They embraced and held each other for some time before parting ways in the Long Island City dusk. A week later, Vera flew to LA to visit her grandma, long suffering from Alzheimer’s and not long for the world. She met Connie and an aunt at LAX, and the aunt drove them to the care home. Vera had missed out on the goodbyes to the family house, had missed a whole reordering and restructuring of the fam over the years.

They hugged Vera’s grandma and chatted with her as she stared resolutely ahead. After an hour, Vera sat on her haunches and held the older woman’s hand to say goodbye. Finally, her grandma spoke, very slowly, each word enunciated like a sentence:

“Who. Are. You.”

“I’m Vera.” Vera smiled. She’d rather not do this around the others, but … “You knew me as David. David? Do you remember David?”

Her grandma stared straight ahead.

Connie took a place beside Vera, smiled too. “My daughter,” Connie said. “Can you see? Do we look alike?”

Vera’s grandma shook her head. She closed her eyes in front of the two figures squatting side by side in front of her.

On the car ride home, Vera mentioned she’d seen Iris the other day. Connie lit up. Vera texted Iris, My mom says hello, and Iris called an hour later as Vera paced on her aunt’s porch. They talked for some time. “You’ll always be my West Coaster!” Iris said. “Give Connie my best. Give her a big hug.”

And that evening, when Vera felt the urge to spit and snarl about a thoughtless comment her aunt made, it occurred to Vera that she could be mean sometimes, about the strangest things. Vera realized her selfhood was sutured with these women from her life, that the only lie about the old him dying was that the skin of the person she’d stepped into wasn’t a cis lady she’d conjured from the air but a blanket fashioned from a kaleidoscope of them, shards and spackles that lived in her like bacteria, like DNA, joyous and ailing, a double helix of protection and illness.

That was the last day Vera and Iris ever spoke.

Six years went by. A lot of time.

Still, Vera did think of her.

Vera was thirty-three now. These days, she was doing pretty good.

She’d reconnected with Leah, who’d said, “I’m sorry I didn’t make you feel like you were important.” To which Vera replied, “I’m sorry I disappeared without telling you I was upset.” Leah worked accounting for some firm by Goose Hollow. They texted despondently about politics, cried darkly on the phone the night Trump won. They’d spend evenings on video calls trading YouTube links. There were certain words they didn’t use for each other anymore, and they didn’t talk about this.

Ray. He’d ended up a stats analyst in North Carolina. He was engaged. He’d been the one to reach out, and Vera forgave him, because what else was Vera going to do—hold a grudge? She had plans to drive out for the bachelor party.