Chapter 23: Her Name

I went out onto the porch alone, and shut the screen door softly behind me.

Anthony was still standing at the bottom step with his bag on his shoulder.

He had not knocked. He had been waiting for me to come out, or to not.

"I wasn't invited," he said.

"My mother set a plate for you."

"I know. I saw it through the window." He set the bag on the step. "I came anyway. I didn't wait to be asked, this time."

I came down two steps so we were level.

The light over the harbor had gone orange. Behind me in the kitchen someone was running water and someone else was humming the wrong tune on purpose.

"I've read your letter four times," I said. "I told you I would read it again after the surgery."

"And?"

"I forgive the bus station."

His eyes closed.

"I don't forgive the year and a half," I said. "You let me pay you, and you let me tell you how much I missed you, and you drank your tea."

"I did."

"You were allowed to say my name."

"I know." His voice was very low. "What should I call you?"

It was the question I had not let anyone ask in seven years.

"June is the name I built," I said. "Tessa is the one they took. Tess is what my mother says when she means it."

"Which do I get?"

"All three," I said. "I want to hear what it sounds like when you say them in a row."

He said it with his hand at the side of my face.

"Tessa June," he said. "Tess."

I took his collar in my fist and kissed him.

There was a bait shop at the bottom of Gull Street, and above it a room with a slanted ceiling and one window over the water.

My mother had rented it for seven years. The lease ran to the end of the month, and I had the key in my pocket.

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