Live Your Best Life

Vivian glanced out of the dining room window, pausing in her task of placing forks on the table. It was strange to look out of the window and see a street only a few yards away. Vivian missed the slightly undulating ranch land that she had grown up on. She glanced over at her father reclining in a chair, white hair reflecting the light as his head nodded in answer to whatever Julian was saying to him. Selling the ranch had been a wonderful choice for her parents with their advancing years. The tasks had always been hard, waking up in the middle of the night to help a birthing cow or unfreeze a well, the constant maintenance of the fencing and watching over every Hereford from birth to the meat processing plant, can certainly take a toll over the years. No, it was good that they had moved to this new house to enjoy time together free from the demanding constraints of ranch life, but Vivian couldn’t help but miss seeing the sea of brown with dots of white, out of any given window and waking to the lowing of cattle. She continued placing the forks in her hand around the table, straightening the lace table cloth here and there as she went. She walked over to her mom for her next task. Slipping up behind the older woman stirring potatoes she placed a hand on her mom’s shoulder, the rich royal blue fabric of the top her mom was wearing felt ridiculously soft under Vivian's hand. 

“Mom?”, Sally stopped stirring and glanced at her daughter, “can you put out the salt and pepper shakers?”

“Of course”, Vivian dropped her hand away and leaned in a little closer to her mom, “are you sure this is going to be okay? With dad?”

“It’s going to have to be”, Sally squared her shoulders and turned a little so that she could look Vivian in the eye,” I’m not getting any younger and we’ve already lost a couple of years with our grandchild, I want to be able to spend time with her.”

“Him.”, Vivian’s voice was gentle but firm.

Sally nodded acknowledgment of the correction, “this is all very different from anything I’ve ever had to deal with. I’ve known these people existed, but I didn’t think…I haven’t known what to think actually, but blood is blood and I miss my grandchild.”

“You do remember that I told you that ‘he’ looks a little different since the last time you saw him, right?”

Sally nodded again, wiping an errant tear away and turned to pull rolls out of the oven. As Vivian walked over to the cabinet housing the salt and pepper shakers the doorbell rang. Sturgis looked over to Sally as he started emerging from the recliner, “are we expecting anyone else?”, his left hand stayed on the arm of the chair to steady him as he stood. Sally nodded affirmation and Sturgis walked toward the door with a perplexed look on his face. Vivian half ran to the door as well, her gray boots making a light tapping sound with her hurried stride. Swinging open the door, Sturgis paused a moment, “hello? How can I?…oh my God…”, the slightly wrinkled hand dropped from the doorknob as he turned his dark brown eyes to Vivian, seeking the truth. Vivian swooped in, creating almost a wall between Sturgis and Tristan.

“Honey I’m so glad you could make it!”, throwing her green-clad arm around Tristan’s shoulders, she scooped him through the doorway and into the living room. Stopping on the mottled brown carpet Vivian turned herself and Tristan around to face her father.

“Dad, this is Tristan.”

The door was still open, and Sturgis jaw was slightly dropped. Keeping the door open his face took on a hard look, “you mean, Trisha.”

“No dad, I mean Tristan”, Vivian squeezed Tristan’s shoulders, “his name was legally changed 4 years ago. He is still the same grandchild you’ve always known, he’s just wrapped in a different looking package and goes by a different name.”

A deep sigh emerged as Sturgis stared at the pair in front of him and then down at his cowboy boots as if trying to decide what to do. The door wobbled a little as a slight breeze blew in, one brown leaf fluttering onto the hall floor, a reminder to them all that the door was still open.

“Sturgis shut the door, you’re letting all the heat out.”, this statement from Sally catapulted him into action, and the door was quickly shut.

He stood in the same spot and crossed his arms, glaring over at the pair on the carpet. Very quietly he uttered, “I thought we discussed this.”

Vivian thought back to that horrible afternoon four years prior when she had gone over to tell her parents the news. That Trisha was in fact, a trans person and was going to be changing her outside to match what his inside said he was. Neither parent understood what she was saying.

“You’re born the way you’re born”, Sally had said, “how can you be something else?”

“If I had been born without a leg or sight, would you have left me that way? Or if the option was available to get me a bionic leg or restore my sight would you have done that?”, Vivian had asked.

“It’s not the same thing; nothing is broken on Trisha, she’s a beautiful, lovely girl”, Sally had answered.

“Just because you can’t see the broken doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

“This is outrageous!”, Sturgis had bellowed, “You can’t just change who you are!”

“Please try and calm down dad”, Vivian spoke in a quiet voice, “people change who they are all the time. They make moral improvements, lifestyle improvements, they quit drugs and get sober, they switch careers, they have plastic surgery to fix a part of them that has always bothered them with how it looks. Besides, who you’ve always known and loved as Trisha is still on the inside, the personality, the quirks, the funny storyteller, all that makes the fundamental person that you know as Trisha, is still there. It is just the outside that will change a bit, and that comes with a new name.”

“What?!?”, Sturgis had half yelled at the time. “What are you saying?”

“Well dad, Trisha feels that he is male and we are working on helping him convert to that appearance. If he is appearing as male then it wouldn’t do to have a name associated with a female identity.”

“Get out.”

Vivian blinked back tears recalling that moment. Glancing over at Tristan staring at his grandfather, she worried about a repeat experience, an experience she was glad she had endured alone the first time, wanting to shield Tristan from the negativity.

Julian had risen to Tristan’s other side and Sally had moved from the kitchen to behind the soft white chair Julian had been sitting in moments before. She placed small hands on the back of the chair, straightened up her tiny frame and locked piercing green eyes onto Sturgis.

“I have invited Tristan here. I want to get to know him.”, she started punctuating her words with a hand and arm swing,” Trisha, or Tristan, whatever the hell, it doesn’t matter Sturgis. This is our grandchild who we used to see all the time, I still love our grandchild. I’m not going to live forever and neither are you and every day we pretend she…”, Sally took in a breath, “he doesn’t exist, is a day that I, we are missing out. With everything else in the world, what difference does it make? He is happy”, she glanced to Tristan for confirmation of that and was rewarded with a head nod,” so let it go already, he made his choice, now let’s find out what has been happening over the past four years!”, with that Sally gestured toward the table, set with food, waiting to be eaten. 

Julian headed toward the table, running his hand through his gray hair with hints of the original brown peeking through. He patted a chair that would put Tristan to the right of him, and the left of Vivian, “sit here son.”

Tristan sat down, placed his hands palm down on the table, turned blue eyes to Sally and said in a deeper timber then he had four years ago, “the dinner looks delicious grandmother.”

Sally smiled, “I remember you used to like it when I shaped the rolls like turtles”, Sally whipped back the blue checked cloth cover from a basket in front of Tristan’s plate to reveal rolls shaped like turtles, “I hope that is still the case.”

“Um, yea”, Tristan smiled, “who could resist a turtle-shaped roll.”

“Crazy people”, chimed in Vivian reviving their old “bit”, flicking black hair streaked with a little white over her shoulder as she smiled widely.

“Crazy people indeed!”, Tristan announced as he snagged a roll and passed the basket. There was very little chatting as the food was passed around. Vivian smoothed her emerald ruffled top and cleared her throat in between bites, “Tristan, you should tell grandma and grandpa about the case you helped solve.”

“You helped solve a case?”, Sally asked with her fork paused in mid-air.

“Yes”, Tristan’s brown hair bobbed up and down, “it was my first case where I was the lead CSI and I was really nervous I would miss something.”

“I find that hard to believe you were always so good spotting little details.”, Sally pushed some gray hair back behind her ear and looked at Tristan earnestly.

“Thank you grandmother. I was really nervous but there were some items I insisted on running some lab tests on, and it turns out that it contained the very evidence needed to catch the bad guy.”

Sturgis snorted. Eagle-eyed and glaring from his seat, food barely touched he had his arms crossed over his chest once again, his blue bola tie hung slightly askew, caught on the button of his light brown shirt. Everyone turned to stare at Sturgis.

“You snorted?”, asked Vivian, placing her right elbow on the table so her hand could prop her head as she looked around Tristan to see her father at the end of the table.

“What case did you solve? Find the missing beagle? The missing potato chips case? What case would they let you lead on?”

Tristan dug his fingers into the edge of the table; he took a deep breath and looked at Sturgis, “actually I have helped in many cases, this was my first case where I was able to lead. This particular case involved a couple in their 80’s who had been beaten after their house had been broken into.”

Sitting up straight Sturgis asked, “beaten? Were they killed?”

“No sir, they both had to spend a couple of nights in the hospital, the husband had some broken ribs and the wife had her arm broken, but they are well on their way to being mended at this point.”, Tristan smiled and pushed some peas around his plate with his fork.

“What makes you think the police wouldn’t have found out who did it if it weren’t for you?”, Sturgis asked in a daring tone, arching a bushy eyebrow.

“Well, it is possible another CSI may have thought of the same tests on the same items as I did, but that is hard to know for sure. However, I was there and I did think of what to do, and the result was that the culprit was identified and is awaiting trial.”

Sturgis leaned back in his chair, nodding a little while adjusting the bola, “Did I ever tell you the time I caught a cattle rustler with a red thread?”

Tristan half smiled, “if you did I don’t remember the particulars, could you tell it?”

“Well, Trish…”, Sturgis stopped and looked at Tristan as if seeing him for the first time, “well, it was a dark and cold night…”

Vivian rose to take her plate to the kitchen and help her mother with the dishes. An hour or so later as Julian, Vivian and Tristan were about to leave Sturgis stood nearby with his hands in his jean pockets near the door. Sally hugged the three of them and then went back and hugged Tristan a second time, “I am so happy you came tonight”, she said, eyes beaming with a hand on each of Tristan’s arms.

“Thank you grandmother; I’m glad I came, thank you for inviting me.”

Sturgis cleared his throat and pointed to Tristan’s black t-shirt which sported a sloth hanging from a branch with a banana in one hand and above the picture were the words ‘Live Your Best Life’, “you believe that?”

Tristan glanced down at his t-shirt and back up to his grandfather, “yes sir.”

“Is that what you’re doing?”, was the quick follow-up question.

“Yes sir, that is certainly what I am trying to do.”

“Are you going to be in town for a while?”, Sturgis asked as he opened the door for them.

“Yes, sir.”

“Maybe you can come by again, share some more work stories.”

Tristan grinned from ear to ear, “I’d really like that grandfather.”

“Alright then, well see you.”

As Vivian looked back through the door she saw her mother wiping a tear from her cheek and smiling. It had been a difficult few years but maybe now things would be getting better. Everyone should get to live their best life, and it is most best when your loved ones accept you doing that.