With apologies to the documentary of similar title, which is far more serious (and well worth watching), that’s what I’ve been thinking this week. Because Thomas Chang is no longer with us.

It was a joke K. and I used to have. Somehow, I ended up choosing both children’s first names, which are unusual, historic, Latinate names that very few people in this country have, and K. ended up choosing their middle names. Well, specifically, in my 20th hour of labor with Thing One, K. said to me, “How about Thomas as a middle name?” and I said “Whatever” followed by a string of expletives; with Thing Two, the middle name selection was made farther in advance.

Since we gave them two middle names — Thing One originally had my last name as a middle name and Thing Two, K.’s — I always felt there was an imaginary person, a shadowy person, in their names. Thing One’s was Thomas Chang, and Thing Two’s Evelyn Webber (names have, as always, been changed). Evelyn Webber sounded to me like a nineteenth century society matron, perhaps from K.’s ancestral home of Nantucket; Thomas Chang was a particular favorite of K.’s; in fact, before K. decided that bar ownership was his Life Path, he talked a lot about starting a store of gentlemen’s accoutrements and calling it “Thomas Chang.” Thomas Chang, it seemed to us, was a snappy dresser. He was genteel, but also 21st century; whimsical, but elegant. He probably had a lot of very nice ties and pocket handkerchiefs.

K. talked about Thomas Chang with some frequency. He was part of the subtext of our lives, our backstory. Evelyn Webber was less so, as Thing Two was only just a year when K. departed the marital coil. But she was there too, probably with pearls and lace gloves on, perhaps serving pie.

In fact, with Thing One, the order of his initials played a big part. I used to write thank-yous from him and sign them with all four of his initials, trying to give them equal weight. When they fixed the sidewalk outside the house we rented, and he was about ten months old, I went outside and scratched his initials in the drying concrete.

So it was not without some regret that I changed his name. K., as I’ve discussed, was violently opposed. “We agreed to give him that name,” he would say. “That IS. HIS. NAME.” But I saw it a little differently. It was in the context of our being together that we gave him that name, and now that we are apart, and the children are overwhelmingly with me, Thing One had become the odd man out, the only one with Webber instead of Chang. Changing the name was a way to affirm the three of us being a family, to give Thing One some easy way of identifying with his sister (and you know, when we were four I didn’t mind doing things the hard way, but as a single parent of two, I’m now all about easy) at school and in other public places, and to connect him back to my family. And, though I lament Thomas Webber — it’s too normal, too boring — Thing One’s first name goes well with Chang, which is a nice punctuation to it.

Early on in the days of our separation, my in-laws were in town. We went to have lunch with his sister, who had just bought a house in our old neighborhood. K. was due to come over after, and he was late, and I was sad and frustrated, so I broke off from the group and took a walk by the old house, taking a photo of the initialed sidewalk and making it my phone’s screen saver. I showed it to my father-in-law. Look, it seemed to say. Here is what was. Here is what might still be (it must have been early, because I had not given up, not completely, on our marriage yet). “I have some nostalgia,” I said. He nodded.

And I did have some nostalgia. I liked the myth of Thomas Chang.

But Thomas Chang is no longer. Now the person who inhabits the middle of Thing One’s name is called Thomas Webber, and he is probably kind of boring, and he definitely is not the inspiration for a men’s fancy dress shop. On the other hand, there is no men’s fancy dress shop. Perhaps Thomas Webber owns a bar.

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