None of the Above(16)

Because she couldn’t have her own baby, I thought. It was selfish to think that adoption wasn’t as good. I knew that. But it didn’t change the way I felt, the gaping hole I could actually feel in my belly, as if I’d been the victim of some organ snatcher. Except I never had a womb to begin with.

“Krissy, promise me you’ll at least look at the website. You don’t have to email anybody. But they have a whole section for girls who have just learned their diagnosis. It’ll help. I swear.”

I looked up at my dad. Since I’d started high school, with both indoor and outdoor track, and year-round training, we hadn’t seen much of each other. He’d been switched to a six a.m. shift a few years ago and always went to bed at nine, so when I had late track practice we were ships passing in the night. When I did see him, I never really looked at him. I was surprised to see that his wrinkles had gotten deeper, the creases around his lips there even when he didn’t smile.

I could do this for him.

I closed my World History book, not taking my eyes from my dad. “I’ll go up and look at it now.”

It turned out that my dad was right. The internet was hope.

There was a group of women smiling at me from the landing page of the support-group website. I clicked on the JUST LEARNED tab with Frequently Asked Questions, the first of which was, “Am I really a girl?”

The answer was: “Yes you are, really!”


I know it’s not possible to hold your breath for a whole week, but when I read that line, it was as if I released a breath I’d been holding ever since Dr. Johnson had broken the news. It was only when I saw the answer on the screen in plain black and white that I started to think that maybe my life wouldn’t fall apart after all.

There were other questions that I hadn’t even formulated in my mind, and more answers. I felt tears prickle in my eyes when I read the very next one:



What do I tell my partner, family, friends?

Nothing today; wait until you’re fully informed, and then gradually share when it’s safe and you’re ready.



That part was less helpful. What did that even mean? How could you tell when it was safe? It wasn’t like people went around with tolerance meters that you could monitor, or signs saying, “Welcome, hermaphrodites!”

Down at the bottom of the page, there was a picture of a girl holding a brown-and-black terrier. Or maybe it was a stuffed animal—I couldn’t tell. The girl had blond shoulder-length hair, and a great smile. Underneath the photo there was a letter from the girl, from a real, live girl with AIS who lived in Maryland. Who had recently gotten married. Who was in medical school. And who welcomed me to her “sisterhood” and offered up her contact information if I had any questions.

My dad never asked for much. So I opened my email.



Subject: New Diagnosis



At that point I stopped. Who was I supposed to address the message to? There was no contact person listed. I finally decided to not even put in a salutation.



Hello!

My name is Kristin. I am 18 and was diagnosed with AIS a week ago. I saw your information on the AIS-DSD website and was interested in joining the support group. I live in Central New York and would love to know if there are any other teens in the area.

Thank you for your time,

Kristin Lattimer



I read the message over once, twice, three times. Did it sound too formal? Was I supposed to give them my address? I typed in the Support Group website and scoured the “Contact Us” section, but it didn’t say anything about giving them my address. So I put in my phone number just in case they wanted to contact me. And with a deep breath, I pressed Send.

For the next hour, I hit Refresh every five minutes, until I got bored and started looking through the mountain of research that my dad had collected.

When I used to babysit a lot, before track became a year-round training thing, my favorite activity to do with kids was puzzles. I loved getting down on the floor with them, teaching them what a corner was, and what it meant for an edge to be straight. There’d be that aha moment when things clicked, when they’d start getting that you could rotate pieces, match colors and patterns.

My life had been one big puzzle, except I never knew it. As I flipped from page to page, reading about AIS and what it meant, everything started to make sense: Why I never got my period—I didn’t have a uterus. Why I never had a problem with acne, and why Sam had thought that I’d gotten a Brazilian wax—something about how my messed-up hormones prevented zits and pubic hair. Why it had hurt so goddamn much my first time—my vagina was too short because my organs didn’t develop right.

My body missed an exit.

So I was stranded in no-man’s-land.

Or more accurately, no-woman’s-land.

I got about halfway through my dad’s stack before I started feeling restless. It was dinnertime, anyway, so I bounded down the stairs with more energy than I’d had in a couple weeks—since Homecoming, really.

“Dad! I did it! I emailed the support group.”

My dad was still hunched by his computer. When he turned around there were tears streaming down his face.

“What’s wrong? My God, is something wrong with Aunt Carla?”

He shook his head, and I was shocked to realize that the expression wasn’t one of fear, or anger, or sadness. It was an emotion that I would’ve never thought to have seen on his face.