Chapter Two — The Name She Was Given
She learned her name before she learned the truth.
It was written on school forms in blue ink, spoken by teachers who never hesitated, called out during attendance as if it belonged to her completely.
Lena Ashbourne.
The name sounded too large for the rooms she lived in.
Their house sat behind a mechanic's shop, narrow and tired, its walls holding heat in the summer and cold in the cold mornings.
Paint peeled in places no one bothered to fix. The roof leaked when the rain came hard enough. Still, it was clean. Always clean.
Miriam made sure of that.
"Names matter," Miriam said once, kneeling to scrub the floor, her hands raw and steady. "Even if nothing else does."
Lena sat on the step, watching her. She was seven then, old enough to notice how other children looked at her when she said her last name.
Ashbourne.
It didn't fit. It sounded like glass in a mouth used to salt.
"Why do I have a big name?" Lena asked.
Miriam didn't stop scrubbing. "Because it was given to you."
"By who?"
Miriam's hands slowed. Just for a moment.
"By people who thought it would protect you."
Lena accepted that. Children often did. Protection was an abstract thing, like God or tomorrow.
Miriam worked two jobs. Sometimes three. She left before dawn and came back smelling of detergent, sweat, and something metallic Lena couldn't name.
At night, she rubbed ointment into her knees and pretended not to wince.
"You don't have to work so much," Lena said once.
Miriam smiled, tired and quick. "Yes, I do."
"Why?"
"So you can eat."
"So you can sleep."
"So you can go to school and not be afraid."
Lena watched her carefully then. The way her smile always arrived late, as if it had to travel through something painful first.
"You're my mother, right?" Lena asked.
Miriam froze.
The silence stretched long enough to hurt.
"Yes," Miriam said finally. "I am."
But she said it like a promise, not a fact.