We never call Jeremy anything but his first name. It’s a thing, I’ve noticed, when someone dies young. Like they haven’t lived into the legacy of their surname. Sofia might not think so, that it’s not what’s in your blood or on your birth certificate that matters, but she still cares which way the names go around the hyphen. It’s why you can go from Ernest, as you practice the rigid capital E over and over in bright crayon; to Cunners, on the second-grade football team; to Mr. Cunningham, speaking into the snake’s head of a courtroom microphone; to Ernest James Cunningham printed inside a
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