“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Asya. My name is Laurent.” Laurent smiled easily at me, revealing a cute gap in his teeth. He took a seat across from me at the family restaurant Gael chose for us all to meet.

I nodded my acknowledgement, offering a polite smile in return. I looked the man over. At a glance, he looked very little like I expected a nurse to look. He was conventionally handsome, with hair that he’d meticulously styled to appear messy. He dressed in casual clothes that were too nice to be called sloppy. His smile was radiant and genuine.

A year ago, I’d probably try to sleep with him. He looked like he’d be a confident and affectionate lover, who would hold me before we’d go to sleep; The sort of person who might provide a brief repose from my undying loneliness.

I couldn’t use Laurent that way if I wanted to, now. My gaze drifted onto the table. My body didn’t respond very well anymore to sexual desire, and I’ve given up on chasing those fleeting adventures I used to indulge in. They merely helped me ignore my emptiness. When the fun was over, it was still lying in wait for me, stronger than before. I lifted my eyes to study him again, and shaking those thoughts away, I wondered why Gael had chosen Laurent to care for me.

Digitalis pouted in the chair beside me, hiding her jealousy poorly as she glared at Laurent. On the drive here, she’d ranted about how she’d done so well to care for me. Like a child, she rambled about the unfairness. Even if I could speak, I would have stayed silent. There was no point in reminding her that her career would keep her away from me too much. It might have hurt her feelings if I had mentioned the many rules she broke, as well. For now, she sulked as she ate her fries, positioning her chair closer to mine so that Laurent would have to see her every time he looked my way. I closed my eyes, so that I wouldn’t be compelled to roll them.

Gael returned from his car with a stack of papers. He sets them down between Laurent and I and greets me, “How are you feeling, Asya?”

I smile, but there is nothing underneath it.

“We finally got your apartment at the studio furnished for your needs.” Gael had a proud excitement in his eyes. I wished it would radiate enough to touch me.

Despite her flaws, I would miss seeing Digitalis every day. I’d grown used to her attachment, the way she’d made me feel valued. Now, I’d be back in that old apartment that I despised. That lonely place…

I squinted when a headache cracked my skull open. The image of my dark old apartment filled my mind, a piece of the broken memories from the night of my overdose. I’d looked up into the empty windows with a bag full of bottles by my side. Filled with an overwhelming emptiness, I started my car back up and drove away, swallowing the feelings with a swig of bourbon.

The click of a pen brought me out of that dark place. Laurent signed some paperwork Gael had brought in. I glanced at my copies, taking note that it was all generic stuff that acknowledged Laurent as my caretaker. The stack contained new apartment lease contracts, medical forms, and some updated paperwork from Gael for my royalties. Laurent probably had a few employment forms in his short pile as well.

Asya Kalnina

I signed the papers as well as I could with my left hand. Although I used only my first name on stage and in my autographs, I didn’t legally abandon my surname when I became emancipated.

Asya Kalnina

With my right hand, I used to sign it with little thought. It was a routine I’d kept from the years I’d spent signing it over and over at school. Now that my right hand wouldn’t work for me, the routine of signing my name was gone. With my left, I focused on each letter meticulously, and it forced me to dwell on the name I left behind when I took to the stage.

***

In my childhood home, there were many pictures on the walls, each perfectly straightened and arranged in the hallway in identical white frames like exhibits in a museum. One of those pictures was of my father in his late twenties. He sat proudly at a desk, a proper office desk rather than a cubicle, awarded only to successful employees of the company he worked for. The accomplishment was further acknowledged by the engraved nameplate beside his folded hands. It read, “Kalnina.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

When I was thirteen, I saw the nameplate in person. Over the years, he’d become a veteran of his work, and his employer replaced the original nameplate. He brought it home, and when I came into his office during the time he opened the door, it lay on his desk. It was scratched from years of use, but it still shined in the light of his desk lamp when I studied it.

Dad swiveled to face me, looking at the nameplate in my hands. A nostalgic smile crossed his face. Gently, he took it from my hands to admire it.

“Someday, perhaps you’ll have one of your own.” He said, still gazing at it. “It took years of grueling work in college, some rough internship time, and then a lot more work after that to earn this.”

I glanced at the spreadsheet on his computer screen. It was alien and dis-interesting to me.

“Why did you want to become a financial advisor?” I asked as I sat on a folding chair he’d put in the office for me. He put his chin in his hand as he considered my question.

“When I grew up, my family wasn’t doing so well. You and your mother don’t know what that’s like, but… This job started out as my way to have what I didn’t as a child. Stability. Routine.”

“What about fun?” I asked. He’d spent so much time on this computer. A part of me was sure that there was more than just ‘stability’ and ‘routine.’ There was no denying the passion in his eyes when he taught me about his job on the other days he invited me in.

“Well… I enjoy it… I suppose it’s not something you’d understand. Are you bored?” Insecurity leaked into his eyes. Immediately, I was guilty.

“No! I’m not bored at all.” I touched his shoulder, “I enjoy spending time with you, dad. I was just curious, that’s all. I… I just…” I trailed off, watching the relief wash over him like an ocean wave.

“Your mother says I spend too much time working.” He stated, his gaze shifting to the wedding photo on his desk beside a vase full of peonies from mom’s garden.

There was one just like it hanging in the hallway, somewhere. They looked young and happy, gazing into each other’s eyes as though the universe lay somewhere in between. I wonder if that died before or after I was born.

“She’d just drag you to her dumb charities if you weren’t in here…” I muttered.

“It’s important to learn to be generous, Asya.”

I bit my lip. When I joined her, I wasn’t witnessing a generous soul. I was watching a social networker use charity as an outlet for praise.

“What you do is more interesting.” I deflect, bringing his attention back to the spreadsheet.

“You might consider the same work in the future.” A flattered smile touches his eyes. “And if it gets boring for you, you can fall back on your musical hobby for fun.”

“Dad…” I bit my lip, his computer screen blurring the longer I looked at it. I enjoyed learning about his job, but not because I was interested in it. “Do you think I can make music into my job, when I’m older?”

His face faded into thoughtfulness. He turned towards me again, and I shifted my gaze to meet his eyes.

“If that’s what you want, you can do it. If you work hard, you can do anything, Asya.”

“You think so?” I whispered.

“My dad used to tell me I’d amount to nothing, because I grew up that way. Now, I have you and your mother. I have this high-paying job and this beautiful house. Believe me, Asya. If you work for it, you can become anyone you want.”

“Mom laughed at me when I asked her.”

“Your mom grew up in a middle-class home in a family with inherited money. She thinks people can’t change, that they have to fill the roles they were born to fill. When you come in here, she assumes that you’re going to take my role someday. When she takes you to those events that you hate, it’s because she’s grooming you to take on her responsibilities. It’s nice to hope that you might want to fill our shoes, but you don’t have to.”

He pulled his chair closer to mine, pulling some paper and a pen from his desk.

“What’s that for?” I ask as he gives the objects to me.

“You want to be a musician, right? You should practice your autograph. Lots of people will want to see it.”

I stared at the blank void of the paper. He turned back to his work, and I wrote my name a hundred times, a hundred ways. Asya Kalnina. Eventually, I settled for a version that I liked, stylized with a pair of scribbled wings and underlined with a quick cascade of waving lines.

Four years later, I signed it in a simpler way on fan’s memorabilia. The same stylizations were there, but this time, I just wrote: Asya.

***

There was no room for me at home with my parents, so my autograph had no room for their name. My father told me I could be anyone that I wanted to be, and I became a musician just like I’d dreamed. This didn’t mean that his words weren’t a lie, however. I failed to stay sober like I dreamed I would. I struggled to feel loved, like I wanted. He’d cut me from being his son ever again.

Every year, I got the same birthday card from him, but he wouldn’t return my calls. I stopped opening the envelopes that came from his address. It burned me to look at them. He would send me a card, telling me I was still in his thoughts and that he missed me. Yet, he didn’t love me deeply enough to do anything more. Over the years, I wondered if he ever loved me at all. It seemed like he sent the cards so that he wouldn’t suffer the guilt of abandoning his only child completely.

I signed the last of the documents in front of me, staring numbly at each shaky letter of my surname. Every time I looked at it, every time I wrote it, I knew I would never make it mine. My fingers were strained and hard to move when I finished. A lifetime of leaving using my right hand left my other weak and clumsy. I didn’t finish my meal, too weary to pick up my fork.