The Only Woman in the Room

by Marie Benedict

I tried on my new name. “Lamarr,” I whispered to myself. To me, it sounded like the words la mer—French for “the sea.” Standing as I was on the deck of a vast ship, sailing across the endless ocean waters, I found the name auspicious, even a good portend. From the sea, my new history would be born.

Only then did I realize that in accepting a second history, I could never really leave the first history behind. My past life would seep into my new world like water through cracks in a dam that had never been properly shored—until I faced my original history square on.

To the people surrounding me, those forces were faceless and speechless. But I had stared the leaders of our enemies in the eyes and turned my ear to their voices, and I knew the terror they meant to wreak upon our world.

I’d midwifed myself through multiple rebirths, donning a fresh persona with every new iteration, only to return to my original veneer again and again.