Alexandre Vidal Porto - Sergio Y.

“I have to admit his mother knew him better than I did. You know life in São Paulo can be very hectic. Especially for those who own their own business. I’ve always taken on a lot of responsibility, since I was young. By the time I arrived home Sergio usually had already eaten dinner and was in his pajamas, watching television or playing video games, spellbound, almost ready for bed. But I always thought I had a good relationship with my son.

“I think he felt lonely because he had no brothers or sisters, but, if you think about it, he was always surrounded by people: at school, in English class, at swimming classes, judo — he always had someone with him. He’d come home practically just to shower, eat and sleep.

“He was a normal boy. He was in therapy with you, but he was normal. You met him. He told us he wanted to see a therapist because he was having trouble deciding what to do with his life. What were we to do? We said yes. Anyway, therapy is relatively common nowadays. But I confess a warning signal went off inside me.

“After Christmas, when he talked to me and his mother and told us he wanted to live in New York — and he said ‘live,’ not ‘visit,’ ‘hang out,’ none of that; he said ‘live’—it was a big surprise. I had a suspicion that something might not be going well, but none of us understood the reason he decided to live in New York.

“A few days later, he told us he wasn’t who we thought he was.

“It was hard to hear from my only son that he was a woman, that he wanted to go to New York because there he could live as a woman, have a sex change operation, change his name, be who he thought he was.

“It wasn’t easy to hear. I was shocked by what he was telling us, but I was even more shocked by the calm and poised manner with which he communicated his decision to us.

“The proposal he made to us was that we would let him live in New York for two years to do the sexual reassignment treatment with a doctor named Coutts. To me it all sounded crazy, but I thought maybe it was just a phase. We all went to New York, Tereza, Sergio and I, to talk to Dr. Coutts, who told us about our son being ‘transgender.’

“It took me a long time to understand the nature of what Sergio felt, but I never turned my back on him. I gave him all the support I could. I was sorry for him and for myself. I would never have grandchildren. He would never take over the family business.

“It was awful when I saw him dressed as a woman for the first time. I wanted to rip his clothes off and find my son underneath those clothes, those painted nails, but I did nothing. Nothing. I just avoided eye contact. I kept my head down. I felt love and hate at the same time for what, to me, was a caricature of my son.

“That first time, I controlled myself. And I continued to control myself afterwards. I couldn’t lose him. I asked God to help me to get used to that. That I learn to accept it, that the sight of my emasculated son, dressed as a woman, become acceptable to me. I thought of that saying: ‘If you love the ugly, beautiful you’ll seem to them.’

“Sergio didn’t want to stay in São Paulo. He wanted to go somewhere where no one knew him. He wanted to be able to introduce himself as Sandra forever.

“I understood that. I confess I liked that he did his treatment outside of Brazil. Our company is highly visible. The situation could be exploited by the press, by the public. It wouldn’t be good for him. It wouldn’t be good for anyone. In New York, he’d be anonymous and could care for himself in peace. Away from the curiosity seekers.

“We bought that apartment in the West Village just for him. I sent him a monthly allowance, and he had credit cards to pay for his treatment. His mother would always visit him. He led a balanced life. He interned at the best restaurant in New York. When he graduated, I gave him money to open his own business.

“The restaurant would have been a success. He was a very good chef. He had the common sense of his great-grandfather, who opened the first Laila store. Nothing can convince me it wouldn’t have been a total success. There was even a New York Times reporter interested in doing a story about the restaurant. It’s too bad none of this can ever happen now.

“Sergio just wanted to be happy. That’s why my son went to New York. He was looking for a way to be happy. He went there to make lemonade with the great big lemon God had given him. And he succeeded. You asked if he was happy. Yes, after he became Sandra, Sergio was happy. He was in good spirits, he had friends. As a woman, he found happiness.

“My son was able to turn things around, and he died at twenty-three, murdered by an unstable woman who barely knew him. A crazy woman, a human stray bullet. That’s the irony: dying in such a foolish way after you’ve found happiness.

“But life isn’t fair for any of us, and I don’t have a monopoly on pain. There are people who’ve suffered a lot more than me. And they still manage to live, work, be productive. That’s what I try to remember. Sergio’s death was a great — the greatest — loss I’ve experienced in my life, but I have to go on living. He was happy, and that reassures me, it gives me peace.”

I have tried to be as faithful as possible in my translation of what Laurie Clay told me when I visited her in prison. However, I do not know whether it will be enough. First of all, we were separated by thick glass, and the recording I made of our conversation was not clear. Second, she does not speak Portuguese. I could not simply transcribe her words, like I did with Salomão. I will report what she told me in the manner she told me and as I interpreted it, even when it might seem obvious.

Laurie Clay is serving a twenty-two year sentence. She was convicted of second-degree murder. She had on an orange jumpsuit when we met. I could see a four-leaf clover tattooed on the inside of her right wrist, and she wore her blond hair in a short ponytail.

To get permission to talk to her, I had to make a request in writing to the prison administration. Her consent was required too.

Almost two years earlier, Laurie had been accepted to study fashion at the New School. Laurie met Sandra the day she, Laurie, was visiting the apartment her parents had bought for her. She was accompanied by the interior decorator who would help her furnish it. She was intrigued by that tall girl, with black hair and a red handbag, who was leaving just as they arrived.

The next time they met was at a café on the corner of Grove and Bleecker, which, curiously, I now realize, was named Angélique. They drank tea and walked back home together. They soon became friends.

Laurie, an only child like Sandra, had been an eccentric teenager by Louisville, Kentucky, standards, which is where her family was from. She went through several phases, all of which she devoted herself to fervently. There was a vegetarian phase, when she stopped consuming foods of animal origin and wearing leather. There was a Goth phase, in which she only wore black clothes and makeup, and there was a mystical phase, when she attended a variety of churches and sects.

I think the truth is that Laurie enjoyed being onstage. From what she told me, every new phase meant a new wardrobe and a new lifestyle. Because these phases were relatively short, she was constantly reinventing herself, as if creating her own cast of characters, as if filling an album with pictures of roles she could play. She never could have imagined, though, that in this album there would also be photographs of a prisoner.

In New York, she was living out her omnipotent phase. She was young, ambitious, headstrong and rich. For her, studying fashion meant, above all, expanding her collection of aesthetic experiences. She would go out every night. The experience she was chasing was the one she had not yet had.