Dream Home
a short story by Daphne
Dream Home
Daphne
Rays of sunshine were always bringing Grace back towards herself. The wind in her hair was everything she had missed while locked away. Making sense of her life after falling into the fray of a disability none could acknowledge as such was her life’s great challenge. She had been alone for too long, and that made Grace believe it would forever be as such.
She had lost her mind by finding a truest sense of love one could muster upon her planet. To be beat up for it over again, by the tides of consequence, and have so many chances lost had made newfound springtime seem impossible to ever be in store for her again. Grace’s life and her ocean’s shores had felt like they would be forever dried in lowest swells.
All she needed was a safe embrace, as her nature craved, to find again her transformative dreams, and mostly the chance to be with friends who respected her. That was a nearly impossible goal to reach in America for someone like Grace, without the privilege of money or a rarest and bravest breed of woman. Most especially had that proven the case for a transgender lady who was so sad and lonely. Depressions were responded to with blame by her people, and America would isolate poor folks toward hiding within medications they prescribed at the behest of a science long lost to profit.
Deserved hugs were not easy to come by for anyone. Once Grace couldn’t buy them, their count had dwindled to zero
People were sick about their toys. American systems only wanted to capitalize on things folks needed, keeping all of its citizens clawing for hope against each other.
Community was a forsaken thing for someone like Grace. Being lost in the ebbs of a garden, hands buried within the soil besides the gentle sounds of a stream nearby, had seemed like a dream come true.
Her prayers went unheard for too long. That one person she loved like a heaven herself had been made into some devil in her mind while sick. Nothing made sense without them having said goodbye in a way that had her feeling cared for. People appeared to hate Grace for having the biggest heart, especially with the way America was trouncing everyone for profit. All Grace wanted was a person she could give her love to, and maybe share some in return; someone who truly deserved it.
Pretense was everywhere, except the soil and her favorite types of people. She could not imagine why that one who helped her feel love at long last would have made her crazy for their departing embrace. When she was sickest in her mind, having turned to plants in the most incorrect of ways, those plants took their toll.
Finally, one fine day, after being released from a horrid hospital which made every effort to get her hooked on their pills, Grace made the right call. At last, she had become free again. She was awoken to the way things were.
People had been lost to the ways of nature, and her family continued to keep their distance because she was authentically herself.
Touching the ocean was what she knew would bring her back, but there had been no way to get there, so she chose to walk. Nobody helped a person like Grace, and so she endeavored to help herself.
Homelessness was not a burden Grace ever thought her most cherished and faithful heart would have crash upon her. She swore they would emerge when things got too bad, her lost love of a friendship unrealized. It wasn’t ever her intention to make that a hardened reality. It just seemed like she could tell it was coming.
People didn’t trust trans women, and everyone was compliant to the superficial ideas of beauty which Grace could simply never meet. She had transitioned too late in life to achieve an external beauty that matched her heart.
Her generation was full of people who hid inside. Upside down were many of Grace’s peers. None of them had the will to admit that to themselves, and it put a mark on Grace for being a near-singular force of her age who saw it as a spiritual notion.
That little happiness she had was taken and then stomped upon, in ways that she would never have done to another for seeking the emotional ease of resolution. She had been stripped bare of possessions. There wasn’t a single shelter which would take her, and people didn’t believe Grace about anything. Luckily, it was summer when she had been released without a place to go. For otherwise she might have frozen and starved.
Hitchhiking had been an art lost to all but her. Grace’s trust in people was profound and earned goodwill with the many she would meet face to face. Theft was oft looked down upon, but it kept her alive to know how she might lift the right meal without being caught. She only had to smile at people. They would look away, to avert their eyes, feeling her confusing presence bore into their hearts.
Her feet were wholly sore when she finally reached the ocean. It had been a longest journey imaginable, weaving through the woodlands, sleeping only when she had found a comfy ride. Something around her was always offering protection, and that faith in spirit would seem to lead her free in final moments over and over again. Until the bottom had finally fell out.
In response, she hadn’t just wanted to see some petty inlet shore. Grace needed the real deal. It was the ocean’s raw power which relaxed her most. Strength itself was something which bewildered all senses while opening Grace to overwhelming chances of becoming.
It was there, with her feet in the sand, having followed her trust the whole way, where she finally met her Bella. They had walked right up to Grace and invited her for dinner. It seemed as is if they were long lost friends.
So tired, with a backpack full of dried noodles, after grabbing water and meals with a smile from the many grocery stores which had once stolen so much from her purse, Grace had felt faithfully rewarded and surrounded with abundance. To be offered a place she might rest her head in Bella’s home was beyond expectation.
Their meal along the waterfront had been divine.
It had been that moment Bella smiled and asked Grace to come visit her home where she began believing again in the world as a magical place.
Before Bella, she had not been met with a truly reciprocal love, not in a way which made sense to her heart. It was always about giving for Grace and taking for others. She loved everyone though. In a place as upside down as America, that caused her to be seen with projections of hatred. It was so inside out that it hurt. Especially to see others getting so much of what she needed, so easily, and without seeming to deserve it half as much.
Everyone always had suggestions for Grace, endeavoring to control her mind and heart, none of their peddling able to meet her needs. Nobody had really cared that they were inappropriately thinking of Grace’s body as an object. They didn’t see her as a person. She wondered sometimes if they even knew the mechanisms of their own disregard.
Bella was the one who finally made it right.
She saved Grace’s life, gifting her that garden where she had once again find her peace returning. The chance to cultivate her own joy was found there. Grace had proven herself industrious with the right help.
She couldn’t cook without burning things and making a mess those days, but time to rest had her feeling better before long. She was still quite easily stressed by the expectations of a busy society. Those plants Grace once turned to for solace were still used by many, engineered in unnatural ways that folks would not admit were inappropriate.
Family was who she most expected to help her when getting sick. They didn’t like her expression of womanhood, however.
No one from her past wanted to forgive Grace for losing her head. People everywhere in America had been trained to blame the folks who lived with heartache and lost their minds in loneliness. For trans women, that was a burden which took lives. For their lives were constructed of the notion.
Grace knew better, though.
Everyone was heartbroken and finding passions of privilege to hide themselves within; addictions for almost all were the way to get by. Nobody helped anyone else in America except the people they wanted for things untoward, unless they fit perfectly into a box which failed to challenge the other’s preconceptions. Trans women only got used, or taken, then gaslit with stories of how it was their fault that everyone wrecked their hearts raw. They were treated like entitled men most often.
Bella had kissed it better. She had been the only person to ever lean in first. It saved Grace’s heart.
Long ago, that one who Grace would always love the most had given her a gift like that on a single night. They had stolen a kiss which made her know what it meant to feel unconditional love at last. It had been something she felt in a dream when she was a child.
Grace would always forgive that beautiful young woman who had stolen her heart. Her name was Coral.
No matter how much it seemed Coral was trying to breed hate in Grace’s life through her disregard, she would be forgiven. Coral seemed incapable of forgiving Grace for her feelings, though, that’s how it seemed, and especially for losing her mind and begging for her help.
Grace always wondered why that happened and had many guesses, eventually giving up on the pursuit of figuring it out. She settled on Coral resenting her for falling in love while being a trans woman. Perhaps, that it was just too sad to face; how Grace had gotten sick was tragic.
Most everyone she loved had blamed her for it and resented her more for who she was. It was a social predisposition of embarrassment they could not face to love her back in the open. People didn’t even want to be her friend, and she found that cowardly.
When Bella took her to the grocery store that first weekend, grasping her hand in front of the gawking smalltown folks, it birthed a glow which would seem to never end.
A year later, when they helped her get the surgery which others saw as some horrid thing, it saved her life for a peace she would not have found otherwise. She only wanted to feel better, and it wasn’t anybody’s right to tell someone how they find peace.
So, Grace did feel better. It happened quite immediately after her recovery. She was an honest woman then and would let her shining reflection of unperturbed joy get the better of people.
A man named Darrel at the gas station had been the first and last to ask her about it in Sonderville, that question she had heard so many times before, the one which always caused dismay, that pondering which ruined the minds of everyone to wonder about. Before it had been over with, she hadn’t ever been able to respond in honesty.
“Do you want the surgery?” he asked.
She was out that day buying the needed supplies for a dinner Bella had planned. Nothing made Grace feel better than to stock her home with fresh foods from a market which was independently owned and sourced from local farms.
Sonderville’s grocer was wholesome, filled with locally grown fruits and vegetables.
Grace smiled widest to Darrel when he asked, realizing that chance to fill him in first was a gift, secretly hoping it made the man uncomfortable. She wanted it to stick with him.
“Yeah, I’ve already done that,” is what she told him.
It wasn’t the answer anybody wanted who asked, confirming a bravery they would not have. It also denied a man like Darrel what he would wish to imagine.
Love; that greatest feeling she had ever known, lived on, and always Grace would hope that Coral could return. Even after she let her go homeless while begging for help. That young woman had been the best friend Grace ever had, even if it wasn’t the same for her, even if she didn’t see Grace correctly. Back then, the simple thought of Coral someday wanting to be with her in any way more holistic was too deviously wrong and right at the same time.
Coral was nearly a decade younger than Grace, and Coral had been coaching her to deny a heartfelt resonance most abundant between them. It was there the whole time they knew each other. Nothing made Grace’s heart sing louder than being the focus of Coral’s affections, or lack thereof. It was a presence she found beside her that made Grace feel at home.
Coral was a strong person, a survivor. She was someone who really deserved the abundant love Grace had to share
To have been punished for her feelings after a saddest life, then left for dead by a person who was predisposed to help so many others, as Coral had seemed to bem had broken Grace’s mind in twelve. Those plants she smoked and drank in teas were not kind to her perceptions. In her madness, Grace had ensured they never wanted to talk with her again.
Grace always wondered if she broke Coral’s heart, since Coral broke her mind in return by taking her to court and refusing to speak. It was an even trade, she supposed, if that was the case.
It was the meanest thing anyone could ever do to a disabled woman who just missed them and needed help. While maddened, Grace made it clear she was trying to even the score and stained her reputation with all.
Grace hoped Coral could forgive her someday, praying she wouldn’t just blame Grace forever for that big heart she had stoked.
One day, pondering all that had passed in the years spent in Sonderville as Grace ventured home from the grocer with a tightly packed loin of pork and a variety of veggies they could not been able to plant in their garden quite yet, she was feeling more herself than ever and felt quite ready to get in the bath.
Water made her feel most at home. Her time in Sonderville was blessed by curiously repetitive trips to the beach. Grace saw something in Coral, always, and it was the strength of the ocean itself.
Bella had been the only woman Grace ever met who was able to forgive her for still loving Coral and talking about it. Grace couldn’t blame her; Bella had been longing for a man named D’Artagnan in that same way. They shared a gift of accepting each other’s second place, that silver medal no one wanted to accept in the open, birthing a uniquely powerful love, even if it was grown in the soil of sorrow.
It was just that nobody could ever unseat Coral, and Grace was honest. She brought the truth out of Bella, because D’Artagnan was king of her heart as well. Love just didn’t work the way people wanted. Everybody got it a little differently, and mixed up it would often be.
Coral was Grace’s first true love, and the way she held onto it had become a point of pride; not the bad kind, she thought, but the good pride. It was righteous and holy how Coral made her feel, unconditional. Grace knew she was right in some way.
Her heart spoke truly to Grace about herself and her own feelings. It was a measurable thing. And not even Bella could make her feel the same way. While that was sad, it was true.
Grace had been seeing a sadness in Bella for some time, and that night after the bath especially.
Bella wasn’t speaking about her dreams anymore. It made Grace wonder if D’Artagnan had been back in secret or simply reappearing in Bella’s own slumbered visions. She was a powerful witch, Bella, just like Grace, and Coral too, even if that wasn’t what it seemed.
That evening was strange. Bella was smiling, but somewhat falsely, and somehow reminiscent of when they had first met. It seemed all but assured to Grace, as Bella nearly whispered from across the table, “I have something to tell you, honey,” that it was indeed about D’Artagnan.
The feeling made Grace’s heart drop to the floor. She was worried, but would want the best for Bella no matter what.
As they ate, it came out, that whole truth she knew but didn’t want to hear.
“He’s finally coming back,” Bella told her, while trying to dim a bright smile.
“Dart’s coming home, honey. And we have a surprise for you.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner. I just didn’t believe him.”
Bella continued as Grace went quiet and began rubbing her own neck, trying to be brave with her feelings, but failing to listen until Bella said something loud enough to grab her attention.
“Would you be willing to meet him tomorrow?” Bella asked.
Grace nodded and found a piece of trust.
“Of course I will.”
Those tears shared were a mixture of happiness and sorrow intermingled.
For Grace, it was the thought of losing her home that overrode everything, her garden untended; Bella gone like the waves falling again from her shore. Grace had learned to brave solitude once, and she would again, but it returned her to that surging regret she lived with for ruining a chance to even know Coral. Those had been the complicated realities of Grace’s tears at the table.
Fate was cruel to Grace throughout life. She knew it would be another test, but believed it would be okay somehow, someway, at least one day, even if she couldn’t imagine how that would be true in the moment.
The next morning came fast. Bella had let Grace sleep in her bed, and something about it felt tragic. She hoped the surprise was a plan where she might keep up with her garden and stay at that home she made with Bella, or even better, with her. Nothing would hurt Grace more than to leave Sonderville alone. It had seemed like the end of her road and the realization of dreams come true to find a place. Yet they had never made their love into a pact.
Getting pretty with the support of Bella’s mother before she had passed was a gift that Grace had held onto with gratitude throughout the time spent in Sonderville. Bella and her mother had helped her with more than the surgery. They bought Grace dresses. Bella had been the one to finally teach her how to braid her hair.
That morning, as they awoke, Grace asked it quite plain.
“What’s the surprise?”
Grace didn’t like surprises. She had never had a good one before. Bella still wouldn’t tell, yet eventually relented to help with what Grace begged for next. She couldn’t manage a French braid, not by herself, even though it was her favorite. Bella did them really well for her, and they both had managed to get through that last one without tears.
All day, Grace was full of worry. She had been guessing in those quiet moments spent in the garden, over and over trying her hardest to read Bella’s face as she watered alongside her.
Bella’s looks held a little more sour than usual. She was trying to hide whatever it was, and Grace could tell she was trying not to smile too much about D’Artagnan.
Grace could tell that Bella felt sad in her heart. She guessed from that perception that their time, as it had been, was to end.
Together, in the late afternoon, Bella walked in on Grace as she was getting ready for dinner.
“It’s time, hon,” was all she mustered.
Bravery struck Grace then, and as usual, right in time to be the soldier of hearts for those she loved the most.
“I know. I’m ready,” Grace told her best friend, standing and patting down her dress.
She kissed Bella softly on the cheek.
Running a hand through her hair, Bella seemed to know what Grace needed to hear. She spoke it earnestly while sharing a most genuine smile, “You look really beautiful, hon.”
“Okay.”
Grace had not disbelieved her, but felt most awkward to hear those words under the circumstances. She grabbed Bella tightly before they left, holding on as long as she could, and endeavoring to hide her tears.
Something in Grace was good at feeling things forward. Her heart had a dreadfully inconsistent knack to feel things forward, with occasional accuracy, and it was never within the timeframe she anticipated. Whatever was to come seemed a sad thing.
Coasting their bikes into town, carving a long route around and through the town center, Bella was trying to draw things out. Grace felt a finality, especially when she saw Bella’s teary eyes carrying a little too much to pretend it was only the wind in her eyes.
He had shown up at the beach. Seeing D’Artagnan wasn’t anything like Grace expected.
He was a perfect fit for her Bella. They had both been so incredibly nice to her as they dined at the deli near the boardwalk. Grace found peace in people who fit well together.
They were very clear; Grace was going to keep Bella’s home. D’Artagnan had bought a house down the coast in Great Oaks. She would still be seeing her Bella often.
D’Artagnan was a traveling man. He had decided to buy a home where he could be with Bella. She would be back often when he was gone, or at least be able to have Grace visit her often in Great Oaks.
Still, it was sorrowful, even if less so than anticipated. She was going to miss living with Bella always, forever holding onto how they would take each other to such heights of a secondary love.
Bella said goodbye at the boardwalk. She gifted Grace a kiss on the cheek, which made them both cry for how it was less than they wanted. Cruelty was never Bella’s intention, but a small bitterness was borne in Grace in those final moments for the lack of warning.
She would be going home alone. D’Artagnan and Bella would be coming to visit in a couple of days, but Grace was again to live in solitude. While she was planning to seek love again, Grace knew it would take time because of how much sorrow she still held inside.
Bella snuck it out the window as D’Artagnan and she were pulling away in his truck.
“I hope you like the surprise. I left it for you out back.”
Apparently, the homestead to call her own was simply known as not enough.
Grace elected to skip the bike ride back, crying much on her journey. She had finally known the fullness of the sorrow she anticipated in that time, again returning to her long-held hopes that she might know Coral again. But Grace knew fates were far better for cisgender women in love and loss. People just didn’t care much for the hearts of girls like her.
When she pulled into her driveway, hope was found anew in a plan to seek Coral out on the computer. It was something she had not tried in the longest time.
Wiping tears away and leaning her bike near the front door, Grace planned to head straight for the garden and see about that surprise. She was going to bury her feet in the stream afterward and prayed that her gift from Bella was something which might ease the sting. Every part of her thought it was a new set of gardening tools, or perhaps that digging machine she had been planting devious seeds about in Bella’s mind, though she was trying to keep her hopes down. The home was enough. Still, she wanted to cultivate a whole new planting bed where the sticker bushes remained untamable, and a project like that would keep her mind healthy.
When she rounded the corner, Grace was more than happy. There was a large earth moving machine, reattached with a rototiller, just the one she had wanted. Much more than that, Coral was sitting right on top of it.
It didn’t seem real to Grace. She could not quite believe her smile. It had been so long, and she was so beautiful. Nothing prepared Grace for the sight of her.
Coral hopped off, playing it cool like she had so long ago. Grace literally pinched herself and began shaking her head. She was crying, shuddering, and making the ugliest face she ever had.
“How did she do this?” is what she was saying to herself about Bella.
“Did Bella get you?” Grace asked to no response. “Is that really you, Coral?”
Grace’s tears were pouring in those final steps, and it was Coral’s movement that overtook her. Coral moved in fast, clearly forcing her way forward to keep from drawing out the moment. She wrapped her arms around Grace tightly, to keep her from pushing her away.
“Is this you? For real?” Grace barely eked out.
“Did I die or something?”
When Coral finally used her voice to calm Grace, she spoke those words which Grace had needed to hear for so long.
“I can stay for a while, hon. I’m really sorry. Bella seems nice.”
“Stop lying to me,” Grace spat through her bawling and attempts to wriggle loose.
“You’re not staying. Don’t lie to me.”
Grace didn’t want Coral to see her crying as hard as she was. She turned, almost running a few steps away, then sat cross-legged, facing away from the old friend she had loved and missed for so long.
“I hate you for saying that.”
Coral was being gracious and giving Grace a moment while her body shook.
“I want you to though.”
Eventually, Coral sat down beside her, even though Grace couldn’t manage to look her way. Sniffling back her running nose and wiping her tears away, Grace corrected herself.
“Please don’t go. I would like you to stay.” Grace managed beneath her breath.
Coral was a strong person and held back tears really well, but she knew what she had to do. She pulled Grace into her arms again, despite their surging emotions, and eventually let Grace lay upon her lap.
That moment was the saddest thing either of them had ever felt, both ways around, but especially for Grace, with how alone she had been in her heart and how long she had held onto hope of seeing Coral again. With the way life’s consequences made her lose faith, it was almost too much to bear for her mind. Grace’s heart would never let her down though. She was just too brightly lit for people to handle. Losing faith had never happened for a reason.
She went on crying there, for that strongest moment of healing in Grace’s life would seem to stretch forever, and Coral finally found the means to play with her braid.
Grace found herself resting in a way she had not known was still possible.
“I really love your garden, Grace,” Coral told her eventually, allowing Grace the means to cry that little bit harder.
“Yeah, well... I love you,” Grace let her know.
That would always be true.
