Page 1 of Through Quick and Quinn
?Part One:
?From the Start
Declan:
A Decision of Indecision
What would a child get if he was blessed with a mother who saw meaning in every single thing and a father who just chuckled and went along with it all? A name like Declan Alexander Broderick Williams.
My mom used to say that every piece of my name had meaning, that she couldn’t deny me any of them.
Declan
Origin: Irish
Meaning: full of goodness
Alexander
Origin: Greek
Meaning: defender of men
Broderick
Origin: English, Welsh, Irish
Meaning: brother
My dad chalked it up to her indecisive tendencies, that she couldn’t choose a name. But she did decide. She chose all three names that came before the given one. She knew that I would be a model big brother, always protecting my future siblings with goodness. Manifestation, she called it. Not that it really mattered. No one called me by any of those names when I was growing up. Everyone called me Deck, even him. Especially him.
Until no one dared to.
Declan
Maverick:
The First Dig
It was a Saturday in June. Summer break. I wrapped up elementary school and was dreading the start of junior high in the fall. That dread, combined with the incessant, dull nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from since spring break that year, just meant that I was sleeping nonstop. Or at least trying to. Or pretending to.
My folks walked into my bedroom that afternoon, probably around two o’clock. They flicked on the lights and called for a family meeting. My dad was the one to begin the chat, which came as no surprise since my mom had basically become a selective mute.
“Hey buddy, we want to have a chat. Sit up, son.”
I blinked away my pseudo sleep and forced my body to oblige. My dad started talking about how much they love me, how that could never change, how they only want what’s best for me, how they were worried. Easily three minutes of the usual stuff. Enough time for me to cognitively awaken.
“Declan, we—”
And that was it. I heard my dad say my name for the first time in ages, and my entire world shattered in slow motion. Again. I could hear him talking to me. I could process what he was saying. Too hard to stay here. I’ll do better in a new environment with new faces. Clean slate, start from scratch, next town over, new friends, blah blah blah.
All I could really focus on, though, was the sound of my name. Declan. I hadn’t heard it for as long as I could remember, so when he said it that day, it struck me differently.
Declan. But I didn’t hear “Deck-lan” as I should have. I don’t know if it was my fuzzy sleep brain or what, but I could have sworn he said, “De-clan.” As in, undoing a clan. As in, undoing our clan. Our family.
I started sobbing hysterically, screaming about how my mom got the meaning wrong. That my name wasn’t about being full of goodness. How could I be full of goodness if I’m the reason for the de-clan? I felt like I broke in half, doubled over in my dad’s lap, begging to erase it all. Somehow through the uncontrollable crying and nonsensical blubbering, my parents got it. They understood. Or at least my dad did. He told me I could choose a new first name if I wanted. I had no idea what my mom was thinking and hadn’t since the incident. I could have guessed though.
A new town. A new school. A new name. New, new, new. Maybe it would help.
