Eden Onpeng

August 2025

Mary bit into her $1.50 hot dog as she stationed herself at one of the red picnic tables outside a Costco. In this age of skyrocketing grocery prices, the $1.50 hot dog was one of the last holdouts from a simpler time.

She eyed the purchased eggs in her cart with disapproval. Eggs were once lauded by frugal cookbooks as a cheap protein, the holy grail of poor people and large families.

Not anymore, she thought. She couldn’t remember exactly how or why eggs became so expensive, even after the bird flu or whatever wiped out those eggs the first time, but she had a feeling it was probably the liberals.

The other red picnic tables in the food court were filled with families with baby strollers, shopping carts, and the occasional pigeon or two. Opportunistic, thought Mary, watching two pigeons fight over a pizza crust. And who wouldn’t be, in times like these?

Five years after the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, the era of face masks, hand sanitizers, and six-feet-apart social distancing now felt like a bad dream.

She had survived the Great Toilet Paper Panic of 2020, when supply and distribution lines were disrupted, leaving store shelves empty and depriving the hardworking American people of a crucial element of life: toilet paper.

May 2020

She had never been more relieved to see toilet paper.

Mary had lined up outside the department stores before dawn to get a crack at the toilet paper. She had screamed, flailed her arms, and shoved her way through the throng of facemask-donning people heading toward the stacks of toilet paper.

Although she was a petite and scrawny 5’0” middle-aged lady with mousy brown hair tied back into a neat ponytail, she managed to sharp-elbow a thick woman (Latina, probably, figured Mary) aside to grab a unit of toilet paper – a generous block of 30 Kirkland 2-ply toilet paper rolls, sealed together with plastic.

“Fuck you, bitch!” cried the woman, who had fallen to the ground on her generous tush. “My family needs that!”

 “It’s not all about you, you know,” Mary piped as she pushed her cart quickly away before the woman could reach up and pull the block of toilet paper off the cart. “Maybe you wouldn’t need so much toilet paper if you stopped eating all that Taco Bell.”

Mary hated Taco Bell. She had made the mistake of eating at a Taco Bell next to a mortuary once, which ended in food poisoning that lasted two weeks, and her having to discard her favorite pair of funeral underwear (it was beyond saving).

Back at home, two unopened blocks of 30 Kirkland 2-ply toilet paper rolls sat on Mary’s shelves, still sealed together with plastic. But in these uncertain times, Mary felt she needed to stock up. It was unclear how long the supply chains were going to be disrupted.

Guilt fluttered in her chest as she pushed the cart into the bread section and thought of that woman’s family, but she quickly dismissed it. It wasn’t her fault that these women were underprepared.

And judging from their looks, they were probably illegals (pronounced “eel LEEgals”) with huge families at home. She smiled to herself through a veneer of cherry Chapstick. The President had promised to stop those damned eel-leegals from invading America—by building the Great Wall of America, with each piece of the wall yet another point in America’s crown. But that was only half the battle. It was only a matter of time before America would be cleaned up from the eel-leegals that were already here. 

August 2025

After finishing her hot dog, Mary drove home in her white hatchback Yaris. After unloading and putting away her groceries and her spoils of war, a fresh block of toilet paper, she boiled water for tea, twisting the finicky stove igniter several times until sparks flew and a scratchy, blue and orange flame flared. Placing her hot Lipton tea on a coaster on the coffee table, she sat on the couch and turned on the television. Nicole Kidman came on the screen with a tight, shiny forehead and frozen eyebrows. Mary liked Nicole Kidman, with her voluminous blond hair, alabaster skin, and icy, blue eyes. Kidman reminded her of a time before the movie studios started pandering to D-E-I people with all this woke-ism. It was no wonder theaters were struggling these days. There was a time when most actors in Hollywood were white—the way it should be, thought Mary.

The afternoon slipped by as Mary watched television in her beige living room. As with many things that one became accustomed to in one’s surroundings, Mary barely noticed the little knickknacks or dusty, framed photographs on the wall.

But today, as Netflix broke into yet another unstoppable 75-second commercial, her gaze wandered to the wall.

One of these framed photographs was taken in the ‘90s, featuring herself, her late husband Ted, and their lost daughter, Anne. They had taken the photograph at a department store’s portrait studio department—Sears, perhaps. Ted had worn his gray Sunday suit and combed his brown hair to the side as he always did for work and church. On his wrist was his trusty old Timex watch with the wide face and Roman numerals. At that time Mary had big, permed brown hair with blow-dried bangs curtaining her forehead and doll-like blue eyes rimmed with dark lashes. And sweet, little Anne, she must have been five or six at the time, she was wearing a tartan plaid dress and her wavy blond hair was accented with a large green bow. Anne sat on a stool while Mary and Ted flanked her on both sides and smiled in front of a brown, textured backdrop.

Oh, Anne, thought Mary to the photograph. You were so perfect, with your beautiful blue eyes and your lovely blond hair. You were a perfect little girl.

Why did you give it all away?

Anne was gone now.

In Anne’s place was now Angelo, her “son.”

Mary’s wistful smile gave way to a frown. “Where did I go wrong?” she whispered to the photograph. Perhaps she should have made a bigger point to insist on Anne coming with her and Ted to church. Anne would sometimes stay home to play computer games. Perhaps Mary should have pushed Anne to wear more dresses and banished those ugly oversized T-shirts and baggy cargo pants from the house later in Anne’s childhood, as Anne began to shop for her own clothes.

“No. Ted and I did our best,” said Mary, nodding firmly as yet another commercial began. And how many damned commercials does Netflix have these days?

As a cheese commercial played, Mary’s thoughts wandered to the moment her sweet, beautiful daughter became a son. She wrinkled her nose. “If God wanted me to have a son, he would have given me one to begin with.”

November 2010

Her daughter had gone to college a few hours away from home. And then she’d come home with her beautiful blond hair shaved short like a boy’s, wearing a sports jersey and cargo shorts, and a flat chest.

“You—what happened to you?” sputtered Mary.

“Mom, Dad,” said Anne, her voice shaking. “I’m transitioning. You’ve seen me struggle all throughout my life. I’ve always been a man and now I’m finally living as I truly am.” 

“And why didn’t you say anything to us? Why did you tell us anything before you went ahead and chopped off your hair and breasts?”

“I’ve been telling you all this time!” exclaimed her daughter-who-was-now-a-son. “I’ve always told you I’ve never quite felt right. All you told me in return was that I would grow out of it.”

Mary did vaguely remember such conversations, but her impression at the time had mostly been of Anne whining about not liking dresses and being petulant about closing her legs when sitting. They had gotten into lots of arguments over Anne’s insistence on wearing boys’ clothing.

Mary had entered Anne’s room many times during her adolescence under the banner of cleaning it. She’d found and thrown away a lot of Anne’s boy’s clothing, and read Anne’s diaries, photo booth strips, personal letters that she’d tucked away inside old binders—some were even love letters from girls! She tossed them out and chalked it up to a silly phase that Anne would soon outgrow.

You think you’re so slick, Mary had thought. But no one outsmarts me in my own house. Whenever Anne asked where a particular garment was, Mary would widen her eyes and shake her head cluelessly.

“Did you chop off or bind your chest?” Mary asked, enraged. What a waste of God’s gifts. A blasphemous waste!

“That’s none of your business, Mom,” said Anne.

“I gave birth to you and your chest, that is my business!”

Ted in the meantime, had been drinking coffee or whatever he liked doing, Anne’s memory wasn’t too clear on that little part now. He shook his head at no one in particular and walked to the bedroom, leaving Mary and Anne on their own in the kitchen.

Mary glared at her wayward child. She stared at her up and down, appraising how flat her chest was, how rough the skin on her face looked.

“I changed my name. My legal name is now Angelo Williams.”

“Angelo?” cried Mary. “I can’t keep up with you anymore. Not only are you a boy, you’re now Latino too?”

“Angelo comes from Anne!”

“No, it does not! If you wanted a boy’s version, you would have gone with Andrew!” Not that Mary would have approved anyway.

“I guess you’re right. Maybe I just liked the sound of ‘Angelo.’”

What would people think, thought Mary with horror. How would she be able to explain it to everyone—from her and Ted’s church friends to their extended family members?

“You bring shame to our family,” said Mary, shaking her head while looking up and down at her child. “After everything your father and I have sacrificed for you. After everything God has given you. You spit at us. You spit at all of us!” She admitted it to herself then: she had been in denial of her daughter’s struggle. And now it was too late to bring her daughter back in line.

A realization came to her: maybe her daughter had been “transitioning” for a while and only kept up appearances at home—lying to Mary and Ted. That would explain why Anne had so many boys’ clothes that she never seemed to wear.

“I never asked for any of this!” replied Anne.

“How are we going to explain it to everyone?” continued Mary. “Our once-beautiful daughter is now a TOTAL ABOMINATION!”

“Is that what I am to you, Mother?” Anne asked quietly.

“We gave you everything,” said Mary, beginning to cry. “You chose to throw it away.” She felt so betrayed, in realizing that Anne had waited until she was at college before transitioning—when Mary and Ted were helpless to do anything about it. Had Anne transitioned during high school, Mary knew of some camps that seemed to have fixed the “gay” problem for the children of a few friends from church…

She stopped sniffling for a moment. There was one remaining option: the ultimatum. “You stop all this nonsense. Or we are cutting you off. No more college. No more support.”

“I see,” said Anne.

That night, Mary heard some furniture moving around. She went downstairs and saw Anne moving suitcases and boxes of things out of the house.

“You’re leaving us? Just because we don’t approve of you trying to be a boy?”

“I’m tired of this,” said Anne, sounding exhausted. “I’ve tried to explain to you who I am my whole life, but you never listened.” She hoisted a final box—a box of her favorite childhood books—onto her hips and, with her free hand, closed the front door behind her. The curtains glowed from Anne’s headlights as her car pulled out of the driveway.

Mary ran to Anne’s room and was met with an emptiness as she regarded the space now devoid of Anne’s favorite posters, toys, and things. Anne had taken all her favorite things and left the rest behind, including Mary and Ted.

Mary sank to her knees and cried into the empty space. Her sobs echoed back at her. From the other room, Ted snored.

December 2010

The lights glowed and the bells jingled, but Mary’s heart felt hollow inside, as she stood numbly next to Ted in their pew at church.

It was easier to explain that Rebellious Little Anne had decided to abandon her parents for because college had brainwashed her and because she hated wearing dresses. Over Christmas dinners of roasted ham, mashed potatoes, and Jello salads, Mary told relatives and church friends that the liberals at school had corrupted her daughter and Anne had decided she was too good for her own parents now.

Some of the more conservative, God-fearing family members took Mary’s side, cursing Anne and her new wayward path into sin. Some referred to the story of the prodigal son (or daughter), suggesting that perhaps one day Anne would come back, and that God’s grace could still save Anne (if she was willing). Others simply nodded along. Mary could tell they were humoring her, but she was too heartbroken to get into a moral debate.

She did enjoy hearing stories about other parents who’d been similarly abandoned by their liberal children. These made her feel a little less alone. She clung to the company of other righteous churchgoers who denounced the sinful ways of young people in modern society. They understood what it was like to lose your child to the world.

August 2018

Over the past two years, Ted had suffered from chest pains and congestion.

One morning, Mary woke up and Ted was dead.

The funeral was held at a gloomy little mortuary next to a Taco Bell on the side of the freeway. Everyone sang “Amazing Grace.” The entire parlor stank with the cloying stench of lilies. Mary’s voice cracked through her tears as she tried to sing. She gave up during the second refrain and let everyone else sing.

Once everyone was done singing, the pastor read lines from the Bible and preached things in comfort of the surviving members of the family, but Mary found her gaze drifting to a handsome blond boy sitting about three seats away during the sermon.

Mary could see that Anne had fully “become” Angelo over the past eight years—a handsome, broad-shouldered man with a square jaw, wearing a black suit and trousers. Short, blond curls crowned his head.

Angelo looked like a Greek god. Sure, if she looked hard enough, she could still catch glimpses of her precious little Anne (how could she not?), from the little mole on the right elbow to the curve of the nose. But if she had never met this beautiful boy before, she would have assumed he was born this way, God-given and all that. He did look a lot like a younger, more robust version of Ted. She remembered feeling both awe, at how science had progressed to enable such a transformation, and disgust, at how science had allowed the human race to stray further from God.

She waited for Angelo to approach her after the service but he never did. He never even looked her way. She felt invisible in this new world, with a dead husband and a new son. She thought about approaching him but felt unsure of how to face her new son.

While Suzie Jenkins (Ted’s overbearing aunt who reeked of cigarettes and dog breath) prattled on about her own husband who had died two years ago, Mary watched over Suzie’s shoulder as Angelo walked to the parking lot, got into his car, and drove off.

There was no reception. Ted’s family wasn’t big on parties, and Mary was too heartbroken to host anything. She said goodbye to Suzie and went to Taco Bell, where she ordered ten tacos with salsa packets and devoured them all, after which she was violently afflicted with the Montezuma’s Taco Bell Curse and had to sacrifice her favorite underwear in exchange for her life. The gods were eventually appeased, after two weeks of nonstop vomiting and diarrhea. If Ted’s ghost were still wandering the home, he would have been scared into the afterlife.

September 2025

She still dreamt of Angelo showing up at her door. Sometimes he would be apologetic; other times he would be flippant and defiant. Sometimes she would slap him, other times she would embrace him and cook him his favorite meal, beef stroganoff.

In one of her dreams, Angelo declined the food, saying that not only was he a man, he was now also a vegan. Then she would wake up in her bed with a pounding heart and hands curled into fists. Other times he would show up at her door as Anne, but a grown-up version of Anne, the way Mary would have wished Anne to be like, a lovely, smiling young woman in a tartan plaid dress, with wavy blond hair flowing over her shoulders. Not unlike a younger, blond Nicole Kidman.

Mary had grown comfortable with living alone, but she thought of her darling child often—a child that had become all but a ghost in her life, just like her late husband. Whenever the doorbell rang she jumped with the hope that perhaps Angelo had finally decided to come home. When she would see that it is a mailman or worse, a solar salesman, she deflated with jaded disappointment. Of course. Why would Angelo come, after all these years? When she felt tender, she wanted to embrace her son and tell him she accepted him now. When she felt hurt or proud, she wanted him to grovel and beg for her forgiveness.

One night, after watching the news about yet another school shooting (she forgot which), she pulled out her phone and created a fake social media account under the name of Nicole Kidwoman.

She found Angelo’s Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, both under “Angelo Williams.” He is a registered nurse at a hospital. He married a Latina named Josefina (And didn’t invite me! thought Mary, chagrined). They had two beautiful children. Mary wondered how they did it. Maybe they adopted. Regardless of how they obtained the children, the children did look quite happy in the photographs—cheeky, ruddy, and cherubic.

She looked up his and Josefina’s address online. The photos on Zillow seemed to match the interiors of his house from his Facebook photographs. She decided she would go to his house to see her precious little grandchildren. Angelo clearly didn’t want her in his life, but her grandchildren deserved a chance to know their grandma.

The next day, Mary drove up the hill to a house in a nice neighborhood with trees, clear sidewalks, and smooth pavement. She carried two large gift bags, for the two children, a boy and a girl. Not that it would matter in the end, Mary thought as she clicked open the white picket fence to Angelo and Josefina’s house.

Her heart fluttered at the sound of children playing and laughing from within the house. She rang the doorbell.

Footsteps from within. Pitter-patter. The door opened and Josefina poked her face out. “Hello? Hi there!”

“Hello,” said Mary, mustering up all of her confidence but feeling rather shaky anyway. “I am Mary, Angelo’s mother. I…er… I brought these gifts over for my grandchildren.”

“Ah,” said Josefina, her face puckering up. “Angelo has told me about you.”

“Wow, your English is very good,” complimented Mary generously.

She stood, waiting to be invited in.

“Angelo’s not home right now,” said Josefina.

“I see. May I leave these gifts with the little ones then?”

“Yes,” said Josefina. “I will give it to them. Thank you.”

“May I see them?”

A boy with brown hair and hazel eyes about the age of six or seven poked his head out from behind Josefina. “David,” said Josefina. “This is your other grandma. She has brought you gifts.” She stepped aside enough for Mary to hand David a blue bag with dinosaurs printed all over it. David accepted the bag shyly.

“And what do you say?” asked Josefina.

“Thank you,” said David shyly.

“You’re very welcome, David. Grandma loves you.” Mary looked at Josefina. “And where is the other one, I believe you also have a girl—Ashley?”

Josefina narrowed her eyes. “You’ve been stalking our social media, haven’t you.”

Mary widened her eyes innocently. “Oh! Why, I wouldn’t know how to use that!”

“You’re not that old. My parents are about your age, and they use it all the time.”

Bitch, thought Mary. “Well, not all parents have been blessed as yours to have such tech-savvy kids in their life.”

Josefina raised her dark eyebrows. “Huh,” she said flatly. “I wonder why.”

Mary left the pink bag with unicorns for Ashley with Josefina and drove home without seeing her granddaughter.

That night, after heating up some lasagna leftovers and pouring a glass of milk for dinner, she turned on the television to see Latinos being wrestled onto the ground by multiple masked ICE agents.

“I wish they’d deport Josefina,” she grumbled, but immediately felt bad afterward because then her grandchildren wouldn’t have a mother. And despite being so irritating, Josefina appeared to be a good mother to David and Ashley.

Mary wished Josefina (and her daughter-son, for that matter) wouldn’t hate her so much so that she could see her grandchildren more. She wondered what Angelo had said to Josefina about her. Probably not nice things, Mary surmised.

The evening news, which went from showing ICE officers pulling mothers away from crying children to the President hemming and hawing about the Epstein files, made Mary feel heavy and crummy. She used to get a high from these reports. It felt like a righteous rush, seeing spoiled and entitled liberals get what they deserved, whether it was Laotian and Vietnamese criminals being deported to South Sudan or smug reporters being kicked out of the White House.

She picked up the remote and turned off the television. These days, the world felt less recognizable to her every day. Or maybe she was just getting old.

She cleaned up her supper and turned on the stove to heat up some water. The igniter was acting funky so she held it down for a long while until the flame finally ignited in blue and orange sparks and a soft hissing sound. She placed the kettle over it.

She puttered around the living room, dusting old photographs on the wall. After a while she wasn’t feeling well so she went off to bed early.

That night, she had a dream about Angelo knocking at her door. She knew it was him right away. Overjoyed, she ran to the door. She was ready to let go of everything—past grudges, old resentments, and all the bad mojo between her and her son. You received my gifts, she said. Did David and Ashley like them?

Dream Angelo smiled at her—a gentle, handsome smile that twinkled in his eyes—the first smile from him she had seen in more than fifteen years. Yes, Mom. They loved their gifts.

 I am so sorry, son. I should have been more supportive to you. At the end of the day I love you no matter what you are. If you turn into a worm I will put you in a little tank with lots of nice dirt and twigs.

Thanks, Mom, replied Dream Angelo.

Please come in. Mary ushered Dream Angelo into the house. Somehow he felt taller as Angelo than he ever did as Anne. I have something for you. She pulled a drawer open and handed him Ted’s old Timex watch, the one he wore every day for decades. Your father would have wanted you to have it. It was a proper men’s watch. Perfect for her son.

Mary and her son hugged each other tightly. The room glowed with sunlight and Mary could hear the faint presence of Ted near them. Smiling through tears, she closed her eyes.

In the distance, she could hear a loud beeping—probably a neighbor’s new annoying gadget. She could feel the heat coming into the house from outside. It was quite warm, really. But she didn’t care. Because right now, she was finally reunited with her son—a moment she had dreamt of for years. She could die happy now.

The End