She had renamed herself “B.” after college. She thought that was the beginning of the problem: she’d never felt like a Beverly, never known what a Beverly should want to do. The singsong syllables and the lift at the end like a promise made without her agreement, disorienting her. So she’d erased it. People heard it as “Bea,” and that was fine with her. As long as she could think of herself as B., something opened up, went blank in a way she could tolerate.
For a time.