On Caleb’s birth day, the doctor cut open his mother’s lower abdomen, yanking Caleb out of her womb. As he was forced from one home into another, his concept of home became intertwined with injury and coercion. Blue, pink, pink, blue. A blue wristband was wrapped around Caleb’s tiny wrist–a boy. That blue wristband was a chain. It shackled him to an identity that was not his.
With every birth we move closer to our own death.
When I was in third grade my grandpa passed away, and a part of me passed with him—the part that wanted to resemble who I was while he was alive. For the funeral, my mother forced me into an itchy black dress. As I placed a stone on his grave, a Jewish tradition that ties the deceased’s soul to Earth, I felt my dress suffocate me. When I returned home, I stopped wearing dresses. I cut my hair short. I refused to wear the color pink. When he was erased, I erased myself as well.
When Caleb was five, he began to sneak into his mother’s closet. This closet became the only space where he could truly take off his clothes. Caleb would grab a barstool and stand on his tiny toes to reach his favorite silk dress, the red fabric spilling across the carpet around him. Admiring his reflection in the mirror, he tried to catch a glimpse of himself, herself. Yet as quickly as he transformed into the princess he dreamed of being, he had to just as quickly pull his blue shorts back on.Before leaving the closet, he would glance at his reflection one last time to ensure his appearance was the one the world had wrapped around his wrist; but he no longer could see himself.
As Caleb split in two, I did as well. With my grandpa’s passing, I became overwhelmed by OCD. A voice in my head trolled me wherever I went. If you don’t do things in patterns of two, your grandma will also die. Each doorway I entered, sink faucet I touched, and word I said, I had to repeat again. Otherwise my grandma would be sucked into the black hole of a period that marked the end of the sentence my grandpa was written in.
Do periods mark endings or beginnings? I am fourteen and at summer camp, sitting on my cabin’s wooden floor as I eat popcorn with my bunkmates. The hot butter and salt mix in our mouths. We are playing Never Have I Ever. Sylvie, you’re up, my friends say. I pause before sharing my response. Never have I ever in the last six years painted my nails. I won that round.
Caleb sticks both his hands into his pockets as he bolts towards the door to leave his family’s apartment. As he closes the door behind him, another one opens – it is his father coming from the stairs. Caleb quickly takes his hand out of his pocket to press the elevator button, but it is too late. His father sees his nails – the yellow nail polish. What are you doing wearing nail polish? Get in the house and remove it. The elevator door opens, and Caleb runs inside. As he leaves his home, he runs towards mine, where he frantically asks me for nail polish remover. But I had none. I had already removed everything.
I always wore my hair up — in buns, ponytails, braids. If anyone judged or rejected me, I could say that they had never seen my hair down –- that they had never seen me. When Caleb came to my apartment one night, this changed. You are wearing your hair down. Caleb led me through a curly hair makeover. He washed, conditioned, and parted my hair, applying cream to each curl. He led me to a mirror and when I looked into it I gasped. I hated it. Well, not it. Just that it and my guard were down. I love it, I said with a fake smile. He knew it was a lie –- Caleb always knows when I am telling a lie. Sylvia, one day you will appreciate your hair so much. We need a photo of it because your kids are going to die over how gorgeous you looked as a teenager. Before I could answer, Caleb quickly snapped a photo with his Polaroid. I immediately tied my hair back, erasing his work.
It is only now that I realize why Caleb wanted me to love my hair down. While Caleb was lowering my hair, he was imagining it was his own. I need to find that photo now and write Caleb underneath it.
My 16th birthday is officially over. I am sitting with Caleb on a blanket in the middle of a dark beach. The wind blows in our hair and our sweatshirts are covered with sand and pretzel crumbs. We are discussing the distance that Caleb feels to the word ‘family,’ a word that has become a dead end for him and fleeting for me, its shadow lingering next to my grandpa’s grave. As I look at Caleb, I notice how his lips are flat, life having knocked the smile off his face. Suddenly, I ask, What if we all got to choose our families? He stops looking out into the distance, and turns toward me. We already have, he says. I collapse my head on his shoulder, wondering in amazement how lucky I am to be in one with him.
The moon that night was full, casting rays across ocean waves as if billions of stars had descended upon us. As we sat in silence, feeling the ebbs and flows of growing older, Caleb posed a question to the world around us. Want to dance? As Taylor Swift’s New Romantics began to play, we sprinted down the empty beach. I became six years old again, playing hide and seek as we ran aimlessly. Caleb has always had to play hide and seek. We became stars as we twirled along the line where the waves kissed the sand. I did not even realize that my ponytail had spun out of my hair. I had let my guard down.
My younger sister’s bat-mitzvah was approaching, and I decided to wear a dress again. I was in the Bloomingdales dressing room with Caleb trying on a pink dress he had picked from one of the racks. I am wearing a large plastic bag, I said aloud as I spun. But as I finished my twirl, I realized that this dress was not meant for me. You should try it on. I gaze at Caleb’s back as he steps into it, knowing it will fit him perfectly. Standing in front of the mirror, he travels back into his mom’s closet, but this time he sees himself. He slowly turns as his voice suddenly drops. Quietly, to both me and the world, he asks, do I pass?
Yes yes yes my eyes whisper in amazement.
That day Caleb and I left Bloomingdales with two dresses.
The cuts on Caleb’s arms. Seeing them, but not understanding how they could be his. How cuts can be on the person who makes me whole. How after being cut from his mothers’ stomach 17 years earlier to enter this world, cuts traveled to his wrists to try to leave it.
When would the pink dress slip off?
It was midnight when I suddenly received the text. I need to get out of my house. And just like that Caleb arrived at my door with two suitcases. His nail polish, now blue, was chipped. After moving into my room, I turned on my glow-in-the-dark night-light and images of stars lit up my ceiling. Caleb crawled onto the top bunk. Goodnight Caleb. I love you, I whispered. He tossed over. What was love when he had to escape the people who were supposed to love him most?
On Halloween night, before Caleb’s 18th birthday, he became Dior for the first time. Wearing a blue dress, pearl necklace, and a long blonde wig that reached the gentle indent of his belly button, Dior glowed. That night, everyone we passed stared at the gorgeous girl who radiated with confidence. When we returned to my apartment, I asked, can you paint my nails? Hiding his shock, Caleb took my hand in his. As he applied the color to my nails, their bareness slowly became hidden as our past selves started to fade as well.
Caleb and I are about to leave for college, and we are stringing friendship bracelets in my room. Caleb’s hair has grown past his shoulders, and I realize that soon, he won’t need to wear wigs. My hair is also down, and every time I have the urge to tie my curls back, I force myself to let it go. The two of us search for the beads containing the letters that will spell out our names to string across our wrists. You should make yours Dior, I tell Caleb. He smiles – yes. When we finish,I tie the D-I-O-R one around his wrist. And the bracelet that was forced on him when he was a baby, branding him a B-O-Y, finally snaps.
