Becoming Marilyn

Chapter 5

Mom took me to the hospital, by the time we got home, Brent was gone. Dad sent him away to Mom's brother in Nevada. That girl's face in the mirror broke up my family. I hated her at the same time I wanted to be her."

"What was the name she whispered to you?" Dr. Tripp asked.

Marilyn's hands shook as she drank her water. Dr. Tripp looked like he'd wait forever for her to answer the question, so she waited until she thought she could speak without a break in her voice.

"Marilyn" she said, "She told me my name was Marilyn."

"Ah," Dr. Tripp said. "I will see you next week."

Marilyn gathered up her bottle and purse and left without saying goodbye. She couldn't believe after all he'd just tell her see you next week. She shook all the way to East Washington Boulevard. Birungi waited at the stop to go to the University.

"You look disarranged. I see you wear my scarf. It looks good on you." Birungi twitched the scarf a little. "I teach you all the ways to use the scarf. You will stun."

Marilyn laughed and the shaking fled.

"Thank you, Birungi, I'd love to learn more about your scarves."

"I wear them because my mother's voice from across the ocean tells me I must. She'd be dead of chagrin if she saw me like this. I tell her I am in America, I don't need to wear scarf. She tells me she is not in America."

Marilyn thought about Brent and Dr. Tripp.

"You can't let other people tell you who you are."

"Not even if I make my mother dead of shame?"

"Do what you decide to do," Marilyn said. "How are we going to help other decide for themselves if we are afraid of our own choices?"

The bus roared up to the stop and they climbed on board. Birungi appeared to be deep in thought, so Marilyn was stuck with her memories. For years, she'd let Brent's absence define who she was. Dr. Tripp probably heard hundreds of these stories. It was his job to listen. Who'd have the time to care about all of them?

"Come to my room," Birungi said when they got off the bus. "I show you my mother and you understand." They walked to the residence and up to her room. It looked like a fabric store exploded in the room, but as Birungi sat and waited quietly the fabric made the room feel like a tent. Even over the window, cloth filtered the light and made it exotic.

"It's beautiful," Marilyn said. "My room is so boring next to this."

"My mother." Birungi handed Marilyn a picture. The woman looked into the camera with a steady stare. Marilyn didn't notice the scarf around the woman's head until she looked for it. She wouldn't want to argue with those eyes.

"Wow," Marilyn said, "she's beautiful, like her daughter."

"She's tall, like you." Birungi grinned. "I'm short like my father." She showed Marilyn another picture. "He died long time back. My mother raised us all. I'm the first to go to University. I win big scholarship; mother not want to shame people by refusing. I say I wear scarf to please mother, but really, I think it is so I do not forget who I am and where I come from. I need to remember if I'm to go back to help them."

"Sounds right to me," Marilyn perched on the bed so she didn't tower over her friend.

"So, you let me teach you about scarf?"

"Sure," Marilyn put her hand up to her neck. then pulled the scarf away and handed it to Birungi. "Teach away."

Birungi showed her the traditional way to wear the scarf. It allowed her to pull it up over her head at a moment's notice. Then she showed Marilyn a dizzying number of other ways to wear it.

"I look on YouTube," Birungi said. "Learn ways of wearing scarf to keep my mother happy, but look like I'm happy to be here.

***

"We talked about self-determination a little last week," Professor Dingman gazed at the class. "and the limits society puts on people's ability to choose. This week we will begin to look at the ways in which we as social workers can increase another person's capacity for good decisions, and ways we can lessen the impact of poor decisions..."

After class Marilyn and Birungi headed to the hall for coffee.

"Look." Anna plunked herself down beside Marilyn. "It isn't like the scarf really hides anything. I know what you are."

"What am I?" Marilyn wished Birungi was here instead of in line for coffee.

"You're a trangender, male to female, but I thought they gave you drugs to stop puberty so..." she waved a hand in front of her throat. "I mean, how did you know?"

"Anna," Marilyn asked, "how do you know you're a girl?"

"I look in the mirror," Anna shrugged a puzzled look on her face. "it's pretty obvious."

"What if it wasn't obvious?" Marilyn asked, "What if the person you saw in the mirror didn't look like the person you felt like? My mirror lies to me every day."

"I don't get it."

"No, you don't." Marilyn snapped her mouth shut on the rest of what she wanted to say.

"So, help me get it," Anna said.

"Why?" Marilyn looked over to where Birungi stood waiting patiently.

"Isn't that what friends do?"

"Birungi treats me the way I see myself," Marilyn said. "We're two girls talking. When you're talking with me, there are two girls, and the boy I used to be. That's one too many people."

"What?" Anna stood up, "I really don't get you."

"No, you don't," Marilyn whispered to Anna's retreating back.