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In 1987 Henry Spencer starts thinking about studying for the DET. He starts spending a lot more time than usual at work.
1987 is also the year Henry meets his son for the first time, which is unusual, considering Shawn was ten-years-old at the time.
Shawn had always been a weird kid, mind you, which they’d sort of expected. Born to twenty-year-old parents who didn’t really know what they were doing for a few years, Shawn had the eidetic memory, the personality, and other behavioral issues that teachers had pointed out along the way. The fact that the kid didn’t speak more than a few words until she was three should have tipped them off too.
Sometimes Henry missed those days—once Shawn had started talking, he had never, ever stopped.
Then there were the smaller things, the little quirks that made other parents talk to Shawn in condescending terms, and Henry’s parents give him judgmental looks. Like when Shawn was six or seven, and he and Madeleine had to fight tooth and nail with the people at the community center to let Shawn onto the boys baseball team so she could play with her best—and only—friend, Gus.
They were fine with the fact that their daughter was a ‘tomboy.’ Henry spent a lot of time with Shawn, and things like baseball, police work, and football were things that they could bond over. It made it easy for Henry to connect with his kid. Besides, Shawn’s best friend was a boy, Gus, who was also a kid with a few quirks, and they had a good friendship. The Guster’s were good people, and Gus was a good kid, so Henry was fine putting up fights about things like the boys baseball team, if only to save himself the grief of listening to Shawn whine about it.
People would tell them, over and over again, “Oh, she’ll grow out of all that.” And his wife—a clinical psychologist for God’s sake— agreed. So Henry thought nothing of it all.
When Shawn was around eight or nine she started ‘acting out.’ Her behavior in school started getting gradually worse and worse, to the point that the administration would call them about Shawn being seen by a psychiatrist, and at one point a few threats to have Child Services sent to their house.
Henry and Madeleine wasted no time in having Shawn seen by a doctor, a colleague of Maddie’s that she trusted and respected.
“She’s definitely attention deficit,” the doctor had told them in his office, after a few hours of testing. “We did the full round of screening. Not all of the behavior can be attributed to that, though, some of it could be circumstantial. We could prescribe her medication, Ritalin, or something, but that would be up to you.”
“Could we get back to you? About medication?” Madeleine said quickly. Henry turned to look out the window of the office to the waiting room, where Shawn was sitting, playing with some toys.
The doctor nodded. “Have you ever thought about having an IQ test done, by the way? She seems—”
“So what’s the official diagnosis?” He cut in, still watching Shawn.
“ADD— attention deficit disorder, with hyperactivity, obviously, and probably dyslexia, but we’d have to do some more tests. Honestly, Dr. Spencer, I know you don’t work with children, but you know this stuff.” The doctor sighed. “I’d just keep an eye out at home. You two can call my office anytime.”
Henry and Madeleine thanked the doctor and left, collecting Shawn on their way out, who told them all about the ‘games’ she’d gotten to play with the doctor. They got ice cream on the way home, and Henry made Shawn count the amount of sunglasses in the room.
Three months before Shawn turned ten, she cut off all of her hair.
Henry got home from work around four, where he found Shawn in the upstairs bathroom by herself with a pair of scissors. The kid had mangled her hair: no two spots were cut evenly, and one section had been cut so close to the skin that she was bleeding a little.
Henry had done his best to fix the haircut, but had eventually resolved to using his clippers to give Shawn a buzzcut, putting neosporin on the cuts she acquired on her scalp.
“Your mother’s going to kill me,” he grumbled, sweeping up hair off the bathroom floor.
Shawn was grinning in the mirror, rubbing her head with her hands and giggling. “It feels funny. Different from Gus’ hair.”
Henry snorted, then crouched down next to Shawn. “Look at me, kid.” Shawn turned, smile fading. “Why’d you do it?” he asked, voice serious.
Shawn looked guilty, but she shrugged. “It was getting too long, and you and Mom are too busy to take me to get it cut.”
Henry sighed. “All right, honey. You are explaining this to your mother when she gets home.”
Shawn nodded and skulked off to her room silently. Henry rubbed his eyes. Maybe taking the DET this year wasn’t the best idea. He needed to be home more. Shawn was going to start giving him stress headaches.
Shawn’s behavior started to get better in school, back to her normal class clown act, instead of actively terrorizing the other students. But every few weeks, she’d pull a stunt, or do something inexcusable, like getting into fights, or cutting off all her own hair, or standing up on the kitchen counter to reach the scissors and cutting most of her clothes to complete shreds. When Madeleine had taken her shopping to get some summer clothes, she’d absolutely refused to try on any clothes from the girl’s section, saying she wanted to match with Gus.
Something seemed to click for Madeleine when one night, sometime in July of 1987, Shawn had had a complete meltdown after being asked to take a shower. She’d screamed at them, cried, and gone on about how she was a boy, not a girl, and she wanted to dress more like Gus, and get another haircut, and most of all, she hated the name they’d given her.
Henry hadn’t even known how to react, he’d just stood there, silently, watching as Maddie tried to calm Shawn down. They decided that they’d all talk about this in the morning, when everyone had calmed down. Henry had carried a still crying Shawn to bed, while Maddie pulled down textbooks from their bookshelves. Neither of them slept at all that night, for completely different reasons.
That morning, when Henry headed downstairs to put on a pot of coffee, and found Shawn sat at the kitchen table quietly, eyes bloodshot, and a few visible popped blood vessels on his face from crying so much the night before, Henry realized. He was looking at his son, and maybe he always had been.
Madeleine came down stairs a few minutes later, with textbook pages bookmarked, and definitions circled. “We are going to figure this out,” she said, smiling at Shawn.
So they changed his name. Maddie dug back out the book of baby names they’d bought when she was pregnant, and the three of them had flipped through it together. After a few hours they settled on ‘Shawn.’ They made it very clear that if Shawn changed his mind, they could go back to looking, or back to his original name completely, but Shawn insisted that he wouldn’t change his mind, ever.
Henry had to admit he’d been a little worried about Gus. The Spencer’s weren’t very religious, and Shawn definitely was not, but Gus’ family tended to be a little more traditional. So sue him. He was worried about his kid.
Turned out Gus already knew. Shawn had spoken to him about it at length a while before he’d spoken to Henry and Maddie. From what Henry could tell, this changed absolutely nothing about their friendship, almost like the two of them had always known.
They had Shawn’s school records changed, even shelled out the money to change his name legally. Bought him an all new wardrobe, painted his room blue, had thorough discussions with principals and teachers about getting everything correct.
The stunts slowed down. Shawn was still not what teachers would ever describe as a “pleasure to have in class,” but he wasn’t destroying art projects anymore. Which was a win for everyone, really.
Henry and Madeleine had tried their hardest to do everything they could to help Shawn, and maybe they thought that being better parents would make them a better couple.
Unfortunately, it didn’t.
Against all odds, Shawn Spencer made it through middle school.
Henry made detective, and he and Maddie started working more than ever before. Shawn was now old enough they felt comfortable leaving him alone, or at the Guster’s, and they wanted to start putting money away for college, and probably for whatever Shawn would need as he went through puberty—something Henry had been avoiding thinking about.
At age fourteen, Shawn started high school and refused to let Maddie take any photos of him for memories. They snapped a picture or two of him and Gus, on the Guster’s front porch, Shawn dressed in some ratty shirt he got from Hot Topic and khaki shorts, and Gus in a neatly pressed button up and slacks.
The new school year goes smoothly for approximately two weeks. On a Wednesday, Henry gets a phone call at work from Leland Bosseigh High, saying Shawn has been taken to the hospital in an ambulance, and that they couldn’t reach his wife at home or at work.
He had been running, apparently—P.E. class had them all running the mile. About halfway through, Shawn had collapsed. Gus had spent about five minutes yelling and attempting CPR before the teachers had realized something was wrong. 911 had been called shortly after.
Henry broke several traffic laws that afternoon. The hospital couldn’t get a hold of Madeleine until he had already been waiting for two hours.
“Your daughter suffered a mild cardiac arrhythmia,” a doctor told Henry eventually. He didn’t bother to correct him. “We found an atrial septal defect, which is essentially a hole in her heart. We performed a median sternotomy, and she’s going to be just fine.”
“A hole in the heart?” Madeleine asked.
“It’s usually just a birth defect, and it’s usually minor enough that it doesn’t affect people until they are much older. Honestly, it’s good that this is being taken care of now.”
Henry nodded. He looked at Madeleine. “Can we go see—can we go in?” he asked the doctor.
“Yes,” he replied. “She’s asleep right now, but she should wake up soon.”
Shawn woke up eventually. “Hey, kid,” Henry said. “How you feeling?”
“Like shit,” Shawn replied, earning a “Language!” from Madeleine. “Where’s Gus?”
“At home, I would imagine,” Henry replied. “He knows you’re okay, though. He was the one helping you when you had a heart attack. The EMT’s gave him one of those shock blankets.”
“I had a heart attack?” Shawn said brightly. “That’s cool.” Henry sighed.
“No, not cool,” Madeleine corrected. “You could have died.”
“Do I have a scar?” Shawn peeked under his hospital gown to check. “Oh my god, is it under those band-aids? It’s huge.”
“Don’t touch it,” Henry scolded. “Shawn, you should take this seriously.” Shawn hissed through his teeth after poking the bandages on his chest. “ Shawn.”
“When can I go back to school?” he asked. “Does this mean I’m exempt from P.E.?”
“At least for three months,” Madeleine said, her voice tired. “You have to recover.”
Shawn looked around. “Is there a phone in here? I wanna call Gus.” He spotted the phone next to his bed, and reached for it aimlessly.
Maddie laughed a little, picked up the phone and punched in the number to the Guster’s landline before handing it to Shawn. “Here you go, Goose,” she said, and she pushed his hair off his forehead gently before sitting back down.
The two of them stayed in the hospital room with Shawn all night, occasionally falling asleep sitting up in the visitors chairs.
Gus’ mom brought him to visit the next day after school, a sympathy card signed by some kids in their class, his gameboy, and a tupperware of sliced pineapple in hand. While his mother talked to Henry out in the hallway, he sat on the edge of Shawn’s bed, the two of them talking and laughing quietly and playing some game.
A week later when Henry returned to the station, he was greeted with food, and a sympathy card signed by everyone, even some of the rookies he’d never spoken to.
To Shawn’s delight, he was off the hook with P.E. until after winter break. To make him even happier, he could only wear loose, baggy shirts and hoodies.
The next few years of Shawn’s adolescence went mostly without a hitch. They ran into a few ‘disciplinary problems,’ which they’d expected as Shawn got older—kids are mean, and Shawn could be meaner, especially when people made a point to call him a girl.
But things between Henry and Shawn got testy when Maddie started traveling for work. The kid wasn’t stupid, Henry knew that. He could see the distance between his parents. He knew something was up.
In August of 1994, while Shawn was having a campout sleepover with Gus, he and Madeleine talked. She had agreed to take a job, going between New York and other parts of the country. She didn’t think any more counseling would work. She thought it would be best if Shawn stayed here, with him. She thought it would be best if they started all the official paperwork for divorce.
He told her that Shawn would probably prefer to go with her, and that they should ask him. She didn’t agree.
A week later when Shawn asked Henry when his mother was coming home, Henry told him the truth. Shawn started shouting, then crying, blaming Henry for everything, telling him he hated him. Henry didn’t correct him.
Almost a year after Henry arrested Shawn for stealing a car, he started receiving monthly bills to his house for motorcycle insurance under Shawn’s name. He sighed to himself, and paid the bills.
A year or two after that he started receiving bills to his health insurance for hormone replacement therapy. He paid those too.
In 2006, when Henry had retired to Miami and came back less than a year later after finding it absolutely miserable, he opened his front door to go to lunch and found his son standing on his doorstep.
He almost didn’t recognize him.
“Hi, Dad,” Shawn said.
Henry, taken aback, said, “Shawn.”
Shawn’s always been tall but he was broad, now, hair cropped close on the sides and messy on top. His jaw had an edge to it now, he had a slight five o’clock shadow, and he just looked more like—more like himself.
“You didn’t tell me you moved back,” Shawn said, looking behind him into the house.
“You didn’t tell me you moved away.”
“That was different.”
“Was it?”
“Yeah.” Shawn said pointedly. “I was busy trying to help my mom through her divorce.”
Henry scoffed. “Well, it’s nice to see you, too, son.”
“Can I come in?”
“No.” Henry stepped outside and closed the door behind him. “I was on my way out to lunch. You can come with me if you don’t bring this thing.” He gestured to the motorcycle sitting in his driveway.
Shawn got in the truck.
In 2012, Henry’s on his way out of a local diner after lunch with a friend when something catches his eye on the board of flyers by the door.
‘Parents and Family of Transgender Kids’ it says, in bright colors. A support group, from what he can tell. There’s an address, and a meeting date and time. Henry makes a mental note of the date and time, and once his friend has pulled out of the parking lot, he writes it down on a napkin.
And he goes, because they didn’t have this when he probably needed it. Might as well learn something now, and hell, maybe he can pass on some wisdom to a younger generation.
Most of the people there aren’t too much younger than him, actually. Parents, in their thirties and forties, who take turns sharing about their teenage children.
It comes around for Henry to speak, and he clears his throat awkwardly. “Hi,” he says. “I’m Henry, and my son is transgender. He told us he was a boy when he was ten.”
“How old is he now?” a woman asks from across the circle of chairs.
“Thirty-five,” Henry replies.
“Oh, wow.” The leader of the group, a young woman says, eyes wide.
“Yeah, I know. A little older than all of your kids.” He smiles awkwardly. “I’m just here to listen and learn, I guess.”
More people go around the group and talk, talk about school, coming out, starting transitioning.
After the meeting is technically over, when people are milling out in the hallway, a younger couple—Anna and Jonah—comes up to Henry at the table of snacks.
“I’m sorry, you can totally say no, but, would you mind answering some of our questions about your son’s transition? Our son is fifteen, and we just— we have so many questions, and it seems like nobody has any answers,” Anna says.
Henry almost laughs. “I don’t know how qualified I am to answer,” he says, “but I can do my best.”
They decide to meet up for coffee later that week, on one of his lunch breaks, and exchange phone numbers.
They’re nice people, and they really care about their son. Most of their questions are about the name changing process, and medically transitioning.
“It must have been about five years ago, now, he had surgery, and his best friend and I, we had to practically tie him down to keep him off his motorcycle for a month afterward.” Henry laughs a little.
“So he didn’t medically transition until he was an adult?”
“It was harder back then, when he was a teenager. Hormone replacement wasn’t really a thing you did, unless you had the money and the connections for it, and we didn’t. Doctors also weren’t too keen on any of that with people under eighteen, either.” He sighed. “Still aren’t, I guess. He was able to get it started when he was twenty-one, back in ‘98. Now, if you saw him, you would never know.”
Anna says, “People don’t really talk about trans adults now. Of course, they had to transition at some point, and their parents had to find out, but no one wants to talk about it.”
Henry shrugs. “I mean, I didn’t know I should be talking about it until now. And people back then… it wasn’t the best. We got a lot of judgmental comments and things from other parents when we changed his name and all that.”
“Honestly? You seem like a really great dad. We all know, from that group, not everyone’s the best. I wish I could be better at this stuff,” Jonah says.
“Our relationship had its issues, but it was never because he was transgender. Never,” he says, shaking his head. “Once he told his mother and I, we just decided that we were doing this. He was our son, he always had been. So we did our best.”
“Our son,” Anna says, “had been acting up sometimes in school. We thought it might get better once we knew and let him change his name and socially transition, but he still just—acts up. I don’t know what else we’re missing. I want him to feel like he can talk to us.”
Henry shakes his head. “I don’t really know how to help you there,” he says. “I’ve asked myself the same question.”
Somehow, his half answers and anecdotes help Jonah and Anna. So Henry starts talking a little more in the group, when he goes. He doesn’t tell Shawn about it.
“Being transgender in the eighties wasn’t fun,” Henry says once, “and I don’t even know the half of it.”
“I can only imagine,” a young father says. “If you don’t mind me asking, how is your son doing now?”
Henry laughs a little. “If you mean about him being trans, great,” he says. “He’s been medically transitioned for a few years now, and he’s able to be himself. As for his life? I think he’s getting by. He has a good group of people in his life, his best friend, and a wonderful girlfriend. They do their best to keep him out of trouble.”
After Henry’s made time to go to about twelve meetings, a few months later, Shawn picks up a flier off his kitchen table. He’d stopped by to get advice on a case late at night, and ended up raiding the fridge.
“What’s this?” Shawn asks, holding the flier up.
“A paper for something, I don’t know.” Henry says, snatching it out of Shawn’s hand.
Shawn takes it back, even though they both know he read it the first time. “‘Parents and Family of Transgender Kids’?” he says, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, yeah.” Henry took it back and tossed it into the garbage can.
“You go to that?” Shawn asks, tone half-joking, half-something Henry couldn’t figure out.
“Sometimes,” Henry says defensively.
Shawn nods, and doesn’t bring it up again.
One day, someone in the group asks Henry if he ever didn’t know what to do, raising his son. “Oh, constantly,” he says, and some people laugh. “But I don’t know. I guess after all this time I only really have one question, and I don’t expect it to get answered. But—am I ever going to get used to watching my son have a harder life than he should have had?”
“They’re our kids,” someone says. “I don’t think we’ll ever get used to it, or ever stop worrying. But none of us are alone there, at least.”
Henry nods. “I don’t know what to do all the time,” he says. “But I try and look out for my son the best I can.”
“That’s all we really can do, I think,” the leader of the group says. There’s a general murmur of assent.
“Yeah,” Henry says. “I think you’re right.”
When he gets home he calls Shawn and invites him to dinner.