The Greatest Superpower Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  A Note to Readers

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Back Cover

  Cover

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Frontmatter

  Start of Content

  Backmatter

  Acknowledgments

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  back cover

  For Pancho,

  furry friend, loyal companion, beloved pain in the butt.

  Thanks for all you shared with me.

  I never cease missing you.

  – A.S.

  Chapter 1

  “On your marks,” Dad announces. His brown eyes twinkle across the kitchen table while Mom, my twin brother Cesar, and I inch forward in our seats, raring to start.

  “Get… set… and…” Dad teases the words out, tracking the seconds on his watch. “Go!”

  Our nightly game of stopwatch cleanup is off and running. Cesar bolts up, clatters our plates together, and sprints to the sink. Right behind him, I sweep up fistfuls of clinking silverware. Dad scoops up serving dishes containing chimichangas, rice, and refried beans. Mom circles around him, grabbing napkins and placemats. And King—my knee-high, white and nut-brown Jack Russell terrier—dodges our footsteps, licking the tile floor.

  Cesar throws me the hot sauce in a final pass. Mom switches on the dishwasher. And Dad hops up, patting the ceiling like a six-foot-one oversized kid.

  “Time!” he shouts in his deep, gravelly Mexican American accent. “Nine minutes, forty-three seconds.” Not our best time, but decent.

  Dad wipes his big, hairy hands on the XXL-sized Superman apron I gave him last Father’s Day. Then he slings one arm around Cesar’s shoulder and the other across mine. “Good game, great moves.”

  “Okay, fellas, come sit back down,” Mom says, replacing the centerpiece vase on the chunky wooden table that serves as our family’s headquarters. She’s still wearing her office clothes—gray skirt suit, crisp white shirt, and silver necklace—looking like a company CEO about to deliver the yearly report. “Your dad and I need to discuss something important with you.”

  I plop down in my chair again. Summer vacation has arrived, and I know what’s coming. “We already know what you’re going to say.”

  “How’s that?” Mom asks, exchanging an anxious glance with Dad.

  “Same spiel every summer,” I say. “You want us to use our time wisely and productively, blah, blah, blah…” I toss King a rubber ball, but he ignores it, too busy hunting down every microscopic crumb that might’ve landed on the floor during dinner.

  “I’m afraid we need to discuss something different this time,” Dad says as he sits next to Mom.

  “Can you guys make it quick?” Cesar asks, distracted while texting his life’s play-by-play to his girlfriend. “Victoria wants to talk to me.”

  Cesar and I might be twins, but we don’t look alike—we’re fraternal, not identical. And we’re different in more than just looks. We also have totally different friends and personalities. Cesar is the cool, popular soccer jock—complete with a cool, popular girlfriend. I’m the shy, nerdy comics geek.

  “Put your phone down, please, Cesar,” Mom says. Her blue eyes are shimmering. Dad reaches to hold her hand, but she slides it away.

  Cesar and I glance at each other. Something is off—I’ve sensed it all evening. Dad, usually pretty jokey, has been weirdly off his game. And Mom, normally the quiet one, kept bringing up goofy stuff about work.

  “Dad and I know this will be hard for you boys,” Mom says now. Her voice catches like she’s trying to hold back tears. “I-I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just say it: Dad and I are getting a divorce.”

  A siren goes off inside my head as if somebody yanked a fire alarm. I turn to Cesar, hoping he’ll make sense of this. Even though he’s only eight minutes older, I look up to him as my big brother. But he’s staring into space as though someone has clubbed him with a phone. Face pale. Mouth dangling open. Eyes glazed over.

  Everyone sits silently—except King, whose toenails click across the tile floor.

  “We understand this hurts,” Dad says in his low rumbly voice. His eyes glisten as much as Mom’s. “It’s sad for all of us.”

  “If it’s sad for everyone,” I ask, “then why are you breaking up?”

  “Yeah, what’s wrong?” Cesar asks, emerging from his daze. “How can we fix it?”

  “Mijo,” Dad says—Spanish for my son. “This isn’t something you can fix. It’s because of personal things.”

  “Things that make it impossible for us to stay together,” Mom says, her voice shaking.

  “Well, can’t you guys go to couples counseling or something?” Cesar insists. “That’s what Victoria’s parents did.…”

  “Yeah, you can work it out,” I say, backing Cesar up. “Like you always tell us to.”

  “Dad and I have tried,” Mom says, twisting and fidgeting with her necklace. “We’ve been seeing a therapist on Saturday mornings for more than a year.”

  When Cesar and I asked where they were going, they would only say it was their “special time.” We speculated the mystery outings were some sappy, rekindle-the-flame middle-age couple’s thing. Nothing like this.

  “So you’re just going to leave us in the dark about what’s wrong?” Cesar asks.

  Mom turns to Dad. “Maybe you’d better go ahead,” she says. Now she’s the one who reaches for his hand. He grasps hers back, holding it tight.

  “I need to tell you boys something. I…” He clears his throat. “I’m transgender.”

  The word takes a moment to register. Then a giggle bubbles out of me. I know what transgender means: Sometimes a person born a boy knows deep inside they’re really a girl—or vice versa. My friends and I have seen videos of that Olympic champion, the one with six kids, who was once called the “world
’s greatest athlete,” transforming into a fashion beauty.

  It’s impossible to imagine Dad like that. To start, he isn’t built like a lean, lanky world-famous track star; he’s shaped more like a big, bulgy sack of tamale flour. And though he isn’t bad looking, his face is as rough and craggy as a Lincoln statue. He’s a guy. My role model. My hero. I want to be just like him when I grow up. That doesn’t include becoming a woman.

  “Dad…?” Cesar says. “You’re kidding… right?”

  “Of course he’s kidding,” I say. This has to be one of Dad’s wacky jokes. Like on Christmas morning, when a six-foot-one Easter bunny, complete with a big costume head, woke us up and explained he was helping Santa, who was sick with the flu. After giving us presents, the giant rabbit hopped away down the street while Cesar and I watched in wide-eyed wonder. Dad is that kind of dad: the fun one. The one all our friends wish they had.

  “I’ve wanted to talk with you boys about this for a long time, but first I needed to sort it out myself.” His forehead is breaking out in a sweat. He grabs a paper napkin and wipes it across his wide brow as the words pour out. “Ever since I was little, whenever I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a boy, it didn’t match how I felt in here.” He pats the spot over his heart. “Inside, I knew I was a girl, even though outside I looked like a boy.”

  Cesar squirms in his seat. I squirm in mine.

  “One day your grandmother, your abuelita, caught me trying on my sister’s dress,” Dad goes on. “When she told your abuelito, he beat me so hard the bruises took a month to heal. After that, I buried my secret deep inside.” He balls up the paper napkin in his fist. “Times were so different then. There was no internet. Not so much news. I had no words to describe what I felt. I believed I was the only person in the world like me, who felt like this. So I tried to be a good son, a nice Catholic boy.” He glances down at his thick hands. “I have lived a lie for too long. I need to be honest. With myself. And with you.”

  Dad uncrumples the wadded napkin, smooths it out across his apron-covered lap, and glances up with damp eyes.

  “But I want you to know that I love you boys and your mom as much as ever. Nothing can change that. I’m still your dad, no matter what. I’ll always be here for you. And we’ll always be a family.”

  Tears are trickling down Mom’s cheeks. Dad hands her a clean napkin.

  “So then…?” I ask. “Can we all stay together?”

  “Honey, I’m sorry,” Mom says, dabbing her cheeks. “I married a husband, not a wife. I know some women can make that work, but I can’t.”

  “I’m sorry too, boys,” Dad says. “Sometimes honesty comes with a price.”

  “No!” Cesar bursts out. “How can you do this? Don’t you realize what people will say? Can’t you at least wait till we go to college?”

  “I wish I could,” Dad says. “But I can’t hide anymore.”

  Cesar quivers like a volcano. Angry tears erupt from his eyes. “Thanks for ruining our lives!”

  “Cesar, stop. Calm down,” Mom says. “I know you’re upset. Try to control yourself.”

  “Me?” He leaps to his feet, bumping the table, and gestures to Dad. “He’s the one who needs to control himself.” The glass vase falls over, splintering into shards.