By Tatiana Samokhina

(childhood)

You’re five, and you have a girl cousin. You share scrunchies, ear clips and bracelets. You also share the name. Katrina and Katrina. Somehow, your mum and her dad picked the same name for you both, though her dad picked it eight years earlier, and your mum claims she wanted to call you Katrina twenty years before you were born. Even your surname is the same. Her dad kept the family surname when he married; your mum didn’t change hers because she never married. Your father was too young to have a child and left when you were still a fetus. You don’t love him, your father, but you love sharing the name with your girl cousin. It’s very intimate, name-sharing.

You’re seven, and you still have a girl cousin. Everyone calls her Katrina Big; you’re simply Katrina. You don’t mind, because simply Katrina is much better than Katrina Baby. Name-sharing comes with coat-sharing. You wear her clothes, mostly outerwear. Every coat and jacket she wore to kindy and school has a tag with her name — Katrina Rivers — sewn right below the size tag, to make sure she doesn’t lose her clothes. Now her old clothes are your new clothes, and her labels are your labels. You’re the one responsible for keeping them safe.

(adolescence)

You’re ten, and yes, you do have a girl cousin. Your mum still calls her Katrina Big, though you’re now one centimetre taller. You don’t see her much anymore. Her dad stopped bringing her over because he stopped speaking to your mum and grandma over a war service medal. He wanted it for his collection. Your grandma is the one who inherited it after her girl cousin passed away in a country house you haven’t visited in years. Your mum says your uncle is experiencing a midlife crisis. You wonder if it’s Katrina Big who doesn’t really want to see you. Last year, she mailed you Disney stickers for your birthday. And one “Katrina” sticker, too. You stuck it to your letterbox. This year, no gift.

You’re seventeen, and your mum makes you put on the best dress you have to attend Katrina Big’s wedding. You roll your eyes because you don’t even like the fiancé. It’s her choice, your mum says. They’ll get divorced, you mumble. Your mum insists, so you trudge to the wedding. They announce they’ll go to Thailand for their honeymoon, and you think, what a boring choice, should have chosen Fiji. You don’t say a single word to your girl cousin; she’s busy with her fiancé. You munch on black grapes since most of the food they serve you can’t eat. No one asked about your dietary requirements. The grapes are sour and stick to your palate. You leave early.

(adulthood)

You’re twenty-five, and you haven’t seen your girl cousin since the wedding. She divorced the Thailand-honeymoon guy years ago; you forgot his name. She married another man, but didn’t invite you to the wedding. You didn’t forget his name because you never knew it in the first place. But with her, you still share the name. She got her surname back after the divorce and didn’t change it when she remarried. She is Katrina Rivers, just like you.

You’re thirty-five, and you remember you have a girl cousin during a spring clean. You pull a dusty suitcase full of old things from beneath the bed. Run your fingers through the old coats. Bring them to your nose. Mum must have dry-cleaned them, as they don’t carry any familiar scents. You take out a plastic bag, almost crumbling apart, filled with bracelets and hair ties. There’s a hair still stuck to one of the clips. You hold it up to your hair. No, not yours. Katrina Big’s. Your mum kept all this for the next Katrina. But there’s no new Katrina—your girl cousin childless, just like you. You collect everything into a garbage bag, seal it tight and take it down to the bin room. Linger by your mailbox. The “Katrina” sticker stares at you, its corners peeling. You rip the sticker off, scrape the dried glue with your fingernails, stuff the label into your pocket and run back up the stairs.

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Tatiana lives in the beautiful suburb of Surry Hills and works in the bustling city of Sydney. She is an English teacher and fiction translator, in love with literature. Her work appears in Elegant Literature, 3 Elements Review, NUNUM, Quotidian Bagatelle, and more.