Of Lorenz Theory & Love

How Marcella Yesenia Became Macy

7 How Marcella Yesenia Became Macy

Noon, Madalena Village, Azores, Epicenter Pico No. 23, Master Bathroom

Macy had not slept till noon in just about as long as she could remember, but she did also recall that it was currently 5 am back in Seattle. She knew for a fact that Mel and Maggie, post-movie marathon, typically slept in the next day until at least 3 pm, wherein Maggie would leave for her shift at SafeSpace, and they would all meet up for drinks afterward, around 9 pm. Noon in Azores time was a truly reasonable hour to wake from one's seductively-imposed slumber, all things considered.

Assuming Harry was asleep in the tumble of blankets to her side, she had crept from the Spartan bedroom (largely empty on purpose, to avoid glass vases and other such finery being flung about in the midst of uninhibited lovemaking), to the master bathroom, where she stared at herself in the mirror, scrutinizing her hair for several long minutes. For the better part of her young adult life, she had thought of herself as a too-tall, gawky girl with messy, unpredictable hair. She had been told by society, time and time again, to tame her cheveux—to heat-treat it to the umpteenth degree, undoing all of this gift Mother Nature had given her from the very moment she was conceived. Sometimes, her tresses would mold to collective expectations, be it a straightened, flattened, downright lifeless state ("flapper mode"), or larger-diameter corkscrews (the "Shirley Temple") that would last a day, assuming it was not hit by the humidity she was currently experiencing this very morning. Box braids, though intricately woven and popular in her college years, made her prone to migraines due to her highly sensitive nerve endings. It was a constant losing battle. Ugh. Her hair was in its typically tight curly behavior, with a hint of frizz, and she couldn't help but grimace at her reflection.

"Staring at the mirror again, are we, Narcissus?"

Macy shrieked, startled, then realized it was Harry, who had silently orbed behind her and was now fondling locks of her bouncy tresses with his dexterous fingers, watching as their edges shone a fiery bronze in the blazing sunlight streaming in from the now-visible skylight.'

"I can't fathom why on earth you'd give yourself a reproachful look, given how stunning and—" muttering under his breath "utterly fuckable you look."

"Wait—what?!" Macy yelped.

"Nothing—grabbing breakfast!" And with that, Harry orbed out of the bathroom into the kitchen, where he retrieved the chocolate wine and cream from earlier. He set out the platter of coconut, papaya, and pineapple on the kitchen bar, and laid out the crystal wine flutes, pouring the rich, frothy liquid into both after a couple of shakes in the silver canister.

Macy rolled her eyes and followed him to the kitchen table for the promised delectable repast, and the earlier-promised discussion about her name. Marcella Yesenia.

12:15 pm, Madalena Village, Azores, Epicenter Pico No. 23, Kitchen Table

After tucking into their breakfast of chocolate wine and fruit, Macy gingerly broached the subject. "Harry, I know the Elders tell you everything, so I shouldn't even bother, but—how much do you know about my name?"

Harry swallowed hard and pushed around a stray fragment of pineapple before speaking. "Like you, I know that you were originally stillborn, but brought back to life vis-à-vis necromancer negotiations." Macy nodded—she was fully aware of that. "What I had found out from the Elders though," Harry elaborated further, "is that due to your having both a birth and death certificate on account of your stillbirth (fully signed by both parents), your being alive was quite a tricky conundrum to navigate." He looked at Macy with a piercing glance, to see if she grasped the gravity of the situation. Of course she did.

"Macy, your full name on your birth and death certificate was Marcella Yesenia. You were named after your father Dexter's great-aunts, the renowned Valensi sisters, who were born and raised in the Azores circa the 1920s. Their names, if you might or might not recall, were—"

"Della Marcella, Dora Yesenia, and Darcy Madalena Valensi," Macy whispered.

"Correct." Harry pressed onward. "And given the distinctiveness of your name, your mother felt that your death certificate, if ever discovered upon registration for daycare, grade school, college, and beyond, would cause such a lifelong problem that it was best to start on a blank slate." Macy nodded slowly, knowing just how complicated paper trails could be back in the 1990s, even pre-iPhone and pre-internet. She would have been forced to flee every school district mid-year, unable to make friends at all, a hunted creature in the eyes of the local state police, Child Protective Services, and really, the whole of the U.S. justice system at large, as if being a minority in America weren't challenging enough. Unsavory individuals could have seized upon her death certificate and kidnapped her for Kevorkian-style medical experimentation. She shuddered involuntarily but bade him continue.

"From the little I know, your mother was with you until age 2, and both of your parents grappled with this birth certificate issue, not knowing what to name you, or how to hide your death certificate, until you started saying your first words—"

Macy teared up. "Macy," she murmured.

Harry nodded. "I'm guessing Marcella Yesenia was too complicated a set of syllables for even a precocious toddler such as yourself to pronounce, and one of your first words was, in fact, Macy. That settled things for your parents. When you turned 2, Marisol disappeared as per the necromancer's agreement, and Dexter wrote to the Pennsylvania Department of Vital Records to request a new birth certificate for a certain Macy Vaughn, which he signed—and left your mother Marisol's name purposefully blank, to save her life in the process."

Macy stared into space, digesting these facts that had just come to light. "Maybe it would have been better if I'd never been born," she mumbled to herself. "I've made things so complicated—Marisol and my dad would still be married, Maggie could've known her biological dad—"

"But you wouldn't have been alive, nor Mel, and Maggie wouldn't necessarily be who she is today without Ray there to offer key life lessons" Harry said gently, taking Macy's hand in his. Macy smiled to herself; she realized Harry was probably correct—and he always knew just the right things to say that would mend her precious, broken, and battle-scarred heart.