Anthroponymy

 
The first name appeared in my coffee.
 
Every Tuesday, I met Albie at the coffee shop a block from his apartment. I placed my standard order. As always, Albie mocked me for not taking my coffee black. When my latte came, I didn’t immediately notice something was wrong. My mug was balanced on a mismatched saucer that wobbled as I walked, so I had to be extra careful not to spill it as we found a quiet table by the window. Only once Albie had settled himself into his own chair did I look down. There was a familiar name in the foam. Quinn.
 
At first, I couldn’t believe it. I rotated the cup to make sure it wasn’t an illusion. The name was small. So small. But there it was. And still there when I looked again. I had to be imagining things. But no. Quinn.
 
Albie was saying something about a New Yorker article he’d read, but I hadn’t heard a word. “Do you see that?” I asked, interrupting his monologue.
 
“See what?” Albie’s face had a tendency to contract when he was confused, his lips drawing over his teeth, his eyes receding, as if his entire body was clenched in a death spasm. “The name. On top of the coffee there.”
 
“The name?”
 
“Yes, the name, right there.” I pointed, moving my fingers from left to right, mirroring the direction of the letters.
 
“I just see the shapes they always put there. I think they call that a rosette. Pretty impressive they can do that with milk.”
 
“No, there’s a name. Quinn. Q. U. I. N. N.” I advanced my finger from one letter to the next, pausing after each as if I were striking a piano. For some reason I didn’t fully understand, I needed Albie to see the name just as I did.
 
But he didn’t. “Sorry. Maybe this is one of those Jesus-in-your-toast scenarios. I really don’t see anything,” he said.
 
I leaned back in my chair, feeling defeated and suddenly tired, but unable to take my eyes off the mug. Just then, a couple walking past bumped our table. A small part of my latte had spilled and pooled in the saucer. I picked up the cup and rotated it, but it was no use. The name was gone.
 
When I glanced up, Albie was staring at me. “You okay?” he asked.
 
“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine?” I could hear myself stammering, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it, and even if I was, Albie wasn’t the person I’d talk to. He wouldn’t understand. He was one of those people who got whatever they wanted without ever trying. I wasn’t. He didn’t have a real job because he didn’t have to. He and his pretty wife and their two pretty kids lived in a huge house paid for by his trust fund, and he made movies on the side that no one watched to keep himself busy. I glanced back down at the cup and then took a sip. It tasted like it always did.
 
An hour later, when Albie said he had to get to his office, he asked once more if everything was OK. 
 
“I’m fine. Really,” I said.
 
“Nothing’s happened? Everything’s good at home?”
 
“Yeah. Nothing changed that isn’t too small to mention.”
 
The rest of the day, I felt slightly off, as if I’d spun around one too many times and couldn’t quite shake off the residual dizziness. I kept thinking of the name, how it had seemed so real, even if Albie couldn’t see it. But as nothing else unusual occurred, I went on with my life. I drove to work. I ate a salad for lunch. I drove home.
 
Pulling into the apartment garage, I saw my wife Winnie’s car in its designated spot. I could tell it hadn’t moved, as there was a gum wrapper behind her back tire that had also been there that morning. It looked so tiny beneath the wheel, so insignificant.
 
Her job was demanding, and she typically worked much later than I did each night. Her car being there meant she hadn’t gone to work that day, which meant she now hadn’t gone in a week.
 
I sat for a moment, thinking through the implications. I needed some air. Exiting the garage, I started to walk, unsure of where I was headed. I passed the coffee shop where I’d met Albie and kept going. Eventually, without intending to, I found myself in front of the bar where I typically watched football on Sundays. Pausing only briefly, I went inside.
 
Fortunately, no one bothered to talk to me once I sat down. I ordered one beer, then another. After five, I needed the bathroom. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so much to drink. 
 
My legs were a little shaky as I stood in front of the urinal. There was one of those flies in the porcelain. They were so puny. I could never tell whether they were real or fake.
 
I needed to go home.
 
As I walked back to the apartment, I could tell I’d had too much to drink because I kept stumbling. The third time I tripped, I went down, hard and fast. I couldn’t get my hands out in front of me in time, and my face slammed into the pavement. Dazed, I got myself upright and tried to get my bearings. Cursing my stupidity, I noticed that my nose was bleeding, leaving red blots on the sidewalk. In the blood were two more names.
 
Lydia.
 
Rome.
 
Despite the pain in my head, I rose to my feet and wobbled backward, as if I’d been punched, nearly colliding with another guy who’d walked up after seeing me fall.
 
“You OK?” the man asked, putting a hand on my shoulder, trying to steady me.
 
I heard him, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the names. This was no longer a coincidence. They were following me. They wouldn’t leave me alone, even though I’d done nothing, even though it had all been out of our control. I blinked repeatedly, as if by doing so, I could erase the names. But they remained, taunting me.
 
How had the name Rome even come to be crossed out?
 
“Are you alright?” the man asked again, as if he believed there was no way I could be.
 
I might have nodded, though I was unsure. “You want me to call you a cab? I think you need to go home,” he said.
 
“Do you see that?” I said, pointing at the names. “Do you see those names?”
 
But he wouldn’t look at the blood. Just like I hadn’t the week before, when Winnie needed me, when she’d pleaded for me to come into the bathroom, but I’d stayed outside the door and merely asked if there was anything I could do. 
 
“Did you hear me?” the man asked. “Do you know how to get home?”
 
“But can you just tell me if you see those names?” I repeated, gesturing at the blood, feeling the same burgeoning terror I’d felt with Albie earlier that day. Why was I the only one who could see them?
 
The man pulled out his cell phone. “Don’t move. I think you might need to go to the emergency room.”
 
The threat of going to the hospital shook me out of my stupor. I couldn’t go back. Not after what happened there last time, when the doctor extinguished our magical thinking that what had happened was no cause for concern and part of the process, and not a sign of the end of it.
 
I ran.
 
When I got to our block, I was out of breath. I also wasn’t ready to go inside yet, even though I had to. Because I knew what would happen once I did. It would be the same. We’d be the same. Just as we had been yesterday and the day before that. Nothing had changed. Nothing would change.
 
It began to rain. I couldn’t stay outside the rest of the night.
 
Winnie was sitting at the kitchen table when I walked in, as I’d known she would be, staring at the TV, though it wasn’t on. There was an open bottle of wine on the table, and her glass was a quarter full. She didn’t speak as I poured myself some water.
 
I wanted to say something, but there was nothing to say. I finished the water, refilled the glass again, and started to walk toward the bedroom, but she interrupted me.
 
“We have to talk. At some point,” she said.
 
“Sure,” I said. “Sure. You’re right. We do.”
 
“How about now?”
 
“Now isn’t good. I’m tired.”
 
“Then when?”
 
“Tomorrow.”
 
“You said that yesterday.”
 
“We’ll talk tomorrow. Promise.”
 
It still wasn’t a time for speaking. She hadn’t looked at me, so she hadn’t seen the blood on my face and my shirt and the swelling beneath my eyes. I rinsed off in the shower and took an Advil and some sleeping pills. I fell asleep soon after and was dimly aware of her coming to bed at some point in the night, though I didn’t know exactly when.
 

 *

 
The next morning, she was on the couch when I left for work, providing an answer to the question I left unasked about whether she was going to the office that day. I’d offered to make her breakfast, but she didn’t respond.
 
Ensconced in my cubicle, I tried to hide my face from my colleagues. I didn’t want to answer any of their questions. How could I explain any of it? I hadn’t told any of them about the loss, and I wasn’t about to start. I took more Advil to help with the bruising and to try to ease the pain behind my eyes.
 
A client had an emergency, so fortunately, I became immersed in solving a crisis I knew wouldn’t need remembering in three months. It was nice to have a distraction.
 
During my drive in to work, I’d tried to assess the likelihood of whether or not I’d actually seen the names the day before. Rationally, the only thing that made sense was that I hadn’t. Why would a barista put any name at all, let alone that specific one, on a latte?
 
Yet, there was no doubt in my mind that the name had been in the foam. Just as I was certain I’d seen the two names in the blood. As if the names were forcing me to remember because I was trying to forget.
 
Late that afternoon, I was asked to analyze a new program from another one of the firm’s clients. I began to read the report, but my mind was elsewhere. I was skimming over the words, absorbing nothing, until I came to a blank page. The printer had clearly run out of ink, and no one had noticed before giving me the report. I sent the last fifteen pages of the report to the printer, but when I went into the copy room, they hadn’t printed. Instead, on the floor I saw a broken cartridge, its ink leaking onto the generic corporate laminate. The black liquid had formed five letters:
 
Avery.
 
It couldn’t be. That was the name I’d most wanted, but I clearly hadn’t wanted it bad enough, because there was nothing to name anymore. I knew why Avery was following me now. Because I hadn’t wanted a child nearly as much as I told myself I did. I’d been lying to myself. And to her. Convincing both of us that this was what I wanted most in the world, when in reality I knew I wasn’t ready, knew I couldn’t handle it, and the universe had called my bluff. I was the reason we didn’t have Avery or Quinn or Lydia.
 
I realized I had picked up some printer paper on the way into the room. Suddenly, I was able to make out the minuscule fibers in each sheet. They floated before my eyes. I dropped it, the paper no longer willing to touch it. It floated down and began to soak up the ink. Nausea rose in my throat, and I felt hot, as if I were under the glare of surgical lamps. I rushed from the office, desperate for fresh air.
 
Outside, in the endless expanse of the office’s parking lot, I tried to steady my breathing. I stared at the cars and thought of all the miniature pieces they were made of that allowed them to function as they did. The more I thought about it, the more I felt amazed that those pieces, the cars, any of it could exist. It all seemed so precarious that such delicate things held together, when the littlest thing could make them fall apart.
 
I knew I had to go back. But I couldn’t imagine examining the report again. It was just a name. Things had to have names. I’d been hallucinating, my guilt making me see things that didn’t exist. There was no other reasonable conclusion.
 
After a few minutes, I was able to return to my desk. Leo came by shortly after I sat down.
 
“You okay?” Leo asked. “You bolted out of here pretty quick.” He took in my broken face. “You look … not well.”
 
“I fell. I’m fine. Fine. Really,” I said. “I just don’t want to talk about it right now,” I added in response to Leo’s skeptical glance.
 
On the drive home that night, clouds behind a billboard formed four letters: Skye. My hands shook on the wheel.
 
When I entered our apartment, she was once again seated in the kitchen, the scene a replica of the previous night except for a piece of paper in the center of the table. I glanced from across the room, but couldn’t take a step. I didn’t need to go any closer to know what was on the sheet, as I could make out her slight, precise letters from where I stood.
 
The list.
 
Quinn: Because you mixed up the name of the park where we first met.
 
Olivier: A family name.
 
Wyatt: Too much alliteration.
 
Lydia: A possibility, though I once had a friend with the same name.
 
Rome: Our first trip together, but impossible after “Succession.”
 
Avery: No good reason —I just like it.
 
Skye: Where you proposed.
 
Sebastian: Where we honeymooned.
 
Virginia: Where we both grew up.
 
“Are you ready?” she asked.
 
I wasn’t. And how could I ever be? Once we began to talk, it would be impossible to acknowledge that it was all over because of me.
 
She had to know I was to blame. How could she not?
 
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
 
I waited for her to ask about tomorrow, but she never did. Without meeting her eyes, I went to the bedroom and turned on the TV. I heard her open the fridge and the clink of a wine glass before I drifted off to sleep.
 

*

 
On Friday, Olivier was the answer to a clue in the unfinished crossword she left on the counter. Saturday, the featured photo on my phone was an image from our road trip through the South, when we’d stopped in front of the “Virginia is for Lovers” sign. Sunday, I swore I heard someone whispering Sebastian in the static of an otherwise silent voicemail.
 
It couldn’t all be a coincidence.
 
From there, the names multiplied. They were everywhere. Stalking me. On the spaghetti package in the pantry, the jacket cover of the long-abandoned book on my bedside table, the shampoo residue at the bottom of our shower, the stars in the night sky. The names wouldn’t leave me alone, clinging like a shadow, following wherever I went. And I deserved it all.
 
I couldn’t concentrate on my work. I began to write the names down, reading them over and over to myself at my desk. The more I said them, the more the way they sounded began to change, some no longer seeming like names at all. Names that had been crossed off suddenly held new potential, while previous finalists no longer seemed to merit consideration.  
 
I had to understand where the names came from. Ignoring my deadlines, I learned that onomastics is the study of all names, but anthroponymy is a subfield that focuses solely on personal names. I learned that some names originated from professions (Smith, Baker), while others evolved simply as descriptors of a person’s physical characteristics (Brown, White). I learned that some came from saints I’d never heard of (Agnes), while others were linked to the famous who’d died young (Dean). I learned that Chloe came from the Greek for blooming, Claire from the French for bright or clear, Owen from the Welsh, meaning noble-born.
 
The names needed order. It was a small act, but necessary. I began to categorize them, first based on the likelihood of adoption, then the etymology, then the number of syllables, then the connection to our lives. But my classifications made it no more apparent which name was the right one. I stared at the names, hoping that the answer would become obvious. But it never did.
 
Leo told me I couldn’t miss any more meetings, that if something was wrong or going on in my life, they would be understanding, but I needed to say something because my current performance was unacceptable.
 
I nodded. I understood. I knew Leo was right.
 
But I kept working on the list of names.
 
Sometimes, I’d leave the names for a minute, to get a soda, to respond to an email, and when I returned, I’d write down new names we’d never considered, going letter by letter in the alphabet, trying to remember each name that started with A or M or T, as if I might be able to write down every name every child had ever received. Maybe if I did that, I’d know what their name had been.
 
That night, when I came home, she wasn’t in the kitchen. But her list was.
 
The names had once brought me joy of a particular type, sturdy but filled with possibility, unlike any I’d ever experienced, as if they bequeathed an almost decadent happiness created solely for us, containing everything we’d ever wanted in a few letters.
 
That hadn’t been real, though. There was nothing sturdy about them. The names were merely words, words that signified something too small to mention that ultimately stayed that way, that never got the chance to become big. The names took up only a little space on the paper, but so much more in our lives, and we’d wanted them to take up even more. The names made us get ahead of ourselves, and then we were punished for doing so. The names were for something so wanted, so needed, so loved, but ultimately not so real.
 
“I finally told my mother,” she said, standing at the kitchen door. I noticed the stacks of unwashed dishes in the sink and how dirty the floor had gotten in the past week. “She was in tears. But she said we should keep trying.”
 
I nodded. “I don’t know if she’s right.”
 
“Why?”
 
“I’m not fit to be a father. We’re here because of me.”
 
I glanced up, and it was the first time I’d seen her eyes since it happened. My words had clearly surprised her. I’d assumed she’d been blaming me too, but she looked surprised.
 
“This is no one’s fault. Not yours. Not mine.”
 
“That day,” I said, and instantly I was back there again, for the first time since it happened. “That day, I was the one who suggested we go for a run. You didn’t want to. But I convinced you to. If we hadn’t gone for the run, this wouldn’t have happened. We’d still be picking names.”
 
At that, she began to cry. She walked towards me until her face was just inches from mine. 
 
“That’s not true. Remember how the doctor told us this was just a sign the pregnancy could never have been viable, no matter what we did? It would never have survived. Whether we’d gone for a run or not.”
 
“But don’t you see it’s a sign?”
 
“A sign? Of what?”
 
“It’s a judgment. Think of all the horrible parents in the world, the parents who neglect, deprive, beat, debilitate their children. And yet, I have to be worse. Or else this wouldn’t have happened.”
 
She put her arms out and held me as if it were the first time, and the day no longer felt quite so anonymous. “You should have told me this is what you were thinking.”
 
“I couldn’t. There was nothing to say.”
 
“This happens to a lot of people.”
 
“Maybe. But no one I know.”
 
“It happened to Albie and Kristi.” My astonishment must have been evident. “I called them last week, after you had coffee. He said you hadn’t mentioned it. And then they told me they’d had two. One before each child. They hadn’t wanted to tell anyone else about it either.”
 
“I never would have guessed. They always seem so happy.”
 
“I think they are.”
 
“That feels impossible to me right now.”
 
She nodded. “We have no influence over any of this. I think that should be clear now. When I was pregnant, we didn’t want to talk about it because we didn’t want to jinx it, because we’re both so superstitious. But ultimately, it didn’t matter.”
 
I put my head on her shoulder, and she let me rest it there as I began to sob, and her shoulder became damp. But she didn’t move, a small kindness that meant so much.
 
Eventually, I was able to speak. “You know, I think there’s something wrong with me. I’ve been seeing the names everywhere,” I said
 
“So have I.”
 
I looked at her and understood.
 
She held out a piece of paper. It wasn’t a list. On it was a picture of a flower. “I had an idea,” she said. “They would have been born in August. The birth flower for the month is a poppy.”
 
The next morning, we had the flowers tattooed into our skin. The artist was talented and carefully outlined the poppies on our arms. They were so delicate, no pain at all. She asked if we wanted the flowers filled in, and we said no. The black outlines were enough.
 
The tattoos were not a name, nor were they what we’d wanted. They were just something small. A way to not forget.