Page 54 of Scorched Hearts
“I love you too,” Elle responded before the door closed.
EPILOGUE
4 YEARS LATER
“Maybe Teresa?” Maya shouted toward the kitchen from where sounds of vacuuming reached her ears. The spring cleaning was in full bloom.
Elle’s head appeared next to the door frame. She furrowed her eyebrows. “Teresa? Like Mother Teresa? Are you joking?”
Maya laughed. “Don’t make fun of me. I thought it’d be cute.”
“And the nickname would be Tess? No, I don’t like it.” Having stated her opinion, Elle got back to vacuuming.
Ever since Maya had entered her third trimester, Elle had to take care of every chore around the house, and she did so with pleasure. Sometimes tired pleasure, but pleasure regardless. She made it her goal to have the house as clean as possible for spring. Spring and the end of Maya’s pregnancy, of course. We’ll have a little spring baby, she’d think, often getting excited over the prospect.
“Anna?” She heard from the living room.
“No! Too basic,” she shouted, shaking her head. None of the names felt right. None of them sounded well enough in her ears. The debate had been going on for weeks.
“In a second I’ll give up and leave you alone with it,” Maya threatened from her place in the living room. She was joking, but there was a note of genuine irritation in her voice.
Elle turned off the vacuum cleaner and walked out of the kitchen. She was ready to get it done, to choose the perfect name. It was March, and the sun would make everything easier, or so she believed. Nothing could be unbeatable during spring. Its lightness of being made everything equally light and sweet, fresh like the flowers decorating their windows.
“All right, let’s do it.” She sat next to Maya, automatically laying her hand gently on Maya’s bulging belly. Sometimes she’d feel legs furiously kicking, and she couldn’t contain her pride. “What are our top choices, hmm?”
Maya had waited for this moment the entire day. She felt that Elle didn’t understand how overwhelming it was to choose something that would become an integral part of their daughter’s life, arguably an integral part of their daughter.
“You didn’t approve of many I suggested,” she looked at Elle accusingly. “How about you think of some?” To soften the accusation, she laid a kiss on Elle’s cheek, giving her the piece of paper with noted down names.
“Hm…” Elle furrowed her eyebrows, scanning the list and thinking of potential additions.
She didn’t want to admit this to Maya, but the perspective of naming the baby filled her with a quiet kind of terror. Naming her meant putting the last piece together before birth, making it more real than anything before. With a name, she would finally become a person.
Going through the names often caused her to think of her ancestors, and of Maya’s ancestors, too, of everyone who’d come before them. The legacy they’d be passing on, something ancient and tender, alive. She tried remembering the names of her ancestors as far back as she could, straining her mind to reach the names of people separated from her by hundreds of years. At first, she thought it would be an honorable thing to name her daughter something traditional and tie her to Elle’s family history. But what about Maya’s ancestors, and why would they decide to weigh the baby down with the chain of the past?
“What are we looking for in the name?” She turned to look at Maya. “What do you want it to be like?”
“That’s a good question.” Maya nodded. “I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way. Let me think.” She took Elle’s hand while pausing to ponder the question. Their fingers interlaced, a little witness to their habitual intimacy. Noticing these habits never failed to make Maya smile. “I want her not to feel limited by the name, first of all. You know these names like Rose, or Daisy? They’re so beautiful, but I think they assume the girl to come to be sweet and feminine like the flowers. I want our daughter to feel free to express herself however she likes without her name constraining her in any way.”
Elle smiled. “That’s considerate of you. What else?”
“I don’t want it to have a silly nickname attached, like Tessy.” She laughed. “Though I still think Teresa is a lovely name. How about you? Do you have anything you’d like the name to be or avoid being?”
Maya looked so focused and so beautiful that Elle couldn’t find an answer in her head besides to lean in and kiss her. The fresh fragrance of her hair tickled Elle’s nose, and she couldn’t imagine a better afternoon than sitting on their own couch and considering what to name their soon to arrive daughter. Maya gently pulled away, shaking her head.
“Stop distracting us,” she reprimanded. “You’re too sweet. We need to get this done. We’ll still need to get used to the name.”
“Oh, I think we’ll have plenty of time for that.” Elle smiled. “How am I supposed to stay focused when my beautiful girlfriend is sitting right next to me, and her lips taste the best they ever have?”
Maya laughed. “Elle, you say that every time we kiss.”
“Every time you taste better.” Elle winked. “The names. All right. I’ve been thinking about tradition a lot, ever since you got pregnant. To what degree should we honor our ancestors, in what ways, and all that. About the identity of our daughter. I think the name ties into that.”
“So what, do you want to choose some name of one of our ancestors?” Maya asked.
“See, I was thinking about that. But then, I don’t think it would really fit who we are as a couple, would it? And who’s going to be more important to our daughter than her moms? So let’s choose something fresh that will reflect us as people.”
“Also, our ancestors were probably homophobic.” Maya laughed.