I eventually got changed into a pair of yoga pants and a pink tank top, which Mom claimed was her “comfy” outfit, but which wrapped my new chest so tight I could barely breathe. I didn’t protest.
I ran a hairbrush through my wet hair (a mesmerizingly huge process, compared to my usual three-second pass with a comb), and stared at my face in the mirror, searching for the angle where I most looked like myself, or maybe least like her.
I found neither, just the same impossible reflection.
We spent the rest of the day in a daze, circling around the house like ghosts. I tried reading, but every time I turned a page, the painted nails and feminine wrists derailed my thoughts: would I ever see my own bony knuckles again, or would these be my hands forever?
The moment the garage door rumbled open, I felt the same spike of dread, the need to steel myself.
Dad was home from work.
He wandered into the kitchen, backpack dangling from two fingers, eyes puffy with exhaustion. He looked at me for just a beat too long.
“How was your day, hon?” he said again, and before I had time to process what he was doing, he leaned forward and planted a full, wet kiss on my lips. Not a peck on the cheek, not a closed-mouth smooch, but the full, open-mouthed, after-work husband-and-wife kiss that had likely happened at this kitchen island a thousand times before.
The bristle of his stubble raked against my upper lip, and his hands found the sides of my face with a practiced tenderness that was horrifyingly automatic.
The world tipped, and the room shrank to the hum of the fridge, the throb of blood in my ears, and the undeniable sensation of my father’s mouth on mine. My arms froze at my sides. Time bent.
Behind us, Mom—they, me—stared with an expression hovering between pity and disgust.
Dad broke the kiss with a little “Mmm,” eyes still half-lidded. I tried to parse what I was supposed to do with my face. Smile? Blush? Gag? I imitated what I’d seen my mother do a million times: I smiled, and broke out into a strange giggle—my mother’s—erupting from my own throat.
Dad was already shuffling to the fridge, fishing out a beer with the usual little flourish, and twisting it open with a pop.
The only thing to do was play along, at least until we figured this out.
He handed me a beer, and I took it.
The bottle was cold but slippery against my palm, and I watched a bead of condensation slide down to gather at the rim of my wedding band—her wedding band.
My wedding ring. Her wedding ring.
I tapped the ring against the beer glass, and a hollow tick-tick-tick resounded in my bones.
Dad excused himself to the restroom. Mom—me—sat at the kitchen counter, shoulders hunched, fingernails fretting at the edge of the granite.
We traded glances in the kitchen’s fluorescent light, weighing who should speak first.
It was Mom who broke, "He’s going to notice if you’re not careful."
“He doesn’t notice anything,” I shot back, but quietly.
I caught my own voice in the air: the crispness, the certainty, the mediating tone she always used when I’d escalated a fight with her.
We had takeout for dinner. Mom and I tried our best to play along, to keep up appearances.
I tried to conjure some neutral conversation, even feigning interest in the garden project I remembered her mentioning last week, while Mom—her, me—answered questions in clipped, pragmatic sentences.
That evening, we retreated to our respective bedrooms –Mom to my old room, and Dad and I to the master. Mom trailed after me down the hallway but stopped at her (my) bedroom door.
“Goodnight, honey,” she said.
“Night, Mom,” I whispered.
“Babe? You coming?” Dad called from behind his electric toothbrush.
I stood there, stuck to the hardwood, the tank top clinging to my chest, the yoga pants squeezing my newly maternal ass.
Mom gestured at me to reply.
“Yeah! Coming,” I called back, my voice still too high, the word echoing down the hall.
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