Her Name

I wanted to name our daughter Nessie, partly for the Loch Ness monster in Scotland and
partly for a wild girl I dated while studying abroad in Edinburg, but my wife wanted to name her
Mildred after her grandmother who had been a lindy hop and jitterbug dancer in prominent clubs
in New York back in the 1940s, who had been on Broadway, and who had starred in a couple of
Marx brothers films. Her grandmother had died before we were married, and though I didn’t
know her, she was described as flamboyant and always had a martini glass in her hand. I
protested and said I didn’t feel that was a good image for our daughter. My wife countered that
Nessie was a monster and our daughter would be bullied in school. We settled on Elizabeth after
the Queen and hoped she had a long and wealthy life.

Flash by Niles Riddick

Image Courtesy Adam Strong

Niles Reddick is author of a novel, two collections, and a novella. His work has been featured in over four-hundred-fifty publications including The Saturday Evening Post, PIF, BlazeVox, New Reader Magazine, Citron Review, and The Boston Literary Magazine. He works for the University of Memphis in Tennessee.