"That's the only way I know to do it."

I reached up and patted my hair. It was short enough already, and here he wanted to take more off. "Couldn't you just use the name of the color? Everyone tells me that mine is strawberry blonde."

"And so it is. But what you call strawberry blonde covers an entire range of shades and textures. Without the sample there is simply no way to get a match." He rolled his eyes when he thought I wasn't looking. "Things would be so much easier if you just wanted a standard hair color."

"No. I want my hair to look like _my_ hair."

"Then I need a hair sample."

*Grrr...*

Hesitantly I allowed him to clip a lock from the nape of my neck. He carefully placed the hair into a small glass vial, and placed it into his case. He looked back up at me as though there were something sour in the room.

"I don't suppose you have decided upon a hair style?"

"Long."

"How did I know?" He reached into his case and brought out a fat book, full of close-ups of women with different hair styles. "You'll need to select something for me to use as the pattern for your new hair."

I started thumbing through the book. Each style I liked, he rejected, telling me that it was wrong for the shape of my face.

Finally I picked one that he didn't turn away. It was a longer style, the sides pulled back from my face and bangs down to my eyebrows. The ends were trimmed to a uniform length, the back flowing past my shoulders to mid-back.

"This may work for you. The length is somewhat more than fashionable, but styles have been getting longer recently. It may just be that styles will catch up with you soon."

***

Somehow I thought that I'd have hair that day, but it actually took three days for him to return with the wig.

His disposition hadn't improved one bit, but I didn't care. He had a large round box with him, and in it was the most glorious hair I'd ever seen. Taking it out of the box, it looked perfect. All it was missing was a head, and I was going to supply that part.

He fussed with the wig, combing and brushing it, getting it ready to attach. Finally he was ready. My patience was about at its breaking point.

He put the wig on my head, I looked into the mirror, and for the first time I saw... me.

Chapter Ten: LITTLE BOY LOST

I had only the one outfit, but every day I'd wash it, and wear it as often as possible. Saturday morning I sat in the chair, dressed as myself, the wig firmly attached to my scalp, half-dozing and enjoying finally being me.

I heard a gasp from the doorway, and when I opened my eyes I could see my parents at the door, their eyes wide and their jaws down someplace around their knees.

"Billy?"

"Not any more, Mom. I'm Kimberly now."

"This is what you meant? What you wanted?" Mom slowly walked into the room, looking me up and down. "Stand up, Honey, and let me see you."

As I stood and slowly turned for her inspection, I framed my answer. "Part of it, but only a part. This is just clothes. Inside the dress I'm still the same as I was before. That's got to change before I'm really me."

Dad was still standing in the doorway, still gaping. "Jesus."

Mom wasn't about to let that pass. "Bill!"

"He looks... I didn't think it was possible. He really does look like a girl!"

Mom agreed. "He? I don't see a 'he'. All I can see is a girl. If there's this dramatic a difference with just a change of clothing, then we've got to seriously consider that he... she may be right."

Dad opened his arms and said, "Come over here, Honey."

As I rushed into his arms I realized that dad had never called me that before. 'Honey' was mom's special name for me, but dad had always just called me 'Billy'.

Dad held me closely in his arms and looked down at me. "This is really what you want? You really want to be changed into a girl? Forever?"

I sniffled into his shirt. "Y... Yes. It's what I was meant to be."

Dad looked up at mom, and she gave an almost invisible nod. "We're going to talk with Doctor Wayne a bit later. Let's see what he has to say. I'm not making any promises, but if he agrees that this is right, we'll find out what the next step in your treatment is."

I lost it at that point. Bawling helplessly into his chest, it was all I could do to blubber out "Thank you, Daddy, thank you."

***

It was a long wait that afternoon. I had to wait in my lonely room while mom and dad went down the hall to the conference room with the doctor. They took a loooong time. I couldn't tell if that was good or bad.

Finally Helen walked in and told me that they wanted to see me in the conference room. I walked slowly down the hall, as though I was heading to my execution.

As Helen showed me into the conference room my mouth was dry and I was starting to feel a bit light-headed. Doctor Wayne gestured for me to have a seat at the head of the table.

Helen left and closed the door firmly behind her. I felt trapped, caught in the crossfire of everyone's gaze. I really couldn't tell from their expressions what the outcome had been.

They all looked at me for a long moment. I couldn't take the suspense any longer and croaked, "Well?"

Doctor Wayne took the lead. "Are you certain that this is what you want for your life? If you had to make a decision this instant about your future, what would you decide?"

"You need to ask? I'm a girl, and I want my body to match."

"Even if there's no going back? Ever?"

"Especially if there's no going back. I don't want to ever be a boy again. Not. Ever."

Dad sighed and reluctantly started talking. "We've discussed this from every possible angle, and I think that we're agreed that this is the right thing for you. It's not going to be easy for any of us, but... but..." He trailed off.

Mom picked up the decision. "What your father is trying to say is that we want what's best for you. We know that you've never been happy since you were a small child, but we could never figure out why. Now we know. If this will help you to like yourself... and especially to stay alive, then how can we refuse to do what's needed?"

I broke down in joyous tears. It was going to happen, my body would become female and I'd grow up a woman. ***

It seems to me, looking back at that time, that I did a LOT of crying. It was a very emotional time in my life, a period that has made all the difference.

Chapter Eleven: OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS

Sunday, the next day, I was allowed to leave the hospital. Mom had brought some more clothing, so I finally had a choice. Dad was still having a few problems adjusting, but he was doing his best and I was sure he'd get used to it soon. "Bill... um, Kim, are you going to be able to handle the embarrassment? People are going to say some pretty mean things to you. They're going to call you names, do whatever they can to make you feel bad. I want to be sure you know what you're getting into."

I stared at the skyline of the city a moment before answering. "I know, Daddy. But nobody liked me before, so why should I care what they think of me now?"

Dad shot me a quick look. "That's... I'm a bit surprised. That's a much more mature attitude than I'd have given you credit for."

I looked at the city for a second more, then dropped my eyes to my lap. "I've had a lot of time to think about this." I paused for a few seconds. "Besides, I'm not a child any more."

Mom turned to look wonderingly at me.

I explained, "I know, I'm only eleven. I'm going to be a seventh-grader in the fall. I know I've got a long way to go. But my childhood... ended... a month ago. On my way home from school..."

We were all silent for a moment, and then something occurred to me.

"Daddy, is this going to hurt your business?"

"I don't know. I hope not..." He forced a smile. "...but I've been making too much money anyway." Another silence. "When did you start calling me 'Daddy'?"

"It just seems to fit. You don't mind, do you?"

"No, I've just got to get used to it." He laughed ruefully. "I guess there's a lot of things we've got to get used to."

And with that the car was silent most of the way back home.

***

As we pulled off the new expressway, Mom turned to me and said "We're not heading straight for home."

A worried look came over me as I asked where we were going.

"We're going to stop at your grandmother's houses so they can meet their new granddaughter."

"Both?"

Dad added his piece. "I know, but it wouldn't be fair to not stop at Mother's."

I suppose I should explain. My dad's mother had lived a cursed life. When my dad was three years old, and his twin sisters were infants, his father had died of pneumonia. In the years before welfare, or any kind of assistance, Gram had brought up the three children by herself. After many hard years working, she deserved a comfortable retirement, and Dad had the money to give it to her.

Unfortunately, Gram started losing her mind. Literally. They called it premature senility, and she lived to a very old age... in 1967 she was in her early eighties. I never knew Gram, or at least the person she had been. Whenever we went over there, I had to be introduced to her all over again, and I could see how difficult if was for Dad. Senility had stolen her mind. Nowadays we'd call it Alzheimer's.

She still lived in her own house, and one of Dad's sisters lived with her, to be her full-time caretaker. My aunt, well, there's no polite way to describe her. She was about my height, but had to weigh well over three-hundred-fifty pounds. I always thought of her as a fat slob. I've seen her kitchen... she had bottles of mustard that were LARGER THAN MY HEAD!

Is it obvious that I didn't like her?

Her sister, theoretically a twin, was the nicest person you could ever hope to meet. I don't know if they developed into opposites because they were tired of being alike or what, but I knew which one I preferred.

***

We pulled up in front of Gram's house. I'm not sure why I was nervous. Gram wouldn't remember anything, and, if I didn't care what the rest of the world thought, that went double for my aunt.

When we got to the door, we didn't knock, Dad just pushed the door open and we went in. He grew up in that house, and Gram certainly wasn't complaining. My aunt was in the big chair in the middle of the living room, watching TV. Gram was sitting in a smaller, unpadded chair, near the corner, facing the cold, dark fireplace, nodding and smiling.

Dad started to lay into his sister about Gram's chair, when my aunt spotted me. At first she looked puzzled, and then she started laughing. She sank back into the chair, rocking and quivering. If they were ever taking applications for a female Santa, she would have qualified - except, of course, that she would have kept the gifts for herself and given the kids snakes and coal.

She laughed and pointed, trying to speak several times but failing, dissolving into helpless laughter.

It was too much for me. I broke down into hysterical tears, collapsing onto the floor, heedless of my surroundings.

***

I won't go into any more detail about that experience. Dad had to finally remind my aunt that HE was paying the bills for that household, and if she wanted to stay there, she's better stop laughing at his daughter.

From there, we headed across town to my other grandmother's house. Ma was eighty-one at the time, but from the way she acted you'd have sworn that she was about twenty.

I'd spent a lot of time at Ma's. Whenever my parents needed to be somewhere together, or needed a little privacy, they sent me over to Ma's. I liked it there. She made great food, told funny stories, and had this big old house to explore. What's not to like?

So when we got there, I was more than a bit nervous. I was just getting calmed down from my experience at Gram's, and I really wanted her approval. I cared about very few people's opinion of me, but Ma was one of the most important.

Mom tried to reassure me as we walked up the sidewalk. "Don't worry, Honey. I've been talking with her from the beginning, and your grandmother knows everything that's been happening. You don't have to be scared."

I sniffled a bit. "I know. It's just... I never expected that from Aunt Mar... why did she have to do that? "

Mom sighed. "I honestly don't know. She shouldn't have done that, but then again, your aunt can be a bit strange at times."

Again we entered without knocking. This was the house that Mom had grown up in, and she still considered it a second home.

Ma was sitting in her favorite chair, feet up on a hassock, buried deep in some sort of mystery novel. She looked up as we walked in, and she immediately faced me directly.

"Come over here and let me take a good look at you."

I hesitantly walked over next to the hassock and slowly turned so she would get a good look.

"And your name is Kimberly now?"

"Yes. And I'm-"

"Shhh. Come here."

Ma beckoned me and I came right up to her. She extended her arms and wrapped me in a big bear hug. "Welcome back, Honey." I broke down weeping again, but this time they were happy tears.

To Be Continued....
Author's Note:

Just a reminder. This is fiction. There are many autobiographical elements to this story, but it _is_ a story. This part is a whole lot more cheerful than part one, or at least it's supposed to be. It's not all sweetness and light, but the first crisis is past. And we haven't made it to the World's Fair yet.

- Kim