A life in a leather wrapper

        With shaking hands, he placed the last word in black ink on the gray line. His hands looked like a map, marked with veins that run like rivers under Hector’s thin and wrinkled skin. He reached for the cap of the pen and screwed it back on. It was his favorite pen that he got when he left home to go to university in Barcelona. His grandfather had given it to him as his last present before he passed away and Hector kept it save and only used it for special occasions like signing important documents or, like this time, writing down his story.

               Hector took this last sheet and put it under the stack of paper, filled with words that would explain how he became who he is now. He leaned back in his leather chair behind the big office desk that has been, next to the packed bookshelves, the only thing in his study. He has not been in here much since he retired but over the last few weeks, he spent all his days in here filling line after line with words. The big grandfather clock in the hallway struck five and the late afternoon sun was filling the room with warm and golden light. Now it was time for Hector to eat dinner. It was not late yet but Hector preferred eating dinner early because he would not feel as stuffed at night when he tosses from one side to the other in his bed without finding sleep because of his hip and back pains.

               He pushed himself up from the leather chair that he had sunken into over the last hours while writing and made his way to the kitchen, barely lifting up his feet. When he used to walk like that as a child, his mother, a hot-tempered woman who always wore aprons with flower print, would smack the back of his head and tell him to lift up his feet. Hector smiled for a split second when he thought about that but then he quickly returned to his neutral face carved with many wrinkles from furrowing his eyebrows, pushing out his chin and frowning over what he did.

               One hand on the wall to steady himself, one on his walking stick he stepped out in the hallway. The flowers that were carved in the wooden wainscot of the walls looked so realistic that they sometimes seemed to move and sway in some kind of wind that only they can feel. The telephone on the little table with the chair next to it, that Hector has not sat on in years, rang. Hector could not remember the last time that someone called him; it must have been a long time ago. He rushed towards the noisy thing as fast as he could and was out of breath when he reached to pick up the phone. It was an old one with a layer of dust on top and a spiral cord that barely reached over to the chair.

               “¿Dígame?” spoke Hector with a raspy voice into the receiver after clearing his throat.

On the other end of the line answered a deep voice, “Buenas noches, papá.” Hector opened his mouth without saying anything. Could this really be one of his sons? Or his daughter? He couldn’t remember. With a deep sigh, Hector sank into the chair and pulled the phone dangerously close to the edge of the little table.

               “Manuel?” he asked unsure.

“Actually, it is Lucía, papá,” answered the other person, his daughter, how Hector now realized. He could not recall the last time he spoke to him. Spoke to her, Hector corrected himself in his mind.          “Oh,” was the only thing Hector said to that and ran his hand through his hair that surrounded his head like a cloud, so wild and all over the place was it.

               “Why are you calling?” asked Hector and could not avoid to sound a bit cranky. He - She never called him and now all of a sudden? It was not even Christmas or Easter or anything. Was it her birthday and he forgot?

               “I want to come visit you, papá.” Lucía answered and sounded like she asked for his permission. Hector was perplexed and not quite able to figure out what he was feeling in this moment. Was he happy? Surprised? Scared?

               “I’m just a couple miles away visiting a friend of mine and thought I’d drop by to say hello, you know? How about tonight? I could bring over some dinner for both of us?”

               Hector remembered Manuel- Lucía talking off her head about anything. Even as a child this little boy with the black curls would ramble on about the most unimportant things for hours if you did not stop him. Hector smiled when he thought about the good old days when Manuel would sit on the swing that was hanging from the old cherry tree in their garden, asking Hector to push him because he did not know how to swing without help. “Only one more time, papá,” he would say when Hector told him that it was time to go inside because mamá had the dinner ready.

               “So, what do you say?” Lucía asked and Hector thought he wouldn’t have much of a choice but saying yes. Lucía announced that she would be there shortly and hung up.

               Hector sat in the chair with the receiver in his lap for a couple more minutes before he realized that one of his children that he has not seen in probably fifteen years was going to arrive at his house soon. He shuffled to his bedroom as fast as he could and put on some proper clothes.

Not much later, the bell rang and Hector was in panic. He wondered if she changed. What would she look like? But he did not have much time to think, since the bell rang a second time. He opened the door and there in the doorway was a beautiful woman, tall, skinny, with long black curls framing her long face. In her hand she was holding two pizza boxes.

               “¡Hola, papá!” Lucía said. Hector stood there with the doorknob in his hand and could not stop looking at her, clearly her. There was not much left of Manuel, he thought. The black curls were still shimmering in the afternoon sun and her brown eyes were now even darker than how Hector remembered them to be. Then Hector noticed the Adam’s apple that was half hidden by a turtle neck, even though it was quite warm outside and definitely too warm for a turtle neck. Afterall, he could still see his son in this half-woman that was standing in front of him.

               “Hola Manuel,” Hector replied and stepped aside to let his daughter inside the house she grew up in.

               “Papá, I told you it’s Lucía”

Hector shrugged and shuffled to the kitchen where he sat down and waited for Lucía. She walked even slower than her father and observed everything on the short way to the kitchen closely.

               “There is not much that has changed,” Lucía looked around the kitchen.

“Well I’m the only one who lives here, so why would I change what I’m already used to?”

               Lucía nodded and put down the two pizza boxes on the table.

“The glasses are in the corner cabinet over there”

They sat down at the old table, each of them had their pizza in front of them.

               “I remember how mamá used to make pasta and then we had the huge blue bowl on the table and I was too short to look over it, so I could only see my reflection in the bowl and not you or mamá or Lucas,” Lucía said while looking around in the kitchen.

               Hector only stared at her, at her Adam’s apple that was still visible through the fabric of her shirt, at her chest that was not flat anymore, at her hands that seemed too big for her body, and at her chin that had a hint of a five o’clock shadow. Somewhere Hector could still see Manuel and he would always see Manuel and not Lucía in this adult, he thought. Lucía tried to talk to Hector but he just tolerated her presence und ate his pizza in silence.

               “A vers, papá, I have to tell you why I’m here”

Hector looked at her and put down his piece of pizza.

               “It’s about Lucas. Did you hear from him?”

               “No”

               “When was the last time you heard from him?”

               “Quite a few years ago”

Hector remembered the day Lucas moved out. He was eighteen and went to go to university in France. He forgot the name of the city. Manuel- Lucía was already gone for five years. Hector received occasional postcards from Lucas at Christmas or at the Fiesta de Lucía that Manuel named herself after. He never understood what made Manuel become Lucía. It was not normal. He had two sons and now, according to Lucía, he was having a son and a daughter. Lucas and Manuel, who dresses like a woman and wants to be called Lucía. Hector remembered how Lucía tried to explain it to him but he did not understand her. Some night in April he decided that he would not longer support this. His wife was against it but he decided to kick her out. He would not spend any more money on this child. Hector furrowed his brow unconsciously when he thought about that.

               “Well, I guess you did not hear then that Lucas is dead. He died last week.”

               Lucía observed her father’s reaction but he did not move a single muscle in his face. He kept his façade on, so no one could see how he was actually feeling. While just staring at the table cloth, Hector tried to picture Lucas in his head. The last time he saw him in person was over ten years ago when he left for France and his psychology studies.

               “No, I have not heard that,” said Hector.

               “He was in Greece with two friends, rock climbing without anyone securing him. You know how adventurous he always was,” Lucía explained.

               Hector knew how adventurous Lucas used to be when he was younger. He would be climbing the cherry tree while Manuel was sitting on the swing begging Hector to push him. Lucas was always thin and tall, so he could reach the highest branches and get the last cherries from their ends. He would sit in the tree, eat cherries and let their stones fall down.

               “He fell. One of his friends called me because I was the only family contact in his phone. I didn’t want you to find out over a call. That’s why I’m here”

Hector nodded. He could not quite point out what he was feeling now. Was he sad? Did he regret that he never tried to stay in touch with him after he moved out? Was it because he supported Manuel being Lucía? Hector completely lost track of his own children over the years. That’s why he doesn’t know how to talk to Lucía now.

               “Are you alright, papá?” asked Lucía and she swallowed which made her Adam’s Apple visibly jump. Hector stared at it and Lucía knew what he was staring at and rested her chin on her hands to cover her throat.

               “Yes, I am alright. Come with me”

Lucía followed Hector out of the kitchen into the hallway and then to the study. Hector never had any visitors and therefore no additional chair to offer to his, now, only child. Lucía stood in the middle of the study.

               “Come here, Manuel”

               “Papá, I told you, it’s Lucía,” if she was honest with herself, she did not even know why she still tried to make him call her by her real name. He was still using her deadname and it made her more than uncomfortable. But he never really understood her, so she did not expect him to now, all of a sudden, accept her.

               “Come over to the desk,” he just ignored her comment. He had given her the name Manuel at birth and she was male and that would never change. Hector fumbled around with the stack of paper that was sitting on his desk for the past few weeks while Lucía was letting her eyes around the room. She pulled up the collar of her turtle neck sweater and cleared her throat.

               “I know that you never really liked me after I told you I was trans. You made it quite obvious, papá. But I don’t want to go on like that. Without knowing anything about how you’re doing. Do you even know that I have a daughter? Do you know that my husband is called Juan? Did you know that I’m working as a teacher? Do you know anything about me? And on the other side: What do I know about you? I don’t know anything. I didn’t even know if you were still alive until you picked up the phone! Do you want to continue like this?”

               “Listen, you know that I’m not like your mother or like your brother or you, but you are my child. And with what you were telling me, I just realized that I missed my chance to be there for Lucas. I think I made a mistake.”

               Lucía’s eyes became a bit watery and the outlines of everything became blurry as she heard her father speaking the most emotional words he ever said. He was not a man of emotion, had never been one. Hector puts the pile of paper into a leather wrapper.

               “You also know that I never really talked much about anything but especially not myself. That’s why I want you to have this.”

Hector pushed the papers over to Lucía’s side of the table and she took it without opening it.

               “Go back home where you live and read it. I just finished it today. I want you to have it. Maybe if you read it, you’ll understand why I am like this and maybe you’ll be able to forgive me eventually for rejecting you as my child. I am sorry and it’s awful that it took Lucas’ death you realize that.” Lucía pressed the paper stack against her chest and nodded.

               This was the first time in many years that Hector closed the door behind a guest that he had in his own house. It was dark outside and he watched the woman that was his daughter walk back to her car.

               Hector shuffled back inside his house that he spent his entire life in. The flowers in the wooden wainscot of the wall did not move and the old telephone with the dust layer did not ring. Everything was entirely quiet. Without knowing it, Hector had seen his study one last time together with Lucía a couple minutes ago. The place where he declared her once that he would never want to see her in this house again and where he gave her the story he had written. His story. And he would never see this study again. One hand on his walking stick, the other one on the flowers carved in the wall he started to make his way to his bedroom, but he did not expect that he’d never arrive.

               His last thought was about Lucía and how pretty she now was. Hector regretted that he rejected her and kicked her out. His own child.

               The last picture he saw was Lucía in his study with the stack of paper pressed against her chest and then he saw Lucas.

               Finally, after too many years, he saw Lucas again and Hector realized, he had missed him.