The letter came on a Tuesday in August, three years after the morning I woke up with the letter opener in my hand. The envelope was thick and cream-colored, and the return address was a law firm I did not recognize.
I opened it at the kitchen table.
It was a contract. Not a marriage contract. A publishing contract. The first page said that the author, Mara Ellison, had submitted a manuscript titled The Name Clause, and that the publisher, Harlow House, was offering to acquire it.
I had written the manuscript in the spring. I had not told anyone. I had written it at night, after work, in the small office that was mine, with the door locked and the phone off. It was a novel, but it was also a record. It was the story of a woman who signed a contract and lost her name, and who came back an
