Alec and Cheryl wanted to stay together, for Liam and also for their second child just starting to gestate then. So they created a little space by sleeping apart. She and her growing belly remained in the big bed but he took to floor-sleeping on the carpet in Liam’s small room.

That helped. So did the easy birth and infancy of their daughter Angela, and Alec’s inheritance. They bought their first house and began to spend money.

But they also grew apart. Alec developed chronic heartburn and trouble with hemorrhoids, and his domestic goals began to resemble those of his dead wealthy parents. Cheryl found less to laugh about, wrestled with daily sadness, put on weight, became nostalgic for the working-class homelife she’d despised when she was growing up. They set up separate studies at home. After the kids were asleep Alec liked to drink vodka and watch cable TV in his room. Cheryl tried handcrafts in hers but, what with the kids and her depression, she tended to nap most evenings.

Even so, time passed. Life went by faster each year. By the time Liam and Angela were in expensive private middle schools, mid-life was upon their parents. Alec had never been highly sexed, so he was safe from silly affairs. He bought a Ferrari and racked up enough moving violations (including two DUIs) that car insurance became one of their biggest expenses. Cheryl joined a weight loss boot camp and decided to finally do something about her name.

They say you don’t have to formally change your name. Just start using whatever you like and soon it will be yours. But when she thought about that, it seemed impractical. Where would a middle-aged woman start that process? How would she get her first ID with the new name?

It’s a little work but no problem to change a woman’s name when she marries. The system is set up for that. The utility companies don’t require a credit deposit for name change due to marriage or divorce. But it’s another set of hassles entirely to do it legally and without a change in status. Cheryl had to petition the court, post notices, deal separately with every account registration.

And she had to choose the right name.

If she’d had a particular heritage she might have used it. But Cheryl was of mixed Northern European stock, with no strong Scottish or Irish or Scandinavian or even (despite her maiden name) German claim to chromosomes. So she went with what she liked.

She’d always been attracted to the “au” of Paul and Saul, but she didn’t want a feminization of some boy name, like Paulette or Claudia. She didn’t even want a terminal “a.” She settled on Laurie first.

And she’d had it with the last initial “S.” Even though she didn’t expect to be organized into alphabetical order now that she was middle-aged, she decided to move up. She liked the sound of Adams and took it as her new surname.

Laurie Adams sounded good to her.

As long as she was going to the trouble, she figured she’d take a middle name too. Her parents had given her Patricia, after her mother’s mother, and the only thing she’d liked about it had been the letter “P.” But she knew her classics – Greek myths had been her reading mainstay in 8^th grade – and she languished in the dark of every winter. What the hell, she thought and then giggled; she typed “Persephone” onto the legal form.

So it was as Laurie P. Adams that I met her. We struck up a conversation last winter while each of us awaited an appointment in our dermatologist’s office. Dr. Ringrose is still practicing medicine, still a great guy who takes whatever time is necessary with patients, and thus always running late.

Laurie and I shared our contempt for the People and US Weekly magazines in the room, and that led to a talk about good books, with a remarkable amount of agreement. We exchanged numbers and began an acquaintance.

I think it was during our second or third lunch out that I told her how much I like her name. I was surprised at her gratification. Her pale face seemed to pick up depth, and her skin looked younger. “Thank you so much!” she gushed. And she then began to tell me her story, about how she chose it for herself.