Her name rolled into my right ear and I liked it immediately. It was soft and simple, a pretty girl’s name. I didn’t want to like it. I wanted Michelle to tell me an ugly name, or something hard to pronounce. I was preparing myself not to like anything about any of it, and I was already losing.

The next thing I knew, I asked Michelle, “What’s her middle name?”

“Marlon.”

“Marlin? Like the Florida baseball team?”

“Yeah, but with an o,” she told me. Michelle liked baseball. She had a younger brother who played for the Houston Astros. She had played softball through high school herself. She even thought about playing in college at Berkeley.

“Briana Marlon Deveraux,” I said altogether. It didn’t sound bad. Michelle had one of those French last names pronounced Dev-er-row from Louisiana, where her family was from.

She said, “Yeah, that’s it.”

I played with the name in my head for a minute. Briana Marlon. Briana Deveraux. Briana Marlon Mitchell. Briana Marlon Deveraux Mitchell. Then I asked myself, What the hell am I doing? I needed to get off the phone.

“Okay, well, you set it all up and I’ll be there to meet her.”

“All right. And Terrance?”

She waited for me to answer. “Yeah.”

“Thank you.”

Yeah, whatever, I thought to myself. But instead of saying that to Michelle, I mumbled, “Okay,” and felt like a big wuss. This woman was out to try and change my entire life, and yet she was passing it off as just a meeting.

When I hung up with her the second time, all kinds of possibilities ran through my mind, and it was past two o’clock in the morning.

What if she is my daughter? I asked myself. What will I do after that?

I was already thinking about relocating to Oakland or San Jose, if it was true. I liked those areas, but not necessarily San Francisco. San Fran was more Michelle’s kind of place, high-cultured society. It was the New York of the West Coast, but I was never a big fan of New York. I liked more open space and room to roam.

Atlanta? I didn’t mind leaving Atlanta. I only slept there. I spent most of my time on the road.

But imagine that. I was willing to change my scenery without even knowing if the girl was mine yet.

“Shit!” I cursed myself again. “Who’s out there holding a voodoo doll on me? This is crazy!”

Then again, raising a daughter gave me a purpose. I wouldn’t have chosen it, but it looked like it was choosing me.

I HAD ANOTHER DREAM about my current situation over that weekend. I couldn’t make out the exact features of the little brown girl who was holding my hand, all I knew is that she had ponytails and was wearing all pink, like Theresa in Gary.

“Come on, Daddy, come on,” she told me in a singsong. She rocked my right hand back and forth with her left.