None of the Above(10)

“You’re kidding, right?” If I opened the door, would I see Vee pressed up against it, holding back laughter? Or maybe it was one of my track teammates. They were always playing pranks, like the time they tricked Lana Weissmuller into thinking that our assistant coach had the hots for her.

But no one jumped in yelling, “Surprise!” The only sound in the room was the hum of the forced-air heating, until I heard Dr. Johnson take in a deep breath. “Kristin, I’m so sorry. This is a lot to absorb. And I don’t mean to imply that this is definitely what you have, but your exam and history all point to it. . . .”

I still didn’t understand what “it” was. “What do you mean?” The roaring sound grew louder, and I raised my voice so I could hear myself. “What do you mean that I’m a hermaphrodite?” Saying the word, my voice broke off into a whisper.

Dr. Johnson winced. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have used that term—it’s quite antiquated. The better term to use is intersex.” She reached over to the ultrasound machine and tore off a little strip of paper with a picture that looked like a fuzzy black cloud.

“You see this here? Usually you can see the uterus behind your bladder. But I can’t see anything. And those hernias you have? I think there may actually be male gonads—testes—in them. Of course I’ll have to do more labs. A karyotype—that’s when we look at your chromosomes to see whether you are XX or XY—blood hormone levels and things like that. And Kristin, do you mind if I call in a family member, just so you can have someone else here with you?” She looked through my chart, where I had put my emergency contact information. “I’ll have my nurses call your dad.”

I nodded, and closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them again I would wake up, but when I did, Dr. Johnson was still there, frowning at me under the unforgiving fluorescent lights.

I closed my eyes again.

“Kristin, are you okay?” Dr. Johnson touched my arm and I twisted away, wincing at the pain between my legs as I moved. Dreams weren’t supposed to hurt, right?

But real life did. Oh, did it ever.

Dr. Johnson’s nurse came in with some test tubes and a tourniquet and drew my blood. After that, I don’t know how long I sat around in a daze while I waited for my father.

My cell buzzed and I looked down to see a text from Sam.

What’s up? Didn’t see you during lunch.

My panic rose up like a tidal wave. What was I going to tell him? What was I going to do? I could feel the muscles in my throat tighten, felt a sour taste at the base of my tongue the way you do just before you throw up.

After a while one of Dr. Johnson’s nurses came in to see if I wanted a magazine while I waited. What I really wanted was to know how the f*ck I was going to tell my boyfriend that I had testicles.

On the chair, my phone buzzed again. I didn’t want to, but I picked it up.

You okay? said Sam’s text.

My hands trembled as I keyed in the vaguest response I could think of:

Had a Drs appt. CU later?

Okay. Love you.

For a second I was able to hold it together. Two seconds. Then all the love and guilt and the fear that things would never be okay again overcame me, and I sobbed alone, in a cold room that smelled of antiseptic, with nothing but a crumpled-up paper gown to hold on to.

I was curled up in the fetal position when my dad came in, and I could hear him right away as he yelled in the hallway, “Where’s my daughter? What’s wrong with her?” and all of a sudden my brain went into overdrive. Was I still my dad’s daughter, or should he start calling me his son?

I stood up when he came in. As soon as he saw me, his face collapsed with relief, like he had been worried that I’d been paralyzed or something.

“You didn’t tell me you had a doctor’s appointment,” he said breathlessly.

“I just had some weird bleeding, that’s all.” That was the best story I had come up with while I waited.

“God damn it,” my dad groused. He got irritable when he had to deal with anything medical. “The doctor said it wasn’t anything serious. But it’s obviously serious if she had to interrupt my work.”

Then Dr. Johnson came in. It took her half an hour to explain things to my dad.

And that was the worst part of the whole day: seeing the parade of expressions that marched across my dad’s face as he heard the news. First confusion. Then shock and revulsion. And then all the emotions seemed to neutralize each other and he just looked empty. Shattered.

When everything was said and done, Dr. Johnson reached over to put her hand on my dad’s knee. “Mr. Lattimer, I just want to reiterate: the bottom line is that Kristin is perfectly fine. And while I’m relatively certain about the diagnosis, we still need to get the results of some blood tests to confirm everything. I’m also going to send Kristin to a specialist to see whether any surgery needs to be done about those hernias.”

“Why would she need surgery?” my dad asked suspiciously.

“Well, in some cases, the gonads are more prone to developing cancer. . . .”

“Cancer?” My dad’s voice cracked.

“It happens in fewer than one in one hundred people,” Dr. Johnson said, as if that were supposed to make me feel any better, “and usually only in much older individuals. But some doctors do recommend a gonadectomy, or removal of the testes.”