In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi

half-finished construction. My father summoned Laci Bader. “He took one look and he said, ‘This is no good!’ ” The roof was a sieve, the pipes broken, the insulation missing, the aluminum wiring a crazy-quilt death trap. “If you drilled into the wall, you’d get electrocuted.” It took most of a year, and tens of thousands of dollars more, to make the place habitable.
    The house still needed significant maintenance, for which my father often enlisted Bader. “Now that I’m a lady, Bader fixes everything,” she said. “Men
have
to help me. I don’t lift a finger.” My father gave me a pointed look. “It’s one of the great advantages of being a woman,” she said. “You write about the disadvantages of being a woman, but I’ve
only
found advantages!” I wondered at the way my father’s new identity was in a dance with the old, her break from the past enlisted in an ongoing renegotiation with his history. She hadn’t regained the family property, but by her change in gender, she’d brought the Friedmans’ former gardener’s son back into service.
    We went back inside, my father pulling the drapes shut again. She said she’d show me to my quarters. I followed her up the dark stairwell to the second floor, and into one of the three bedrooms.
    â€œI sleep here sometimes, but I’m giving it to you because it’s got the view,” she said. She gestured toward the far wall of windows, which was shrouded in thick blackout liners covered by lace curtains. I inched the layers aside to see what lay behind them: closed casement windows that looked out over a concrete balcony, covered in dead leaves. A fraying hammock hung from rusted hooks. The walls were painted a pale pink and the room was blandly, impersonally furnished: a double bed in a white-painted wood frame, a white wooden wardrobe, a straight-back chair (an extra from the dining-room set downstairs), and an old television on a metal stand on wheels. A generic oil painting of a flower bouquet seemed to belong, like the rest of the decor, to a ’60s Howard Johnson’s.
    â€œI had Ilonka sew this,” my father said, gesturing toward the matching fuschia duvet cover and pillowcases. “I built the bed frame. And the wardrobe.”
    â€œYou’re still doing carpentry?”
    She said her workbench was in the basement. “Like in Yorktown.” She rapped her knuckles on the side of the wardrobe to demonstrate its solid craftsmanship. “You can hang your things in here,” she said.
    I opened the wardrobe doors. My father followed my gaze into its shadowy innards and grimaced. Stuffed inside her hand-built armoire was a full armament of male clothing: three-piece business suits, double-breasted blazers, pin-striped shirts, khaki trousers, ski sweaters, rock-climbing knickers, plaid flannel jackets, hiking boots, oxfords, loafers, boat shoes, silk ties, wool socks, undershirts, BVDs, and the tuxedo my father wore to a family wedding.
    â€œI need to get rid of all of this,” she said. “Someone will want these.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œTalk to your husband.”
    â€œHe’s not my—” My boyfriend and I wouldn’t get married for a few more years. I could hear an old anxious hesitancy rising in my voice, which had suddenly lofted into helium registers. “He’s not your size,” I said, willing my voice to a lower pitch.
    â€œThese are quality clothes!” The hangars rattled as she slammed the closet door.
    She left me to unpack. Ten minutes later, a summons from the adjoining bedroom. “Susaaan, come here!”
    She was standing before a dressing table with a mirror framed in vanity lights. I recognized it: the makeup table for fashion models that used to sit in my father’s photo studio in Manhattan. She held an outfit in each hand, a yellow sundress with flounces and a navy-blue