FICTION

Surname Query — A Short Story

Alice’s mouth on her ears said to her mum, ‘’I like the virus!’’ with her sweet tone.

Celine posed with a puzzled face thinking what to say after Alice’s statement. Tilting her face to the left with a questioning frown, she said, “Because…?”

Alice was at the other end of the table, doing her online studies with her tablet. She said, “We both work from home!”

Celine smiled at her nine-year-old daughter, but then her phone rang. She had to answer. When she finished, Alice was drawing on her book. Celine, looking over Alice’s book, asked, “Who are you drawing?” Alice replied without raising her head, ‘Uncle Tom’ Tom was Celine’s brother, and Alice looked forward to his visits, his gifts, his games… “I don’t think he has that much beard,’ Celine commented. But Alice objected, ‘Yes, he has! You don’t play with him, I do!” Holding her smile, Celine was stepping back to her workplace at the other end of the table. Alice asked, “Mum, look!” What she showed was the uncle’s picture and his name underneath, ‘Tom Smith.’ Celine was back again, standing next to the table, looking over Alice’s work. “Oh,” said Celine, ‘’his surname is Black”. Alice’s face was sour, looking up her mother asked, “Why? Aren’t you sister and brother? Why are your surnames different?” Celine explained confidently, “Because when I got married to your father, I took his surname.” She intended to go back to her seat. Alice spoke with the expression of a new finding, her eyebrows hanging on the air, “When Uncle Tom gets married, is his surname going to change?” “No!” said Celine rotating her body to Alice, she was grinning, “Usually, men don’t take their wife’s surnames.” Alice asked astonished, “Why not?” Celine had to think, “When people get married… they establish a family… they have children…” She was stumbling. Finally, she pulled a chair and sat next to her daughter, “Look,’ she said, ‘I don’t know all about surnames, but they are inherited from a patriarchal society.” Alice interrupted Celine and asked, “What is patriarchal?” She couldn’t correctly pronounce the word. “It means managed by men mind!” Celine wasn’t satisfied with her own description. She pointed out Alice’s tablet to use it. “Let’s look up the meaning in the dictionary.” Then she read out loud, “it says ‘Ruled or controlled by men.’ So, in a patriarchal society, men make all the decisions.’ Alice said with a thoughtful face, “But, you make the decisions too.” “Because we don’t live in a patriarchal society,” Celine happily replied. “But your surname is patriarchal!” said Alice, looking at her mother with big eyes. Celine hadn’t thought too long when she took her husband’s surname and so she didn’t reply to her daughter at that moment. She had to think more about this, and she really had to be back to her desk to work. “Let’s think about this further and talk over this again later,” she said and went back to her seat. “This girl,” she thought when she turned her around to Alice, “challenges me, big time!” Thinking over their conversations, Celine decided to be honest and tell Alice the truth the next day. She was going to say that she hadn’t thought a lot about the surnames and its meaning very much because her love was so big for Alice’s father and she felt taking his surname was showing her love to him. When they first saw each other in the morning, before Celine could say anything, Alice said, “Mum, I know what to do. Every child should take both of their parents surnames, but a made-up one.” “How?” Celine asked, reaching the coffee plunger in the kitchen cabinet. “Well, your surname was ‘Black’ and father’s surname was ‘Smith’, so I made up my surname like ‘Blath.” Alice explained pedantically, “So, there is no injustice!” They laughed together, and it seemed the issue was resolved. However, Celine kept thinking over their conversations and telling herself, ‘’Even if we create some changes in our lives, it’s hard to get rid of all the impacts of the past.’’