She finishes the letter by apologising for not being with her son on his birthday and hopes he likes the gift she’s sent, before begging him to write soon and sending a billion kisses.
Billy puts the card alongside his others on the mantle before opening the gift from his mother. “Ohh.” he says as he peels away the wrapping paper to reveal a Deanna Durbin paper doll dress up book. Although grateful, Billy is unsure why his mother has given him a paper doll book; is it because she knows he likes Deanna Durbin, the famous singer and cinema starlet whom all the boys and most of their fathers adore, or because she knows he’s living as a girl? It is after all a girl’s gift and not something one would normally give to a boy.