By Smaktakula

 

He was delighted to discover he would be a father. The child would the first of many, he claimed; a baseball team’s worth.

We’ll see about that, she said, envisioning a compromise of three.

If it’s a boy, he said, please don’t name him after me. The name was exotic, and a badge of his foreign birth; the boy’s name would be all-American.

She promised.

Their plans were for nothing, though, and when he died just two months later, she broke her vow.

If her boy would be denied his father, he’d by God at least have the man’s name.