This Is How It Always Is(36)

“Claude Hole, Claude Hole, Claude Hole,” said Orion.

“Everyone out,” said Rosie. It was easier to do all the dishes herself for the next hour and a half, which is what it would take, than to listen to her family for one more minute. She realized she was teaching them that if they were enough of a pain in her ass, she’d take over all their chores. She’d live to regret it, but at that moment, nothing she could think of sounded more luxurious than doing seven people’s dinner dishes all by herself.

Penn stayed and helped and didn’t say a word. She was grateful for his help. She was more grateful for his silence. Rosie was up to her elbows in soapsuds, the entire front of her soaked with dishwater, when Roo came downstairs to sulk at the now cleared dining-room table.

“He wants his name to be Coco Chanel,” he said sullenly. “Doesn’t that worry you?”

Rosie turned the water up higher, but Penn left his towel and sat down with his eldest. “He liked the idea of a chocolate television station. It’s no big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” said Roo. “You keep pretending it isn’t, but it is. What about his … you know.”

“Penis?”

“Yeah.”

“We aren’t worried about that yet. Maybe this is a just a phase. Maybe it’ll pass.”

“But if it’s going to pass, why are you encouraging it?”

“How are we encouraging it?”

“You’re letting him wear girl clothes and play with girl things and grow out his hair.”

“Right, we’re letting him, not encouraging him.”

“Say no.”

“You’ll perhaps have noticed,” said Penn, “that that’s not how it works in our household. When we can, we say yes. To all of you. When we say no, you better believe it’s a serious no. We say no when you want to do something that might hurt you. Otherwise, we mostly say yes.”

“This might hurt him.”

“It might. But it seems, at the moment, to beat the alternative. At the moment, it seems to be what he thinks he needs.”

“But you said kids are bad decision makers.”

“When did I say that?”

“At dinner. You said kids can’t rename themselves because they’re bad decision makers. But if kids are such bad decision makers, why are you letting Claude decide to be something he’s not?”

“Because what if he is?” said Penn.

*

That night, after teeth and stories and lights out, after the boys were asleep and the dishes washed, dried, and put away and the homework checked and the backpacks packed and the lunches assembled, after Rosie and Penn were in bed with their own lights out, their bedroom door cracked and a voice whispered into the darkness, “I picked my new name.”

Rosie opened the blankets and scooted over toward Penn so that Claude could crawl in beside her. He put his head against her shoulder and seemed to fall right back to sleep.

“Claude?”

“Mmm?”

“Your new name?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“Poppy,” he said. “I want my new name to be Poppy.”

“Poppy?” Rosie whispered.

“Carmy says Jews name their babies after dead people they love. I never met Poppy, but I love her anyway.”

“You do?” Rosie was full of wonder.

“Yeah. Because she liked dolls. And because she was your favorite. I like dolls. And I want to be your favorite.”

“You are my favorite.” She nuzzled into his neck.

“Do you think Poppy is a good name?”

“I think Poppy is a perfect name.”





Push

As with so many things, this needed only a name to become real. A name and more hair. Mr. Tongo reported that lots of parents of kids like Claude went to court to change birth certificates and seal records, that lots of kids like Poppy switched schools so they could start over where no one knew who they really were so they could be, instead, who they really were. All that felt unnecessarily drastic to Rosie though because at this age, best she could tell, hair was all. Children with short hair were boys; children with long hair were girls. A penis-bearing child wanting to be a girl had only to name himself after his late aunt and grow his hair out for the transformation to be complete. She had, she figured, three, maybe four inches before Claude’s hair grew over his ears and she lost him, possibly forever. She would have, at last, the Poppy she’d always dreamed of. She just wasn’t ready yet.

They were stared at in restaurants though, at a table for seven, that had always been true. But she and Claude, running errands just the two of them, were stared at at the mall and the grocery store and the library too, and that was new. In those early days, with not-grown-out-yet hair, Claude still looked like a boy in a dress. Some fellow shoppers smiled at Rosie with admiration or maybe pity or maybe just empathy. (So they did not themselves have a little boy who wanted to be a girl; they were parents too, and it was always something.) But many frowned at her with undisguised disapproval. Some said to Poppy, “Don’t you look fancy?” or, “What a pretty dress,” or, heartfelt to Rosie, “What a beautiful child.” But others said loudly to each other as they passed, “Was that a boy or a girl?” or, “How do you let your kid do that?” or, “That mother should be shot.”