It’s not a small house.

Ours is not a small family, on either side of it. This is mostly my mother’s side. Our mother’s side.

I’m finding that I’m thinking more and more in terms of me and my, instead of us and ours, as I walk into this ill conceived notion of a gathering. And, of course I am.

Prior to our transition, Goreth took the front most of the time. Afterward, I tried to, to show the world how much of a girl we could be, but it was a strain on both of us.

Now, I come forward mostly to work on my own projects, when it’s time for those, hang out with Abigail, or to mask as a girl for the public. Which leads to shorter periods of fronting than you might think.

When talking to a bank teller or barista who is not obviously queer, I front and give them my voice. And that’s it. We hardly even talk to grocery clerks.

At home, doing our own thing, it’s more relaxed and we’re kind of fluid about it. But the activities and music that are more me just kind of bring me forward, and it’s nice.

But this is our biological family. Whom we haven’t really seen much of since we declared we were autistic and plural, our relations already strained by our transition. So of course everyone else in the system will hide and leave me to be our voice. It’s safer that way.

It’s going to be so exhausting.

Coming in the front door, immediately to the right, on the other side of Joseph from me, is a set of stairs going down to the basement, where most of the kids are playing loudly. Screams and laughter come from there.

That used to be our domain. Maybe it could be, still. Kids are easier, and might be receptive to the company of their strange, queer aunt colony joining them.

But I have adult things to attend to, apparently, a house full of demons to face, and one supposedly ailing grandmother I’d really like to talk to.

So I walk forward down the short entry hallway into the house proper.

To my left is a living room full of aunts, uncles, and cousins, with an adjoining dining room where I can hear my dad’s voice cutting through the rest of the chatter. The dining room will have the sliding glass door that leads outside.

Directly ahead is the kitchen, where I can see my mother talking to one of her sisters as they prep food. She looks up at me and smiles and gives a little beckoning wave and extends one arm out for a hug. She wants me to enter that kitchen and whatever is there that awaits me.

To my right is a hallway leading to a bathroom, my grandma’s bedroom, a study, and the stairs leading to the second floor. And the door to the garage.

I want to go that way. It’s quieter. I almost do, but then I hear uncle Edward talking to Grandma from down that way, and I don’t want to go anywhere near him.

I step into the kitchen and see who else is in there.

Aunt Brenda, who is a bit of a hippy, of course. She and mom get along pretty well.

And aunt Penny, who is wife to Joseph and born again. I try to ignore her, but she cheerfully says, “Hi!”

Unlike her husband, Penny believes in extending hospitality to everyone. Most of the family who have her political alignment do, and it allows Mom to get along with them even though she doesn’t like their politics anymore than I do. That and the idea that family is something you should cultivate and get along with regardless of what you think of them.

Mom comes up to my chin, and she has to reach up as I bend to hug her.

“You should take off your hat and your great aunt Lucy’s cloak and stay awhile,” she says.

“I’ll stay as long as I can,” I tell her. “But I don’t feel comfortable taking off my armor. I’m sorry.”

“Well, you do look good,” she says. “Dashing. And really well put together.”

“Thank you,” I say, trying to figure out what I think about ‘dashing’ as a compliment. Goreth likes it, but it stings a little. Usually boys get called that when they dress up for prom. But it does fit that swashbuckler vibe we’ve embraced.

“Want to have one of these stuffed portabellos?” Brenda asks, holding out a platter of upside down mushrooms with something chunky, multicolored, and greasy looking spooned into them. They appear to be entirely uncooked.

I feel Ashwin perk up from nems place in our psyche, but I can’t. I just can’t. I’ve eaten some pretty weird things by now, things that would astound my entire family, but that’s on another world and under safer circumstances. These look like they’re designed specifically to kill me with gagging on disparate textures and awful, persistent flavors I just can’t deal with. The smell alone is enough to warn me away.

I shake my head and say, “Thank you, Brenda, no. I can’t eat those.”

She huffs, and says, “With those big pharma chemicals you’ve committed yourself to taking for the rest of your life, you really should broaden your diet. These are high in selenium, which will protect your body from damage.” She turns and puts the tray back on the counter and then leaves the room, saying over her shoulder, “Well, you know where they are, when you’re ready for them.”

I look at Mom, who gives a shortened sigh, and tightens her lips at the back of her retreating sister.

“You know she means well,” she says. “And she’s right about your diet. But she didn’t have to put it that way.”

“Nice way to be welcomed back into the family,” I observe.

“Sarah,” she says, but nothing more.

She really looks like a shorter, skinnier version of me. Only dressed weirder, by my standards. Which is to say, she wears an odd mix of ethnic garments hand made in various parts of the world and imported supposedly ethically to various boutiques she likes to visit, and REI chic. But we do look very related despite that. Very much mother and daughter. And it feels good to stand next to her for that reason alone. If only she could accept more than my transition.

Dad’s also been pretty good about the whole gender thing, even if he wasn’t so much at first. And he’s been a good sport about watching his child go from looking like him to looking more like his wife. We are almost exactly the same height, though. I’ll visit him later.

Mom smells like baking, rose hips, and lavender deodorant.

“My diet is really nobody’s business,” I say. “But, for your sake, I’m happy to report that it’s becoming more vegetarian. Maybe it’s mostly peanut butter on celery, carrots, and fresh bell peppers. But one of my, uh, housemates…” I’m talking about Ashwin, my headmate, “is really, really good at cooking, and I’ve added regular plates of garlicky green beans and even roasted Brussels sprouts.”

“Oh, good!” she says, patting me on my arm.

I hate that I had to placate her like that. But I hate more that it wouldn’t have worked on Brenda.

Can we try something with mushrooms when we get home? Ashwin manages to ask in thought.

If you cook, maybe, I reply, only lifting my head up a little bit as any outward indication an exchange has taken place.

Thank you.

Penny continues to do very busy things with the refrigerator and the stove. This is supposed to be a casual potluck deal, with light fare, but she’s insisting on cooking something elaborate, it looks like. A proper meal for everyone. Or, I realize, maybe pre-cooked meals for Grandma that can be portioned into the freezer for the rest of the week.

“What happened, anyway?” I ask Mom.

“Oh!” Penny exclaims and turns around. She composes herself to talk to me, patting her apron, and then says, “Your grandmother fell a couple of months ago, as you know.” I didn’t. Nobody told me this. But she keeps talking, “And her tremor is much worse now. And recovering from the fall has taken its toll. She’s very old, you know. And her doctor says that both the tremor and the fall indicate that her Parkinson’s meds are having an adverse effect now. Side effects. They did tests, of course.”

I open my mouth to respond, but end up just thinking about it. I’ve done some reading about all of this. Or Goreth has, the worry wart. Because, our grandma has Parkinson’s, and we wanted to know. She’s had it for a while. Diagnosed six years ago. Even with the meds starting to fail, which is a known thing, she should have a few more years left in her. She could live another eight, possibly. But if the fall was bad…

I look at Mom and she gives me a worried smile.

I want to head right to Grandma now, but my mom puts her hand on my right shoulder and pushes me gently toward the dining room.

“You should say, ‘hi’ to your father and catch him up, dear,” she says. “Your lipstick is beautiful too. You’re getting much better at makeup.”

Well, OK.

“Thank you,” I say, and head cautiously into the dining room.

“Ah! If it isn’t the prodigal, uh, child!” uncle Henry declares upon seeing me.

I give him a nasty look of askance, mouth open, teeth showing beneath curled lips, eyes squinting, like I’m about to respond, but then smooth my face and turn to Dad.

People who supposedly study the bible loudly using the phrase ‘prodigal son’ (or child) for any returning offspring, as if it’s some kind of compliment to compare you to anything in scripture, really piss me off. Because Henry does it every damn time, and I know what that story’s about. But arguing with him isn’t going to get me anywhere. Tacit misgendering not-withstanding.

There’s more than one child here, Goreth interjects silently.

“Yeah,” I grunt, subvocally.

I’m just making the rounds right now. And hopefully as short as I can make them. The worst part will come later when people seek me out to talk to me. This is nothing, even though I’ve already encountered more microaggressions in less than ten minutes than I experienced all last month, and there will be more.

“Hey, Dad,” I say.

“Hey there, Kiddo!” he exclaims, and we hug. 

A good, solid, hearty hug. But I make sure both my arms go over his and stand on my toes to feel even better about it. Might as well get a little girliness in while I can.

“So, how are the books?” he asks. “I mean, the published ones. Your Mom’s read one of the stories you’ve put online. But I want to know about the ones that’ll get you on that best seller list!”

“Well,” I say, stepping back and glancing at the other relatives in the room. “There’s just the one that’s gone to the publisher, so far. And it’s in the final round of edits. Mostly copy correcting at this point. But there’s a second one already on the way. We’re twelve chapters into the rough draft.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Henry says, getting all serious and gesturing with the index and middle finger of his right hand. “You’ve got two books on your website, free to read, that you just put up there in the last year, right?”

“Yep,” I say, cautiously nodding at him. I did not expect any family members to be this aware of our projects.

“And an art show!” He holds up just his index finger as if he’s counting.

“Correct.”

“But then, you’re also writing a whole new book while simultaneously editing one for print?”

“Yes,” I nod. “With,” I go ahead and close my eyes and actually count on my fingers, “six more planned. Two series. The Sunspot Chronicles and the Adventures of Molly Rocketcoil.” Then I daringly add, “I’m supposed to write my own autobiography and put it up on the site, too. So that’s really seven.”

Henry looks confused and says, “But I thought –” 

“Uh,” Dad cuts him off, raising his left index finger and waggling it in Henry’s direction. He shakes his head.

Henry takes the cue and doesn’t finish that sentence, instead asking, genuinely curious, “How do you do it?”

I plant our cane on the ground and stand a little straighter, steeling myself for invalidating our disabilities by admitting to our productiveness, and then flash a grin and joke, “I don’t!” And then chuckle, like it’s the funniest thing I’m trying to keep to myself. Which it is.

Everyone in the room laughs with me, and I feel like a master of comedic manipulation for a few moments. It’s the one joke I actually know. Say something unexpected and contradictory sounding, but true, and then laugh about it. Works every time.

“But, actually,” I say. “It’s bewildering. The books just sort of pour out. And I can write them on my phone, even, so I can do it while lying in bed if I have to. You’d be surprised how much practice at writing I have with just my left thumb while updating my social media sites and chatting with friends.”

Impressed and incredulous looks spread around the room of men.

Orin exclaims, “Oh, that makes sense!” He nudges Henry in the shoulder and says, “Kids these days, right?”

I wince in pain at the cliché, spoken with special emphasis like it’s a punchline. Some people can’t seem to open their mouths unless it’s specifically to utter overused lines that are deader than the deceased comedians that once coined them. And Orin, Grandma’s eldest son, is one of them.

Now, I know that Goreth and I often slip into Ghostbusters mode and basically do the same thing. But at least we go for the most obscure lines in the movie and try to be poetic about it, see if we can say them to people without them noticing what we’re doing. Anyway, we learned that game from one of our babysitters when we were a kid.

Orin. I just don’t know about him.

Henry jerks his head up in my direction, almost like an iguana issuing a challenge or a Ktletaccete saying ‘yes’, “What’re they all about, anyway? They sound pulpy, those titles. Like stuff you could get for a dime from the grocery store.”

You never lived during that era, Henry, I think. But I smile and say, “We were kind of going for that, thanks! Yeah. They’re science fiction, basically.”

Dad nods, and I allow myself to feel good about his attention and support. I’ll take it where I can get it, even if I don’t trust it anymore.

“Like Star Trek or more like Star Wars?” Henry asks.

“Um,” I say, putting my fingers to my mouth, taking care to not actually touch my lips. “More like Eon, by Greg Bear, I think? With some aspects of Battlestar Galactica… Doctor Who? … and, oh, Tolkein thrown in. We’re still going back and forth with Listra Luachra about the comps, honestly. It’s really hard to place it. I mean, the books on our website are easier. Zapped meets E.T. meets I Kill Giants, hands down. But we’re not trying to sell those.”

Dad’s eyes bug out and he leans over to look back into the kitchen. Hm.

“Why aren’t you trying to sell those?” Henry asks.

“Well, they’re queer autobiographies,” I tell him. “Still science fiction, but they’re harder to sell. You know?”

“But if they’re science fiction, I’d think that wouldn’t matter,” he says. “You just put it in the same ghetto with all the other sci-fi books, and watch their sales languish equally, right?”

I mouth ‘wow’ at him and grimace, then say, “Yeah. I guess so. But it was a decision we made.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” he blinks.

Oops. I did set that up by being careless.

“I’m going to check on Mom,” Dad says and heads into the kitchen, leaving me to this.

“I mean, my editor’s disappointed but OK with it,” I say, trying to deflect. “But, I thought it was really important to get them out there where people could read them without paying for them. Especially now. They’re just that important. The sales and marketing of the other books will hopefully bring attention to them.”

“Uh-huh. That makes a lot of sense, I guess,” he says, Orin nodding next to him. “But, now you’ve sparked my curiosity. This sounds really creative! You might be onto something! If they’re science fiction but also autobiographies, who wrote them?”

I chew saliva for a moment while I look him in the nose and pretend I’m staring him down. I’m not really sure what to say to something that sounds so obviously like a trap. Especially coming from him.

Hah, I laugh bitterly at myself. A trap for a trap. Only there’s more traps in this room than you were once told about, Uncle.

“Imaginary friends,” I allow myself to say, and feel the heat flush out of our body in response.

He makes a point of changing the expression on his face to something more relaxed and says, “Neat. That could make for a fun read, I expect.”

“That’s the idea.”

“Gotta get ‘em coming and going, right?” Orin says, like it’s an omen or something.

I can’t help myself, it just comes out. I turn to Orin, tilting my head and saying in a sweet and curious voice, “Have you ever seen Best In Show, Orin?”

“Oh, yeah! I love that movie!” Orin exclaims. He flashes a finger and nods, saying in a very affected voice, “In fact, I think it might just be one of my favorites.”

That’s maybe when it clicks for me. Which, it might not seem like much of a prompt, but the way he very deliberately put on that one actor’s mannerisms to declare it his favorite movie gave me flashbacks to so many other conversations I’ve overheard him having with his brothers.

I smile at him, and feel a little less annoyed. He knows what he’s doing. 

I honestly hadn’t thought about it much before, but we might have more in common with him than anyone else in the house. And his scripting, as painful as it can be a lot of the time, is just his way of moving through bewildering social situations while having a little fun.

A bit more stereotyped than we are, perhaps, but some autistics are actually like that. He was never diagnosed like we managed to be, but that’s a generational thing. In his generation, you’d have to have traits that were way more obvious.

Henry is looking annoyed at the topic change, like someone just swapped out the steak he was about to eat for a salad without asking.

And while that’s not proof of anything, it’s got my mind wandering and cataloging the things I know about the rest of my relatives. Or, I think it’s Goreth that’s doing that.

I gently push them back into our subconscious and look at Henry to say, “Anyway, you can read those autobiographies any time you like. I’ll text you the web address if you need it. And I’ll send the whole family a notice when my first ‘real’ book is up for sale. Amazon reviews. Instructions for what to tell your local bookstore. That sort of thing. It has a sort of a young adult feel to it, even though we’re classifying it as adult sci-fi, and I think it has a good story.”

There’s that ‘we’ again. No matter how hard I try to use ‘I’ and ‘me’, no matter how much I reflexively think in singular first person right now, those ‘we’s keep coming out of my mouth. At least, I mentioned my editor earlier. Our editor. Sheesh.

Henry tilts his head up again, this time more slowly and considerately, and says, “You really should write an autobiography, you know. A real one. You’ve led such an eccentric life, I bet a lot of people could learn from your experiences. I always thought you should write instead of those weird doodles you’re always doing, anyway. Good to see you applying yourself that way, even if it’s just pulp.”

‘Weird doodles’. It’s a whole fucking art show full of illustrations of dragons, Uncle. You just don’t like the subject matter for some weird supposedly Christian reason. Why are you even talking to me?

I decide to take that barrage of microaggressions without much reaction, and squinch my lips together in acknowledgement, make a short single nod, in a sort of thanks, and turn to walk into the living room.

Uncle Edward has returned from talking to Grandma, saying something about letting her rest now, and sitting down next to Judy. He looks up and says, “Oh, hey, Nephew!”

I keep turning, making it a two hundred and seventy degree spin, and walk to the back door, slide it open and plunge into the sunlight outside.

“Oh, no. What did I say?” I hear Edward ask the room pointedly.

I cuss, and then realize it might not have been in English. It doesn’t matter. Nobody’s listening.

I make my way to the empty, long unused doghouse and walk around it to hop on the roof, facing away from the house. And there I bounce our cane on the roof of it a few times.

It’s August 15th, and overcast. 

The weather allows for our dark wool cloak and black wool hat, but we’re not really dressed appropriately for the season. Like I’d said, these clothes are our armor, just like my lipstick is supposed to be.

But, maybe it’s not as feminine as I need it right now?

Not that Edward would have even noticed or done the right thing.

There’s a reason I try to avoid him.

But, it would be nice for me to feel more feminine than I do right now.

I slip my arms out of the cloak’s armholes and shrug it off. Then pull that hat off and slap it down beside me, making sure the feather is aligned and pointing directly behind me, because that matters. The cane is hooked into one of the cloak’s armholes, using the metal dragon’s horns as barbs to keep it in there.

And then I go searching through the cloak’s pockets for our phone and earbuds, and instead end up holding Goreth’s resin egg.

It’s clear, and there’s a very badly painted figurine of a baby dragon inside it, all curled up. We’d purchased it online from a website that had photos of a product much more carefully done than this. This looks like it was painted with an inch wide silicon culinary brush from someone’s kitchen. It’s that bad.

Still, Goreth absolutely loves the thing, and the feeling of their emotions when we hold it is pure medicine for just about anything.

There is the pang of regret for not being able to have kids on Earth.

If we hadn’t transitioned, it’s possible our specific intersex condition might not have made it impossible to donate viable sperm to the conception of a child. But we’d had a bit of a mixed puberty, and we’d had some habits during bath time and while alone in our bedroom that might have killed them all if we’d had any in the first place. Just to sooth our incredible physical dysphoria.

Besides, I always wanted to get pregnant, and Goreth wants to lay an egg, and knocking someone else up would just feel entirely wrong and make us sick and jealous.

I have read a lot about what pregnancy does to a human body, though, and with our chronic illnesses, I’d started telling myself to be glad we couldn’t bear a child. Besides not having the resources to raise one, the process of it might just kill us or something.

It’d be hellish, in any case.

But logic doesn’t always kill the biological drive, and we still have that drive in spades.

I gently hold the resin egg up to the sky, to peer through it as I slowly spin it, and think about the far future for a while.

We might have children anyway, someday.

And they won’t grow up here.

I twist to look back at the house.

It’s painted in really pretty pastel blues and greens, but the architecture is nothing special. I think it was built in the fifties? Maybe the forties. It’s not a craftsman, not like our other grandparents’ house was when they were still alive – I wouldn’t call what the new owners did to that one ‘craftsman’. And it’s certainly no Victorian affair. But it’s not the kind of prefab clone that goes up anywhere these days. It’s just a house. And I don’t know much more about houses than all of that.

And it’s in a suburb with buses that go through it via the nearby arterials, and close enough to the bus stop I didn’t complain to Mom about it when the subject of getting here came up.

Really, really, really different than anything you might see in Frra, on the Sunspot.

Frra, in contrast, is built like a cross between a terrarium and a low and wide complex multi-path marble machine, with ramps and walkways everywhere and gardens on top of every building. It’s also speckled with plazas of various shapes and sizes, where people gather under the sky to collaborate in crafts of all kinds, including cooking, and to just meet and enjoy each other’s company.

And there’s no commerce or industry, by most of Earth’s standards. It’s just dwellings, studios, libraries, and gathering places.

Books, which look disappointingly a lot like Earth books, are also a huge thing there, and a lot of people can be seen carrying them around. But they’re just as likely to be caught writing in them as reading them. And they’re almost all handmade in some way.

The houses in Frra are more organic than this, made of metal and plaster and tiles, designed and sometimes handmade by their residents, and typically connected to all the other structures.

I don’t think either my family or my grandma’s house would fit in very well in Frra. There’d be no place for them.

And every single one of my uncles would fly into a blind panic over not having to work. Even the ones who think that communism might actually be kind of a good idea. There are plenty of hobbies there, but hobbies are not a vocation, an occupation, and I just don’t know that any of them could adapt.

And they won’t ever have to.

My aunts would have a variety of reactions. I know a couple of them would have strokes over just what their new neighbors looked like. And while they could adapt to some of the mores of politeness and hospitality there, they’d be scandalized by the webs of intimate relationships and the utter lack of any institution of marriage.

Also, some of them would have trouble with the no work thing, too.

The kids, on the other hand, would love it.

I do maybe make comparisons like this too often while I’m here on Earth. But it’s hard to help it when just about every twist and turn involves pain or discomfort of some sort.

Mind you, we’ve only really written about the better experiences we’ve had on the Sunspot so far. It hasn’t been perfect. There’s a lot more to write about the miscommunications we’ve had there. But it makes more sense to us now than our life on Earth ever has.

I wonder how Erik, Beau, and the Murmuration are doing.

I know it’s not the world tour that Erik told the Murmuration it would be, but sitting in a boat off the coast of California somewhere has to be better than facing a bunch of uncaring relatives while this many anti-trans bills are sweeping the country and the Supreme Court made that decision.

What am I doing here?