Chapter 97 97
POV Andrew
I understand that Kate is upset with me. I’m not an idiot. I know how to read a woman’s silence, I know how to recognize when a look no longer carries affection but exhaustion, and I know perfectly well that since the birth something in her has hardened when she looks at me. I even understand why she reproaches me for not being there, even if she doesn’t say it outright. What I won’t accept—what I simply cannot accept—is that she has left me out of naming my own son as if I were a passing guest in this house, as if my place here were negotiable, as if that boy didn’t carry my blood.
Caleb.
I still don’t know where the hell she pulled that name from. It doesn’t belong to her family, it doesn’t belong to mine, it has no history, no weight, no meaning. It’s a name chosen out of stubbornness, out of whim, or out of that feminine need to prove something right at the moment a man needs to assert himself. Because that’s what I see when I think about it. I don’t see tenderness or a special choice. I see a decision made without me. And that infuriates me.
I want my son to carry my name.
Not out of empty vanity, though I won’t deny there’s some pride in it. I want it because he’s my son. Because I don’t plan to have a line of children growing up around the house as if life were infinite and marriage a factory. Because if this is going to be my only child, then he will carry something of me from the very first document that names him.
Andrew Ellis. My name. My surname. My legacy. I’m sorry if that hurts Kate, but there are things that aren’t up for discussion. And for me, this is one of them.
That morning I got up very early. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s right to say I got up, because sleep was almost impossible. The baby woke up all night. A short cry, then another, then that tense silence that always makes you wait for the next outburst. Kate moved before I did, picked him up, calmed him, sat on the bed with that quiet resignation of mothers who seem to know how to do these things without preparation. I helped as much as I could, but I’m not her. I don’t have a body built to respond instantly or that silent patience that seems to come to her naturally when he fusses. Still, the night left me exhausted, nerves on edge, head full of thoughts that didn’t let me rest for a single moment.
When dawn came, I lay there for a few seconds staring at the ceiling, listening to the minimal sounds of the house. The baby was finally asleep. Kate too. There was a strange silence, the kind you don’t fully enjoy because you know it can break at any moment. I got up carefully, trying not to make noise, and left the room. I needed coffee, water, anything to clear my head a little.
That folder caught my eye.
It was on the living room table, poorly closed, with several papers sticking out. I recognized it immediately because it had the hospital logo. I approached without thinking too much. I wasn’t snooping; these were papers about my son, my family, my home. I opened it and started going through what was inside: medical instructions, check-ups, discharge data, a sheet with recommendations that Kate had surely read more carefully than I had. I turned one page, then another, until I understood something that made me freeze.
The child still wasn’t registered.
There was no official name in the documents. There were blank spaces where it should appear. A pending procedure. Something that still hadn’t been done.
I stared at that blank space for a long moment.
Then I smiled.
It wasn’t a big smile. It was smaller, more intimate, more satisfied. An opportunity. That’s what it was. An opportunity to correct something that shouldn’t have gone wrong in the first place. Kate had said Caleb, yes. She had gotten hard, stubborn, almost hostile about it. But one thing is what’s said in a bedroom and quite another what ends up written in an official registry. As long as the child wasn’t registered, the matter was still open. And I wasn’t going to waste that.
I moved quickly. I went to the bathroom, showered in a rush, and dressed in silence. I didn’t want to wake Kate to argue ahead of time. I also didn’t want to give her room to intervene, to cry, to turn something so simple into an endless emotional battle. Sometimes, in a house, one has to make a decision and carry it out before it becomes an unnecessary discussion.
I left.
The morning air cleared my head better than coffee ever could. I drove to where the procedure had to be done and, while I waited, I repeated to myself several times that I was doing the right thing. Not just for me. Also for the child. A son needs a name with weight, one that connects him to his father, that gives him place, belonging, direction. Andrew Ellis isn’t just a nice name. It’s a straight line. A heritage. A way of saying: here you are, here you belong, this is your place in the world.
I waited what I had to wait. The office already had several people when I arrived: tired couples, some grandmother meddling in matters that weren’t hers, officials with faces that looked like they had started the day before they wanted to. I sat down, took a number, and waited with the exact patience these places demand.
While I waited, I thought again about Kate and got irritated all over again.
Did she really expect me to just accept “Caleb” without more? A strange name, pulled from nowhere, chosen as if I had no opinion? No. That wasn’t going to happen. There are decisions that belong to both of us, yes, but there are others that a man has the right to mark. And if anyone was going to name that child, it would be his father.
When they finally called me, I carried out the procedure with a calm I didn’t entirely feel. I answered what I had to answer, handed over the papers, and when the moment came, I said the name with the certainty these things should be said with.
Andrew Ellis.
I repeated it once more when they asked me to, and seeing it written gave me a deep, quiet, almost physical satisfaction. That’s how it should be. That’s how it felt right. That’s how it made sense.
I left there with the documents in my hand and a feeling of restored order. As if I had straightened something that was crooked. As if, finally, a small part of all this chaos had been put in its place.
The drive back home felt much shorter than the way there. I thought about how Kate would react when she found out, and I didn’t fool myself. I know she’ll be angry. I know she’ll look at me as if I had betrayed something sacred. But I also know that, with time, she’ll accept it. Because once the name exists in the official world, once it’s written, sealed, and recognized, it stops being an emotional argument and becomes a fact. And I know how to live with facts.
When I walked into the house, the atmosphere had changed. It was no longer the still silence of dawn; there was movement. I heard water running in the bathroom. Kate was awake.
I went straight to the crib.
The baby was still asleep, small, still wrinkled in a way that isn’t beautiful to everyone, but that for me was starting to mean something. I looked at him for a moment without touching him. It was strange to think that such a tiny creature could move so many things inside a house, inside a marriage, inside a head.
I rested one hand on the edge of the crib and leaned slightly toward him.
“Andrew,” I whispered.
The name sounded good. Better than I had imagined.
Maybe too serious for such a small body. I smiled a little and lowered my voice even more.
“But I’ll call you Andy.”
That I liked. It was closer. More alive. More from a father to a son, and not from a form to a file. I stayed a few seconds longer looking at him, letting the name settle fully inside me. Andy. My son. My name made small, new, clean. The only simple part of this whole story.
Behind me the bathroom water was still running. Kate still didn’t know.
“We’ll tell your mommy at some point, don’t worry. But no one is going to change this. Your name. Andy.”