Jenny simply held her arms open, so he came and held onto her as if his life depended upon it.
It was a very subdued afternoon. Rhona rang at about six to say that he was still in a critical condition. Jenny tried playing some games with Andrew, but his mind was elsewhere.
They had supper, and Andrew went to get ready for bed.
Jenny was listening to the BBC news on the wireless when Andrew appeared naked and dripping wet, straight from the bath.
“He’s dead!” he announced.
Jenny took him upstairs. Wrapping him in a towel, the little boy was clearly very distressed. She carried him downstairs, and sat with him on the sofa.
“Why does everyone I love have to die?” he asked.
“It isn’t just you, sweetie. Everyone suffers just as much. It is just you seem to have suffered more when so young,” she said.
He had stopped crying.
“It almost makes me never to want to get to like anyone,” he said.
Jenny smiled, as the same thought had crossed her mind several times.
“He will be happy now,” he said.
“Who will?” she asked, surprised.
“Grandpa. He wanted to be with his children so much.”
“What about your Grandma?”
“Oh, he will be happy when she goes too,” he said.
The telephone rang, and Jenny didn’t need ESP to know who it was going to be.
“He’s gone.” Rhona said, the emotion heavy in her voice.
“I know. Andrew told me,” Jenny said.
“He never came round. They think he had cancer.”
“Would you like me to come and get you?” Jenny offered.
“No. I think I expected it. I’ll be home soon.”
Jenny stayed with them for the rest of the week, more for Rhona than for Andrew. The funeral was the following Tuesday, at which Andrew stood in his little grey flannel suit, holding hands with Rhona and Jenny. There weren’t many at the funeral, so Jenny felt quite depressed at the whole affair.
A few days later, she returned to the Gables, and Rhona asked if she would be willing to come and live with them.
“After all, the house is huge, so it would make sense as you are going to be teaching Andrew. To be honest, I would value your being here too,” she said.
Jenny came to stay. She went to a local estate agent and put her cottage out for furnished rent, and moved into the Gables with Rhona and Andrew. She was given a large bedroom and her own bathroom. When Rhona started talking about salaries, she had got cross, and told her that she would teach Andrew for bed and board. However, she met her match with Rhona, who insisted that Jenny accept a small salary.
There was a shock for Rhona when the solicitor called about Geoffrey’s will. Apparently, he had invested in some shares after the first war, and then had clearly forgotten all about them. They were worth nearly fifty thousand pounds now, and properly invested, should bring Rhona a very stable income for the foreseeable future.
When September came the schools went back, and Andrew and Jenny started their lessons together. After a few days, she realised that she did not have to speak to him, as if she thought something, he would pick it up easily and respond.
“Andrew, can you turn off your gift?”
“I can stop reading, yes. I believe it is rude to read unless someone is willing, like you are. But sometimes, I like to know if I am in danger or something.”
“Could I read someone?” she asked.
He closed his eyes for a moment.
She suddenly ‘heard’ his thought.
<No, I can send thoughts to you, but you can’t read me.>
She was uneasy with the whole thing, so Andrew never repeated it. She was content to speak, but he understood that he must develop appropriate speech patterns in order to socialise with the rest of the world.
He knew nothing of his parents’ lives and work, but somehow he believed that it was responsible for his gifts. Jenny agreed, so together they decided to try to discover what they could.
Rhona was delighted to have Jenny in their home. She was a gifted teacher and Andrew responded very well to her. She was also good company, so the older woman was grateful to be spared the terrible loneliness that so many widows seemed destined to suffer. Rhona was a very good cook, while Jenny had no real experience at it. She had always lived in homes with servants in Singapore, and even the family they stayed with in Australia had staff to prepare meals.
Jenny began to learn about cooking and looking after a home. She didn’t feel she had missed out, but appreciated that she may have to learn sometime, so now was as good a time as any other.
One day, Jenny was asking about various items she could use to help her teach, and Rhona suggested that she try looking in the attic.
“All Caroline’s stuff got put there, as I’ve never felt strong enough to go through it all.”
Jenny and Andrew went into the dusty attic, to find tea chests and trunks full of his parents’ past.
There were all the clothes that Caroline and Mark had ever owned.
She found a case of photographs and sorted through them. These were mainly of Caroline and a few of Mark when very young, and then more of Caroline as she grew up.
Andrew looked at a picture of his mother aged about seven.
She had been a very pretty girl with fair hair and a lovely smile. She was wearing a pretty dress, with a lace collar. Jenny remembered seeing the dress in a trunk, and she went and found it. It was a wonderful turquoise blue velvet dress, and was obviously hand made of the highest quality.
“She is very pretty,” he said. Jenny noted that he said ‘is’ and not ‘was’.
“You look quite like her, I think.” Jenny said.
“I can look just like her, if I want,” he said.
“Have you changed yourself often?” she asked, genuinely interested.
“Every night, after I go to bed.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because I feel I should really have been a girl!”
Jenny frowned.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Whenever I am a girl, I feel happy. It is what I should have been to start with, I think.”
“Does that mean that you aren’t happy as a boy?”
He frowned and shook his head.
“I have happy moments, but I think I am unhappy for most of the time in between.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I’m not a girl,” he said, in very simple terms.
Then he concentrated for several moments, and in front of Jenny, he became the splitting image of the girl in the photograph. As she watched, the girl’s hair grew long and wavy. After several minutes, the little girl took off the shorts and shirt, and slipped the dress on. Jenny noted that the genitalia were in line with her current gender.
“How do you manage that?” she asked.
The girl shrugged.
“I don’t really know. I just think of becoming someone, and it just seems to happen. I have tried to be a grown up, but it doesn’t work. I once tried to be you, and I just became a girl of my age. I think I must have looked like you did at the age of seven,” she said.
Jenny shook her head, as this was truly remarkable.
“I like being a girl.”
“Why?” Jenny asked.
“I don’t know. I just feel I belong in this body,” she said.
“What would you look like if you were you, and not your mother?”
Again, the little girl’s features shifted. If anything she became prettier, and her large eyes were more a focal point.
“Gosh, you are very pretty,” Jenny said, genuinely surprised.
The girl smiled.
“I feel much happier like this.”
“Do you want to stay like that for the rest of the day?” Jenny asked.
The girl grinned and two little dimples appeared on her cheeks.
“May I?”
“I don’t see why not. But should we tell your Granny?”
“I don’t think so. She doesn’t like it. I think it better if we keep it a secret. But I don’t want to be called Andrew.”