The next day, Kate knocked on Lee’s dorm door across the hall from hers. It was only then that she realized how Lee Sato had pretty much always lived across from her. Did that mean anything?
“Jo, Lee? Either of you guys home?”
From the other side she heard Jo call out, “Kate?”
Lee opened the door. “Oh. You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
“A ghost, huh? Maybe. I’m not ruining anything, am I?”
“Yes.” He was kidding. “You alright?”
Jo answered cheerfully behind them, “We’re watching a Bigfoot documentary. Come sit.”
Kate took two small steps into the couple’s room. “Sorry. I didn’t know who else I should talk to about, um, what I came here to talk about, I guess. Are you sure I’m not bothering you guys?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jo answered, “sit already.”
“On the couch, next to Jo,” Lee told her.
“But where will you sit?” Kate asked. “I don’t want to take your spot. I can just sit on the floor.”
Lee chuckled, “You do see the chair I’m holding, right?”
“You’re not taking anyone’s spot, relax,” Jo insisted. “What’s up?”
Kate finally took her seat, curled her limbs inward, and began: “My Aunt Vivian called me last night. You know how some parents repurpose their kid’s bedroom when they move out? Like, turn it into a storage or sewing room, or whatever? Well, my Mom did a little more than that. She changed our family name.”
The drive to RBU campus was a two and a half hour-long therapy session for Kate, Jo, and Lee, but it only scratched the surface. Kate told the couple most of what happened in Feverfew the previous summer, but stayed close to the facts: who Dad simultaneously is and isn’t; Aunt is Mom, Mom is Aunt. Kate didn’t even get to the Tale of Two Grandmas. But many of those painful details from her summer away danced defiantly against the otherwise still, airless void of her mind. As soon as memories resurfaced, Kate pushed them down with fearful quickness. Her strategy was working so far: university life offered enough daily distractions to keep going. But Kate knew that sinister doubt of hers remained. Looming. Waiting.
Kate continued, “Jo, you remember the huge fight I had with my Mom, right? Well, um, there’s a bit more I didn’t tell you.”
She nodded. “The fight. I’m a little offended you’d think I’d forget.”
“I can leave if you want me to,” Lee offered in a low voice. “If you just wanted to speak with Jo about this, I can go wander for a bit.”
“No, Lee, please stay,” Kate assured, albeit quietly through a mumble. She was only stalling to assess how much they knew, trying to remember and separate what she told the couple in the turbulent transition to campus. “So, as you know, the fight was moreorless about what I learned in Feverfew. Mom freaked. She told me everything I said was wrong, but I guess she must’ve listened to me somewhat because now we’re the Rowe family.”
Jo interjected, “Whoa, back up. Rowe? Why?”
“That’s part of what I didn’t tell you. Rowe was my grandfather Will’s original last name. He grew up on a farm just outside of Feverfew when he met my grandmother Lila, also from Feverfew, while she was in university. They got married and changed their name to Rose when they moved to Whibley.”
Lee asked, “Sorry if this is a dumb question, but why ‘Rose’? It’s so similar to Rowe already, it even kinda sounds the same.”
“It’s pretty?” Jo guessed.
Kate answered, “No clue, honestly. But when Aunt Vivian told me about the change back to Rowe, she also mentioned that apparently Grandma Lila had this motto: ‘If you don’t like something, change it.’ It’s what inspired my Aunt to change her name to Vivian in the first place.”
Again, Jo felt the need to clarify: “Because Vivian’s name is actually Catherine, like yours, right? You were named after her, because she’s bio mom?”
The question of who Kate’s so-called real mother was remained in heavy, torturous debate inside the child caught in the middle. It burned each time she heard herself call Kathy “Mom” and Vivian “Aunt,” but that wasn’t the reason Kate knocked on her friends’ door today. For now, it was just easier sticking to naming conventions the guys were already familiar with to dodge a much larger, disastrous mess within her that Kate couldn’t explain even if she wanted to. Instead, she sought comfort in vague oversimplification:
“Pretty much. So, now I have to decide for myself what name I want to live with: Rowe, my grandfather’s side, the real name; or Rose, my grandmother’s side, the fake name. Aunt Vivian is staying with Rose, and Mom changed to Rowe, which makes me the swing vote. Ugh, why did I have to be born?”
“Catherine?” Lee laughed with an eye roll. “That just sounds so wrong. You’ve always been Kate to me.”
Jo was excited to point out, “Hey, that’s true! Since ‘Kate’ is more your name, why not pick out your own last name too? Like, what about taking your Dad’s name?”
“Murphy?” Kate mocked. She shrunk down further into the corner of the small loveseat when she muttered, “I don’t think mister famous author Allan Murphy would really like me doing that. He wasn’t exactly happy to find out I existed. By the end of the summer, he—asked for a paternity test, like I was some scam. So, I told him I would never ask anything of him ever. We haven’t spoken since.”
Jo kept trying, determined to find a solution hiding in plain sight. “Okay then, let’s see—oh! What was your grandmother’s maiden name? I mean before she made up ‘Rose.’”
“Roberts, I think. So, I’d be Kate Roberts?” She frowned. The name Grandma Lila went to great lengths to ditch? Why would I want something she didn’t? She died before I was even born, I don’t know why she didn’t want it. Maybe she was a serial killer trying to start over? No, that’d be actually cool. Knowing our dumb family, she probably just wanted to cut and run from her own idiot mother too.
Jo pulled back, her wince agreed Roberts wasn’t much better. It wasn’t a bad name itself, but neither of these new last name options seemed to fit Kate. Jo began to realize there was no obvious solution after all despite her cheerful efforts. “Oh, um—hmm.”
Lee was worrying the same thing and agreed, “Rose is prettier. Maybe that’s all there is to it? Like, Occam’s Razor? Or, uh, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it? Not sure which exactly, but something along those lines. I mean, do you even want to change your name, Kate?”
“Lee has a good point. Forget about your Aunt, Mom, Dad, grandparents, or anyone else for a second. What do you want?”
Just like it was easier to say Mom was Mom even if she wasn’t really, it was also easier to agree than it was to answer honestly. “Rose is prettier. Thanks, guys.”
Lee asked, “That it? You good? I’m not rushing you, just checking. Bigfoot isn’t going anywhere. Well, you know. Relative to the planet, I mean.”
Kate nodded, and shrugged a “Yeah.”
Jo suggested, “It’s a good documentary if you wanna stick around? It’s more focused on fanaticism than debating cryptid existence.” She rolled her eyes playfully. “Won’t stop Lee from believing, though.”
“Biggy is out there, don’t deny.”
“I’m good. But, um, thanks anyway.”
