The Photograph

I grumbled to myself as I swept the attic of Aunt Rosie’s house. She wasn’t really my aunt; that’s just what everyone called her. She was the neighbourhood’s favourite babysitter when we were all growing up, and still today we’d show up to her house for coconut cookies and raspberry iced tea. She normally made a fresh batch if we asked nicely, as long as we gave each of her three dogs a belly rub and took them for a walk. But today it was raining, so the old fluffballs wouldn’t step foot outside. Instead, Aunt Rosie promised us some hot chocolate to beat the sour weather if we cleaned up the cobwebs in the attic. 

"There sure is a lot of stuff in here," my twin sister Lucy said as she sorted through some old boxes. "We're never gonna get through it all."

I glanced over at the corner of the room, where Lucy sat on the floor. She dumped a cardboard box over, and a pile of loose photographs poured out. I was getting tired of the broom, so I set it down and joined her on the ground.

"Wow, Rosie looks so young here!" I laughed, holding up an old picture. She was sitting up in a tree, smiling brightly. She couldn't have been older than five. 

"It's hard to imagine her as anything other than elderly," Lucy said. “Hey look—it’s little me!”

I smirked at the image of baby Lucy twirling around in a pink princess dress, her short red hair adorned with a tiara.

“How’d she even get that picture?” Damion asked as he whacked down some cobwebs with a dry mop. “You didn’t move here until grade two.”

Lucy clucked her tongue. “Good question. I think my mom gave it to her. Remember when Rosie made scrapbooks for everybody? These must be the leftovers.”

“Ah,” I said, and held up another picture of a young girl in a dress. She looked familiar. “Hey, who’s this?”

Lucy scooted around the box to see. “Huh, I don’t know. Maybe she moved out before any of us got here?”

“She kind of looks like Damion,” I said. “Hey, Dames, you got a sister we don’t know about?

On the other side of the room, Damion’s mop clattered to the floor. He quickly picked it back up and continued swatting the rafters.

I squinted at the messy handwriting on the bottom of the image; it read "Dawn's eighth birthday."

“If her picture’s in here, she’s got to be someone on our street,” Lucy said.

“The backyard doesn’t look familiar,” I said. “This was definitely taken before the kid moved here. Seriously, though. She looks exactly like Damion. Dames, are you sure you don’t have a sister?”

“He does have a sister,” Lucy said, her voice aggressively monotone. “Her name is Denise.”

“Yeah, but then who’s Dawn?”

Still meters away from us, Damion turned around. “It’s me.”

Lucy and I looked up as Damion shifted his weight. He was sweating buckets.

"You mean...?" Lucy questioned. 

Damion rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm trans."

My eyes widened. Lucy's jaw dropped. No way–

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before," he whispered. "I just didn’t want to screw anything up.”

Lucy immediately ran to crush Damion with a hug.

"You didn’t screw anything up.”

Damion, no longer shaking nervously, closed his eyes and hugged Lucy back.

“Thanks for sharing that,” I said. "I'm sure that wasn't an easy thing to say."

"You would have found out eventually," Damion muttered once Lucy released him. "Besides, if you dig further down in that box, you'll find a whole bunch of grumpy pictures of me from that party. I wasn't in the greatest mood."

"Yeah, no shit," Lucy laughed. She pointed at the photo in my hand. "You look like you're about to tear that dress to shreds.”

Damion sighed. I asked him why his face went blank, and he bit the inside of his cheek before directing his voice to the ground.

“I just wanted more time,” he said. “More time before… I don’t know. Before you’d start seeing me differently.”

“Of course we’re gonna see you differently!” Lucy said. “But in a good way. Being trans isn’t a bad thing. We have different experiences than cis people and that’s really cool, don’t you think?”

Damion raised an eyebrow. “We?”

Lucy grinned, then pulled me to her side. “Liam and I aren’t fraternal twins. We’re identical.”

“Not anymore,” I said. 

“That’s not how twins work and you know it,” she said, tugging on my hair.

“Ow!”

“What I’m trying to say,” Lucy huffed, “is that you’re not alone, Dames.”

Damion stared at her for a good long while before pulling her back into a hug, his face all scrunched up like he was afraid of this reality shattering.

“I’ve never met anyone else like me.”

Lucy didn’t answer, because she had some friends from our old town that also transitioned very young. I could tell she was already itching to invite Damion to the group’s next meet-up.

“You’re not gonna start leaving me out of things now, are you?” I asked, folding my arms. I was joking, but also not really. 

Lucy pulled me into the embrace. “Hate to break it to you, but you’re kind of stuck with me.”

“And me,” Damion said. 

Lucy tugged her phone out of her pocket and snapped a photo of our group hug. With my hands draped over my friends’ shoulders, I squeezed them both, grateful to have them in my life.