Karen leans back in her seat and pulls a piece of paper and a pencil to the spot in front of her. “The best part of being adopted is that you get to pick your very own name. Did you know that?”
I shake my head. I didn’t know people got to pick their own names.
“Before we pick your name, we need to know what names we can’t use. We can’t use the name you had before, and we can’t use nicknames. Do you have any nicknames? Anything your daddy calls you?”
I nod my head, but I don’t say it.
“What does he call you?”
I look down at my hands and clear my throat. “Princess,” I say quietly. “But I don’t like that nickname.”
She looks sad when I say that. “Well then, we will never call you Princess again, okay?”
I nod. I’m happy she doesn’t like that name, either.
“I want you to tell me some things that make you happy. Beautiful things and things you love. Maybe we can pick you a name from those.”
I don’t even need her to write them down, because there’s only one thing I feel that way about. “I love the sky,” I say, thinking about what Dean told me to remember forever.
“Sky,” she says, smiling. “I love that name. I think it’s perfect. Now lets think of one more name, because everyone needs two names. What else do you love?”
I close my eyes and try to think of something else, but I can’t. The sky is the only thing I love that’s beautiful and makes me happy when I think about it. I open my eyes back up and look at her. “What do you love, Karen?”
She smiles and puts her chin in her hand, resting her elbow on the table. “I love lots of things. I love pizza the most. Can we call you Sky Pizza?”
I giggle and shake my head. “That’s a silly name.”
“Okay, let me think,” she says. “What about teddy bears? Can we call you Teddy Bear Sky?”
I laugh and shake my head again.
She pulls her chin out of her hand and leans toward me. “Do you want to know what I really love?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“I love herbs. Herbs are healing plants and I love growing them to find ways to help people feel better. Someday I want to own my own herbal business. Maybe for good luck, we could pick out the name of an herb. There are hundreds of them and some of them are really pretty names.” She stands up and walks to the living room and grabs a book, then brings it back to the table. She opens it up and points to one of the pages. “What about thyme?” she says with a wink.
I laugh and shake my head.
“How about…calendula?”
I shake my head again. “I can’t even say that word.”
She crinkles up her nose. “Good point. I guess you need to be able to say your own name.” She looks down at the page again and reads a few more out loud, but I don’t like them. She turns the page one more time and says, “What about Linden? It’s more of a tree than an herb, but its leaves are shaped like a heart. Do you like hearts?”
I nod. “Linden,” I say. “I like that name.”
She smiles and closes the book, then leans down closer to me. “Well then, Linden Sky Davis it is. And just so you know, you now have the most beautiful name in the world. Let’s not think about your old names ever again, okay? Promise me from now on we’ll only think about your beautiful new name and your beautiful new life.”
“I promise,” I say. And I do promise. I don’t want to think about my old names or my old room or all the things that my daddy did to me when I was his princess. I love my new name. I love my new room where I don’t have to worry if the doorknob is going to turn.
I reach up and hug her and she hugs me back. It makes me smile, because it feels just like the way I thought it would feel every time I wished my mommy was alive to hug me.
I reach my hand up to my face and wipe away a tear. I’m not even sure why my tears are falling right now; the memory wasn’t really a sad one. I think it’s the fact that it’s one of the first moments I ever started to love Karen. Thinking about how much I love her makes me hurt because of what she did. It hurts because I feel like I don’t even know her. I feel like there’s a side to her that I never even knew existed.
That’s not what scares me the most, though. What scares me the most is that I’m afraid the only side of her I do know…doesn’t really exist at all.
“Can I ask you something?” Holder says, breaking the silence.