I was an accident,  

A mistake,  

A let’s-talk-about-our-options baby, 

So my parents didn’t think much about my name 

Because to name a fetus is to call it a baby,  

A human,  

A life, 

A life you created. 

So they didn’t name me. 

I remained unmentioned until my dad pushed a cheap ring on her swollen finger. 

Then they accepted my existence, 

Naming me with all the forethought with which a child makes up a lie, 

Grasping at the things closest to them. 

James. 

It was my dad’s name. 

 

They cried when I was born, but I don't know why. 

Were they bemoaning the one-night stand that had turned eternal? 

Or were they crying in joy at their creation? 

I cried too,  

But I knew the source of my tears. 

I was crying because I would always be the frayed twine that bound my parents, 

The tape,  

Already starting to peel and age and crack,  

That made my mom and dad,  

Wife and husband. 

 

When they returned from the hospital, my mom began calling my dad Jim. 

She did it because she wanted to distinguish between me and my father, 

But it is a distinction she has never been good at making. 

She yelled at me when she couldn’t yell at him. 

She slapped me when she couldn’t slap him. 

And she dragged me to church when she couldn’t drag him. 

 

She thought church would change me, 

Would make me different than my namesake. 

Better. 

More loving. 

More faithful. 

More caring. 

She wanted to change him. 

And, when she couldn’t, she tried to change me. 

 

But, when I was little, I couldn’t understand why my dad needed changing. 

He was kind to me and the three boys who came after me. 

He loved us, 

But he never loved her. 

I never understood how a man can be both a good father and a bad husband, 

But he was. 

 

It was a contradiction that scared my wife when we first met. 

She would come over to my family’s house for dinner, 

And see my parents,  

Still stuck together by that worn piece of tape. 

Me. 

She would witness the belittling  

And disrespect  

And pent-up anger, 

And she would wonder if she was seeing her future, 

If my namesake was really a mirror, 

Unflattering and honest. 

She wondered if James and Jim were the same. 

 

And, one day, she decided what I had decided long before— 

That they were not. 

And, as if to prove her right, I decorated her dainty finger with a diamond.