Eleanor walked past him, grabbed the scarecrow by its wooden post, and with a grunt, dragged it toward the burn pile behind the barn.

Then she squinted. "Leslie? No. No, you're not."

The city was Chicago. And in Chicago, Leo found a word for the humming in his bones: transgender . He also found a place. It wasn't a bar or a clinic, but a cramped, second-floor walk-up called The Haven, a community center with a teal couch that smelled like patchouli and hope.

"Son," she whispered. It came out cracked, like a dry riverbed finally receiving rain. "I have a son."

He heard footsteps behind him. Eleanor.

Not flannel.

Eleanor was on the porch, shelling peas. She looked up. Her hands stopped moving.

Parker replied instantly: Told you. Becoming more you.

Later that night, Leo texted The Haven group chat. Coming back next week. Bringing my mom for the Trans Day of Visibility potluck. She wants to learn how to make Samira's chai.

At The Haven, Leo met Samira, a hijra from Hyderabad who made the best chai he’d ever tasted and taught him that gender wasn't a line but a constellation. He met Jun, a non-binary artist who used they/them pronouns and drew portraits of trans elders as superheroes. He met Parker, a trans woman with a laugh like a thunderstorm, who held his hand when he injected his first dose of testosterone. "It's not about becoming a man," Parker said. "It's about becoming more you."

For thirty years, the scarecrow stood in the cornfield at the edge of Mabel Creek. It wore a flannel shirt, a straw hat, and a pair of faded denim overalls. To the town, it was a landmark. To Leo, it was a lie.

The wind rustled the cornstalks. A blue jay screamed.

Jun sent a GIF of a dancing cat.