You didn't mean to name her Sydney.
You and Jack argued more during your pregnancy than in the previous two and a half years of marriage. He liked a name, you hated it. You found the perfect name, he made a gagging noise.
If you hadn't loved him so much, you really would have killed him. You smirk now at the thought. That would have certainly surprised him.
And so it continued, night after night, week after week, month after month, as you argued over the perfect name for your daughter. Even when you finally compiled a short list of names, you incensed Jack further by refusing to pick just one.
"We have to see her before we make such a monumental decision, Jack."
"See her? See her? As in, wait until after the delivery?"
"What? Did you think we were going to pull her out, take a look at her, and then shove her back into my uterus so you could tell everyone the name we had chosen?"
"Laura, that—you—" he burst into laughter. "Where did you come up with that?" He shook his head ruefully. "Okay, honey. We wait until after she's born."
You smiled triumphantly. "At least I've finally convinced you the baby's a girl."
"You'd better hope you're right, or we're going to have to combine six months of arguing about names into one day."
Four days later you grinned as the doctor proclaimed "It's a girl!" and watched as Jack rolled his eyes at you. "You just had to be right," he mouthed, even as the grin overtook his features.
After the KGB's intervention that afternoon, your newborn was in your presence continuously. The two of you had hour upon hour to count her fingers and toes, caress her soft skin, smooth the wisps of hair on the top of her head.
Forty-eight hours of staring did not help you come up with a name though.
You eliminated three names from the list; Jack vetoed the other two. He groaned and pulled out the dog-eared copy of 1,001 Names for Baby that you had given him months earlier when you told him you were pregnant and began flipping through its pages yet again. You began your familiar routine of calling out names, each taking turns offering suggestions while the other promptly vetoed them.
A small part of you began to wonder if maybe she could just be called "Baby Bristow" for the rest of her life.
You were approaching day three of your daughter's life when Arvin and Emily stopped by the hospital to visit you. When they discovered that you were still searching for the perfect name, they groaned simultaneously before pummeling you with every girl's name they could think of. Jack shook his head or you wrinkled your nose at every name—until you heard it.
Sydney.
You started to wrinkle your nose again and shake your head—until you noticed the way Jack's eyes had lit up. Sydney . . . It was a name the two of you had never considered before now, in part because you had noticed it in the name book and immediately dismissed it. You never told him, or her for that matter, that your alias on your very first KGB mission was Sydney, that the name brought back bad memories that you had tried your best to repress. But seeing the look on his face, the joy that he felt, you wavered. You closed your eyes briefly, inwardly debating. It was a name you could grow to love, you conceded, but only because of the precious girl who bore it.
Emily interrupted your musings as she remarked to her husband that the baby's name would not be a family name. You bit your lip as you realized that this would be the closest to a family name that you could get. You opened your eyes and smiled at your husband.
"I think we've finally named our little girl."
Sydney.
*****
You never thought you'd be someone's hero.
You grew up in a family—if it could be called that—where beatings were a daily occurrence, where declarations of love were never uttered. It was a relief when the KGB recruited you at eighteen, for now you had a means of escape. You vowed to absorb everything your professors taught you, master every trick of the game, and finally have some sort of power over your own life.
And you did.
You excelled in all of your classes, listened with rapt attention as top game theorists explained their methods to the madness. You handled your firearms with ease and demonstrated early on that you were not at all squeamish—an important trait for someone in this line of business, your instructor pointed out.
You grew accustomed to being surrounded by men at the academy. Women were still not regarded highly; very few were offered admission, and even fewer had the nerve to accept. Those women who did accept were like you in many ways—escaping overbearing fathers while still honoring their country and family name.
There was another characteristic that you shared, an unspoken one.
Your intelligence and abilities were secondary—for now, at least—to your primary duty for your country.
You always found it ironic that in order to leave your father's bed you had to climb into someone else's.
By the time you were sent to America, you were used to the leers the officers would send your way, the looks of disdain from the women who knew you were employed by the KGB. All of your life you had been mistreated and scorned, battered and bruised. You had hoped to successfully complete this long-term mission and quickly move up the ranks of the KGB.
You wanted to be respected for your mind, not your body. You wanted the incessant staring to stop.
Until you met Sydney.
It was always different with Sydney.
Sydney loved to stare at you from the day she was born. She would look up at you with wide-eyed wonder; you worried that she could see through you to your soul. Her eyes loved to follow you around the house as you did simple, mundane things that your mother never did. Baking cookies. Playing hide and seek. Snuggling on the couch and watching cartoons.
As she grew older, her uncanny resemblance became evident to both you and Jack. He was overjoyed—"It's a good thing she took after you and not me"—while you were inwardly pleased, relieved that he would have a living, breathing, positive image to remind him of you even after you were gone.
Of course, no matter how much she looked like you, you could always see her inner resemblance to Jack. You wonder now how many years it took for him to realize that.
You smile to yourself as you let your memories of her overtake you. How she loved to play dress up, toddle around the house in your high heel shoes. She managed to crash down the stairs one evening when she was three, you remember. The faint scar left on her knee is now of the utmost importance as you continue your search. Who knew that a marker of child's play could help you find her almost thirty years later?
The way she demanded to grow her hair long—"Just like yours, Mommy"—and then have you brush it for what seemed like an eternity.
You realize now that you were wrong so many years ago.
After spending six months searching for her, you're starting to understand what the word "eternity" truly means.
tbc