The Names
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Read between July 14 - August 27, 2025
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For my husband, Ian—with love
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But what disturbs her more is that she must now pour the goodness of her son into its mold, hoping he’ll be strong enough to find his own shape within it.
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Do you not see the risk? she’d wanted to say. Do you not see that calling our son Gordon might mean he ends up like you? But she couldn’t. Because surely that was the point.
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Cora wants to say it matters because sometimes big men feel small inside.
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Because sometimes their need to please previous generations is greater than their need to love future ones.
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Isn’t she just teaching her daughter that keeping the peace is more important than doing what’s right? Cora wonders what Maia thinks of her for agreeing to give her brother this name that will tie him to generations of domineering men. And it dawns on her that while Maia’s name was originally intended as a silent bond between them, in revealing its meaning, that, too, may be a burden. Perhaps she has unwittingly sent a message that their lives are destined to follow the same path, when her real hope is for her children to tread their own.
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She knows this will be a defining moment in Maia’s life, a moment when she was given a voice and wasn’t asked to fit into the shadow of her parents’ marriage.
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Cora was an equal impediment—something to be protected and worried over. Just as Gordon was a presence to be minded and feared.
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And Cora realizes her daughter has learned what to do. How to soothe, to placate. That just through watching, the first time she’s stepped into this role, she is already accomplished. If it doesn’t stop, Cora thinks, this pattern will repeat unendingly, the destiny of each generation set on the same course.
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Maia doesn’t know when she first realized she was gay. Perhaps the year after her father left. She remembers their swimming teacher dividing them into As and Bs. The Bs left on the side, while the As were sent into the pool. She can still picture Fern jumping in, then reemerging. Head back, treading water. Fern had beamed up at her, a semi-circle of smooth black hair fanning out on the surface. And Maia’s stomach had flipped, her chest expanding with something that felt glorious and surprising. Like a balloon being blown up. She’d had to look away. Had known, even then, that Fern loved her, ...more
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But then Gordon says he’s been reading up on something similar that divides humans into sixteen personality types. “So, a few more, but both models sound like they have their roots in Jung’s work. To be honest, I was skeptical initially, but some of us took the Myers–Briggs test at the practice and it was surprisingly accurate in pinpointing our work styles,” he says, rotating the stem of his wine glass between thumb and forefinger. “It’s helpful when it comes to, you know, understanding how a colleague might see something—it makes conflict less personal.”
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She suspects that, to be a good parent, she must pack away the mothering part of herself into a box and gently close the lid on it.
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Mehri has always treated parenting like she’s cooking a big warming pan of something: a pinch of that, a pinch of this, she’s sure it will turn out fine in the end. Cora’s own approach has always felt more like baking a cake: carefully measuring out ingredients and trying not to ruin everything. She admires Mehri’s way.
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her husband is…where? He doesn’t tell Cora when he won’t be home. So this evening she makes dinner as usual and as six-thirty turns to seven, as the melted cheese topping on a feta and spinach bake starts to resolidify, she waits. Waits for his key in the lock, waits to see what his mood will be. Her mind pitter-patters around the idea that, this time, he might be dead.
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At eight o’clock, she covers the untouched dish in foil and puts it in the fridge. Then, she makes herself some bread and butter and eats it standing, prepared to put it in the bin if needed. Next year, he’s due to retire. She tries to imagine what her life will be like then and tells herself perhaps things might change when he’s no longer a doctor. After she’d agreed to come back last time, she’d believed it was on different terms, only later realizing it was not what she’d expected. At first, he’d been kind and gentle, praising her cooking, talking with her
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She turns back to Gordon, sensing his eyes on her, waiting for an answer. “I don’t know if consumed is the right word. Manipulated, though. You were rewarded for being awful to Mum, before you’d had a chance to…I don’t know, form your own conscience, I guess.”
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“So it screwed with you. He didn’t care about you becoming your own person, he just wanted to mold you into something that could hurt Mum.” Gordon’s head drops and they’re both silent now.
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Her mother has left four times now. The first and the second time, Maia had thought it was permanent. She has begun to count off these attempts, seeing their only purpose as bringing them one step closer to seven. Seven is the magic number. A talisman. It is the average number of times a woman will attempt to leave an abusive partner before she’s finally successful.
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But it’s an average. There will be outliers. There will be some who never manage it or who run out of life trying. And Maia knows how unscientific, how irrational, her thinking is when it comes to her family.
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“You won’t, er, mention this to Dad, will you?” “Mention what?” he says, and she can tell he’s not really hearing her. “About me and Kate, and—” “She’d prefer it if you didn’t tell your father she’s gay,” Kate says flatly. “Oh, right. Yeah, not a word.”
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“Did you know about the dream he used to have?” “I don’t think so—what dream?” “About you. He’d had it ever since he left home.” “Oh,” Maia says, and Lily can tell this is something she hasn’t heard before. Lily pictures Maia in her familiar living room, puffy-eyed, just wanting something. And surely, she can give her this? So she takes a breath. “In the dream, he was dying—” “I’m sorry—I’m not sure I can do this right now. I thought it was going to be something nice.” “I know it sounds bad, but really, Bees, I think you’ll want to hear. I think it might help.”
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In a race—like on sports day. He was winning but didn’t want to be. And he’d have this dread. Of getting to the finish line, knowing there’d be this white ribbon across it, and that when it broke across his chest, that would be it. But then you’d appear in the crowd. He said he always felt so happy and relieved you’d come. He’d run backward to try to stay level with you, but then, no matter how hard he fought it, he’d be pulled toward the ribbon anyway. But he wasn’t scared anymore.
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He said that was how it had always been for him: that you were always there, always making him feel safe and loved.” “Oh,” Maia says, in a small and wavery voice. Lily sits listening to her breathe. “Thank you,” she says eventually.
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Lily doesn’t know why she keeps Bear’s phone charged on his bedside table. Perhaps for the occasional texts or emails that arrive from someone who doesn’t know and the brief moment that allows her to imagine, in another life, if things had gone differently, he might be here to read it with his own eyes, to tap out a reply with his own fingers. But one day it rings, an unexpected noise that makes Lily and Pearl look up from their jigsaw and pause.
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Pearl dives onto the bed as Lily taps the green button to answer. There is a man on the other end. Can he speak to Bear? A moment of silence, shock. An awkwardness in his recovery. Oh, he’s so sorry. So sorry to hear that. He’s calling about the electric car her husband ordered last year. She didn’t know? The pandemic has affected production, but it’s finally ready for delivery. Already paid for in full.
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And she’d carried on, unaware. Of him, and this special thing. Unaware, too, of what it is to have that person in your life, that person who will plan surprises, who will try to fix wings to your back. Pearl, who has been listening in, her temple resting against Lily’s, says, “Ask what color it is, Mama!” The man hears. “Black,” he says. Just what Lily would have chosen herself.
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“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” Maia smiles, thinking of her little brother. Remembering how she’s always been in the shadow of his exuberance, his ability to make things special, but how that’s been her privilege. And now look at what he’s left them. Beautiful, capable Pearl.
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Bear had said they should think about how their own names would fit with this new person who would complete them. “Of course! Animal, vegetable, and mineral,” he’d said, delighted. “Her name should be a mineral.” Lily had brought up a list on her phone. Jade, Ruby, Opal, Emerald, Crystal; reading out the names until…Pearl. “Pearl,” Bear had repeated, trying it out for himself.
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And she had Gordon—the child she’d struggled to bond with, the young man she’d once found so unknowable—to thank for this liberation. When he’d first moved back home, after the car accident, he’d kept his distance in the house, as though relearning his place within it. But she remembers the night things changed. He’d come in from meeting Maia for dinner. Cora had been in the kitchen, folding clothes still warm from the dryer. She’d heard him at the front door, kicking off his shoes, hanging up his coat. One foot on the stairs, two. But then he’d appeared in the kitchen doorway, his hair wet ...more
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“Oh, yes. Yes, I do,” she said, smoothing the creases from a shirt. “I think she misses you, too,” he said. “Did you know she’s taking a sabbatical soon? A month in Australia with a friend.” She’d let the clothing drop. Because, no, she had no idea; she knew none of the details of her daughter’s life. A rush of questions hovered at her lips, but then his father appeared beside him, and she returned to her folding.
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I’ve been stuck here with only your mother’s burned offerings.” And her son—her strange and inscrutable son—had replied, “Do you know, you always say that, but I can’t actually remember Mum ever burning a meal.”
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And then it is there, halfway around the left-hand wall. Saturn Devouring His Son. He stands. Looking. Listening. The audio explains how contemporary art movements—even literature and cinema—have roots in this work, created in isolation, without self-censure. It goes on to discuss how the mythological god—Saturn—can be seen as the personification of feelings such as the fear of losing one’s power; that he is said to have consumed his children out of a terror of being overthrown. And then, almost as an afterthought, the narrator says that one of Saturn’s sons—Jupiter—escaped. That Jupiter’s ...more
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He’s not sure why the painting resonates so much, or why he’s so willing to draw parallels with his own life. But he feels relief in discovering the more recent part of his story—that freedom, for him, for his mum—was hidden in it all along.
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The pain in his chest had been sudden when it came, but he recognized it instantly, like a familiar face in a crowd. Its markers etched in his mind, despite the years since medical school. A sensation not unlike heartburn. Pain spreading out to his neck and jaw. A feeling of impending doom. Now, as he lies on his kitchen floor, spilled coffee seeping into his sleeve, he bears the pain, holding steady, ready to observe the symptoms that will usher him toward the end. But then comes the flash of Cora’s face.
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He tries to summon his patients, the people he’d once helped, though can conjure them only fleetingly before it’s Cora’s bruised face again. His daughter not meeting his eye. The wails of his infant son. And this is the truth of it. The people he was meant to love, he has only hurt. He cries out then, a guttural sound. Because it’s so clear. He had one life. And he could have spent it differently.
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There is a young man. Just starting out, in his first year as a qualified GP. He listens as a salesman talks up a gleaming new car with a pop-up sunroof, cassette-tape stereo, ABS. But before he can explain the anti-skid system, something causes them to look up. That’s when the young man catches sight of a soft-top two-seater in the corner of the forecourt. That’s for sale? he asks, already walking over, taking in the character and refinement of the older, classic design. Six months later, in heavy rain, its brakes fail. The young man’s father is performing surgery in the same hospital when, ...more
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There is a boy. Ten years old. He glides along hospital corridors at his father’s side, seeing the way people defer to him, the way his colleagues appear anxious not to drain the precious resource of his time. Later, when he’s dispatched to the canteen, he imagines himself bathed in his father’s glow, as though he, too, might one day be a surgeon, might command that same respect. Until, coming up behind two white coats, he overhears their conversation. Sees the man he’s always revered through someone else’s eyes. He retreats to a toilet cubicle, locks himself inside, burning with shame. And ...more
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When the registrar looks up and asks what the woman would like to call her child, she hesitates. Then finds herself saying her late father’s name, Hugh. She doesn’t know where the idea comes from. She hadn’t thought of it before. But the moment the word is out of her mouth, it feels right.