The Darker Side Read Online Free PDF Page A

picture.”
    “Meanwhile,” Rosario continues, “as you know, Dexter still came for Christmas, but on the sly.” She pauses. “Horrible, don’t you think? Giving up our child for professional ambition?”
    I think about this. This woman deserves a real answer, not something trite and clever.
    “I think,” I say, cautious, “that anything else would have hurt Dexter. He felt that he had to do what he was doing, but he was worried about how it would affect your husband’s career. I mean, he said ‘publicly disown.’ Did he ever seem to expect that either of you would actually disown him?”
    She’s startled by this concept. “No. No, I don’t think so.”
    “So he was secure in being loved by you. I’m not saying it excuses everything, but it’s certainly not nothing, Rosario.”
    Grief is sometimes simple, but often complex. It encompasses self-doubts, what-ifs, if-onlys. It resembles regret, but is more powerful than that. It can disappear in an instant or settle in till death. I see versions of all these things run across Rosario’s features, and I’m happy for it, because it means I’ve given her a truth. Lies can hurt, but nothing moves us like truth.
    It takes her a moment to get herself under control. Still no tears.
    “So, Dexter got through that year, and that year was the end of Dexter. A son died, a daughter was reborn. Such a beautiful daughter too. Lisa blossomed, both inside and out. She’d always been a happy child, but now she seemed to glow. She was…content. Contentment is hard to come by, Smoky.”
    I notice how easily she’s slipped into using “Lisa,” “she,” and “her.” Dexter became Lisa, not just to himself, but to his mother.
    “How did the congressman adjust?”
    “He was never really comfortable with it. But I don’t want to paint a picture of him as a stereotypical intolerant, Smoky. Dillon loved Dexter and he was trying very, very hard to love Lisa. He considered any difficulty in doing so to be his failing, not Lisa’s.”
    “I’m sure Lisa saw that too.”
    Rosario nods and smiles. “She did. She was—happy. The hormones took very well, and she was wise with her breast augmentation, fitting it to her frame, not going too big or too small. She took to makeup like a fish to water, walked like a woman without any real effort, had a good sense of style. Even her voice lessons, which can be the most difficult for some, went easy for her.”
    Men have lower voices because their vocal cords elongate during puberty. This elongation is not reversible, requiring that men who transition to women learn how to pitch their voices higher.
    “Was she planning on…going all the way with it?”
    Not all transsexuals elect to change their genitalia.
    “She hadn’t decided.”
    “Why was Lisa in Texas?” I ask. “I understand she lived here, in Virginia. Was she visiting you?”
    “She came down for her grandmother’s funeral. This was Dillon’s mother.”
    “Did you and the congressman attend the funeral?”
    “Yes. It was small and private. We’re not in the middle of a campaign right now, so there was no media. We held the service and Lisa left the next day to go back home. She was supposed to be working tomorrow.”
    “What did she do?”
    “She ran her own travel agency. A one-woman show, but she did fine. She had a very profitable niche, coming up with vacations designed for the gay, lesbian, and transgendered community.”
    “Are you aware of any enemies she had? Anyone she might have mentioned bothering her?”
    “No.” Emphatic. “I’m not brushing off the question or operating in denial, Smoky. It’s the first thing I considered, and nothing came to mind.”
    But you might be surprised, I think.
    All those late night secrets, the big and the small, the ones that come knocking when the moon goes behind a cloud—children have them too, and the parents are usually the last to know.
    “What about you or the congressman? I realize you both have