“But you said don’t tell anybody.” Rosie tried and failed to keep herself from shrieking. “You said it was nobody’s business.”
“And that worked beautifully for a little while. You didn’t think that was the plan for forever, did you?” Mr. Tongo asked, maddeningly, as if his weren’t the advice they’d been following in the first place. “Six-year-old Poppy was too young to have to educate her peers, to have to stand up for herself all the time, to have to explain about sex versus sexuality or gender identity versus gender expression. In first grade, we’re still trying to teach little boys and little girls that nothing in their pants is appropriate conversation for school. But now she’s ten. She’s almost off to middle school, almost a teenager, about to start becoming a grown-up, so it’s time for her to explore and decide and be strong, to talk about who she is, to stand up for herself, and to deal with what sets her apart.”
“How does she do that?”
“Same way everyone else does,” he crowed. “Suffering! Your small town can’t accept you so you leave. Your family can’t accept you so you find a new one. Your little life of shame and wishful thinking becomes too confining, so you strike out for something larger.”
“So you’re saying she hasn’t suffered enough.”
“Yes! Bravo!” he cheered. “That is exactly what I’m saying. You haven’t let her suffer enough. You’ve protected her too thoroughly. You’ve treated as normal something that isn’t so she hasn’t learned to live the abnormal life she actually has. You may not care, but other people will. Of course they will! For you, Poppy with a penis isn’t any more or less variant than any of your other kids’ wonderful quirks, and you love them all no matter what, and you just wake every day and raise them up. But that doesn’t help Poppy live anywhere in the world besides your house. No wonder she won’t leave her bedroom.”
“So what do I do?” She felt like she had talking to Howie, like what was being asked of her was both impossible and absurd.
“You? Nothing. You’ve done too much already. She has to do. And she’s already done. Step one is come out.”
“Done,” she conceded. “However unwillingly. What’s step two?”
“Step two is get rejected by lots of people and feel just terrible about it.”
“Also done. What’s step three?”
“Step three is where it gets fun. Step three is moving on.”
“How long does that take?” she sulked.
“It takes a whole lifetime”—Mr. Tongo sounded overjoyed as usual—“so it’s a good thing she’s starting early.”
*
Yvonne rescheduled Rosie’s patients well past regular office hours. Her last patient of the day finally left at 9:45. She was hungry, and she was tired, and she was eager to be home and see what lay in wait there, and she was terrified of getting home and seeing what lay in wait there, and her head was abuzz with patient complaints and treatment plans and drug regimens, and her head was also abuzz with Howie’s threats, and her head was also abuzz with Mr. Tongo’s admonishments, and it was a dark, wet, steep walk home. She had gotten used to the rain over the years. She had gotten used to the gray clouds that covered the city like a radiation apron nine months a year. But by 9:45, it had been dark already for more than five hours, and twilight at four in the afternoon was not something she’d ever gotten used to. It seemed like the middle of the night, and when she let herself in the front door, she felt nothing so much as jet-lagged.
The house was unusually quiet. No one homeworking. Everyone shut up in his or her room. His room. No one peeked out from a shut bedroom door to say hi or how was your day or you must be exhausted let me heat some leftovers for you. She knocked on Roo and Ben’s basement.
“Guys?”
“Yeah?”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“How was school?”
“Fine.”
“Anything new?”
“No.”
“Did you guys eat?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Love you.”
“You too.”
She had a similar conversation with Rigel’s door. Orion was hanging upside down off the arm of the sofa wearing vampire teeth and a cape and playing a video game. “Before you vonder, no I don’t vant anything to eat, no I don’t vant anything to drink, yes I finished all my homevork. I am gaming upside down only because I vant to be a vampire bat, so there’s no need for you to vorry.”
She knocked on Poppy’s door.
“Poppy?”
Nothing.
“Claude?”
Nothing.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Wanna talk?”
“No.”
“I chatted with Mr. Tongo today, and he had some thoughts. Can I share them with you?”
“No thanks.”
“Okay, baby. Whenever you’re ready. Did you eat something?”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“Cheerios.”
“Want something a little more substantial? I haven’t eaten yet either. We could heat up a pizza or something.”
“No thanks.”
“Okay, love. Anything I can do to help?” Please? Please please please please please.
“You could stop asking me that question and go away.”
In her bedroom, she found all the lights off and Penn’s glowing laptop open on the bed, but Penn himself was absent.