Kelly Murashige: 'Any Other Name'

All contributors to the Serein Lark Review are interviewed for our blog.

You can read Murashige's interview here!

In this short story, Kelly Murashige tells a gratifying story of heritage and identity, with words rooted in reality that warm one's heart. It paints a relationship of connection and understanding. A family built on grief and meaning. A name. Whether you carry an inherited name, love it or hate it, or have chosen your own plucked from the sunrise, you will find yourself at home in Kelly Murashige's velvety melody, as I have.

She always thought “Sable” was the most beautiful name in the world. She wished it could be hers but got a stupid name instead.

Growing up, the girl gave her favorite name to every one of her dolls. Each tea party’s guest list was Sable all the way down. She told her parents she wanted to be called Sable too, but her mother said, “You have a name, love. It belonged to your grandmother.”

“If it belonged to her,” the girl said, “why do I have to have it?”

As she grew older, she found herself fascinated by everything she could not have: mansions, dogs, and horses. Birds and cats and little fish. The attention of girls too cool for her. The affection of boys who found her quiet and off-putting. Yet above all else, she believed it was her name that left her unhappy.

By the time she had grown up, she was “Sable” in her mind. She found a man who fell in love with her and called her Sable when she asked. When he proposed marriage, she decided to change her first name and her last.

“Phoebe from Friends did it,” she told her new fiancé. “I don’t see why I can’t too.”

Her fiancé, knowing better than to block her from her rabbit hole, disappeared into the next room so she could dive in alone.

She spent the next hour snuggled up in bed, researching name changes in the state. Upon learning she could pay an additional fee to run her name change notice in the paper, she began searching the archives to determine what this notice should say.

Then, on a whim, she typed in her grandmother’s name. Same first name. Same last name. How similar were they really?

Growing up, she had learned little about her grandmother. Her father had grieved his mother for the rest of his short life. Once he was gone, her mother refused to discuss either of them.

With one hand to her mouth, “Sable” read her grandmother’s obituary. Published three decades ago, it told a story of a woman put through hell. Born in Japan during the rise of industrialization, then dragged to America just before the Second World War, she married early and became a secretary at a newly formed State office. Her husband joined the military, leaving her with their young son. Months later, she was widowed and raised their child all alone.

The obituary finished with four lines that “Sable” could practically hear her father whispering like an elegy: A mother and a daughter. A good neighbor and a wife. She’s the reason I’m still here. She’s the one who gave me life.

“So?” the fiancé said, popping his head around the corner. “How’s it going?”

She lifted her head, her jaw clenched and her eyes teary. “I’m keeping my name.”

“Okay,” he said. He had long ago learned not to argue with her. “What about your last name? Do you want to keep that too?”

She shook her head. “No. Just the first name. It belonged to my grandmother.”

He paused. “You never told me that.”

“I was ashamed.”

Of what, she wasn’t sure.

“Can I read this out to you?” she asked, raising her laptop with one hand.

After studying her for a moment, he sat on the bed beside her. He listened to her talk, his fingers intertwined with hers.

“I feel so stupid,” she told him after reading him the obituary. “I never knew. No one told me. ‘Sable’ seems so empty compared to all of this.”

“Well,” he said, tilting his head, “I still kind of like ‘Sable.’”

She smiled. “If we ever have a daughter.”

“Or a dog.”

“Or a dog. That works too.”

The two grinned at each other. Then he kissed her on the cheek.

“I know it’s a little early, but about that potential daughter…”

She raised a brow. “What about her?”

He pulled her closer with one arm.

“I was thinking,” he began, “maybe we could try to make her now.”

She closed the lid of her laptop and set everything aside.

“Say my name,” she told him. “My real name this time.”

“Fumiko,” he whispered.

It was just so beautiful.

The End.