On Sunday I skipped church.

  May didn’t push, just told me when they were leaving and what outfit would be appropriate if I wanted to go. But knowing May, she would be the center of a social circle there and they’d all want to know about me. It would be the first big social test-drive of April Seever, and I just wasn’t nearly ready—especially with The Test in three days and also with my first period looming (excuses, I was scared and this was one thing that could wait).

  My breasts hadn’t gotten any more sensitive, and though the cramps had arrived, a recurring dull ache in my lower abdomen (uterine contractions, the literature said), they were what May pronounced from my description as “pretty mild so far.” (Since she’d mentioned the need for hot packs and painkillers being a possibility, I was very grateful.) She’d walked me through what to do on The Day so I was ready there, but I was still keeping it out of my head—mainly through studying, which I was doing in the now-silent house. With everyone gone, the place was mine until lunch.

  And now, sitting at the dining room table, I couldn’t study.

  Socrates was said to have said “In this one thing I am wiser. What I do not know, I do not I think I know.” (Of course, we didn’t know if he really said it—Plato said he did.) I’d always liked the saying and thought I was pretty smart for knowing it, but in the past few days I’d been learning a lot of things that I’d thought I already knew about, most of all about myself.

  Really, I barely knew myself.

  First, I was adapting to some things surprisingly well, to others not so much. Going down the list, I was getting used to having breasts, sort of. As small as they were, they were there every time I did anything. Picking up Steph or just sitting and working on my laptop, they were right there. Even so, bras were harder to ignore, the band and straps being if anything more intrusive. It was also easier to live with my lack of a dick now—when I wasn’t paying attention to its lack, anyway—and of course I’d discovered my vulva and vagina’s entertainment value. Honestly though, most of the time my new girl-parts were less disconcerting now than other things.

  Like my size.

  It wasn't just that I'd been six foot two and now I wasn’t quite five foot nothing. Yes, almost everyone loomed over me now, even May was taller than me by several inches, but the height from which I looked at the world changed all the time, like when I sat down. It would have been far harder to adjust if I had gained four or five inches, not even half of what I’d lost.

  No, it was how small I was proportionally that repeatedly freaked me out. My hands had been as big as the rest of me and now they were small, so water bottles, glasses, doorknobs were bigger, my grip-strength negligible, I could feel it. And my arms were twigs. I was weak. Really weak. I didn't feel weak—to me weakness had felt like not being able to stand easily, it had meant unwellness—but when I tried to do anything involving upper body strength or grip? I couldn’t open the mayonnaise jar. Carl screwed it on too tight without thinking.

  But if my loss of male stature and strength—even sixty-year-old male-with-damaged-heart strength—was messing with my head, doing anything at all physical also reminded me how young and healthy and not damaged and worn out I was now. Where before running up and down the stairs of our townhouses would have left me achy and lightheaded with a pounding heart, now I felt like I could run up and down them all day. At sixty I should never have let it get that bad, and now . . . sometimes it was exhilarating, but it only added to the feeling of unreality that crept up on me without warning.

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  And then there was my voice. I’d been a solid bass before, and now I was a high, breathy soprano. I squeaked if I put any force into it, so I spoke softly and with every word my new voice said You’re a girl you’re a girl you’re a girl. Just opening my mouth could trigger an unreality episode. It was a weird, dissociative feeling.

  And even when I wasn’t triggered by the disjoint between then and now, my own head was a strange place. Carl had been onto something—how my brain was drowning in hormone levels I hadn’t experienced in a long time, not to mention a whole new testosterone/estrogen mix (almost zero testosterone now vs. ten times the estrogen, I’d looked it up). Since testosterone and estrogen were both social and emotional mediating hormones, I was doing my thinking and feeling with an altered brain chemistry and sometimes I could feel it.

  And it was affecting how I responded to almost everything; it felt like I literally felt everything more, like I was one big exposed nerve. So far I’d run away from “emotionally fraught” situations twice. Neither time had been May or Carl’s fault, and I’d never done that with my parents as a teen. I’d been running from my own overwhelming feelings, literally.

  Were women that different from men? Or was it just that I was under a level of stress I’d never experienced before? Back to Socrates’ “What I do not know, I do not I think I know,” and the point was that I didn’t know why I felt what I felt half the time, or if what I felt was natural for me to feel now. I could only hope my spinning gyroscope would eventually settle into a new groove.

  Maybe then I’d have a new baseline for normal, a handle on who April was.

  Finally abandoning the dining room table, I got a glass of ice water. Downing half of it, I was cooling my forehead with the rest when the doorbell rang.

  And rang again. Okay, not solicitors or pollsters. For one paranoid moment I wondered if the government had somehow found out and come for me but that wasn’t how it worked. My paranoia aside, I’d broken no laws; there was no duty to report my condition.

  Going to the door, I peeked through the side panel to see an older woman on the doorstep. She stood five ten or so, taller than May but reminding me of her with red hair that was very familiar despite a few streaks of white.

  I opened the door. “Hello? May I help you?”

  Looking me up and down, she gave me a shark-like smile. “Hello, April. How can you possibly have forgotten your dear Aunt Sophie?”

  **********************************************

  Five minutes later we sat at the small kitchen table drinking sweet tea. I’d gone the full road, with ice and mint and lemon slices, sugaring the rims of our glasses and even, with a nod from Aunt Sophie, adding bourbon shots from the liquor cabinet (a half a shot in my glass since I massed next to nothing now and wasn’t crazy).

  “Do you fortify your sweet tea often?” was all she said when I set our sweating glasses on coasters.

  “Only socially. I prefer my whiskey straight when I drink alone.” I hadn’t liked her smile at all and there was a point to be made. I’d never met “Aunt Sophie” and as I’d prepared our drinks she’d been looking around Carl and May’s home like she was inspecting it. She’d also been unsurprised that I was here alone and I was willing to bet she knew her niece’s church schedule. She was here for me.

  She nodded. “I see May already has you in skirts.” Today I wore a dark red skater skirt with a white t-shirt with cherry blossoms embroidered across the top.

  I shrugged, letting her dig slide off me. “I’m practicing knees-together. The school I’ll be attending has a short uniform skirt.” I looked at her over my glass. “Your point?”

  “So, May didn’t pick your clothes?” she volleyed back.

  “She did, including jeans and shorts and cargo pants. She said there’s lots of ways to be a girl. Your point?”

  Taking a sip of her tea, Aunt Sophie set her glass down. “How old are you, really?”

  I shrugged. “Eighteen just last week. How old are you?”

  “Older than you.” She smiled her shark smile again. “You and I may get along.”

  “Oh, goody.”

  Her smile only widened. “Enough.” She held out her hand. “Sophie Chandler, disgrace to the family. I’m pleased to meet you.”

  I looked at it then set down my glass and shook it. “April Seever, newest addition.” I didn’t say I was pleased, and her smile got even wider.