Happy Families Read Online Free PDF Page A

in the tiny bathroom between the secretary’s office and the senior pastor’s study, leaning into the small mirror, peering at his eyes and rubbing at his lashes. Icame up behind him, walking heel-toe-heel-toe in my new black shoes, and he didn’t seem to notice me.
    “Daddy?”
    My father jerked, his hand flailing away from his eyes. A smear of black landed on his cheek. His fingers were black, I noticed, and he was clutching a thin black pencil in his hand. It was something I’d seen Mom use before.
    “Justin. Buddy.” My father seemed out of breath. “How ya doing?”
    “Do you have an eyelash?”
    “Eyelash?” he repeated stupidly, then recovered. “Oh. No, Bud, I’m fine. You ready?”
    “Yeah.” I grinned up at him. “Ms. Cochrane says she likes my jacket.”
    “It’s a great jacket.” My father smiled down on me. “You look like a champ.”
    I remember chewing on my bottom lip, watching. Daddy seemed so different that day. Nervous. I thought he was scared about having his picture taken.
    “You’ve got something black on your cheek,” I informed him, and stared as he frantically scrubbed at his face in the mirror. For the rest of the night, I watched him, worrying. Why’d he get so jumpy? Was there something wrong with taking pictures?
    That family portrait is in the stairwell at Grandmama and Poppy’s place, with all the others marching through the years. Every time I walk up the stairs at that house, I see my snaggletoothed grin, Ysabel’s soft, dreamy expression, Mom’s professional catering smile, and Dad’s startled, black-rimmed eyes, anxiety leaking from behind a shining wall of teeth.
    Fear. Like a deer caught in headlights, just before the crash.
    Before we realized Dad was gone, we had no time to miss him. He called us every night on his laptop, video conferencing to walk me through my algebra and discuss world history chapters with Ys and me. He actually sent us postcards—weird ones—from all the cities where he stayed. Mom was the one who missed him, who got quieter and quieter, who took more and more weekend catering gigs to fill the time he was gone. Worried about his daughter, Poppy took off one day last January and caught up with Dad on the way back from a cross-country business trip, hoping to talk him into coming home and letting one of his foremen do the traveling for a while. Then Poppy found out the secret that changed everything.
    Dad wasn’t … isn’t … the same man. He doesn’t even want to
be
a man.
    Voices rise, and a steady stream of worshippers exits the church building. Leaning against the door of the van, I watch people wave, chatter, and make plans to get together later in the week. I hear my name and see my former girlfriend, Callista, smile tentatively and wave before getting into her mother’s car. I give a lame wave, both glad and miserable to see her.
    Man, I miss her.
    The click of the van door unlocking distracts me. Mom’s on her way, striding down the walkway. I slide into the backseat and slouch. So Ysabel got stuck with Dad. I feel guilty for ducking out before he could talk to me.
    Better Ys than me, though.
    Poppy told Mom that if he hadn’t been watching Dad’s hotel room, he wouldn’t have even realized it was him, with the wigand all. He stood at Dad’s table in the hotel restaurant and just stared at him, trying to understand. “Christopher?” he’d said, not sure he was seeing right.
    “It’s Christine,” Dad said.
    Poppy told Mom that Dad set down his butter knife and said hello to him, like it was a perfectly normal day. And Mom found out that the linen suit she’d donated to the Community Service Center wasn’t as far away as she thought it was.
    It’s not like I’ve never heard of guys wearing women’s clothes. I mean, every year at Halloween somebody does it, and I know there are female impersonators and stuff. But those things are just jokes. Dad’s … serious. I looked it up online and found a huge amount