I called Carl. I had to.

  Of course first I spent almost an hour pacing my living room, stepping around the piles and boxes from yesterday. I even pulled out my family photo albums, I didn’t know why, and picture after picture just made me feel worse.

  I’d loved my parents, I had. And they’d loved me. But I’d come along when Mother had been forty-eight. Father had been older. They’d already been married more than twenty years and if they’d regretted not having children before me, they hadn’t tried very hard; getting pregnant with me had been a shock. They’d loved me but hadn’t exactly known what to do with me, and it had been a cool, absent sort of love. I’d had a nanny, my parents were those kind of people.

  I did remember childhood night-terrors, and Mother’s kiss on my forehead.

  They’d worried when I finished college still single, but again in an absent way. To be fair I’d been the furthest from a rebellious or taxing child, and as an adult I’d been content to go from school into Father’s business and make the job and my hobbies my social life, such as it was. They’d supported my choices because my choices hadn’t inconvenienced them, and in the end I’d been there for them.

  They were my parents, and I’d loved them, so why was I walking back and forth trying not to cry again? Why was I even over here? If their ghosts stood in front of me now and I told them what had happened, what May proposed to do, they’d be fine with it. “Raised” by someone else? They’d never been jealous of my fondness for Nanny Jane.

  So, why was I being like this?

  Finally able to trust my voice, I plopped onto my too-big easy chair and called Carl’s number on my house phone, taking a last nose-clearing sniff as it rang twice, three times and— “This is Carl, talk to me.”

  “Carl . . .” I said.

  “David? Is everything alright?”

  I sniffed and took a breath. “May . . .”

  “She called me. Are you alright?”

  “She told you?”

  “When she was ready to, yeah. She’s a bit worried right now.”

  I swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

  He chuckled. “Don’t be. I’m sure your head’s a sack of squirrels right now. I wish she’d waited to spring her idea with me first, we could have talked to you together.”

  “You— You’re fine with it?”

  “My wife is a genius, it’s brilliant, of course I’m alright with it. Still there?”

  I’d dropped my head in my hand, throat closing around a growing knot. “Yeah,” I finally managed.

  “Hey, where are you?”

  “Back home. I’ve been . . . thinking.”

  “Well, do it or don’t do it, but get back over there and talk to my wife. When she called me she was nearly hysterical, thinks she’s ruined everything.”

  The knot tripled in size and dropped into my gut. “I— Okay. I’m going. Carl? Really?”

  He chuckled. “Really. Now get, go on old man.”

  I got.

  *******************************************

  Their house was quiet, my laptop sitting alone on the dining room table and Steph absent from her front room crib. Going up the stairs, at the first landing I almost kept going up to check May’s office at the top of the house but heard a sound from the nursery. They were there.

  I stopped at the open door. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” I hadn’t surprised her; the carpeted wood floor of the hall squeaked. She sat in the old-fashioned rocking chair by the nursery crib, watching her daughter and playing with her cell. Her eyes were red. Mine probably were too.

  “I’m sorry I ran.”

  Giving me a watery smile, she put down her phone. “You said you’d be back.”

  “No, I’m sorry.” I plopped into the small sofa seat across the tiny room from her. “I panicked. I don’t know why.”

  “I can guess, but it’s not—have I wrecked everything?”

  “No, but . . . why?”

  She didn’t say anything for a long moment.

  “I have an older cousin, Michelle,” she started softly. “She had a best friend, Tracy, who had a little boy, Billy. When Michelle was just married, Tracy and her husband were killed in a car accident out on a date night while she was babysitting Billy. Billy was five. Michelle didn’t even think twice, she got approval from both sets of grandparents and adopted Billy. She kept pictures and videos, she’s made sure Billy hasn’t forgotten his mom and dad who loved him very much, but he needed a mama and she’s his mama now.” She looked at her hands. “You need a mama, now.”

  “I don’t—”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “You do, don’t say you don’t. To be completely honest I’ve always thought, if your parents were still alive, I’d have given them a piece of my mind. They didn’t do right by you. Don’t defend them, they didn’t.”

  “They gave me everything I—”

  Her head came up. “They didn’t. If they had, then you wouldn’t just be learning to let others give to you. They— Never mind. The point is, the point is that from the moment we saw you like this Sunday morning, I knew what I wanted to do. It’s not about keeping your secret, it’s not about that. You need us, and we need you. I want to be your mama.”

  The knot in my stomach had climbed back up to my throat and gotten even bigger as she talked, and now my chest was burning and I felt like I was floating. I’d have thought I was having a heart attack if I hadn’t known what one actually felt like, and all I could do was hold onto myself and feel it.

  “David? Are you alright?” Her unknowing echo of Carl’s question pulled a desperate laugh out of me and I nodded hard, inhaling. And then I lost it again, completely, for the second time in three days. And just like before May was up and across the room to push me over and crowd onto the small sofa beside me, winding her arms around me. Burying my face in her shoulder I just bawled.

  Steph joined me in crying just on general principles, making me laugh stupidly even as I sobbed, May holding me and stroking my hair as I fought for a steady breath, finally letting go of myself to grab onto her. It was long minutes before I managed to get a little control. “Okay,” I said when I was finally breathing steady again.

  “Hmmm?” she hummed beside my ear, still stroking my hair.

  “I can be April Seever.”

  She brought her head up, letting go of mine. “You can?”

  I nodded, sniffing. “It’s going to be hard to call you mom, though.”

  She laughed damply. “Well, if you’d just moved here from living with Aunt Sophie it would be pretty hard anyway. I can be patient.”

  “Okay.” I took another breath. “Mom?”

  “Yes, sweetie?” Her eyes were bright.

  “Steph?” She hadn’t stopped when I had.

  “Babies cry, but you can hold your sister if you want.”

  ************************************

  May left me with Steph to make some calls, coming back fifteen minutes later her face wreathed with smiles. Apparently she’d been right about Aunt Sophie; after swearing her to secrecy she hadn’t withheld anything and the woman was completely onboard with helping hide an age-regressed and sex-swapped changeling.

  A true rebel, Aunt Sophie.

  After that we all went downstairs and I got back on my laptop to finish answering all the questions needed, May providing all the family details I had no idea about while she fed Steph. We scanned copies of May’s and Carl’s signatures and included them as attached files. On the question of my new birthdate, we decided it was eighteen years ago last Sunday.

  The payment for a rush on the documents could have bought me a nice but not fancy car, but I was assured that in five days I’d be April Seever with a birth certificate (no listed father), an interesting childhood medical history, homeschooling records, and two current guardians of record, all in the right places and guaranteed to withstand anything short of an original document check. Give them a little time, and original documents would be where they needed to be, too.

  I loved the information age.

  In the afternoon we went back over and continued sorting and packing. May put Furnish and decorate April’s bedroom on our list of things to do—right now it just had the bed, a tall dresser with five drawers, the mirror, the wardrobe, and the bookshelf where she’d put the nanny cam. None of the furniture matched. The ensuite bathroom didn’t need much, but she offered to clear out her office and turn it over to me, making the top floor my own until someone got old enough to move into the second bedroom. I turned it down; the Seever Plan after Steph was a new baby every couple of years until they had three or four, with all three top floor rooms used as bedrooms (there was a second bathroom in the hall for the two other bedrooms) and the nursery on the second floor converted back into a fifth bedroom as soon as its last occupant was old enough.

  When Carl got home we brought over my computer chair for the wall table we put in my room as a temporary study desk. Really, Carl brought it over. Before my transformation, I could have done it myself even if I would have had to take it slowly on the stairs. Now? Hell, no. Eighteen-year-old me was weaker than sixty-year-old me who’d lost twenty percent of his heart function. Way weaker.

  It would have upset me a lot more if it hadn’t been such a small thing in all the drama of the day.

  At supper, Carl officially welcomed me into the family by laying down The Rules. No drugs, no boys, no bands, no bail, no bullshit. By the time he was halfway through explaining the list—no bands meant no sudden fascination with drums or electric guitars or any boy or girl who played them, and while he was at it no loud music—May and I were laughing hysterically.

  After dinner May handed Steph off to Carl and retreated to put a couple of hours in on her accounting practice, and Carl asked for another chess game. This time I let him fight to a win after he opened with an Evans Gambit. His game was getting better.

  May emerged from her office long enough to brush my hair after my shower. With her she brought a wrapped maxi-pad, putting it on my dresser with an “If you decide you need it.” The brush put away, I climbed into bed and she sat beside me so we could go over my plans and her suggestions for tomorrow. After talking it out, she pulled the blanket up around my shoulders and kissed me goodnight, whispering “I love you, sweetie,” making me tear up, and left, turning the lights out and closing the door.

  I was pretty sure her hitting the switch was reflex and not signaling that a lights-out curfew was in effect, but I smiled at that thought and rolled over on my side to stare at the wall, trying to identify what I was feeling.

  God, I was lucky.

  So lucky. I couldn’t imagine what would have happened if Carl and May hadn’t moved in next door and I’d gone through this as alone as I’d been two years ago. I’d really be trying to be another Mrs. Thompson, a shut-in hiding behind curtains, ordering everything I needed online; I couldn’t think of a single other person I’d have turned to with this.

  I absently rubbed my forehead where May had kissed me, my breath hitching a little. So why had I freaked out today? I’d been shocked, sure. And maybe a piece of me had felt that by saying yes I was betraying my parents, but I’d known that wasn’t true. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t feel smothered at all—the opposite if anything, more like . . . lighter. Except when I’d get a catch in my throat and feel rising panic for no reason, like everything Carl and May did for me threatened me somehow, which was insane when most of the time it just made me feel loved. And obviously happy enough to cry (and God these spikes of emotion were insane just by themselves).

  Deciding I wasn’t going to figure it out, I rolled back over and closed my eyes.

  And didn’t sleep.

  And didn’t sleep.

  And didn’t sleep.

  Dammit, I was very good at turning off my mind and drifting away, what was going on? I intentionally relaxed every muscle in my body.

  And didn’t sleep.

  I wasn’t relaxing, not really, and why not? Oh. My eyes flew open and I looked sidelong at the shadowed lump on the dresser. I wasn’t relaxing because, despite having made sure my bladder was empty after showering, I was afraid I was going to drift off and soak the bed with a wet dream again.

  Which was stupid—May had said wet dreams didn’t happen for girls that often. And if it did, I might not squirt again. And if I did it would be no big deal.

  My mind thought it was a big deal.

  And I wasn’t going to use that menstrual pad, there was no way I could get comfortable enough to fall asleep with the thick thing shoved in my night shorts. So . . . there was the other thing.

  Uuuuugh. I was going to masturbate again.