Bad to the Bones(73)

“Look what Knoxie just gave me. Yes, it’s true. I’m going to get my passport photo taken!”

Knoxie escorted me outside once I put the earrings on and the box away. My dad was probably waiting with Ginny in my side of the hangar, where my mechanic’s tools were. We paused to shake the hand of Mann Montana, schmoozing with the constituents who had powered his rise to mayor. Needless to say, Bihari’s candidate slunk out of sight on Election Day, although Montana still buried the other candidates by a wide margin.

I smiled when the red-headed clown Kneecap tried to shake Montana’s hand and Knoxie rudely shouldered him aside. Some things never changed. My dad and Ginny stood in the hangar doorway, not quite comfortable with the rowdy crowd, outsiders in a strange land.

My dad was taking me to get my first adult identification as “Bellamy Jager.” Knoxie and I were going to the Virgin Islands for our honeymoon. Up until now, I’d been living a double life, never sure if I was Asanga or Bella.

I was combining and melding all the formerly scattered parts of myself. I realized as I looked around that I had gathered all the good parts of my life around me and had done away with the bad. Rhetta and Gia were here to remind me that seven years at Bihari hadn’t vanished completely. My sister and dad let me know that my birth family wasn’t utterly f*cked.

It was my new family, the Bare Bones family, that let me know I’d never be alone again.

I have an identity now. I’m firmly rooted in this reality.