None of the Above(19)

Holy crap, I’d forgotten. “Oh, wow. Thanks for calling.”

“Of course; my pleasure.”

There was a moment of silence as I panicked. Was I supposed to have prepared questions?

“Nice to meet you,” Maggie said after what was probably only a few seconds, though it felt like hours. “You said in your email that you just found out last week?”

“Yeah. My ob-gyn figured it out when I went in for my first appointment. How about you?”

“My family found out about my AIS when I was six. Of course I was really young, so they didn’t tell me all the details of AIS right away. My mom’s a doctor, so she spent a lot of time when I was little slipping in stuff about different types of anatomy, and how adoption wasn’t unusual. She finally told me the truth when I was sixteen. I was lucky I was able to find out about it gradually. It’s rough having to find out everything at once like you did.”

“Yeah.” I felt a pang of jealousy. She’d known for so long. There was another silence. Over the line, I could hear the strains of a Sarah McLachlan song.

“How’s it going?” Maggie asked. “Do you have any questions?”

Did I have any questions? My mind roiled with them, but it was like shooting a moving target—I couldn’t pin one down.

“So . . . what am I?” I asked finally.

She knew what I meant right away. “You’re a girl. You can do everything every other girl can do except get your period and give birth.”

I wasn’t sure about that. Everything? I had to screw up every ounce of my courage to ask the next question. “What about sex? I tried a couple of weeks ago with my boyfriend, and it was a disaster.”

Maggie made a sympathetic sound. “I’m really sorry about that. When you know about it beforehand, you can do things to get yourself ready.”

I grimaced a little at her euphemism. “I know. My doctor, she . . .” I struggled to say it out loud. Over the phone. To someone I’d never met, even if she was in medical school. “I’ve read all about . . . dilation. But it seems so creepy.”

“I can totally understand, but you get used to it. Supposedly, it’s not that different from using a tampon. ”

I stifled a giggle. My mother would roll over in her grave.

“Remember,” Maggie said, “you might not even need to do it for long. Some of us don’t have to do it at all.”

My cheeks flushed, and I felt a wave of warmth throughout my body, but not because of the subject matter. Because she had used the word us.

It was one of those times when you don’t realize how lonely you are until, suddenly, there’s someone by your side. My eyes prickled, and I started sobbing, my breath coming out in shuddering gasps.

Maggie misunderstood my tears. “Kristin. I know it seems strange, but a lot of perfectly normal XX women have to dilate, too, for a ton of reasons. . . .”

“No, no,” I said, laughing. “I’m not sad-crying. I’m happy-crying. It feels so amazing not to be alone.”

“I know what you mean.” She took in a deep breath. “This really is a sisterhood, you know? You should always feel free to call me, but there’s a senior at the U, Gretchen Lawrence. She only lives an hour away from you. I’ll email you her information.”

After we hung up, I blew my nose and rifled through the stack of papers that my dad had brought up to my room. I drummed the little white cardboard box with the dilators, and read Dr. Cheng’s handout one more time.

I booted up my computer and typed in the URL for the YouTube link from the pamphlet. A still shot popped up of a middle-aged woman with short blond hair sitting on a couch in what looked to be her living room. You could see her dining table in the background, and a family photo on the end table.

It was all very civilized.

The video was fascinating, in a disturbed kind of way. They had found the woman with the most reassuring voice on the planet to demonstrate their product. She had classy hands, too, that made the dilator look less like a sex toy and more like, well, actual medical equipment.

I watched the video twice, then sat back in my chair. I opened the white cardboard box and took out the individually wrapped dilators, which were just clear plastic rods with rounded tips.

I took the smallest dilator. It went in about two inches before it hurt. The second time, I lay in bed as the pamphlet described and it went in a little farther.

It felt gross. It felt dirty, and I could picture—no, practically feel—my mom rolling over in her grave, but I repeated Maggie’s phrase like a mantra: It’s not that different from using a tampon.

After half an hour, I stopped. But instead of putting my sweats back on, I had the impulse to put on my black two-piece, which Aunt Carla had made a big deal about being a “shaping” suit. I’d never been so grateful for someone’s obsession with cellulite. The bottom was made from a heavy spandex that hid my hernia bulges completely.

And I remembered what I told Maggie: No one had had a clue. Not my mom, my dad, or Dr. Arslinsdale. Not even me.

I went to bed with that hope in my mind.





CHAPTER 10


The third time I dilated, I got to three inches, which sounded like a bad locker room joke waiting to happen, but seemed like progress. The sample kit from Dr. Cheng had three sizes, and gave information on a more complete set, which I almost ordered online. But then I imagined my dad coming across the line item for MiddlesexMD.com, and I used what I had. I ached a bit afterward, but it was a good ache, like the burn of a deep stretch. The pain focused me, and kept me from thinking too much, because when I really thought about what I was doing—what I was putting and where—another part of me withered from shame.