There was a part of me that wanted this image to be the last I would take of myself as a woman, the conclusion of my experiment. I didn’t want to further jeopardize my relationship and, having lived for so long without needing to be a woman, I figured I could get used to once again wearing makeup and women’s clothes only as a costume. Looking at that image, I saw how much work it took to express this womanhood, all that effort and ornamentation. As I contemplated my flat chest in the picture, I also wondered whether I wanted my body to change and how long that would take, having learned online that trans women—because that was what I would be, or maybe already was, a trans woman—needed to be in therapy for at least eighteen months before even being allowed to go on hormones, because psychiatrists classified what was happening to me as a mental illness that needed careful evaluation.

I wondered if it was an illness, since it did seem to run against my best interests. Wasn’t that what sickness was? When a foreign entity invades your system so that you’re worse off than you were before, even though it seemed impossible to evaluate my life according to two simple sides, better or worse. Nonetheless, it was hard to disagree that my life would be so much worse without Ralph, especially when I couldn’t be with Richard.

These thoughts were circling my mind when I noticed my friend Max from photo class, waiting for a print to come out of the processor. I went over to say hi.

“I’ve been here for a while, but you didn’t notice me,” he said.

Max was a stout Italian man who was pursuing commercial photography as a post-retirement career. When I mentioned the week before that I was getting professionally done up for an event, he asked if he could stop by the salon and take pictures while I was getting my makeup done, since he wanted to build a fashion portfolio. I’d been so preoccupied with Richard that I’d forgotten.

“I got a great shot. I hope you like it.”