Member-only story
Henry’s Tale: Strife, Life, and Being Transgender
This is the prequel to ‘Better Than a Dog’s Life’
Thomas awoke the day after Christmas feeling a little groggy.
The night before, he and his wife got home after Thomas’s late-night jump into the local icy river to save a drowning dog. After a quick ride home, Thomas ran to his bathroom, got out of his wet clothes, took a hot shower, and put on his favorite flannel pajamas. He then went down to the living room and started a fire in the fireplace.
The dog he saved shook his fur once again, curled up on the carpet in front of the fire, and went to sleep. Madeline, his wife, came in with a bottle of red wine and two glasses. They sat down on the sofa facing the fire as Thomas opened the first of two bottles of wine that they drank that night.
It had been a very tough Christmas Eve for both of them.
A few hours earlier, Thomas had told his wife that two days ago doctors had confirmed the diagnosis by both his psychologist and his psychiatrist.
He was transgender.
Christmas Eve was not the best choice for sharing that information with Maddy. Predictably, his disclosure ignited an emotional explosion that led to additional explosions from each…