By late July—a full year since we left Spring Brook—I was getting ready to move into a sober-living dormitory at Drexel University. I was thirty months clean and feeling great about my recovery. After a year of deliberating next steps, I’d settled on going to college and studying to become a teacher. I wanted to work in elementary education, preferably in a kindergarten classroom. I reached out to your father for the hundredth time and asked if a summer visit might be possible. And this time, miraculously, your doctors said okay. They felt you were adapting well to your new life and agreed it could be healthy for us to reconnect.
Adrian suggested we turn the visit into a vacation—our first big trip together. We’d kept in touch all through the year as he finished his classes at Rutgers. He graduated in May and got a job at Comcast, in one of the big skyscrapers in Center City Philadelphia. Adrian proposed that we visit you in upstate New York, then continue north to Niagara Falls and Toronto. He packed a big cooler full of snacks and made a playlist of driving songs and I brought a bag of gifts to share with you.
You lived west of Seneca Lake in a town called Deer Run and your new neighborhood was nothing like Spring Brook. There were no Starbucks or strip malls or big-box stores—just long stretches of forests and farmland, with houses few and far between. The last mile of our trip was down a winding gravel road that led to the gates of Baroth Farms. Your father and uncle raised goats and chickens, and your aunt sold milk, eggs, and cheese to wealthy tourists on the Finger Lakes. Your new home was a sprawling two-story log home with a green shingled roof. Goats were grazing in a nearby pen, and I could hear chickens clucking in the barn. The whole place felt oddly familiar to me, even though I was certain I’d never been anywhere like it.
“Are you ready?” Adrian asked.
I was too nervous to answer. I just grabbed my bag of gifts, walked up the steps to your front door, and rang the bell. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for the shock of seeing you as a little girl. I was afraid of having a weird reaction, something that might embarrass you or me or both of us.
But your father answered. He stepped outside onto the porch and welcomed me with a hug. He’d put on some weight, thank goodness. Maybe fifteen or twenty pounds. He was dressed in crisp denim jeans, a soft flannel shirt, and black boots. He started to shake Adrian’s hand—but then he hugged him, too.
“Come in, come in,” he said, laughing. “It’s good you are here.”
Inside, the house was all warm woods and rustic furniture, with big windows overlooking bright green pastures. Your father led us into the Great Room, a sort of living-room-kitchen-dining-room with a massive stone fireplace and stairs winding up to the second floor. There were playing cards and jigsaw puzzle pieces scattered all over the furniture. Your father apologized for the clutter; he said your aunt and uncle had been called away on a business emergency, and they’d left him with all the children. I could hear everyone playing upstairs, shrieking and laughing, five young voices talking at the same time. Your father seemed exasperated, but I assured him it was fine. I said it was great to know that you had friends.
“I will call Flora soon,” he said. “First, let’s just relax.” He brought out coffee for Adrian and a mug of herbal tea for me. He also set out a platter of tiny pastries stuffed with apricot. “These are kolache,” he said. “Please, take.”
His English had improved tremendously over the past year. He still had an unmistakable accent—“these” sounded like “deese” and “we’ll” came out “vill”—but for someone who’d only been in the country for a few years, I thought he was doing remarkably well. I noticed a large painting hanging over the fireplace, a still lake on a placid sunny day. I asked if it was your mother’s work and your father said yes, and then he walked us around the Great Room, showing off her other paintings. They were hanging in the kitchen, in the dining room, in the stairwell—all over the house, really. Your mother was very talented, and your father was so proud of her.
I asked if you were still drawing, if you were still interested in art, and your father said no. “The doctors talk about Teddy’s World and Flora’s World. And there is not much overlap. Teddy’s world had swimming pools. Flora’s world has Finger Lakes. Teddy’s world had lots of drawing. Flora’s world has lots of cousins who help raise animals.”
I was a little afraid to ask my next question, but I knew I’d have regrets if I didn’t.
“What about Anya? Is she part of Flora’s world?”
Your father shook his head. “No, Flora does not see her anya anymore.” Just for a moment, I think he sounds disappointed. “But it is better this way, of course. This is how things ought to be.”
I couldn’t really think of how to respond, so I looked outside to a half-dozen goats grazing in the grass. I could still hear your cousins playing upstairs, and suddenly I recognized the pitch and cadence of your voice. You sounded just like I remembered. Your cousins were acting out scenes from The Wizard of Oz. You were Dorothy, and one of your cousins was the mayor of Munchkinland, and she was inhaling helium from a balloon to make her voice sound funny. “Go see the Wizard!” she croaked, and you all exploded with giggles and laughter.
Then all five of you came marching downstairs singing “We’re Off to See the Wizard.” Your oldest cousin was twelve or thirteen and the youngest girl was a toddler and the rest were somewhere in between. And even though your hair was longer and you were wearing a bright blue dress, I recognized you immediately. Your face was exactly the same. Everything surrounding your face was different—but all the soft sweet features were still there. You were carrying a drum major’s baton and waving it high over your head.
“Flora, Flora, wait!” your father called. “There are guests. Mallory and Adrian. From New Jersey, remember?”
The other children stopped and gaped at us, but you didn’t make eye contact.
“We’re going outside,” the oldest explained. “We’re going to the Emerald City and she’s Dorothy.”
“Flora can stay,” József said. “Someone else can be Dorothy.”
They all started protesting, listing all the reasons why this was unfair and impractical, but József chased them out the door. “Flora stays. The rest of you come back later. Half hour. Go play outside.”
You sat beside your father on the couch but still wouldn’t look at me. It was really remarkable how a blue dress and slightly longer hair shifted my entire perception of you. Just a few subtle cues and my brain did the rest of the work, flipping all the switches. You used to be a boy. Now, you were a girl.
“Flora, you look beautiful,” I said.