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Metamorphosis

Wendy Taylor

    ‘Mum, I have something to tell you.’
    Julia leant forward across her kitchen table smiling at her daughter.
    ‘You can tell me anything,’ she said.
    Her daughter, eyes downcast, shoulders slouched, short, Audrey Hepburn pixie cut falling over one eye, fiddled with the handle of her coffee cup. The haircut was new along with the black jeans, black roll neck and doc martins, replacing a high pony tail, flippy skirts and converse high tops. At first not a fan of this new look, Julia recently decided it suited her only child. Her daughter’s drink of choice had morphed too over the years, from a baby chino, to cappuccino, mochaccino and now a sugarless black. These changes were in keeping with her body that was once cherubic soft then, gangly limbed, now intense gym solid.
    Julia had always wanted a daughter. Or two, or three. Daydreaming in her orange flowered bedroom, some decades ago, she conjured up a chubby cheeked, blonde trio. Brown corduroy legs angled up the walls, she vowed to dress them all as little princesses. As a child, Julia always despaired of her own attire, hand me downs from her three brothers, shades of brown and mustard, topped and tailed with hand knits and squashed trainers. She could never work whether this was due to lack of money, or disinterest on her mother’s part.
    Julia floundered her way through her teens, adrift from her aloof mother, relying on magazines borrowed from her best friend Mandy for the latest on matters of teenage importance. No girly chats, shopping trips, shared make-up secrets, or movie nights with her mother. Mandy rolled her eyes and consoled Julia that such a relationship with your mother, ‘was not all it’s made out to be.’ Julia was not convinced as Mandy got a glow when she talked of such interactions with her own mother. Julia’s father, although present, wasn’t really, working long hours ‘to feed all those mouths’ and out drinking with work colleagues, ‘to get away from you lot,’ meaning the kids not his wife. He handed over housekeeping cash once a week, for Julia’s mother to pop into the biscuit tin on the top shelf in the kitchen. Julia was adamant during her early teenage she was not going to be a stay-at-home mother. It was not that she disapproved, it was just that it was not for her. She also was not going to be in a relationship like her parents, staid and patriarchal. ‘What a waste of effort by the bra burning sixties chicks if we all stayed home with the kids and let our husbands rule our lives,’ she said to Mandy. Mandy nodded, while thinking it would be quite nice to be a full-time mother.
    When Aiden, all geometric cheek bones, dirty blonde ponytail and biker leathers moved in next door, with his mother an art teacher, Julia was smitten. Julia’s parents told her to ‘keep away from that lazy, good-for-nothing next door.’ It was not long before the lazy, good-for-nothing next door, who had a perfectly respectable job as a tax fraud investigator, and Julia rode off on his rumbling Kawasaki, for a life in an apartment with peeling paint and banging pipes. Julia’s parents never spoke to her again.
    With her eyes fixed on the future, Julia informed Aiden a few months later, that they were to become a threesome. Aiden scarpered, and instead Julia and her baby became a twosome. ‘The tight two,’ as Julia called them.
    The baby, Vanessa, was the longed-for daughter. Julia watched the other mothers in her circle, mothers of boys, grapple with exuberance, muddy knees and pockets of crushed snails and pet rocks. She watched them grow into hairy, fridge emptying herds of free roaming, grunting adolescents, despite their mothers’ offerings of dolls and culture.
    Julia, smugly snuggled with her daughter, reading, drawing and chatting, or went shopping at the mall for the latest fashions. Florals and pinks dominated the wash pile. Julia loved to dress Vanessa in fluff and frills, despite the latter’s protestations. She taught her about make-up and enlightened her on things female. Julia was glad her child was quiet and very happy when she grew into an even quieter teen, avoiding the fluctuating cliques of her female peers.
    Vanessa was named after a butterfly genus, the red admirals that had arrived late in Julia’s pregnancy, flitting around the dry parched stubble that was an excuse for a yard outside her apartment building. Their joyous dances, despite there being a dearth of flowers, had given Julia hope, overriding the suffocating despair that had enveloped her since Aiden’s desertion. Julia had taken heart from these butterflies and flapped her own wings, obtaining a degree, with the obliging Vanessa sleeping and gurgling through Julia’s studies. Work as a therapist had been profitable and home was now a stand-alone clapboard. Hours were planned around motherhood. Julia was a successful career woman, as well as a doting mother.
    And nothing was going to fracture this mother-daughter relationship. ‘The tight two.’
    Even when Vanessa moved out, into the student accommodation at the local university, Julia vowed.
    However, Julia sensed over the last few months, a pulling away by Vanessa, a hesitancy in sharing anything her mother. Daily phone calls dwindled to occasional texts. Julia put this down to Vanessa finding her feet amongst her new crowd.
    They still caught up on Sunday mornings at Julia’s kitchen table, coffees cooling between them. Conversations short; politics, the weather.
    Vanessa turned her cup in circle with her forefinger.
    Julia reached out and gently stilled it.
    ‘You can tell me anything,’ she said again.
    ‘I’m transgender.’
    Julia frowned.
    ‘I identify as male.’
    Later, on reflection Julia realised she should have said, ‘tell me more,’ and, ‘let me help you on this journey,’ and ‘I will be with you every step of the way.’
    Instead, all she said was, ‘okay,’ and proceeded to drink her coffee.

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