La-la, la-la-la, la-la, la-la-la, la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la-la
La-la, la-la-la, la-la, la-la-la, la-la, la-la-la-la

Solo songs are getting old, and he’s tired of being alone
And though he knows there’s no one here, he has a playmate in the mirror
And he sees her smile, and he’s glad they met
And he sings half their duet

My name is Milo, I'm such a weirdo, I'm a disaster, no one wants me
Sanity’s lonely, I’m going crazy, that's who I'm gonna be

There’s one child playing here, making faces in the mirror
But a child can play pretend, maybe he can make a friend
And she sees him smile, and she’s glad they met
And she sings half their duet

My name is Annie, my eyes are pretty, I’m great at smiling, Milo loves me
I’m gonna wear rouge, and high heeled shoes, that's who I’m gonna be

How many children do you think you hear?
(My name is Milo, I'm such a weirdo, I'm a disaster, no one wants me)
Two voices are singing
(We’re gonna wear rouge, and high heeled shoes, that's who we’re gonna be)
With their playmate in the mirror
Can you hear the children?
(My name is Annie, my eyes are pretty, I’m great at smiling, Milo loves me)
Hear them singing with their playmate in the mirror
(Sanity’s lonely, we’re going crazy, that's who we’re gonna be)

La-la, la-la-la, la-la, la-la-la, la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la-la
La-la, la-la-la, la-la, la-la-la, la-la, la-la-la-la

Hey, Ann?

“Hmmm?” She had been fastening Calliope’s bright red glitter flower to her red satin dress and she looked up at Milo in the mirror.

She put both arms around herself… He put both arms around himself… He put both arms around her… and hugged.

“Oh, sweetheart.”

She hugged back, swinging her body back and forth.

“I love you too! What is it?”

He twined his fingers shyly in their hair. Before… I was thinking about being one person, and when I still used to live in the storefront with all the broken cameras and around there. And I remembered you were really nice to me even when you were just new and I was even more messed up than I am now.

“You are not messed up, Milo,” Ann said sternly.

He frowned at her and shook his head. Yeah I am. I know you love my mess, like Calliope loves my scars, but that doesn’t make me all better. It just makes me love you more.

He hugged again, firmly this time. I’ve been mad at you about what happened with Calliope and I’ve been rotten to you. I did that thing with Erik even though you said not to and it was scary and you were right. You’re my best friend and you just said you were gonna stay with me forever and get me into heaven and I shouldn’t scare you like that. But I still do it a lot. I’m sorry.

Ann took down her hands a little but she didn’t let go. “I think… Milo, I think that’s rather like when Calliope apologized for the cooking oil. And the brownies. I know she really was sorry, but she was also honest with me about who she is as a person. I know she’s not careful and she forgets, but I can love her anyway, and I think I can forgive her when it happens again, even if it hurts you.

“I know you’re very brave and a little bit silly, and you’re going to get yourself in trouble sometimes even when I try to stop you. I’m like that too. And if you can forgive me for what I did, then I can forgive you. Every time.”

Milo shook his head, crossing his hands in front of him. I’m not brave, Ann.

She leaned in and put her hands on the dresser. “Yes you are. I know you are because I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t. You aren’t always, but you’re brave enough for me. You were my father before Mordecai was.”

Milo’s mouth dropped open. No I’m… wasn’t.

“Yes you were. We were mother and father and daughter and son and brother and sister and best friends. That’s just how it was, Milo. We didn’t have anyone else.”

◈◈◈

He sure didn’t feel like anyone’s dad.

It had been like going back to being a kid again — a little kid on the playground.

He had an academic understanding of playgrounds at age fifteen. He had seen picture books and he knew that children who did not grow up trapped in a workhouse had places specifically for playing. All he had was crayons (for a little while) and stuff the workhouse ladies made out of scraps with the sewing machines. Soft toys with yarn hair, mostly. If he was going to climb around on something it had to be scaffolding and stairs. There weren’t even trees.

But he hadn’t needed a structure to play pretend, and he was pretty darn great at that. That was the first thing: playing pretend. He had done that a little with his reflection in the broken window, but if he wanted to build a new person he was going to have to get serious about it. Extremely serious about playing pretend.

He named his reflection in the broken bathroom mirror of the abandoned storefront “Ann,” and he refused to acknowledge ownership of the porcelain-doll face that was so terrible at smiling.

“Ann” lived in the bathroom for a little while. He would run downstairs in the morning and wave hi. Sometimes he caught her smiling at him. Ann! You’re happy to see me today! he’d think.

“I’m always happy to see you, Milo!” he’d think for her. “Remember to check the sink for water to drink!”

That rhymes, Ann. Are you good at rhyming?

“I don’t know yet, Milo!”

He knew he was thinking for her, at the start. He knew that voice from the mirror was him, pretending. But he pretended very hard he didn’t know. He pretended very hard to be surprised when he decided to see Ann in reflections outside of the bathroom, like she’d decided to follow him around on her own. Like she could do something like that when she could barely even think.

Like she could tell him to put on the dress and sneak around outside so it looked like her.

Ann! You’re in the butcher’s window! How is it in there?

“It’s dusty, Milo! Achoo!”

He knocked his head forward and then rubbed under his nose so it looked like she was sneezing.

Any reflection with the dress or with a smile was her, he decided. He gave her that part of himself before she could even ask for it.

When he saw a hand mirror with no cracks in it at the starcatchers’ market, he bought it really fast before anyone else could. And a tin of rouge.

The rouge proved to be a bit of a problem.

There! Now you’re pretty, Ann!

But the smile faded and he leaned in to look closer.

He had done it like the workhouse ladies painted faces on the rag dolls they made — a red mouth and a pink circle in each corner. But it looked weird on a human face with real features.

I’m not doing this right. Hang on, Ann. I can get you prettier.

He scrubbed his sleeve across his face and tried again. And again.

How do they make it look like they have cheekbones? Damn it, I have seen that!

Painted ladies with complicated hairstyles, high-heels and long red nails were supposed to be evil. Milo thought they were spectacular.

But he had never drawn faces before, and trying to do it in pink powder while looking at a reflection was just impossible.

Streaked, dishevelled and discouraged, he finally pocketed the tin with half the powder gone. I’m wasting it. I don’t know how. I’m sorry, Ann.

“That’s okay, Milo. We’ll get it right somehow.”

He bought a fashion magazine. It was a year old, creased and with recipes cut out. It said Top 20 Makeup Tips for the Thrifty Shopper on the front with the smiling woman, and Milo was definitely a Thrifty Shopper. It was like they made that for him.

It told him he should have gotten a lighter shade for his fair skin, but he could blend this one with talcum powder or cornstarch to lighten it up and make it last longer. It also said he could boil fly-strips to make foundation and he really ought to be moisturizing, but he couldn’t do complicated stuff like that.

He picked up a can of baby powder and, realizing that he was gathering rather a lot of personal items that he was worried about losing when he needed to run away or go shopping, he added a small suitcase with a broken lock that needed to be closed with twine. It wasn’t the kind that would hold everything, like the starcatchers used, but it worked okay for what he had and it was cheap — it only cost a pair of pants that he couldn’t get the bloodstains out of.

The broken lock was fun to play with. He eventually got it working again and discarded the twine.

Right around the time he bought his first suitcase, he moved on from playing pretend for Ann to playing with her on the swings. It was definitely like pushing her on the swings, he’d done that for Erik a few times at the good park downtown and that was exactly what it felt like. Only to start out, Ann had been heavy. And she didn’t know how to do that thing with her legs at all.

If he thought she’d have an opinion on something, he gave her a shove. She would go for a little while and it was almost like she was talking on her own — Oh, yes, I do like that backless dress in the picture, Milo, it’s — but then he had to shove her again — so pretty!

The first inking he had that she was learning to do the swing on her own was not words, like he’d been doing for her the whole time — she was made of words! — it was a feeling.

He was dissatisfied with the reflection in the hand mirror in a way he hadn’t been before.

Ann? Is that you?

i don’t like the glasses.

Oh? He took them off and folded them. Better?

He felt better, and the reflection looked happier, if a bit squinty: yes.

And then, almost as if spoken: I have pretty eyes. I want everyone to see my pretty eyes.

He was so shocked, and a little bit scared, that he gave in right away: Okay.

Well, she must’ve felt quite strongly about the glasses to speak up like that!

That was, that was half of what he thought about it. The other half, which conflicted with the first half, was: Uh-oh, I’m going crazy.

That was not the last time he needed to think two things at once all by himself, but it was the hardest and the strongest. And after that, Ann was usually able to help him sort conflicting emotions out, even if that meant having them for him.

On the one hand, he thought this was good. He was trying to make a new person and she should be able to think and talk by herself. On the other hand, he knew you couldn’t really do that. He was one person and he was doing something to himself that he might never be able to undo. And this thing he was doing was not normal. Not sane.

Crazy. Something the sisters would like to put him in a straitjacket about so he’d stop.

I really am one person, he thought, but very quiet so Ann wouldn’t hear and be hurt. I can’t be two. That’s crazy.

He examined his reflection in the mirror, but that wasn’t supposed to be his reflection anymore, so he stopped and shut his eyes.

Okay, Milo who exists in darkness and not in the mirror anymore. It seems like I can really do this. Are we gonna do this? Because if we’re gonna do this, we can’t be halfway about it. No more thinking about being crazy or pretending. This has to be real.

“We.” He thought about himself that way sometimes — also as “you.” He thought that was probably normal but he wasn’t sure. He remembered it was “we” that time because he assigned it significance. He thought it was funny.

Yeah, “Milo,” I guess “we” are gonna do this. What else is that weird brain of ours good for? Fixing cameras that don’t have any film?

Sanity is overrated, he decided.

Sanity is boring.

Sanity is lonesome.

He wondered if Ann knew he thought of it that way. Deciding your daughter was a mental disorder and that was okay was not real good dad behaviour, he didn’t think.

Ann broke into his memory: You accepted me, Milo. That is excellent dad behaviour.

◈◈◈

She remembered the staircase. She had hardly existed and sometimes not at all, but there was a staircase Milo had imagined there for her. Sometimes it was wrought iron with scaffolding at the top like the workhouse, sometimes it was a black-and-white ink sketch like he’d seen in the background of a movie poster with people dancing — a dramatic ballroom staircase.

But in any case, the bottom stair was labelled in sketchy pencil: TOY, and the one at the top was labelled: REAL PERSON, with an underline like that. Milo was standing up there on the top step. Sometimes she could barely see him and he usually didn’t have a face, but he was reaching down to her as hard as he could and encouraging her to come up.

The step above TOY was labelled: GAME. She spent a long time there. The steps above GAME should’ve had labels like OBSESSION and MENTAL DEFECT and FULL-BLOWN PSYCHOSIS, but Milo scratched those out and refused to use them. He labelled them with playground equipment and they played.

There were a few steps for swings. Milo had to teach her how to do it herself. Once she could, he could have a swing of his own and they did that together. She was quite pleased to be able to keep up with him, just like a real girl.

The very first time their swings had fallen out of sync was when she found out about his scars, that he had made them. She wanted something — safety— that he couldn’t give her. And not because he physically couldn’t, like he couldn’t set a ladder in the sky, climb up to the airships and tell them to stop dropping bombs because it scared her. There was something inside of him that refused.

It was as if they were sharing a one-room apartment, or perhaps a homey little cottage in the woods, and they’d just had their first disagreement about the décor.

Throw that thing out! I hate it!

No. I need it.

He tried to put it up and hide it so she didn’t have to deal with it, but she knew it was there. And sometimes she caught him with it and had to pry it away as gently as possible so she could put it up for him. No, Milo. Okay, now that’s enough.

She had… She supposed she had developed an affection for it. Perhaps cultivated one. Like an ugly ceramic figurine that had nevertheless been gifted to her by a dear relative with no taste. She didn’t like it, but it was there because of someone she loved. If one day he decided he didn’t want them to have it anymore, she’d throw it away with him, but to try to do that alone would be like saying she didn’t love him anymore.

She had decided right away that she wasn’t going to do what he did — and he’d been just fine with that. But after the shelling stopped and they were able to get some sleep, she had decided she wasn’t fine with that, and that scared her even more.

It had been like discovering her shadow was stitched on with thread — only she was the shadow! Oh, look, that comes off right there. Huh. She didn’t know swings were supposed to work like that, that they weren’t attached and sometimes you ended up going in opposite directions with your very best friend. It felt like the bottom fell out of reality, or she was losing what little there was of her mind.

I don’t understand! I don’t like feeling this alone! Why do I hate it and you don’t?

He sat down on the floor, as if he sat her down too, and wrapped arms around himself and talked to her about it. He had to explain to her about the concept of “two.” What it really meant to be “two” people.

She hadn’t liked it very much at the time. No! I don’t want to feel things by myself! I can’t!

He was patient with her. She had been… really an awful person, at the start. She didn’t care what Milo said. Maybe she had accepted him — like he accepted her — and he liked that and needed it, but she hadn’t been nice. She had been demanding, grabby, whiny… A real brat.

Milo had once checked out a book on abnormal psychology — he had a really dark sense of humour. Sometimes she worried what the others would think of him if they knew. The book had posited that every person was three people, and they were called “Ego,” “Superego” and “Id.” They didn’t function well as a family and fought a lot, not like her and Milo.

Sometimes she wondered if Milo had stuffed his Id in a dress, like you might put an avocado pit in water with toothpicks. What a fun project! Let’s see if anything grows!

He had tended her. She was stubborn and difficult, but she grew strong.

He explained it this way: It’s like the glasses, Ann. You don’t have glasses, because you’re not me. I do have glasses, because I’m not you. You wanted to look different from me because you want to be your own person. We want that together, but we won’t always want everything together. And that’s good. That’s how we should be if I’m getting it right and helping you like I should be.

She snapped at him, You’re going to mess it up like when you tried to learn rouge!

She was mad and afraid, but he wasn’t. Because he wasn’t her. I might mess it up. I’m not really good at things like you. I need you to tell me when I’m getting it wrong, because I’m not you and I won’t always know. But I’ll try to fix it for you when I do know. I promise.

Altogether, she thought that last bit would make a good wedding vow. Love, honour, and give me a chance to fix it when I’m getting it wrong. Anyway, it made a pretty solid basis for a relationship.

They had graduated from swings and moved onto the seesaw.

Milo started self-correcting. First he would help her establish what she thought about something, and then he’d start backing away from it. If Ann thinks the dress is pretty, then I don’t think it’s pretty. Ann thinks that, but Ann isn’t me. I don’t like how it doesn’t cover the lady’s arms and I’d be afraid to wear it. I don’t like the dress. It’s not fun.

If she tried to follow him, he’d nudge her back where she was.

The dress is scary.

No. That’s not Ann. That’s me. Ann said the dress was graceful. Did it stop being graceful?

No…

Or sexy?

No.

You’re not scared of the dress, Ann. Are you?

No.

He indicated the picture with a pointed finger. Ann likes the dress with the spaghetti straps and I don’t. Because I’m Milo, not Ann.

By the time he had managed to impress upon her that she needed to stay on her end of the seesaw if they were going to play, they had added a pair of pretty shoes that didn’t quite fit, a pocket toolkit, a crystal radio, an eyebrow pencil, and a pad of cheap, unlined paper to their belongings in the small suitcase. It was starting to get a bit snug in there.

That was when they found the castle.

The starcatchers tended to set up on Mille Fleur Road, because human beings were creatures of habit. Not always in the same place, because Mille Fleur Road was… Well, Mille Fleur Road was the exact opposite of under construction. The poor thing was full of holes.

And occasionally on fire.

Milo… Well, no. Milo used to like to explore, because he got bored a lot and his brain tried to eat itself when he got bored, but he had Ann to occupy him now. Now Ann liked to explore, not Milo. Milo would’ve preferred to stay on the street where he lived and play with her, if only more people with clothes would be considerate enough to die there. Ann was perfectly happy to mug dead bodies for their clothing, that was how Milo bought her pretty things, but she also liked to explore.

She had pushed him to keep going, even though he kept insisting there were walls in that direction. This was a road. It had to go someplace better than a boring old wall. He was trying to explain to her that the walls were not boring, but he cared about that so she didn’t.

It went to Hennessy’s.

Even back then they knew it was Hennessy’s. It was on all four sides of the building, and multiple pieces of merchandise. There was an entire box of Yule ornaments with the building embossed on them and Hennessy’s Fine Goods and Imports est. 1200 underneath, as if it were all one name. But that was too many words, and it didn’t look like a Hennessy’s Fine Goods and Imports est. 1200, whatever that was.

It looked like a castle.

Especially with the fourth floor gone and the walls on top all craggy and crumbly.

There’s nobody here! Why isn’t there anybody here? It’s wonderful!

If there’s nobody here, there’s probably something wrong with it.

It doesn’t have a roof, that’s why. Go inside!

Ann, can we please not do the seesaw right now?

No! I can’t stop being another person just because it bothers you! If Milo thinks the castle is too dangerous, then I don’t think it’s dangerous. Milo thinks that, but Milo isn’t me. I think nobody wants it because it’s broken, but Milo can fix it like he fixed the radio and the lock on the suitcase. It looks like fun!

He sighed and clutched the suitcase a little tighter. Okay.

It was open all the way to the sky. There were birds’ nests and dangling moss in between the wooden railings, and huge chunks of rubble in the centre like the cliffs against the beach where the tides gathered. The jagged tile floor had puddles of silver water with green algae. Black mould had crept up the silken wallpaper like badly done shading. There were islands of shattered glass and twisted metal, their deadly edges gleaming and beckoning. From some secret corner, there came a splattering noise like rain. It echoed.

And there were people.

Not real ones. The smiling faces on the walls and pasted to the rubble were flat and faded and torn. The tangled bodies interspersed with them were missing pieces and there were places to put them back together — real dead people didn’t come like that.

Milo had an idea they were all going to turn and look at him, because he broke into their nice castle. The thought of the fake-bodies’ heads turning to look at him, the sound it would make, like stone grinding against stone…

He gasped and dropped the suitcase to put his hands over his ears.

Two pigeons took off, warbling alarm. They escaped into the blue sky through the central cavern.

It’s a playhouse, Milo! There’s space inside for us to play in!

It’s a graveyard, Ann.

It’s pretty!

Nobody wants it.

I want it!

He knew what she was thinking, but he couldn’t stop her. Ann, we can’t have this. It’s too far downtown. There won’t be a basement. There’s never any basements downtown.

Milo and Ann had yet to encounter the concept of “uptown” in the wild. There was Strawberryfield, SoHo (where they lived in the camera store), the beach, and downtown.

If there’s a basement for the shelling, can we have it?

Her voice was tiny and sad, and he knew she was doing that on purpose. And she knew he knew. And it didn’t matter.

Okay.

There were funny wooden stairs with grooves in them going up, but none going down. Ann begged him to keep looking. And eventually, picking through the broken display cases and furniture, terrified he was going to get another infected wound, he found a door that said Staff Only with the stairs going down.

Ann screamed like he’d found her a princess dress with a full skirt and spaghetti straps and a tiara. He didn’t need to push her to get her to go anymore, he couldn’t even get her to slow down.

Oh, Milo! I know you can fix it! You can fix anything! You’ll mop up the floor and take the stains off the walls and put all the broken people back together…

I am NOT putting the broken people back together, Ann.

Then we can burn them for warmth! Oh, Milo, can’t you be happy? Can’t we both be happy the same just this once?

I’m happy you’re happy, Ann. I really am. You’re brave and good.

Can you be excited about playing with everything that needs to be fixed? You like that. I can’t do that.

That’s a problem, Ann, Milo thought.

I can’t fix things because I’m not you, Milo.

I know. But we need to find something you can do, and a way for you to do it.

I know you can fix that, too, Milo!

They weren’t even done with the seesaw, but Milo was already putting together the merry-go-round.

He was standing on the top step, the one that said REAL PERSON, and reaching down to her as hard as he could, and she was finally close enough to understand what he wanted to do.

Real people don’t exist in mirrors and reflections, Ann. They walk around and they can do things for themselves. There’s only one way for me to do that for you — we can’t both be on the top step. I have to go down so you can come up.

Milo, you can’t stop being real! You were real before me!

I’ll still be real, Ann. I won’t go away. But I have to be a little bit less of a person. We have to trade, because I only have one of this thing. I’m sorry.

What if you get stuck down there and you can’t come back up?

…I’m more scared about you being stuck there, Ann, but I guess either way we’ll work together and fix it just the same.

I love you a lot, Milo.

I love you, too, Ann. You’re really pretty. Would you like to hug me?

Yes.

He put arms around himself and watched in the mirror. Try.

There were a lot of mirrors and shiny surfaces in Hennessy’s, and a lot of places to practice. Milo told her, rather teasingly, that cleaning up a whole castle was too big a job, so she had to help. He would fix things and she could decorate.

She was scared of it. Not just scared of not being a good decorator, even though that was what she usually said, but scared of not being able to walk around and do things for herself like he wanted. She was so scared of that she didn’t want to talk about it, so she always retreated to saying she’d be bad at decorating and couldn’t.

He was patient with her and he was sure. I know you can do it. If you can’t right away, I’ll fix you so you can. I’m bad at a lot of other stuff, but I’m really good at fixing things.

You’re good at everything, Milo!

No. Not everything. He couldn’t laugh. He couldn’t smile. But he thought it was funny and she knew. I can’t decorate!

There were boxes of seasonal decorations in the basement. The posters of smiling people and some of the surviving displays were set up for Valentine’s Day, dating the abandonment of the store to early in the year, but after Twelfth Night and before Pascha. Milo wasn’t sure if they ought to have Pascha next then, or Cloquette Day, which was next on the calendar.

Milo, people are trying to kill us every day! And she bent and picked up a box of Yule ornaments for him. I’m not waiting around for the calendar, we shall have everything pretty all at once!

You’re right, Ann. He carried up all the boxes for her, and he opened them to make it easier, or maybe more tempting. Whenever you’re ready.

◈◈◈

The merry-go-round was the hardest, and it was the last. They still played on the merry-go-round, but it was hardly playing anymore. It was too easy and they were used to it. They used it like a lazy susan on a dining table. Milo, pass me the dress so I can go shopping. Ann, give me the pants, I need to fix the toaster.

In the beginning, the damn thing barely worked at all. It was alternately too loose and too sticky, and sometimes altogether frozen.

Ann had gone to a funny movie once where there was a secret door in a rotating bookcase, but the poor people couldn’t figure out how it worked and kept getting stuck on one side or the other and screaming at each other. Milo didn’t think that was funny at all and Ann laughed until she cried — both of them for the same reason.

Ann finally lost patience with it when, in the middle of learning how to do a “reverse cat’s eye” out of the magazine with the smiling woman, she started to feel like Milo in a dress — and Milo was much more interested in the dress than in a proper “reverse cat’s eye,” which he promptly ruined.

Afterwards, she had firmly reasserted herself and addressed him in a shiny red Yule bulb: Milo, we can’t go on like this. Real people can do things for themselves, and they also don’t have to worry about someone taking control of their hand and screwing up their makeup!

I didn’t…

She pointed at the sharp black line he had drawn down her cheek in his haste to put away the pencil.

…I’m sorry, Ann.

Sorry isn’t good enough, Milo. I can’t share this dress with you anymore. I can’t just be no glasses and a smile. I need this. I need this to be me, and not you.

Can I buy another dress and have it be me?

She didn’t even consider it, and she felt bad about it in hindsight. Maybe they could have… But she didn’t want that. Not then. The very idea made her feel wobbly and sick, and then mad. No, Milo. All the dresses are mine.

His reflection looked pained in the cheerful red glass. Why?

Because I’m the pretty one! (Gods, it was mortifying to remember that now, but it had made perfect sense at the time.)

Milo’s head went up and down, distorting his reflection like a funhouse mirror. It’s okay, Ann. Are you happy you have all the dresses?

Oh, Milo! I’m almost as happy as when we found out the castle had a basement!

Will you smile?

She picked up the magazine, held up the picture of the smiling woman like the hand mirror and tried very hard. When she took it down and checked in the glass ball, her expression was tense and twitching and her makeup was just terrible.

She saw it, but Milo didn’t. He wasn’t her, and she wasn’t him.

You have such a pretty smile, Ann. It’s the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. Everyone’s going to love you so much when you smile at them.

As much as you do?

More! They’ll be better at it!

He was just being silly. She didn’t think it was possible for anyone to love her more than Milo. But at the time she hadn’t questioned it. She felt secure. She was going places and everyone would love her — even more than the person who loved her most of all. It was like bundling into a down comforter and sinking into a soft bed.

That was backwards. They’d known nothing of down comforters and soft beds at the time. Being surrounded by softness and warmth felt like Milo telling her how pretty she was and that everyone was going to love her, that was the proper order.

I am a boy, though, Milo, right? she thought a few moments later, adjusting an arrangement of tinsel. You call me a girl and I have all the dresses, but I’m a boy. We’re boys.

She caught sight of him in a gold foil heart. He looked pained again. I guess so…? You were a girl when I made you up, but I had to make you out of a boy. I’m sorry, Ann.

She abandoned the decorations and leaned into the reflection, Why? You’re not sorry you’re a boy.

He was perfectly thrilled with it, in fact, and they both knew why. Girls had to stay at the workhouse forever. He never wanted that, not for him or Ann. Only the long hair and dresses, pretty shoes… but workhouse girls couldn’t have those things, so there was no point being a girl even if he could’ve been one. Boyness was the only way out. He got lucky, for once.

Do you need me to be different? she asked him. It was hard to tell, at the blurry beginning, if she meant “different” as in “less like Milo” or as in “less like Ann.” Maybe she left it for him to decide how she meant it. We won’t go back to the workhouse ever again. Do you want a girl instead?

He was confused and unsure right up until she said “instead.” He shook his head and crossed his hands in front of his reflected face. Uh-uh. No way. I want you to be whoever you want to be. But it’s harder for a boy to have dresses and pretty things. People might hurt you if they think you’re a boy in a dress.

Should I pretend I’m a girl to be safe?

I think that might be a little safer, Ann. But do you want me to call you a boy? Or not Ann?

She turned up her nose. I am Ann. And I’m not you. I want my own things. I don’t want us to be the same. If you call me a boy, I’ll want to call you a girl.

…I think that would be harder for me with no dresses, Ann.

Then I’ll be the girl. We both know who we really are anyway, that’s all that matters.

◈◈◈

Ann winced and then looked up at Milo in the mirror, Ooh, dear. We have a lot more people that matter now. Milo. It seems like we’re adding more by the day! We’d better make sure Calliope understands. I’m happy being her sister, but I’m her brother too. And Em… Well, he has such a hard time of things, I think if I wrote I AM A BOY on my forehead in eyebrow pencil he still might wonder…

Milo made a weak smile. Ann, you can talk now.

“Oh,” she said. “I know that. Yes.”

I know you don’t like to talk about that stuff and you get embarrassed remembering. Is that why? It’s hard thinking about when you were… less?

“That’s some of it,” she allowed. “But I also don’t like who I used to be. You forgave me everything, but I still haven’t forgiven myself. I was selfish and cruel to you.” She laughed faintly. “I didn’t do ‘cute baby stuff’ like Lucy.”

Yeah, but I never had to change your diapers or wash your vomit out of my shirts, Ann.

“I suppose that’s true, yes.” With her hand on the doorknob, she turned and looked back at the mirror with a creased expression, “Milo would you like a dress? I think we could do it now. If it were a different dress and your dress. It wouldn’t hurt me like back then.”

He shook his head. I’d rather have you than dresses, Ann.

“I know that, honey,” she said. “Thank you.”