Marginny and Frank leaned in together to peer behind her. “You solo?” Frank asked. “Awfully big van for one.”
Rosie felt spied on already. “I don’t know where they all got off to”—she waved vaguely behind her without looking—“but they’re not allergic to raisins either.”
“All?” Marginny inquired brightly.
“Penn, my husband. And five kids.”
They clasped their hands to their chests simultaneously. “Five?” Frank grinned. “Wow. I bet you’re from the Midwest.”
Rosie hated to admit this was true, but she could not relocate Wisconsin.
“We have two ourselves,” Marginny confided. “Girls. Cayenne’s just about to start eighth grade. Aggie’s going into first.”
Cayenne, Aggie, and Marginny? Did they make these names up? How was she ever going to remember them?
“And yours?” Frank prompted.
“Five boys,” Rosie said automatically, then checked herself. “Well, four and a half.”
“You’re pregnant?” Marginny guessed.
“God forbid.” Rosie tried to stuff some of her sweaty hair back into her sweaty ponytail. “Roo and Ben are going into eighth grade too. Orion and Rigel are going into sixth. Poppy’s our youngest. He’ll be starting first grade.”
“You said…” Marginny looked confused.
Rosie blushed deeply and hoped it looked like she was just flushed from unpacking boxes. “Poppy, uh…” It was at that instant, and not an instant before, that Rosie realized they’d needed a plan for this moment. In Madison, for better and for worse, everyone knew, so there was no need to tell. These people standing on her front porch had been in her life for all of six awkward minutes, and so far she wasn’t terribly fond of them. Telling them about Poppy and Claude, all the heartache and confusion and sorting and decision making, all the hoping and leaping, was too intimate by half. She supposed she couldn’t introduce her nascent daughter with, “This is Poppy. She has a penis,” but clearly they needed some way in. In the moment, Rosie finally settled on, “Poppy used to be a boy.”
“Used to be a…” Marginny trailed off.
“Poppy was born as Claude. Well, not born as. You know. We named her that in the hospital. Him.” She laughed nervously. Now who was babbling? “So for a few years she was Claude. He was Claude. We thought she was Claude. When he wanted to wear dresses, well, at first I guess we thought it was just a phase.” Why was she telling them all this? “I mean dress-up, pretend play, make believe … boys will be boys, you know?” They did not look as if they did know. “But it turned out it wasn’t a phase. Deep down, he feels like a girl. She feels like a girl. She is a girl. So that’s what we did.”
“Did?” It was like some tiny creature inside their faces had turned the light off.
“It’s a long story,” Rosie admitted.
“You, um … turned your son into a girl?” Frank finally managed.
“Not turned him into.” As with so many disasters, it seemed the only way forward was deeper. “More like accepted who he—she—already was.”
They were silent for a moment, taking that in, which Rosie supposed was fair enough; she just wondered if they couldn’t do it elsewhere.
“We saw this drag show once at a bar in Capitol Hill,” Frank said hopefully. “Is it like that?”
“It is nothing like that,” said Rosie.
Then, of course, the back door opened. “Good news, Mom,” Orion called. “The sandwich place at the bottom of the hill gets their cheese from Wisconsin.”
“And it’s at the bottom of the hill,” Rigel added, “so it’s an easy walk.”
“Only if you want to move in,” Ben said. And when that seemed to elucidate nothing, “Otherwise it’s uphill on the way home.”
Roo rolled his eyes. Penn piled what looked to be lunch for forty into Poppy’s arms so that his could be free to greet the Grandersons.
“We live next door.” Marginny went back to the beginning. “We came over to welcome you. And to invite you to an end-of-summer barbecue at our house tomorrow. The whole neighborhood will be there. You’ll be able to meet everyone all at once.”
Rosie was exhausted just thinking about it and began to brainstorm ways to politely decline.
“We’d be delighted,” said Penn.
*
It was ten o’clock, late for company, when the doorbell rang for the fourth time. Penn and Rosie paused the movie they were collapsed in front of to open the door to an embarrassed-looking Marginny. Rosie had known the woman for all of a quarter of an hour so far, but she could already tell she didn’t embarrass easily. This did not bode well.
“Settling in okay?” Marginny seemed to be holding her breath.
“Slowly,” said Penn.