The metallic ping of the bell was still faintly echoing when Isaiah and Milton heard a door open on the other side of the fence. “Coming!” a cheerful voice called out, and the sound of footsteps approached.

With a turn of a key, the gate opened, and the two men were greeted by a stout woman in a floral pattern dress. Long waves of greying chestnut hair flowed from underneath her sunhat. Her glasses made her eyes look bigger, magnifying the smile lines collected over the years.

“Mrs. Nichols, I presume,” Isaiah greeted her.

“That would be me,” she replied. “And you must be the Mr. Hargraves I spoke to on the phone. A pleasure,” she said, shaking his hand. Isaiah then stepped to the side, and Drew was now facing her nephew.

Milton couldn’t utter a single word. He found it hard to even look at Drew, crippled by the shame that his father was incapable of feeling.

“Milton,” she said affectionately. “So that’s you. For all this time I knew nothing about you except your name.”

His mouth opened but no articulated sound came out, just attempts at words that ended up as gibberish. Fortunately, words weren’t necessary. Drew just came up to him and gave him a hug so tight he let out a small gasp.

“I’m so happy to finally meet you,” she whispered. Suddenly, Milton’s hesitation and anxiety receded, as he felt care and acceptance flood into his heart. His arms lifted, and he reciprocated the hug.

“Me too,” he responded, his soul brimming with joy of knowing that someone’s love for him didn’t hinge on ifs or whens. He didn’t have to do anything for Drew to treat him kindly other than just be himself. It was an entirely new feeling for him.

It looked like they both needed that hug, since they stayed embraced for a few minutes. Once they separated, Drew showed her guests into her home. The living room was entirely made of wood and stone, with simple furniture that seemed to be hand-carved and a monolithic rock fireplace that Isaiah could easily imagine himself and Nigel sitting in front of in winter, enjoying a cup of hot cocoa. A tall, lithe man with a neatly trimmed grey beard walked into the room, taking off a very muddy glove.

“This is my husband, Ian,” Drew said as Ian came over to greet the guests. Milton was again uncomfortable as he was being introduced, but Ian gave him a firm, familial handshake.

“Welcome,” he said softly. “I hope you fellas like cranberry tea.”

Soon enough they were all seated around the round marble coffee table, sipping exquisite home brewed tea out of old china cups.

“You have a wonderful home,” Isaiah remarked.

“That’s all Ian,” Drew laughed. “He’s an amazing handyman and an even better gardener. I just cook and move my bric-a-brac around now that I’m retired.”

“What did you do for a living if I may ask?”

“Believe it or not, I was a butcher,” she answered. “Always had a strong set of arms and a knack for dealing with flesh and bones. It’s not very glamorous but it paid the bills.”

Isaiah’s mind briefly lingered on the image of sweet old Drew Nichols hacking away at tenderloins like a champ. Then he decided to get to business.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’d like to get to the reason why we came to visit you. As I told you on the phone, you were quite the headscratcher in a case that I was investigating.”

“I think I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said wryly.

“Now that I’ve managed to get in touch with you, I would really like to hear your story. And I’m sure Milton would too.”

“I don’t think there’s that much to tell, oddly enough,” Drew started. “Ever since I can remember, I’ve felt that the body I was given at birth didn’t reflect who I was in here,” she said, placing her hand on her heart.

“After I finished high school, I started doing things to change that body, to make it more my own. My family didn’t like it, but for me there was no other choice. I had to be a woman. I changed my name, I began to wear dresses and make up, I started looking into medical treatments that could help me. Along the way I met the wonderful man sitting here with us and became his wife, and the rest is just… life, I guess. And here I am now. The law might not recognize me as such, and I’m still waiting for science to be able to remove the one barrier standing in my way, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m the woman I’ve always wanted to be,” Drew concluded with a chuckle.

“Now, I’ve talked to a friend of yours from high school,” Isaiah continued, “and I’ve obviously done research of my own. And, if you don’t mind me saying so, you basically became invisible at some point. Nobody knew anything about you.”

“I suppose I’m mostly to blame for that,” she sighed. “You see, Mr. Hargraves, when you’re living a life that you feel was imposed on you, you try to break away from it in any way possible. Which is all fine and well if you want to leave a job that doesn’t suit you, or a city that you despise. But my life was imposed by nature, and there was no getting around that. I couldn’t just escape from my body.”

“When I started living as a woman, perhaps to compensate for that fact, I began to physically distance myself from my old life. You said that I was nearly invisible – that’s exactly what I wanted to be. I never told anyone about what was going on in my life because I wanted to break away from everything that was part of my past. And looking back on it, I realize that was a very short-sighted, immature thing to do. There were people that I would have loved to keep in touch with, but they had no way of finding me because I burned my bridges.”

“You’re being a little too hard on yourself there,” Isaiah said. “Completely upending your life and rebuilding it from scratch is a difficult thing to do. You can’t expect every choice you make during that process to be good in the long run. You just take things as they come and solve them in the moment, and the best you can do is hope that you’ll come out of it in one piece. And I’d say, seeing what I see around me, that you’ve done quite well, regrets and all.”

“That’s such a wonderful thing to say,” Drew replied, clearly touched. Ian placed his hand over hers and smiled.

“Thank you, Mr. Hargraves,” she continued, “but there was more to it than just cutting off ties. I suppose I was also scared how those people would react if they found out the truth? Would they shun me? Would they walk away? Would they hate me? I don’t think I could deal with exposing myself to someone completely, only to have them leave or turn hostile when I’m at my most vulnerable. So that’s why I never really tried doing that.”

“Well,” Isaiah countered, “I know for a fact that there is at least one person from your Academy years that has been thinking about you and would love to know what you’re up to these days. And if you’d like, I can help you get in touch.”

“Why not?” Drew said, shrugging her shoulders. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that it’s always best to leave doors open. You never know who might show up one day,” she smiled, glancing at Milton.

“I’ve obviously heard a few things about your family from your nephew,” Isaiah continued. “But I was wondering if I could get your perspective on that?”

“I don’t think there’s that much to tell about that, either. My parents wanted nothing to do with me after I started my transition. I left and my brother stayed with them. I can’t imagine it was healthy for him living in that environment for so long. Their hatred polluted his mind, and at some point I think he started to view me as some kind of personal failure, a mistake that had to be hidden to maintain his reputation. I’ve tried reaching out several times but he never accepted the olive branch.”

“You… reached out?” Milton suddenly spoke, utterly aghast.

“I did, my dear,” Drew said softly. “I called when you were born, but he just hung up. I gathered all the courage I had to just show up at his door and knock when you were about three, but he just shut it in my face. I… still have it. The gift I brought for you that day. Hold on for a second.”

She got up and disappeared into another room for a moment. When she came back, she was carrying a stuffed toy, a hedgehog with a red bow tied around its neck. She handed it to Milton, who took it into his shaking hands.

“I never thought that I would be able to actually give it to you,” Drew said and her voice cracked, tears now rolling down her cheeks. Ian came to her side and comforted her.

“How… How did you know I was born?” Milton muttered.

“As it happens,” his aunt said, wiping away the tears, “your mother had a good head on her shoulders. She didn’t feel right about keeping me out of the family, so she managed to find my number and contacted me. I heard from her sporadically – I’m sure she was doing it in secret, because your father would have gone mental if he’d found out.”

“My mother…” Milton echoed. “The only things I know about you… are the ones she told me,” he said, as if uncovering a buried memory.

“And the only things I know about you are the ones she told me,” Drew replied. “She was my only connection to what was left of my family. But after that time I came to visit, your father must have caught on. I never heard from her again, and whenever I tried to call he just hung up after hearing my voice.”

Milton looked into the round, shiny eyes of the toy hedgehog, his pained visage reflected in them like they were tiny mirrors. His hands clutched the toy. It was still as soft as it must have been more than three decades ago.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a wounded whisper. “I let my father warp me… Just like his parents warped him. I tried so hard to keep you a secret… Like you were something to be ashamed of. I did everything in my power to convince Isaiah that you were dead… I told him such horrible lies about you…”

His head sank towards his chest, and his sobs filled the room.

“I can never forgive myself,” he managed to muster through the tears.

After a brief pause, Drew walked up to Milton’s chair. It obviously took some effort on her part, but she managed to kneel next to him, and her fingers gently brushed through his hair.

“I forgive you, my dear,” she said gently. “You weren’t acting out of malice – you were just trying to please a parent. Heaven knows I tried the same with mine just so I could feel their acceptance. As it turns out, I didn’t need it. I could live my life the way I wanted to, even if they didn’t agree.”

Milton looked at her, his eyes red from the crying, his lower lip quivering.

“I’m perfectly ready to let you into my life if you agree to let me into yours. I want to be your aunt… But you have to want to be my nephew as well.”

“I do,” he said without thinking. “I really do.”

“Good,” Drew nodded. “Now let’s both stand up so I can give you another hug, my knees are killing me.”

That line managed to force one of those hideous chuckles out of Milton, the kind you let slip when you’ve cried so hard that you welcome any moment of levity and grab onto it like it’s the funniest thing ever. He got out of his chair and helped his aunt so they could properly embrace. Isaiah and Ian didn’t dare say a word, fully aware that they were just spectators in the story unfolding before them.

Once everyone went back to their seats and the dust had settled, Isaiah spoke up again.

“Thank you very much for seeing us today. I think we all got something good out of this experience.”

“I agree wholeheartedly,” Drew said.

“If you don’t mind, I would just like to do something as a formality,” Isaiah said, pulling out Bubba’s photo out of his briefcase and handing it to Drew. “Would you please just hold this?”

She took the photo and observed it, letting out an amused chortle when she caught eye of the person she once was. She then gave Isaiah a quizzical look.

“You don’t feel anything, do you?” he asked.

“Am I supposed to?”

“No,” he smiled and took back the photo. “This is not part of your story.”

Everyone stood up to say goodbye, and Drew approached Milton again.

“I hope to see you again soon, my dear,” she said.

“You will. I promise.”

“And remember what I said. My door is open,” she reminded him. “If your father should ever change his mind, all he has to do is call.”

With that, Isaiah and Milton left the peaceful green of Alsmel, accompanied by a plush hedgehog that took thirty years to make it into the hands of the boy it was meant for.