On July 15, 2021, Robby and I eased a camper van over the crooked lip of our driveway and drove away from home. Or rather, we drove our new home away from our house. The van named Wilma contained a bed, sink, composting toilet, and refrigerator. There were cabinets, drawers, a little study nook with a desk, solar panels on the roof, stick-on linoleum tiles, and the palpable absence of our five-year-old dog, Wiley. We had to put him down twenty-four hours prior. Our long-awaited sendoff felt hurried, tragic, and incomplete. 

Three and a half years ago, Wiley (formerly Orion) developed a limp. He stopped putting his full weight on his left front paw, often holding it daintily out in front of him, as someone might hold a teacup. Through X-rays, the vet surmised that the cause was some sort of bone injury and prescribed pain pills. One year, a worsening limp, and more X-rays later, it was determined that one of his toes was now warped beyond repair and had to be removed. Cue biopsy, surgery, more scans, more pills. Though the vet, surgeon, and radiologist were now sure this was the work of an autoimmune disease or cancer, no one could decipher the specific cause. Wiley just got worse.

Wiley developed an aggressive streak. This dog, who had never so much as glared at a human being, started lunging and snapping. A few times, he bit people’s thighs. We took him to a trainer who taught us about “fear biting” and gave us tools to help Wiley feel safe and calm. While we did see improvements, the trust had vanished. How long would it take before we could have people over without worry? What would happen if we left the room for a moment? What if he hurt a child? The dangerous behavior had descended over the course of a couple months, and we were bewildered. One thing, however, was clear to the trainer, the vet, and us: the aggression was caused by physical pain.

A couple weeks before we left in the van, we took Wiley in for another X-ray checkup. We sensed he was in more pain than usual; he could now barely make it around the block and didn’t like to play if it required jumping. For two years, we had lessened his activity and given him pain pills. We wanted to check the progress of his bones and ensure he was on the right medication. We were also open to discussing the possibility of amputation.

The vet was shocked by the X-rays. She turned off the light in the exam room to show us the images on a computer. The bones of Wiley’s left paw looked like a conjunction of poorly-built railroads. The vet pointed to the unnatural angles, the fused pieces, and, most terrifyingly, the bones that were missing.

“You see this area?” she said, dragging a long, immaculate fingernail around a black space the size of a nickel. “There used to be a bone here. It’s just gone.”

The computer glow lit up a series of labeled bone models on the counter. I looked at the foot, all the happy plastic pieces that clicked together like good teeth. 

Amputation requires three working legs, and while Wiley’s left leg was an obvious nightmare, his right was more quietly terrifying. It looked like a small creature had taken a round bite out of his elbow, and the X-ray was already showing some frayed bone-edges that were rampant in the left paw. The vet said that our next option would be to take him to specialists and do a bone tap to further narrow down the possible diseases (we were now down to three or four), and, though he would continue to experience discomfort, explore more intense pain management regimens. We agreed to send the X-rays off to radiologists, then went home. The vet would call us when she heard back later that week.

Within a day, we knew what we had to do. This dog couldn’t run, this dog couldn’t play, this dog had only two good legs. In many ways, this dog had been fundamentally changed by long term pain. We could spend the next year(s) and a small fortune chasing down a diagnosis and staving off the inevitable with pain pills, but one truth remained: the most advanced treatment would not bring his bones back. 

So, on a day that felt like hot, mosquito-ridden honey had been poured over the world, we put Wiley down in a patch of grass outside the veterinary office. He was happy to be with us, smiling and licking my thighs, which was where we placed his head for the end. When the vet injected the final, bubblegum-pink serum, he went slack but stayed warm. Robby and I were inconsolable. Orion-Wiley’s tongue jumped out of his mouth and curled upward, frozen in a kiss.

*

The van rumbled across the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, and I watched Wilmington over my shoulder: bright buildings lined the river like jars of candy. Then they were gone. Charlie, our white shih tzu I found on the street years ago, was curled in my lap. I wondered if he missed Wiley. I wondered if he had any inkling that we weren’t going back to the house, and if he was truly happy in the van, or simply happy with us. 

We bought Wilma in early May. We nearly wiped out our savings, sold our only car, and burned through the insurance settlement from Robby’s car accident two years ago. The 2019 Ram Promaster 2500 had been in our driveway and served as our sole mode of transportation for two months. Though we purchased it with the majority of the conversion already completed by the former owners, we used this time to make small improvements. We installed a swing-up counter extension, a swiveling Lagun table, and hung fairy lights around the perimeter of the living area. We frequently made breakfast inside of it: we’d slide open the door and I’d cook coffee and eggs on a one-burner camp stove while dog walkers did double-takes. 

A few times (embarrassingly few), we slept in it. We piled our dogs and ourselves on to the short queen mattress and opened the in-roof ceiling fan like a skylight. The mattress was comfortable, the muffled city-sounds pleasant. Moving around was tough–if I was at the sink and Robby needed something from the dresser behind me, we basically had to do cartwheels over each other–but we felt we’d get used to it. With the amount of money and hope we’d poured into this vehicle, “we’ll figure it out” seemed like the only good response to annoyances.

Still, I wondered if we’d all, little by little, come to hate this van. I imagine that’s what falling out of love feels like: small quirks morph from charming to grating. The choppy water pressure turns to Chinese water torture. The peeling linoleum tiles become dogeared to-do lists. 

It could happen. This could be the worst thing we’ve ever done. Moving from 966 square feet to 55 square feet will present challenges we haven’t predicted. Stress responses to a shift this drastic–both in space and lifestyle–could strain our marriage. Six months from now, we might sell the van, get an apartment, and pretend like this never happened.

If this adventure starts to go south, I think we’ll have learned something from Wiley. During times when his pain and aggression were in full swing, our love for him didn’t come from a place of carefree joy as it once had. It came from creating the best day we could, one day at a time. We loved him not by playing fetch or tearing through a creek together, but by wedging pain pills into pieces of hot dog, by carrying him the rest of the way on a walk, by calming him down when strangers walked by our porch. If we lose some of the bliss–either from van life or our relationship–I think we can find and show love by executing the little tasks. We can keep our space clean and our words kind.

Of course, I don’t think this is going to be the worst thing we’ve ever done. Though we’ve just started out and fully expect a long and rich series of blunders, Robby and I each seem to have an aptitude for living in a tiny, mobile space. I’m spontaneous, he’s efficient. Van life needs both. 

We’re in the Adirondacks now, parked on a corner between an antique store and a marina. The sky hangs low and smothers the hamlet like a gray blanket, but Wilma feels cozy. We’ve started a collection of postcards and photographs on the wall above the bed, and we’re leaving a space for a picture of Wiley. I like the idea of his face floating among all of the places we’ll see. 

We sent a friend to pick up his ashes for us. We’re going to find a place to scatter them. 

This decision was the culmination of dozens of conversations, journal entries, and minutes of staring at the ceiling before falling asleep. I still felt torn.

On one hand, I liked the idea of Robby and me sharing a name. I love sharing things in general, and both of us being Horns felt meaningful. I also knew that changing my name would make Robby extremely happy, though he wouldn’t admit how much.

But I loved the name Bridges. The word was meaningful and euphonic. Also, the name “Hannah” is already a little harsh (especially the way southerners say it, with a hard, almost nasally “a” sound), and putting it in front of “Horn” made each name a little sharper. I didn’t love the way the two sounded. 

Robby and I first discussed the name question around the time we got engaged. We were walking through Piedmont Park in Atlanta.

“How do you feel about me keeping my last name?” I asked.

I want to pause here, because based on conversations I’ve had on this subject, this question probably raises a red flag. This was not an asking-permission question; this was a your-feelings-matter-to-me question.

Robby sighed. “I’d be a little bummed,” he said, “but it’s your name.”

We were walking past the dog park. Clusters of dogs churned like little hurricanes.

After a while, he said, “I mean, what would our kids’ last names be?”

“If we ever had kids,” I said, “they could be Horns.”

“But then you’d have a different last name.”

“So?”

“Wouldn’t that be confusing?”

“Probably not. They’d know I was their mom.”

He was quiet for a long time. I half-joked that he should just change his name to Bridges, but then remembered that Robert Bridges is my dad’s name. We laughed, then didn’t fully revisit the issue for months.

During that time, I turned over every name-changing stone in my head. I read blog posts and articles about the merits of keeping vs. changing a name upon marriage. All of them had a slant. The ones that leaned toward a woman changing her last name built their arguments on religion, tradition, emotional closeness, convenience, or a combination thereof. The pieces that advocated for women keeping their names did so using feminism with a hard, shiny coating of self-righteousness. I did not find a single piece of writing from someone who couldn’t decide.

I researched the history of name changing. It started in Medieval England, which was later than I expected, and was linked to the idea of “coverture.” Once a woman got married, her legal existence was suspended and her husband made decisions regarding property, suing, executing wills, etc. The married couple legally existed as a single unit, and only one of them was allowed to call the shots. Essentially, marriage was a transfer of property (the woman) from her father to her husband, and the name change (which was legally required) signified that. 

None of this shocked me. I think most people have a sense of the historic relationship between marriage and property (the word “dowry” comes to mind), and I was exactly as repulsed as I expected to be.

But I didn’t feel that changing my name would necessarily be an anti-feminist choice. Feminism is about equality, and equality happens when women are empowered. There is immense cultural pressure for a woman to change her name upon marriage (and granted, I’m speaking particularly about straight, cisgendered couples here), which does cloud the decision for many people. I hadn’t yet been able to cut through the noise and have a moment of introspection to figure out what I wanted my name to be, but I believed it was possible. If someone genuinely felt empowered and excited to take her husband’s name, that was her call. Feminists who look down on that choice are missing the point.

I came to the conclusion that the tradition of a woman changing her name upon marriage had sexist origins (property transfer) and continues to be a sexist practice (because the reverse isn’t true—how many men that you know have taken their wives’ names?), but that a woman’s choice to partake in the tradition could be feminist.

I had mentioned my uncertainty to several people, all of whom were women, most of them straight, single, and around my age. The majority advised me to keep Bridges. I appreciated their opinions, but suspected that many of them would one day change their names with little thought. I think it’s easy to take the quintessentially feminist route when the cultural alternative isn’t currently glaring at you. There were also some women (mostly married and middle aged) who advised me to just change my name if I wasn’t dead-set on keeping it; they enjoyed sharing a name with their spouse. 

A few people suggested that Robby and I either hyphenate our last names or make up a new name entirely. I liked the latter idea, but Robby didn’t budge. He’s the final Horn in his family. What I did with my last name was up to me, but he was keeping his. I was annoyed and angered by the fact that the vast majority of men never had to think twice about whether or not they’d change their names one day, but I respected his decision.

*

During our engagement, I worked as a bartender at a brewery near downtown Atlanta. I was talking to a group of three customers, all men around my parents’ age. Business was slow. At some point, I mentioned that I was recently engaged, and we eventually got on the topic of name changing. 

“Not sure what I’m gonna do yet,” I said, polishing a glass. It wasn’t an invitation for advice; I was just musing.

“Listen,” said one of the men. He had a thick New York accent. “My wife never changed her name, and it always bothered me. For the ten years we were married, she had one foot in the marriage, one foot out.”

I nodded, choosing not to point out that her feelings may have had to do with factors other than her name.

“When you make your decision,” he said, “just remember that one time an old guy in a bar told you that you should take your husband’s name.”

The only thing I gathered from the well-meaning women in my life and one random man at a bar where I worked was that everyone seemed to have an opinion about my name except for me. In the two years between the day Robby proposed and the moment I walked into the social security office, I had described my attitude toward my name as “indifferent.” I don’t know, I would tell people, I just don’t feel pulled to do either.

In hindsight, I cared deeply about my name; I just had trouble reconciling that I could feel both passion and uncertainty. The heartbreaking truth is that by the time my wedding day arrived, I felt disconnected from both Hannah Bridges and Hannah Horn. During the first months of marriage, the Name Question made me feel like I was clinging to a piece of driftwood between two ships. I had to swim toward one, but was uncertain of which. 

That analogy sounds dramatic, but there was something gently and eternally unsettling about not knowing my name. I would introduce myself as Hannah Horn, or say “Hannah Bridges” and then correct myself, or say, “Call me Hannah Horn since I just got married, but I might not end up officially changing it from Bridges. I don’t know. I’ll respond to either.” This is a disturbing symptom of the endless confusion that comes with being a woman in America. What was once the most simple and irrefutable fact of my existence was now up for debate. 

My ticket number came on the TV screen at the social security office. I walked up to a kiosk, made “Bridges” a second middle name and “Horn” a last name, and went home. 

I told Robby that night. I brought out champagne. I was going to surprise him with my social security card—he didn’t know  that I had decided on officially changing my name—but the card would take three weeks to arrive in the mail, and I couldn’t wait that long. When I told him, he teared up a little and we held each other on the couch for a long time.

*

I made a new email with the name “Horn,” changed my social media profiles to “Hannah Bridges Horn,” and started introducing myself with my new last name. I figured if I started acting like it was my name, the little bubbles of uncertainty would subside.

Still, I kept finding reasons to not change the name on my license, bank account, and passport. I used air travel as an excuse (“I’d have to pay to change the name on my ticket”), then COVID (“Is the DMV even open?”), but eventually had to admit that I was dragging my feet. Horn didn’t feel right, but Bridges didn’t really, either.

“Buddy,” Robby told me, “just do what makes you happy.” It had been three years since our conversation at Piedmont Park. I think that Robby’s opinion on the matter had evolved from “I’d love for you to be a Horn, but it’s your call” in part because he witnessed the stress the decision put on me. He and I both understood that what we were called and our commitment to our marriage were separate things.

“I wish I knew what felt right,” I told him. “I just want a single moment of clarity.”

*

Two days ago, on June 27th, I went to Fort Fisher, a beach near Wilmington that wraps around a point. The beach is separated from the road by a barrier of boulders. I climbed over the rocks, spread out a blanket, and took a few books out of my bag. It was the two year anniversary of my little brother’s death, and I had come here to mourn and think.

One of the books I brought was called Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The book is sixty pages and the size of my hand. It’s a letter to the author’s friend, who had asked the author how to raise her child feminist. I had read it years ago and couldn’t recall much of it, but remembered it being an easy, soothing read. I opened it and leaned against a boulder. In between chapters, I swam in the ocean and thought about Stewart. 

The day felt light. Usually, Stewart’s birthday and the anniversary of his passing take slogging through, but I approached this day with a sense of purpose. I thought about how much I missed him, about where he was, about whether he could hear me. The Atlantic makes me feel closer to him because it touches Liberia, where Stewart was born, died, and is buried. 

I returned from the ocean and read a paragraph from Adichie’s seventh suggestion, which referred to marriage. It said:

The truth is that I have not kept my name because I am successful. Had I not had the good fortune to be published and widely read, I would still have kept my name. I have kept my name because it is my name. I have kept my name because I like my name.

There are people who say “Well, your name is also about patriarchy because it is your father’s name.” Indeed. But the point is simply this: Whether it came from my father or from the moon, it is the name that I have had since I was born, the name with which I traveled my life’s milestones, the name I have answered to since that first day I went to kindergarten on a hazy morning and my teacher said, “Answer ‘present’ if you hear your name. Number one: Adichie!”

Something inside me lit up. It was powered by thoughts about my brother and my family and my long-standing yearning for clarity. I wanted to be Hannah Bridges simply because it was my name. Phonetics and culture and feminst theory aside, it was what I had been called for my whole life, and I liked it. For the first time in two years, my name felt right.

I told Robby when I got home. He smiled.

“I’m glad you made a decision, buddy,” he said. “I know that was weighing on you.” 

I told him I wanted to make Horn a middle name. I asked if he’d be willing to make Bridges one of his middle names. He said he would.

*

From the day Robby proposed, it took me 765 days to decide to change my name. It took me 163 days to decide to change it back. I’ve heard of a couple women who initially kept their names and then switched to their husband’s names later in the marriage, but I had never heard of someone changing their name, then taking their maiden name back. I worried what people would think. Would they assume that Robby and I were having serious problems? That I had “one foot out” of the marriage? That we were separating?

I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter. I managed to do something rare: I carved out a moment where I could hear what I really needed. It took a long time, but the process reacquainted me with a truth that I frequently forget: I’m allowed to change my mind. I am always able to change my mind.

Image Credits

Wedding Photos, Blue Bend Photography

“Rocks protect Fort Fisher,” carolinabeach.com

The donkey’s face was hard and gray against my palm. I stooped down, snatched a fistful of clovers, and held them out to her. Her lips flapped across my palm like wet wings.

“I’m getting married today,” I said aloud. The one large eye that pointed my way blinked, then stared blankly past my shoulder. I grabbed more clovers. Continue reading

One thing with which I’ve had to come to grips about myself is that I’m vulnerable when convenient. The aspects of my life that I approach with vulnerability rarely have any real shame attached; I can often contort them into some clever quip or Instagram post. For example, I can be “vulnerable” about frustrations surrounding my broken foot, since the breakage was funny and parts of the recovery are funny and the whole thing is pretty much out of my control. Continue reading

“How’s work?” I muttered.

Robby sighed and looked down, swiveling in his chair so he could see me. I was lying on the floor, perfectly still.

“A little stressful,” he said.

“Bummer.”

“You really need to find something to do.” Continue reading