One

Max

In my first memory of my brother, he’s sitting on the crapper taking a leak with a tutu around his waist and a tiara on his head. It’s been seven years, but nothing has changed. 

This morning he came down for breakfast with his fingernails painted pink and butterfly barrettes in his hair. “You’re not going to school like that, are you? I mean, what the fuck, Julian?” 

“Julia,” he said. “My name is Julia.”

“Okay, Julian. I’ll try to remember.” My little brother was almost twelve, three years younger than me and small for his age. He had eyes too big for his head and ears like rearview mirrors that he hid beneath floppy black curls he refused to cut. 

But before Julian could get bent out of shape, Ma walked in. “Hurry up and grab some breakfast, Julia. You and Max need to leave in fifteen minutes or you’ll be late.” 

Ma called Julian “Julia” when they were home, but “Julian” when they were out. I called Julian “Julian” since, for crap sake, that was his name. And Dad called him “Jules” so he wouldn’t have to decide between Julian and Julia. It was a bit of a chicken-shit move, but it was hard to call Dad a chicken shit since he fought fires and saved lives for a living. 

“Do we have cinnamon toast?” Julian asked. 

Humming under her breath, Ma dropped two pieces of bread into the toaster, then began to cram small baggies full of snacks and stow them inside her enormous shoulder bag. In the bakery all day, she claimed it was better to snack on raisins, cheese crackers, and carrots than on cupcakes and cookies. As she religiously packed her healthy snacks each morning, we all pretended we knew nothing about the secret stash of tootsie pops she also kept in her shoulder bag. 

When we finished eating, Ma shoed us out of the house letting Julian go to school looking like a fruitcake. Fortunately, I probably wouldn’t see him all day until I had to meet up with him after school. As his older brother, it was my job to walk him home. 

“Did you know that a cockroach’s brain is inside its body?” Julian asked as we crossed the street on our way home later that afternoon. 

“Nope.” I searched my pocket for my Juicy Fruit and, finding half a pack, unwrapped a stick and popped it into my mouth.

“So even if it gets decapitated, it will still walk around and keep on living.” Julian tucked a curl behind his ear. “Until it starves to death because without a head, it doesn’t have a mouth to eat with.”

“That’s disgusting and interesting all at once. Thanks for the visual.”

“Want me to tell you something about butterflies?” Without waiting for a response, Julian plowed on. “Butterflies can taste with their feet. Isn’t that cool? So they can tell what plant they’re landing on and figure out if it’s where they want to lay their eggs.” 

Julian did this all the time—spouted these random animal facts. He remembered everything he heard and read, especially about animals. It was insane, and it made school crazy easy for him. He was doing the same math as me and never had to study—beyond irritating. 

“I need to get something at the mini mart,” I told my brother when we were three blocks from home. “You can wait out here.”

“I don’t want to wait out here without you.”

“Tough shit. Just wait.” I walked into the store and headed straight to the candy aisle. Julian followed. I picked up a Snickers bar, then glanced around to make sure no one was watching. The store was ancient and didn’t have any mirrors or cameras. I moved closer to the shelves and slipped two packages of Wrigley’s spearmint gum into my pants pocket, then adjusted my jacket to cover the bulge.

Julian’s eyes sprang open. “What are you doing?”

“Shut up,” I hissed. “I told you to wait outside.” 

“You’re going to get caught,” he whispered fiercely.

“I said, shut up!” I turned and strolled up the aisle to the check-out counter to pay for the candy bar. 

When we got outside, Julian turned to me, eyes flashing. “You shouldn’t have taken that. It’s stealing.” He thrust out his chin. “You could have gotten arrested. In serious trouble.”

“Not likely.” I ripped open the Snickers bar and took a fat bite, then picked up my pace. “Frankie, Buck, and I do it all the time. Never been caught. Not a single time.” 

Frankie and Buck were my best friends. When we weren’t in school, the three of us nearly always hung out at each other’s houses. Frankie had an older brother, and Buck had two hot older sisters. When their parents said it was okay, we hung out at their houses where there was no Julian. 

When we got home, Ma was in the kitchen unloading her shoulder bag. “Oh coconuts!” she said as a baggie of left-over raisins spilled across the counter. 

I eyed several jelly donuts in a white cardboard box. “Those for us?” I had wiped clean any remnants of my Snickers’ bar before walking through the door. What Ma didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. 

Ma planted a kiss atop Julian’s head, then one on mine. Ma was like that, always hugging and kissing us. Unlike Dad who was large and leathery with biceps the size of cantaloupes, Ma was soft. Her cheeks were round as tufted pillows, and her eyes disappeared when she smiled or laughed. She had a voice that poured from her like warm honey. If voices had a color, Ma’s was amber. 

Ma had grown up in a small town in Iowa, and Dad in Provo, Utah. They met on some kind of church retreat. That was before Dad gave up church and religion for good. Our family still did the major holidays, but only Ma ever regularly went to church.  

“You can each have one for a snack,” Ma said, placing the donuts on two plates. “How was your day? Anything special happen?” 

“Na,” I said. “Just the usual.” 

Julian lifted a shoulder, then took a massive bite of his donut. Raspberry jelly spurted onto his plate and, with the next bite, stained his lips so red he looked like he was wearing lipstick. Powdered sugar ringed his mouth.

“When you’re finished, try to get your homework done because Grandpa is stopping by after dinner,” Ma said, nibbling at the remaining donut she had said she was saving for Dad. Half was already gone. 

Grandpa Donald was Dad’s father, and I hated him. He was cranky, mean, and had God-awful salami breath. No one liked him. Grandpa Donald hardly ever visited, and I wasn’t sure why he was coming tonight since he and Ma didn’t get along that well. I sure hoped he wasn’t coming to see Dad because Dad was on a twenty-four at the fire station and wouldn’t be home until morning. 

Shortly after dinner as I slogged through my algebra homework, a flash of pink streaked past my bedroom. I poked my head out the door to investigate. Julian, as usual, was in quite the get-up. I winced at the sight of him dressed like a ballerina, twirling his way down the hall in his favorite pink tutu and a jeweled crown. He leaped, skinny arms and legs outstretched, a huge smile on his face. Then he curtsied as if in some kind of dance recital. Fucking weirdo. I scrubbed my eyes with my palms to erase the image.  

I didn’t understand my brother at all. I didn’t understand why he thought he was a girl and why he needed to dress in clothes that made the rest us cringe. Ma encouraged me to try to be more openminded and accepting and to have empathy for Julian. She said we didn’t know what it felt like to be him and should try to put ourselves in his shoes. But as much as I tried, I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t imagine myself wanting to wear ballet slippers and sparkle sneakers. 

The doorbell rang, and I hurried back to my room, ear to the door. I had a feeling this was going to be interesting. 

Two

Francy 

Burly like my husband, Donald Walker stood six feet three inches with shoulders like mountains. But unlike Lou, he had let himself go and now had a beer belly and jowls that hung soft and loose on either side of his mouth. His cheeks were pale as yogurt and his nose a cobweb of burst blood vessels. Also unlike my clean-shaven husband, Donald had a beard that grizzled his chin, a forbidding terrain. 

“Francy,” Donald greeted me, a scowl on his face. It was mid-September in the year 2022, and warm evening air wafted through the doorway mingled with the smell of the pungent pipe tobacco Donald smoked.  

“Come in.” I moved into our living room and, after a moment’s hesitation, Donald followed. We did not hug or kiss—the best we did was civil. Donald had disapproved of his son’s marriage to me and had not come to our wedding. I was not sure whether it was because I was not an evangelical Christian, was too outspoken, or he simply didn’t like me. Needless to say, there was no love lost between us. 

Lou and I had lived in Bountiful, Utah, all our married lives and during most of that time Donald thankfully had lived in Alabama. As a result, I could count on one hand the number of times he had visited—until nine months ago when he had moved back to Utah, close to where he had raised Lou. A mere fifty-five miles from us. 

For my husband’s sake, I tried to hold my tongue around his father. Lou hated conflict, and I didn’t want to aggravate their already tense relationship. I loved Lou and couldn’t imagine how growing up with Donald as a father had scarred him. 

Donald planted himself in our best chair—a green velvet wing chair. He busied himself picking invisible lint from his pants, then extracted a toothpick from his shirt pocket and began to pick his teeth. He still wore the same scowl he had worn when I had opened the door. Despite my seventeen years of marriage to his son, Donald continued to make no effort to hide his disdain for me.  

“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked with a tight smile.

He dismissed my offer with a flick of his hand, turning back to his teeth. “Where are my grandsons?”

I called upstairs to the children. Max arrived first, gave his grandfather an awkward hug, then dropped onto the couch. Max was a good-looking boy, dark curly hair worn above the ears, a slash of cheek bones, and an easy smile. He was well-built and had a languid confidence for a fifteen year old. Gazing now at my son, I remembered him as a joyful, round-faced toddler who used to find mischief around every corner, his poker-faced, angelic expression his greatest asset. Although Max had changed in many ways, in this way he had remained the same. He still knew how to play to a crowd and please others, his expression giving nothing away. It was hard to believe he now was in the tenth grade.  

Max tossed a baseball from hand to hand, then put his feet up on the coffee table. “How’ve you been Grandpa?” he asked, summoning an interested tone. I was grateful to Max for managing friendly small talk with someone I knew he disliked. 

Donald shifted the toothpick in his mouth, ignoring his grandson’s question. He eyed the baseball. “You been playing ball at school?” 

I heard a rustling and glanced over my shoulder as Julia descended the stairs. She had not thought to change her clothes before greeting her grandfather and still wore the pink tutu and tiara she sometimes changed into after school. And son of a monkey if she didn’t also have Amanda tucked under her arm—the doll we had given her on her sixth birthday. A boy doll that Julia had immediately transformed into a girl, adding bows to her hair and fashioning a dress from sewing scraps and ribbon. 

Julia leapt off the bottom stair, her riotous black curls hovering around her head like a halo, tutu billowing. Upon landing, she raised her bare arms above her head, her doll dangling, then spun and came to a breathless stop before the green velvet chair. “Hi, Grandpa.” 

Donald’s mouth fell open, and a wave of nausea rolled over me. 

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Donald said. “What the hell, Julian? Why are you dressed up like a God-damn sissy boy again? You look like a flaming faggot. What’s the matter with you?”

Julia’s eyes widened. I knew she occasionally was teased in school, and it tortured me. But I didn’t think it had ever occurred to Julia that a member of her own family could be so cruel. 

“My name is Julia, not Julian,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly. “I am a girl, not a boy, and I’m allowed to wear these clothes in the house.”

“As far as I know, you were born a boy and still are a boy. You still got a dick?” 

My jaw tightened. “That’s enough, Donald,” I said. “You are out of line.” I turned to Max and Julia. “Will the two of you please go upstairs to finish your homework and begin to wash up for bed?”

Max stretched, then shrugged and rose. Julia glared at her grandfather but followed her brother up the stairs. 

“How dare you come into my house and speak to my child that way? Your own grandchild!” I was a patient woman, more tolerant than most. But now I felt myself going from low to high like someone had yanked my rip cord. I thought of the yellow post-it note I recently had placed on my bathroom mirror as a daily reminder: “Kindness is doing what you can, where you are, with whatever you have.” I’m in my house with an intolerant man who lacks empathy and understanding, I thought to myself. What does kindness require in this situation? I wasn’t feeling very kind. 

“First, it’s Lou’s house, not yours,” Donald spat. “And second, if Lou was a God-fearing man like I raised him to be, he would never allow this kind of sinful behavior under his roof. God created man and woman—two separate sexes—as part of his divine plan. It was God’s will for Julian to be a boy. Otherwise he would have been born a girl. You think you know better than God? Are you so arrogant as to believe you or Julian get to choose?”

I blinked, trying to focus through the heat climbing my neck. 

But before I could shape a response, Donald pushed on. “A boy who thinks he’s a girl.” Disgust darkened his face. “Christ, Francy. It’s your fault for babying Julian, pandering to him and buying him dolls and girlie clothes. Letting him dress up like a girl.” His expression was arctic. “You had one job. To create a good Christian home in which you took care of your husband and children. And you neglected your responsibility to raise good Christian sons, and you neglected your responsibility to keep an orderly home for your husband. He should have put you in your place a long time ago. My son comes home after a hard day of work to a Nancy boy and this disaster?” Donald swept his arm wildly around the living room, landing on the laundry basket spilling over with clean clothes in need of folding, the dirty dinner plates still on the kitchen table, and finally to the trail of flour in the entryway.  

A blaze of anger ignited me, and I spoke with a quiet ferocity. “You should be ashamed of yourself. Of your closed mind and scathing judgment about things you know nothing about.” I squared my shoulders. “My heart aches for Lou, who had to endure your twisted views of the world for so many years.” I moved closer. After years of tolerating this awful man, I could not stomach one more minute of him in my presence. “I need you to leave my house. And yes, it is my house. Lou and I are married, and we jointly own the house. Inconceivable to you, I know, but we have a marriage of equality.”

Donald glared at me, his ears purpling. I was pretty sure he was not accustomed to being confronted. Especially by a woman.

“How dare you …” he began, taking a step toward me.

But I cut him off as I strode to the front door. “Out,” I interrupted. “You need to leave my house. Now.”

When I finally closed the door behind Donald and locked it securely, I collapsed onto the stairs, my hands trembling with what I had done. I rarely lost my temper, and it had drained me. I gazed around the living room and sighed. Donald was right. The house was a mess. I glanced briefly at the laundry basket, dirty juice glasses on the end table, then at the disarray in the kitchen. It was no secret I struggled with time management. The small bakery I owned brought me immense pleasure, but it also consumed much of my time and energy. Although we needed the money from the bakery to help support our family, I needed the bakery to be a happy person. Baking satisfied my passion to create, decorate, and nurture. Not to mention my love of all sweet things. So we did the best we could. 

As my breathing settled, Donald’s awful tirade replayed in my head. I didn’t know how Lou had survived growing up with Donald as his father. These days Lou rarely spoke of his childhood, but during our early years he had shared stories about how his father had often beaten him with a belt for disobeying God’s will. From what Lou had described, Donald’s will had been God’s will. He had demanded unquestioned obedience and submission from his son and wife, and he had used fear, shame, and physical punishment to get it.  

Lou’s mother had been the only source of love in his life, and although she had done her best to protect him from his father’s wrath, there had only been so much she had been able to do. Lou had described her as meek, submissive, and afraid of her husband. She had died shortly after Lou’s sixteenth birthday, and Lou had left home two years later and never looked back. 

I heard murmuring upstairs, and my thoughts drifted back to Julia. I would have to talk to her about what had happened tonight. 

The image of Julia pirouetting down the stairs sparked a recollection of the first time she had worn that tutu, and I began to leapfrog through old memories. I thought about Julia at four, when we had visited my sister who had just given birth to her third daughter. Julia had disappeared into the playroom with her older cousins and twenty minutes later scampered into the family room dressed for the first time in the pink tutu and tiara that now resided in her closet. She had begged to bring the ballerina outfit home, and her cousins had agreed. In the weeks that followed, Julia had insisted on sleeping with the tutu and tiara, spreading the stiff layers of pink netting between herself and the wall like the ghost of a dancer, the tiara perched on her pillow above an invisible head so she could gaze at the shimmering pink and purple crystals and iridescent gems as she drifted off to sleep. 

During that same visit with my sister, we had introduced Julia to her new baby cousin. Julia had patted the infant gently on the head, kissed her cheek, then told us when she grew up she was going to be the baby’s mommy.

“You mean her daddy,” I had told her, "because you are a boy and a boy becomes a daddy when he has a baby. But your baby cousin already has a daddy—your Uncle Paul. You are the baby’s older cousin." 

Julia had shaken her head vigorously. “No. I will be her mommy because I’m a girl.” That had been the first time Julia had ever said anything like this. She had been four. Probably a passing phase, I had thought at the time. An infatuation with her older cousins. My sister had raised a brow, and I had shrugged. 

But it had not been a passing phase. From that time forward, Julia had insisted she was a girl and had begun to ask me to buy her girls’ clothing. When I had asked what she liked better about girls’ clothes, she told me they were prettier, that she wanted to wear pink and purple and clothes that sparkled. Although Julia lovingly caressed the frilly dresses she saw during our department store outings and regularly begged me to buy her one, I had not yet bought Julia a dress. Instead, I had compromised by buying pants and shirts in the colors Julia chose, including the oversized shirts she loved that sometimes reached her knees. But she had her ballerina outfit, as well as the remnants of her Elsa, Mulan, and Wonder Woman costumes from past Halloweens. Lou had been unhappy about the Halloween costume choices, but I had persuaded him that, one night a year when everyone transformed into someone they were not, we should let Julia be who she wanted to be.  

Lou and I had first discussed with Julia’s pediatrician Julia’s belief she was a girl at her five-year-old annual check-up. At the end of the check-up, I had asked Julia to sit with Max in the waiting room for a few minutes so Lou and I could speak to the doctor in private. 

Lou had sunk his hands into his pockets. “I don’t really understand. Julian’s a boy. I don’t get why he thinks he’s a girl.”

“Some children identify with a gender different from the gender assigned at birth, and it sounds like Julian may be identifying more as female right now. It’s not unusual for children to experiment with different genders and identities. For some kids, this phase passes, and for others it does not,” the doctor had told us. “A child’s sense of self is ever-evolving."

“The most important thing, though, is for your child to feel loved and supported in whoever your child is, regardless of how they present themselves. Try to follow your child’s lead and not make a big deal out of things. I believe that to best care for our children, we need to honor who they say they are.”

“How do we do that?” I had asked. “Honor who Julia says she is?” 

“One way is to call her by the name she has asked you to call her by.”

“I can’t do that,” Lou said. “I’m not comfortable calling my son Julia.” He scraped his hand over his jaw. “And what do we do about the fact that he wants to wear dresses around the house?” Lou asked, shifting uncomfortably. “I’m not on board with my son wearing a dress.” 

“These are personal decisions—things you will need to decide as a family. But I think seeing a counselor with experience helping families think through these kinds of issues might be helpful.”

At my urging, Lou had agreed to follow the doctor’s recommendation to see a counselor. But after the second appointment, he had balked and wanted to discontinue the sessions.

“Why?” I had asked. “I like the therapist. She’s been through the same kinds of things with so many other families. I think it’s helpful to get her insights.”

“Because she’s encouraging Julian, normalizing this, and I don’t think we should be validating Julian’s assertion he’s a girl. Julian’s making a bad choice that we’re supporting. And you can’t expect a gender therapist to do anything other than affirm Julian’s belief he’s a girl, Francy.” 

“But what if this is just who our child is?”

“It’s our responsibility as Julian’s parents to guide our child. Julian can’t possibility know at this young age what he wants or what is right or wrong for him.” Lou had clawed his oversized hands through his hair, a frown carving his face. “And how would we ever explain to friends and family—the guys at the firehouse—that our son is a girl?”

A tight silence had followed as I had tried to make sense of what Lou had said. At first I had been angry, thinking Lou was putting his own feelings of awkwardness and embarrassment before the best interests of our child. But then I had stopped to reflect, to try to see things from Lou’s perspective. He had been raised with hard and fast rules that could not be broken without dire consequences. A drilled-in need to meet the expectations of others—his father, God, the church, society. Conflict of any kind triggered his childhood memories of harsh punishments. Of Donald pitching household items across the room at him in wild rages. He had learned at an early age not to go against the grain, not to make waves, and having his son become a girl was tantamount to a tidal wave. 

So we had agreed to disagree about therapy and decided that, so long as no decisions were made about Julia without Lou’s participation, Julia and I would continue to see the therapist without him. 

The sound of Max’s voice brought me back. I heard what sounded like Julia softly crying upstairs. 

“Don’t mind Grandpa,” Max said. “He’s a knobhead.” I heard Julia snuffle noisily, hiccup, then laugh. “What’s a knobhead?”

Max laughed now, too. “Come on, want me to show you how to play my new video game?” 

Three

Max 

“What’s with your brother today?” Buck asked, indicating with his chin. 

“What do you mean?” I glanced over at the knot of sixth-grade girls on the hopscotch court. Julian hovered at the perimeter. Horizon Community School was one of those weird schools where, because of the size of our school district, the elementary, middle, and high school were all housed in connecting buildings with some shared spaces. 

“Someone’s gonna beat the crap out of him in those rainbow sneakers and girlie hat. Not to mention that shirt that looks like a dress. Does he think he has tits under there? A VJJ?”

Frankie sniggered. “He’s flaming today, Max. Why do your folks let him out of the house wearing crap like that?”

I eyed my two best friends. We had been together since fourth grade, so they had known Julian forever. But with each new school year, Julian seemed to be more and more out there, drawing increased attention to himself. It sometimes felt like my brother consumed my whole life, and I was so over it. I was sick and tired of trying to explain him to my friends. 

“While you two dickheads are busy yammering on about my brother’s non-existent tots, you’re missing out on the real deal coming our way,” I gazed longingly at Sierra, an eleventh grader I had a crush on. 

When the last school bell rang for the day, I hung back outside the eleventh-grade homeroom in the hope of bumping into Sierra. But no such luck. We had crossed paths a couple times, but I wasn’t even sure she knew my name. 

As I stepped outside, I felt the shift in the weather. At recess, a thin sun had slipped in and out from behind the clouds. But now, the temperature had dropped, the sun was long gone, and grey clouds skulked low. The heavy sky of a coming storm, I thought. I turned my face upward, and a raindrop plipped onto my forehead. Shit. I’d have to walk home in the rain. We hardly ever got rain in September, but Ma had told us to bring our raincoats, so I had stuffed mine into my knapsack at the last minute. Now, I yanked it out. Where was Julian? We always met on the stairs, and he was late.

I took a step backward under the building’s overhang to keep dry. That was when I spotted Julian on the playground with a couple older kids. I was about to yell for him when I saw one of the kids snatch his hat off his head—the new purple knit hat with a pink pom pom Ma had just given him for his twelfth birthday. The kid wagged the hat in Julian’s face, then jerked it away laughing. Julian jumped for it, but he was a shrimp and didn’t even come close to reaching. The kid then tossed the hat over Julian’s head to another kid, and the two began to play catch, taunting Julian by dangling the hat just above his head between each throw. By now, the rain came down hard and pummeled the parking lot. The weather had turned cruel. 

The taller of the two boys threw Julian’s hat to the ground and began to dance on it, wildly flapping his arms. The word “fairy” carried on the wind. I stepped into the blowing rain, but the black sky and heavy downfall muted my tangled thoughts. I should go to him. He’s my brother. So why wasn’t I moving? What held me back? 

Finally, the two boys laughed, shoved Julian to the ground, and ran off. I pulled up my hood, walked over to the playground, and picked up Julian’s hat. It was sopping wet, muddy, and the pom pom had fallen off. I stuffed the pom pom into my pocket. Then I turned to Julian, helped him stand, and handed him his hat.

Rain and tears coursed down his pinched face. His curls hung wet on his shaking shoulders, and his eyes were big as softballs. Snot ran from his nose. I slung my arm around him and guided him back to the parking lot. As we walked home together in the blowing rain, Julian could not stop turning the filthy hat over and over again in his hands. Each time he came to the missing pom pom, a new round of tears began. 

“Ma will wash it, and Dad will be able to sew the pom pom back on,” I told him. Dad did all the sewing in our house. He was better at it than Ma and seemed to enjoy re-attaching buttons and stitching patches onto the worn knees of our pants. He had once told me that his Ma had taught him to sew back when he was little, but that it had been a secret they had kept from Grandpa Donald. 

“I just got this hat,” Julian sniffled. “It’s brand new.” 

I didn’t know what to say. He loved that stupid hat. I pulled out my gum and offered Julian a stick. He took it.  

As we rounded the bend toward home, Julian gasped, then tapped my shoulder. “Do you see that?” he asked, pointing straight ahead with his finger. Without waiting for me to answer, he moved gingerly toward a tiny black animal that limped across the sidewalk. The creature collapsed on a tuft of brown grass and lay unmoving. Julian knelt. “Hey there,” he whispered. “What are you doing out here?” 

I caught up to Julian and crouched down to get a better look. It was a kitten that couldn’t have been more than a couple weeks old. Its black hair was drenched, and it looked miserable. Julian scooped the tiny animal into his hands and held it close. 

“Do you have anything dry to wrap it in?” he asked.

“Don’t think so.” But then I remembered the dirty gym shirt in my knapsack. “Actually, I do have something.” I unzipped my bag and pulled out the shirt. “Here.”

Julian wrapped the cotton shirt around the kitten creating a cocoon, then tucked the bundle inside his jacket against his chest. 

“What are you gonna do with it?” I asked.

“Bring it home.” 

I wasn’t sure Ma and Dad were going to be onboard with this. Julian already had a bunch of pets. But I minded my own business. 

“Did you know that when kittens are really young, they can’t generate and maintain the body heat they need to survive? This kitten would die if we left her out here in the cold.”

The kitten had done what I couldn’t—distract Julian from the shit show of his hat. 

“Kittens also need to eat every few hours. Without her mother or someone else to feed her, she’d starve.”       

“Don’t you think we should look around for the mother then?” I asked. “What if she’s nearby but afraid to come out?”

Julian nodded. “We might also find more kittens.”

We divided up and for twenty minutes walked the neighborhood scouring the streets, sidewalks, and bushes. Buck had once shown me a feral tabby that had given birth to five kittens under his porch, so we also checked under porches. 

When we finally got home, both Ma and Dad were there. Dad was browning ground beef and onions. A box of fettuccine noodles sat next to a large pot of water on the stove. He had gotten good at cooking at the firehouse. All the guys took turns making dinner for the company, so he’d had lots of practice. Now, on his days off, Dad cooked, but he still left the baking to Ma. 

“Where have you been?” Ma asked. “I was getting worried. It’s nasty out there.” Harsh winds scratched at the windows, and darkness smeared the sky.

Julian reached inside his raincoat and pulled out the kitten, cupping it in his hands. Then he lowered his face into the fur. The kitten lifted its head and gave a tiny mew.

Dad put down his wooden spoon. “What do we have here?” 

He and Ma moved closer, peering into Julian’s hands. “Well, bust my britches! If it isn’t a kitten,” Ma said, her eyes disappearing into her cheeks. She was a total sucker for baby animals, just like Julian. It’s why she let him have so many. She couldn’t say no to all that fluffiness. Ma loved to mother—not just us, but anyone in need of mothering. 

“Where did you find this little guy?” Dad asked.

“Walking home from school.” Julian stroked the kitten’s tiny head. “She was soaked and shivering and all alone in the pouring down rain. She would have died out there.” He gazed up at Ma, his eyes humongous pools of hope. “Can we keep her?”

Dad raised a brow but waited for Ma to take the lead. He did that a lot when it came to decisions about our pets. Dad had never had a pet as a child, and Ma had had tons. She had grown up on a small family farm in Iowa with two cats, three dogs, a pot belly pig, and a boat load of chickens. Not to mention three sisters and two brothers. Her parents had grown corn and sold eggs, and all the kids had helped out. To this day, Ma refused to buy popcorn. She said she had gotten more than her fill growing up, and that variety was the spice of life. I ate popcorn at Frankie’s house. 

“She can live in my room. I’ll feed her and change her litter and do everything. I promise.” Julian gazed up at Ma beseechingly. “She needs a good home, Ma. She’s needs someone to love her.”

Dad fetched an empty Amazon box from the recycling bin and cushioned it with two worn dish towels. “Let’s set her down in here for a minute so you can get out of that wet raincoat.” 

Julian and I shrugged out of our raincoats, and Dad hung them by the door. His brow creased when he pulled Julian’s muddy hat from his raincoat pocket. “What happened here, Jules?” Dad asked, holding up Julian’s brand new, now filthy hat. 

I saw a muscle jump in Julian’s cheek. A flush crept up my neck. A whisper of guilt. Did Julian know I had seen everything and done nothing? Would he say anything to Ma and Dad?

But Julian had gone mute. He flicked a pleading glance my way, and tension stretched in a tight band between us. He was tossing this one to me. Or at least that’s what I thought.

“It fell out of Julian’s pocket at recess,” I began, the lie smooth on my tongue. “Julian didn’t realize ‘til the end of the day,” I continued. “Luckily someone turned it into lost and found and we got it back—but it was wet and dirty, and the pom pom was missing.” I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out the pom pom. “I have it though. You’ll be able to re-attach it, won’t you, Dad?”

Ma held out her hand for the hat and pom pom, frowning. “I’ll try to get these stains out. But this is a real shame. You just got this.” 

Julian looked like he was ready to cry again, and Ma kissed him on his forehead. “Let me see what I can do.”

I wasn’t sure why Julian didn’t want Ma and Dad to know what had really happened on the playground, but it was fine with me. I just hoped he wouldn’t wear that damn hat again anytime soon.