This Is How It Always Is

Claude begins to tell his students the stories of Grumwald and Princess Stephanie, cloaking his own secret within the fairy tale. Talking to his father over Skype, Claude realizes that he can’t picture his future as Claude the way he could as Poppy. While talking to Claude, Penn notices a positive change: “Penn played nonchalance, but even over grainy, laggy Wi-Fi, he saw his child spark” (280).

Rosie and K become closer. Rosie works up the courage to ask K, who is transgender, about her life. K tells her about meeting her partner, and how they have adopted several children whose parents died at the hospital. K encourages Rosie to embrace the “middle way” in life. Rosie replies that there is no middle way in the United States, that there is just male and female. K clarifies, “Not just middle way between male and female. Middle way of being. Middle way of living with what is hard and who do not accept you” (289).

Claude reflects on his observation that the Buddha looks like a girl. Claude gleans from the Buddha’s renderings that the Buddha was born a boy, achieved enlightenment, cut off his hair, and ended up looking like a girl.