My name is a question met with a shrug. Just one of few words exchanged in one of few conversations. Simply, “Abigail?” A pause. “Sure.” My name means “a father’s joy”. I was born to be a daughter. I was named for the joy of my family.

Abigail is a beautiful name. It’s a little girl who lives in an old house with big trees to climb in the yard. She is young in age, young in thought, young in spirit. Carefree. Careless.

If I wanted to, I could not be that girl. I cannot say with confidence that I am an Abigail. It is a word that I have learned to respond to. It is called and I come running back to the house. If I ask “Why ‘Abigail’?”, I have betrayed the forces at play. I have betrayed the little girl living in the trees. A cradle that feels of rough bark. Coarse. Still, soft enough.

Touching the name Abigail feels like touching the petal of a flower at the grocery store. The kind that is so soft and waxy that you cannot tell if it is a real flower or a fake one. The name is soft, yes, but dense, like a wool that has been woven together. 

Abigail is a blanket that covers my body and the ground around it. It weighs down comfortingly and warms me when the weather gets cold. But it envelops me even as the sun blisters and I start to roast beneath its weight. Abigail is a shiver down the back of the neck. The kind that makes your limbs want to fly in all directions. It is a cool breeze sweeping across my shoulders. A hand around my upper arm. Sticky sap. And I cling on.

Abigail is pale pink and powder blue. It is a satin ribbon falling through the air. I reach out to catch it. It slips through my fingers. It is the sunrise I chased across my hometown on the last day of summer. Chased until the pink gave way to the colors of the day. Chased until I got lost on the horizon.

In the chase, I’ve often wondered what might have been. At six, I talked of Adrian. Then Dakota, Alex, Skylar, Florence. Names like willows. As I babbled on, my parents nodded silently. Almost gravely.

Let me be clear. Abigail is beautiful. I will always protect the little girl who lives in the trees. She is small. She must stay young. A clear mind that I would never want to fill with questions. Questions like, “Abigail?” A shrug.

She should never have the need to shrug.