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Charlie
“I didn’t know you could leave the hospital without naming your baby,” Dante said.
“I didn’t either, but apparently, you can,” I said.
Indecisive parents like myself and Dante could take advantage of this loophole for several weeks before we’d be forced to make a decision. I never knew how hard it was to name a child.
I glanced over at our son boy in his blue bassinet. He watched his mobile slowly spin, waving his little fists and cooing. He was chubby and dark-haired and dark-eyed, the most perfect little creature I’d ever seen. Now, if only he had a name.
“Why aren’t babies just born with names?” I asked.
Dante glanced across the bed at me. “You want them to be labeled? Like meat at the deli?”
I swatted him with the baby book I held. For the past three nights since we brought our nameless son home, this had been our ritual. Look for names. Disagree on names. Go to sleep without a decision made.
Dante blocked me with his own book and leaned over to kiss my cheek. “I was asking around the office today for ideas. Somebody suggested that I flip through the pages of this book, put my finger on a name at random, and whatever you land on, that’s what the name is.”
“Some dude, right? A woman would never suggest such an idea,” I said.
“Well nothing else we’ve done has worked. Can’t hurt to try it,” Dante said.
I straightened up a little. Leaving things to fate after such a long struggle was a little appealing. After all, fate is what had brought me and Dante together in my opinion. There was no other explanation for the road we’d traveled that made sense. Why not? “Let’s try it!” I declared.
Dante gathered up all the pages with boy names and then let them flutter down in rapid succession. I jabbed out with my finger. Dante leaned over and squinted.
“Well?” I demanded, anticipation growing inside me. God how did I get talked into this. This is no way to name our kid. This man could talk me into anything, I realized. “Well, what’s his name?” I breathed.
“Page 166,” he reported, and laughed. “Catchy.”
I scowled at him, unable to hold the stark look before bursting into laughter too. “He’d be unique, for sure. And it’s catchier than Maynard. Or Ermengarde.”
“Let’s try it one more time,” Dante said.
I waited longer this time and then pointed when something told me the time was right. Dante glanced at the name I’d chosen. Blaze.
“Blaze?” I said slowly, tasting it, turning it over in my mouth. “Our own little Dante’s Inferno.”
Dante laughed and dropped the book. “I’m giving Harold a raise for suggesting this idea. Blaze. Blaze, do you like your name?” he said to our son, who was kicking his little legs as the mobile over his bassinet continued to spin.
Blaze cooed and smiled.
My heart leapt into my throat and I grabbed at Dante. “He smiled!”
“Blaze,” he said, softer than before. “Our own little Blaze.”
The baby was too young to smile with intent. I knew that. But it didn’t matter. He had smiled anyway, as if he was giving his thumbs up on his name.
And that was as good a reason as any to celebrate his name – and the beginning of our life as a family.