My great-aunt Mara was the one who taught me what nominative determinism was. My grandfather made the joke once, when he heard me asking my grandmother what she was like as a kid. What can you expect? he asked, and smiled his slightly crooked half-smile.
Mara, I knew, meant bitter.
Great-aunt Mara’s real name was Tamara, but no one ever called her that. Tamara came from the word Tamar, which meant date, like the fruit. I sometimes wondered after that, what would have happened if her parents and older siblings had been more patient, if she would have been as soft, and yielding, and honey-toned as a medjool date if they’d stuck to calling her that.
My mom always hated the way she gleefully interrupted people to correct their grammar. If I ever told her she was using a word wrong, she’d say, “That’s enough,” and then add: “You don’t want to be like my Auntie Mara.” For my mom, Mara was always a cautionary tale. I thought she was misunderstood, but even her own kids and their father kept their distance.
I tried to picture Mara as a kid, but all I could see was her today: small, with slightly curved shoulders, determined to make the tiny bronze busts on her work desk conform fully to her vision. Her face looked exactly like a portrait I’d seen of my great-grandmother, but I could never tell if I really remembered my great-grandmother, or if it was everyone else’s stories...
Subscribe now to keep reading
Please enter your email to log in or create a new account.