All around me are bags of my and Max’s old clothes, files from my mom’s old job, including her framed diplomas, certificates, and awards, and all kinds of questionable keepsakes—like Uncle Dougie’s old hockey card collection and Uncle Robbie’s wrestling dolls—that used to be in my grandmother’s house until she downsized and moved to Miami. My dad says this is a room filled with stuff my mom doesn’t want to give away but that serves no practical purpose whatsoever. Except for the massage table from when Aunty Steph thought she would be a massage therapist—sometimes my dad uses it as an ironing board. And now I’m lying on it.

“Okay, Milla-babe, fill me in. How’s school so far?”

“Fine,” I say.

She’s lying on her back too. “Just ‘fine’?” I can hear the smile in her voice.

It feels surprisingly serene to stare at the ceiling. I take a deep breath. And then I find myself telling her everything that’s been going on this week.

“… Honey coming to my school just hasn’t been what I expected,” I conclude, finally coming up for air.

“It sounds like Honey calling herself Deb is really bothering you,” Aunty Steph says.

“Well, it’s like, why does she get to change her name?”

Aunty Steph nods.

“And everyone is going along with it. Why do I have to be Rut?”

“So, do you want to change your name too? What would you change it to?”

“Well—” This stops me in my tracks. I shift on the massage table. I have no idea what I would change my Hebrew name to if I had the choice. It never occurred to me that it was up to me.

“Milla-babe,” Aunty Steph says gently after a minute. I turn onto my side and look at her. She sits up and crosses her legs, swiveling so her back leans against the wall and she’s facing me. “It won’t serve you well on your life’s journey to be jealous of Honey. She’s her and you’re you. You need to own who you are.”

“Who said anything about jealous?” I say.

Aunty Steph doesn’t say anything in response. I turn onto my back to look at the ceiling again. I feel disgruntled and more confused than ever. After a few minutes, I shift onto my side to see if Aunty Steph has fallen asleep.

Sensing my shift, she opens her eyes and smiles at me. “I think you’re right that sometimes people change their names because they want to be a different person,” she says. “Or sometimes a different name just feels more like how they see themselves. People have their own reasons for changing their name. Reasons that are personal to them. It’s not for us to judge.”

I turn onto my stomach and look through the doughnut hole at the top of the massage table. A picture of my mother as her high school valedictorian is right underneath me. I realize that what Honey said on the bus—about liking herself—is true. She never worries if she’s going to look silly or that people will laugh at her or that her clothes aren’t that fashionable. Unlike me, she just does what feels right.