Mum says they named me
after their favourite song,
‘with a chorus of strings and soaring vocals’,
that’s how Mum describes it.
And that song, which they’d sing over and over, is
‘Tell Laura, I Love Her’.
Mum says she’d always cry whenever she heard it,
when Dad and her were . . .
you know, boyfriend and girlfriend . . .
in love . . .
before they got married.
Mum says when they came home from the doctor
after learning she was pregnant,
they agreed to call the child Laura
even if it was a boy!
Mum says,
she knew I’d be a girl
because of the name.
She calls it destiny.
Dad left home two years ago
and now whenever he phones from the city,
and I’m not home
he says to Mum,
‘Tell Laura, I love her.’
Only I don’t think he sings it into the phone.