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“That’s because it’s my true nature. You can’t fight what you are, what’s in you. People try, and God bless them, but I couldn’t. The girl won.”

“How did you ever find the courage?”

“At first, it was so awful. My expectations were so high. I thought the change would make me happy right away.”

“And it didn’t?”

“Not at all. I wasn’t the woman I pictured myself to be—at first. But I didn’t give up. I stayed with it. And day by day, the person I saw on the outside began to look like the person I was inside. I began to look like the secret dream I had from the time I was a child. I had to let my soul settle in because I knew it held the wisdom to guide me through. One day, a few years after I transitioned, I woke up and my gender wasn’t my first thought of the day. I wascomfortable. I fit in my own life. Just in time to become a middle-aged woman and render myself invisible to men, by the way. Now, how’s that for irony?”

I’m impressed by Farah’s insistence to live on her own terms. “You couldn’t know that it would turn out all right,” I tell her.

“I didn’t. But I had to change if I was going to live a life that mattered to me. I found moving through the world in my old identity was so much work. It kept me from my real purpose, which is teaching. All that effort to be someone I am not. Now I don’t care what anyone thinks,” Farah says.

We take a walk after dinner to the duomo as the sun sets. It was built in the eleventh century and has withstood changes in architectural styles, from primitive to Romanesque to Gothic. Constructed entirely of marble, the interior of the church is as cool as the stone itself; only the polished wood pews, red sanctuary lamps, and votive candles, lit by penitents, provide warmth.

The Altar of the Blessed Sacrament has tone-on-tone Carrara marble blocks on the walls. The sculptures of putti dance overhead; below, larger angels announce the Holy Spirit. A dove carved at the center of a marble monstrance looms over the Blessed Mother holding the baby Jesus. The saints in their alcoves balance the altar beneath the floating sculptures, all carved from Calacatta marble from the mountain. The candlelight throws shadows on the altar as the moonlight streams through the dome, throwing a peach glow on the gold and enamel tiles.

“I’m going to light a candle,” I whisper to Farah.

“Light one for me, please.” Farah takes her seat in the back pew.

I kneel at the shrine of the Blessed Mother and light a long matchstick. I light a candle for my family and one for Farah’s. I close my eyes to pray. The sweet scent of beeswax and the tender curl of smoke from the matchstick remind me of Sunday Mass inSpring Lake. A wave of sadness peals through me. I slip into the pew next to Farah.

“I sent up a flare for your family,” I tell Farah.

“Thank you. But it may take more than a candle. I’ve lost them. I think of my mother every morning when I wake, and she’s my last thought before I go to sleep. You see, she was the person who believed in me when no one else did. She understood why I wanted to go to school. She knew I outgrew my village before I did. She saw it coming. She told me I had to fly. She insisted that I get out of there. Home wasn’t going to be the setting of my happy life. And so I listened to her. I went to school in London, and I still live there. Except when I’m here.”

“You’ve built a great life.”

She nods. “I have everything I ever wanted. Wonderful friends. I travel. I’m in Italy in a church that has survived since the eleventh century, built by artisans with marble from the mountain. I read about it in books, and here we are. This is a miracle to me.” She looks up at the cross timbers over the nave. “I am most at home in history because it is bigger than I am. Bigger than my dreams and bigger than my problems.”

“It turns out you didn’t need your family’s approval.”

“But I wanted it. The irony of my life is that I wouldn’t have been able to leave home and seek an education if I were a girl. We don’t educate daughters in my family, only sons. I think about the old me sometimes and remind myself that without him, I wouldn’t be an engineer. He became an engineer so I could become one.”

“If I may ask, what was your name, when you were a boy?”

“Mohammed.”

Farah and I laugh but hold back; we’re in a church and laughter is not a sound at home among the pious.

“My mother gave her firstborn son the most sacred of names tolive up to, and when I didn’t, I’m sure I was nothing but a disappointment.”

“You don’t know that. Why don’t you just get on a plane and go and see your mother?”

“I think about it,” Farah admits.

“You should do it.”

“You don’t know my village.”

“I understand when your hometown turns on you. You can’t find one person who has known you all your life who believes you made the right choice. It’s awfully lonely,” I tell her.

“What do you do about the loneliness?”

“I got a cat.”

“There’s always a cat.” Farah smiles. “It hurts to be estranged from my family. But there is worse pain.”