Jenny. My name was given so flippantly, a joke, a play on words. My father not taking part, just looking on. Calling me an anomaly. Not even registering me as a person. Not yet. I was nothing to him then. Just another cause for heartbreak. Another chance to see the past mocking him.
I looked it up. When, I found him again. I wanted to see if my name had a purpose. If it could give me a fate, a destiny. Like my father's. He chose his own, I suppose so did I. I could have said I didn't like it, chosen anything, but I agreed to Jenny. I liked it. So I looked it up on one of those nights when there is nothing to do but mess about on Google (yes, it still exists).
Jenny: originally a pet form of Jean in the Middle Ages. I looked up Jean, preferring it to the Second Elizabethan Era's version of Jennifer. Jean: "the Lord is gracious". I paused then. The Lord. Which Lord? Like my father, I had unmasked many fake gods. But, did I still believe in a higher power? A being so totally and utterly good. Then I thought about my existence, how had the Lord been gracious?
Then I saw a flashback. My father, in that cell, talking of a shared history, a shared suffering. The pain as he remembered. The death he had brought about. The way it had infected him. The ones he had lost. The hole they left.
Maybe the Lord or whatever was gracious. Gracious to my father. Maybe a higher power saw how much good my father had done and how much pain he had received in return. And maybe, just maybe, someone, somewhere, thought it was time someone was gracious to him.