Marked on school forms.
Sung on birthdays.
Our boys practiced it immediately.
“Clara Anna!”
They shouted it down the hallway so often that the baby startled awake twice.
I didn’t stop them.
Because there is a day coming years from now when my daughter will sit across from me and ask about the woman who gave birth to her.
She is going to want to know who Anna was.
She is going to ask whether Anna wanted her.
Whether she loved her.
Whether she was afraid.
And I’m not going to have to soften anything.
I won’t have to invent a kinder version of the story.
I will tell her exactly what happened.
That her mother was alone.
That she was dying.
That she was frightened.
That she had almost nothing left that she could control.
And she did not use her last clear thought to ask for comfort.
Or
