Names

The Long Saturday

Chapter 55: Names

Naming a child reveals how many people have been quietly waiting for permission to become unreasonable.

Mom starts first.

"Helen," she says over soup in March, with the innocent tone of a woman lobbing a grenade through the kitchen window.

Norah doesn't even look up from her bread.

"No."

"I didn't say first name."

"Still no."

"Rude."

Kira sends lists from Colorado containing names that sound either like frontier botanists or indie drummers.

Jude says, "No prophets with complicated endings," and refuses to elaborate.

Mrs. Pacheco leaves a card in the mailbox with ROSEMARY underlined twice and a note that says STRONG, USEFUL, FRAGRANT.

Maria, who has now decided our household is partially her jurisdiction, says, "Please don't do anything that sounds homeschooled."

"What does that mean," I ask.

"You know exactly what it means."

I do, unfortunately.

Norah and I make our own list in a notebook at the kitchen table after everyone else's opinions have been stored under the appropriate category of loving interference.

The notebook columns are simple.

No.

Maybe.

Absolutely not.

The last fills fastest.

"No trendy virtue nouns," Norah says.

"Agreed."

"No dead relatives as first names."

I nod before she finishes the sentence.

"Agreed."

She looks up at me.

"Too fast?"

"No."

I set the pen down.

"I don't want that either."

The kitchen is warm with early spring and onion fumes because dinner is still half-made on the stove.

Her body has changed the room by now just by entering it.

The curve under her sweatshirt unmistakable.

One hand always somewhere near it without planning to be.

"Micah gets to keep his own name," I say.

Norah nods.

"Yes."

"So does Daniel."

"Yes."

"Middle names are less loaded," Norah says after a minute.

"Potentially."

"Potentially dangerous sentence."

"I know."

She writes "Ruth" in the maybe column.

"Why Ruth?"

"Short. Strong. No nonsense. Also she survives a book full of grief without becoming decorative."

"Good reasons."

"You are only saying that because you are a church boy."

"False. I am also saying it because it sounds like someone who could repair a fence."

"Excellent."

We keep going.

Clara.

Mae.

Lucy.

Hannah.

Rose, immediately vetoed on floral conflict grounds because Mrs. Pacheco must not be rewarded.

At some point Norah gets up for water and comes back slower than she left.

"What."

"She is doing full choreography in there."

"Good."

"Come here."

I move my chair beside hers.

She takes my hand and puts it low against the side of her belly where the movement is strongest.

There.

One hard roll.

Then another.

"Unbelievable," I say.

"Correct."

She keeps my hand there while she looks down at the notebook.

"I keep coming back to Clara," she says.

"Yeah."

"Too pretty?"

"Not really."

"Too deliberate."

"Maybe every name is too deliberate if you stare long enough."

"Excellent. Useless answer."

"Thank you."

The name sits on the page between us.

Clara.

Clear.

Bright without showing off.

Old enough to wear well.

Plain enough to live in.

"I like that it sounds sturdy," I say.

"I like that it sounds awake."

"Also good."

She writes it again with "Ruth" after it.

Clara Ruth.

The room changes.

"Try it," Norah says.

"Now."

"Yes."

I clear my throat because apparently I am about to speak our daughter's possible name into spaghetti air like a liturgist with a grocery budget.

"Clara," I say.

The baby moves once under my hand.

Norah raises her eyebrows.

"Well."

"That feels rigged."

"I do not care."

Later that night, after dishes and a FaceTime with Kira in which she says Clara Ruth sounds "alarmingly like an actual person," we lie in bed while rain ticks at the windows.

Norah is propped on two pillows because sleep has become an engineering problem.

I am on my side facing her, one arm under my head.

"You okay?" she says.

"Yeah."

"Liar."

"Moderate liar."

She smiles without opening her eyes.

"What is it?"

I look toward the doorway, the dark hall beyond it, the small spare room at the end where the rocker waits and the pale walls hold their quiet.

"I think naming her makes me understand how little she belongs to my fear," I say.

Norah opens her eyes then.

"Good."

"And how much I still want to use fear like planning."

"Also honest."

Rain gathers harder at the gutter.

The house smells faintly of garlic and laundry soap and the lotion Norah keeps on the nightstand now because skin has become its own weather system.

"Come here," she says.

I slide closer carefully.

She takes my hand and settles it over the round warm curve of her.

"Say it again."

"Clara."

The baby shifts.

Norah's face goes soft in the dark.

"Yeah," she says.

"That's her."