Walsh Family Universe V2

Chapter 84
What Comes After

Thursday afternoon. Dr. Reeves' office.

Ash sat in his usual chair—the one he'd cried in on Monday. The tissue box was still on the side table, though he didn't need it today. He felt... empty wasn't quite right. Hollowed out, maybe. Like something had been scraped clean.

"How was school this week?" Dr. Reeves asked, settling into her chair with her notepad.

"Okay. Better than I expected."

"How so?"

"I actually... participated. In class. Not just answering questions but actually engaging." Ash shrugged. "Ms. Callahan seemed surprised."

"How did that feel?"

"Weird. Like I was finally using my brain instead of just letting it rot." He paused. "I've been angry at the gifted program for months. Angry at being pushed. But this week I realized I was mostly angry because they were right—I was holding back. Giving minimum effort because I resented being there."

"And now?"

"Now I'm still there. So I might as well actually do something with it." Ash met her eyes. "That's what you meant about choosing what to carry, right? I can't control being in gifted classes. But I can control whether I waste the opportunity or not."

Dr. Reeves smiled slightly. "That's significant growth for one week."

"Uncle Nate's rocks did their job."

"Tell me something." Dr. Reeves set down her notepad, gave him her full attention. "When you carried those rocks—when you felt that physical weight—what did you learn?"

Ash thought about it. Really thought, the way he'd been trying to do all week instead of just reacting.

"That anger takes up space. Takes energy. Takes effort to maintain." He looked down at his hands. "And that I'd been carrying it so long I forgot it was optional."

"Is it optional?"

"The anger? I don't know. The things I'm angry about are still real."

"But you're not leading with it anymore."

"No. Because I'm too tired. And because..." He struggled for words. "Because there's other stuff underneath. Stuff I couldn't feel while the anger was taking up all the room."

"Like what?"

Ash was quiet for a moment. This was harder than talking about the anger. Anger was simple, righteous, protective. What came after was messier.

"Grief," he said finally. "For the life I lost. The person I was."

"Ash."

"Yeah. Ash." His voice was soft. "I know I'm supposed to be Noam now. I know that's who I am, legally, practically. But I still miss being Ash. Being an adult. Having choices."

"Of course you do. That's not wrong to feel."

"My parents act like I should be grateful. Like this is fixing me."

"Are you grateful?"

The question caught him off guard. "Sometimes? I hate the control, hate being eleven, hate not having any say in my life. But..." He touched his chest, his flat chest that he'd wanted so desperately the first time. "This body is right. Finally. No dysphoria, no wrong puberty, no—"

He stopped. Dr. Reeves was watching him carefully.

"Tell me about that," she said. "About the body being right."

"You know what I mean."

"I do. But I want to hear you say it."

Ash felt his throat tighten. "When they called me Grace, everything was wrong. My body was betraying me every day. Curves, periods, being called 'she' and 'daughter' when I knew I wasn't. And my parents—" His voice cracked. "My parents thought I was confused. Mentally ill. Going through a phase."

"How old were you when you first knew?"

"That I was a boy? Maybe six or seven. But I didn't have words for it. Just knew something was wrong." Ash stared at his hands—his male hands, finally the right size and shape. "By puberty it was torture. Every change made it worse. And when I finally came out, finally got up the courage to tell my parents 'I'm your son, not your daughter'—"

"They didn't believe you."

"They tried to argue me out of it. For years." The bitterness was back in his voice. "Dad thought I was being influenced by 'that college environment.' Mom cried like I'd died. They kept using the wrong name, the wrong pronouns, kept waiting for me to 'come to my senses.'"

"That must have been devastating."

"It was shame," Ash said quietly. "Deep, fundamental shame. Like I was broken for existing. Like wanting to be seen as male was this terrible, embarrassing thing I should hide."

Dr. Reeves leaned forward slightly. "And the drugs?"

"Made the shame go away. Made everything go away." Ash felt tears prick his eyes but pushed through. "Heroin didn't care if I was in the wrong body. Didn't care if my parents rejected me. It just... made me not care either."

"So the addiction wasn't really about the drugs."

"No. It was about the pain. About not being able to exist as myself without everyone treating it like a tragedy." His hands were shaking now. "By the time my parents finally came around, finally started using 'Ash' and 'he,' I was already too deep in. The damage was done."

They sat in silence for a moment. Dr. Reeves handed him tissues even though he hadn't asked.

"And now?" she said gently. "Now you have the male body. Your parents call you their son, have from the beginning this time. There's no dysphoria, no wrong puberty. How does that feel?"

Ash laughed bitterly. "Like a monkey's paw wish. Like I finally got what I always wanted but at the cost of everything else."

"Explain."

"I'm male. Finally, completely, unambiguously male. My parents accept me, love me as their son. I'm going through the RIGHT puberty—" He touched his throat where his voice had started dropping. "Testosterone, male development, all of it. Everything I begged for the first time."

"But?"

"But I'm eleven years old with no autonomy, no choices, no control over any aspect of my life." The words came faster now. "I have the right body in the wrong circumstances. I'm grateful and resentful and confused all at once."

"That's incredibly complex."

"You think?" Ash wiped his eyes. "How am I supposed to feel about finally being seen as male when it only happened because they erased everything else about me? How am I supposed to be grateful for the right puberty when it's happening in a life I didn't choose?"

"You don't have to choose one feeling. You can hold both."

"That's exhausting."

"I know. But it's also honest." Dr. Reeves paused. "Can I tell you what I hear?"

"Okay."

"I hear someone who's grieving two things at once. Grieving the adult life you lost, and grieving the childhood you never had the first time. Both losses are real. Both deserve acknowledgment."

Ash hadn't thought about it that way. "Grieving the childhood I never had?"

"You said it yourself—in your first childhood, you were in pain. Dysphoric, rejected, fundamentally wrong in your own body. You didn't get to just be a kid. You were surviving." Dr. Reeves's voice was gentle. "Now you have the right body, the right pronouns, the right acceptance. But you're trapped in circumstances you didn't choose. So you're mourning both versions—the adult who had autonomy but suffered, and the child who would have been happy but never existed."

Ash felt something crack open in his chest. "I don't know how to be both."

"Both what?"

"Grateful and angry. Male and controlled. Ash and Noam." His voice broke. "I don't know who I'm supposed to be now."

"Maybe that's what we figure out here. Not who you're supposed to be, but who you want to be."

"I'm eleven. I don't get to choose."

"You're also thirty-three with adult consciousness. You get to choose more than you think." Dr. Reeves leaned back. "Tell me—what kind of man do you want to become?"

The question threw him. "What?"

"You're going through male puberty. Your body is changing, your voice is dropping, you're developing into a young man. This time it's the RIGHT development—the one you wanted. So what kind of man do you want to be?"

Ash stared at her. "I... I don't know."

"Think about the men in your life. Your father, your uncle, your teachers, your friends. What do you see?"

"Dad is... controlled. Rational. Always the lawyer, always managing situations." Ash thought about it. "He loves me but he doesn't really see me sometimes. Just sees the problem to solve."

"And your uncle?"

"Uncle Nate is harsh but effective. Physically disciplinary. He doesn't sugarcoat anything." Ash paused. "But he also apologized. For how he treated me before. He's capable of growth."

"Who else?"

"Coach Mitchell treats me like any other kid. Brett at camp—he saw leadership potential in me. Marcus and Tyler and Daniel, they're just... normal middle school boys." Ash felt strange saying it out loud. "I'm one of them now. Part of the guys. No one questions it."

"How does that feel?"

"Good. Really good." He touched his chest again. "I spent years trying to be seen as one of the guys. Fighting for every pronoun, every acknowledgment. And now it's just... automatic. Natural. They see me as male without me having to prove it."

"But?"

"But I don't know what kind of male I want to be. Uncle Nate's version? Dad's version? Some other version?" Ash's voice was frustrated. "I finally have the right body and I don't know what to do with it."

"That's okay. You're eleven—almost twelve. Figuring out who you are is exactly what adolescence is for."

"But I'm not really eleven. I'm thirty-three. I should know this already."

"Should you? Because from what you've told me, you spent most of your twenties surviving addiction. You didn't get to explore healthy masculinity—you were too busy medicating the shame."

Ash went quiet. She was right.

"So this is your chance," Dr. Reeves continued. "Not just to have the right body, but to actually build the person you want to be. To explore what masculinity means to you without the shame, without the rejection, without the dysphoria."

"While having no control over my life."

"You have more control than you think. You can't choose your circumstances, but you can choose how you respond to them. You can choose what kind of student to be, what kind of friend, what kind of son. You can choose what values matter to you, what kind of person you want to become."

"That sounds exhausting."

"Or liberating. Depends on perspective." Dr. Reeves glanced at the clock. "We're almost out of time, but I want you to think about something before Monday."

"What?"

"What would it look like to accept both? To accept that you're grieving adult Ash AND grateful for the right body. To accept that you're angry at the circumstances AND engaged with the opportunities. To accept that you're trapped in childhood AND growing into the man you want to be."

"That's... a lot."

"It is. But you don't have to do it all at once. Just start paying attention. Notice when you feel gratitude, when you feel resentment, when you feel grief. Don't push any of it away. Just notice."

"And then what?"

"Then we talk about it. Figure out what to do with all those feelings." She stood, signaling the session was ending. "You did good work today, Ash."

He stood too, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. Paused at the door.

"Dr. Reeves?"

"Yeah?"

"When you call me Ash... it helps. Makes me feel less like I'm disappearing."

She smiled. "I know. That's why I do it."

In the waiting room, Mom looked up from her phone. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

In the car, she didn't ask about the session immediately. Just drove. After a few blocks, she said, "You've been different this week. Calmer."

"Tired, mostly. Tired of being angry all the time."

"That's understandable." Mom glanced at him. "I've been thinking a lot about your first childhood. About how we handled things."

Ash went still. They rarely talked about the first time. Not directly.

"We failed you," Mom said quietly. "Your dad and I. We were so focused on our own confusion, our own grief about losing our daughter, that we didn't see we never had a daughter. We had a son who was suffering."

"Mom—"

"Let me finish." Her voice was thick. "You were in so much pain and we made it worse. We made you feel like being yourself was something to be ashamed of. And I think... I think that shame drove a lot of what came after."

Ash felt his throat tighten. "The drugs, you mean."

"The drugs, yes. But also the isolation, the self-harm, the desperate seeking for relief." Mom pulled into a parking lot, turned to face him. "This time, we're trying to do it right. You're our son. You've always been our son. And we love you exactly as you are."

"I know."

"Do you? Really?" Mom's eyes were bright. "Because I need you to know. Whatever anger you're feeling, whatever grief, whatever confusion—you're loved. Completely. We're not perfect parents, but we're trying. And this time, we see you."

Ash couldn't speak around the lump in his throat. Just nodded.

"Good." Mom wiped her eyes, started the car again. "Now, did you eat lunch today? Because you're getting taller and I swear you eat like a full-grown man these days."

"Puberty," Ash managed. "Testosterone makes you hungry."

"Well, the right kind of puberty this time. Thank god for that." Mom squeezed his hand. "How about we stop for subs? You can get whatever you want."

"Even a footlong?"

"Even a footlong. I wasn't kidding about the eating."

At Subway, waiting in line, Ash caught his reflection in the glass. Eleven years old, almost twelve. Getting taller, his voice deepening, his face changing. Male. Unambiguously, naturally male.

He thought about Dr. Reeves' question. What kind of man do you want to be?

He didn't know yet. But maybe that was okay.

Maybe figuring it out was the point.

Maybe having the right body, the right acceptance, the right puberty—maybe that was the foundation. And what he built on it was up to him.

Not immediately. Not all at once. But gradually, over time.

Seven more years of this. Seven more years as Noam.

But also seven years to become someone. To choose, within the constraints, who that someone would be.

It wasn't enough autonomy. Would never be enough. But it was something.

"Turkey or ham?" Mom asked.

"Both. And bacon."

"Growing boy," Mom said, smiling.

Yeah, Ash thought. Growing into something.

He just had to figure out what.

One choice at a time.

One day at a time.

One step toward whoever he was becoming.

It wasn't the life he'd chosen. But it was the life he had.

And maybe—just maybe—he could make something of it.

Not for his parents, not for the program, not even to prove anything to himself.

Just because he was here. And he had to be someone.

Might as well be someone he could live with.

Someone who could carry both the grief and the gratitude.

Both Ash and Noam.

Both the loss and the possibility.

It was a start.

And right now, that had to be enough.