11. Penumbra

Penumbra [peh-nəm-brə] Noun. The partially illuminated outer part of a shadow created by a solid object; The outlying, fringe area in which a condition exists to a lesser degree. The 60s housewife existed only in the penumbra of her husband. He was the breadwinner. He was the one people paid attention to. He was the one whose hand they shook. He was the one whose words had meaning. She was the one who made his bed, cooked his meals, folded his underwear, and eventually birthed his children. The children lived in a different type of penumbra, especially the female child. Their father's word was law, and every action he took eclipsed every story they had, everything they'd experienced that day. But the weirdest thing happened when the male child, at age 24, got a sex change. He became she, and his father, as much as he wanted to look away from this, had to look. The child was disowned, pushed into a different penumbra. But in the process, that child eclipsed his father and created more thought, vision, and progress in the world than his father ever had in all the years working at an insurance company.