Stranger Things
Chapter 1
My mother told me I was born on a night so dark and stormy that even the spirits dared not venture forth from their crypts. She added, with a tone of mild irritation, that getting to the hospital had been an obstacle course of fallen branches, stray rubbish bins, and scattered pieces of outdoor furniture.
“I thought I was giving birth to the antichrist,” she said.
I was only six, and when I searched her face for a sign she was joking, I found none.
Soon after I was born, my father left and my mother, who’d always wanted a daughter, began to dress me like a girl. I was too young to know any differently, but when I got older and started going to kindergarten, I was made aware that little boys weren’t supposed to wear dresses and ribbons.
“Are you a boy or a gi
