White Collar Ficlet - This Is Not My Name

[elrhiarhodan]

Title: This is Not My Name
Author: elrhiarhodan
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Neal’s mother (unnamed in canon)
Spoilers: All of Season 4, generally
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: References to the Shoah
Word Count: ~600
Beta Credit: coffeethyme4me
Summary: She was born Rachel Caffrey, then they told her that her name was Mary Alice Brooks. She wanted to be Naomi Zimmerman.

A/N: Last of the three ficlets written for purimgifts 2013, for TigerBright.

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Mary Alice Brooks didn’t exist outside of a few pieces of paper and a computer entry. Rachel Caffrey Bennett didn’t exist either, not anymore.

The woman they called Mary Alice hated that name. It sounded like it belonged to some WASP princess who should be doing housework in cheap pearls and a shirtwaist dress, like Donna Reed. At least “Rachel Caffrey” had some personality – some va-va-voom – as her grandmother might have said.

She wished that the Marshals had at least let her pick her name. She’d have chosen “Naomi Zimmerman” instead. That was a good name, a strong name, the name of a Survivor. And instead of “Danny,” her boy could have been called David, for a king and for a Survivor, too.

She wasn’t strong, not like her grandparents, who survived the unthinkable. Her grandmother survived Sachsenhausen and the forced labor: twenty hours a day making bricks and airplane parts and counterfeit English currency. She survived the murder of her mother, her father, her sisters and brothers. She survived things that she never would talk about.

Her grandfather lived through the Lodz ghetto and its destruction. He lived through the horrors of deportation to the camps and lasted long enough to cling to the barbed wire when the Soviets liberated Auschwitz.

She wasn’t strong like that. She wasn't strong enough to survive such horror and to find love and remember the traditions.

Nor was she like her mother, who was strong enough to defy her family and her heritage to marry for love and make her parents honor and respect her choice.

No, she wasn’t strong at all. One day, her world collapsed and she just wanted to disappear.

Her grandparents were gone from her, her mother and father too. She never got the chance to say goodbye before the Marshals came and whisked them away into this dreary new life. She wrote to her bubbeh and her zaide, she gave the men who watched out for them her letters, but she never got a reply. Maybe they forgot about her, maybe she didn’t matter anymore. It felt that way, all alone in a strange city.

She tried to fit into the life that these strangers made for her, but she couldn’t. The small house in suburban St. Louis was in a good school district for her son, when he was old enough for that to matter. She didn’t have to work, since James was “dead,” she got his pension – although that confused her. He was alive enough to confess to murdering his supervising officer, right?

Neal – no, Danny, now – he was her joy and her bane. Even at four years old, he was so smart, so clever and resourceful. She wished she could be a better mother, she wished she could do for him like her mother did for her. Getting up every morning, making sure he had a good breakfast, that he time to play and learn, he had a good dinner and was tucked safely into bed every night. But she’d look at her son, see James in his bright blue eyes and she had to turn away.

Maybe if he was called David and she was Naomi, things would be different. She’d light the candles on Friday nights and say the prayers her grandmother taught her. She’d walk with him to synagogue and burst with pride when he was bar mitzvah’d.

But he was called Danny, not David and she was Mary Alice, not Naomi. And the life she wanted was not the life she had.



FIN

Comments

[ultracape.livejournal.com]

This is beautiful and I thank you for writing it on the eve of Passover. May all the Jewish fen have a blessed one and may all the Christian fen have a Happy Easter.

[elrhiarhodan]

Thank you so very much. I had written this for Purim, but saved it to post on my LJ for Pesach. Hope you had a lovely holiday.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

This is so sad, because although "Mary Alice" is definitely a WASP-y name and Rachel certainly didn't choose to go into Witness Protection, so much of her unhappiness seems to be because of choices she's making. Would having a different name really make her any braver?

[elrhiarhodan]

Poor Rachel - yes, her problems are too much of her own making. She thinks she's weak, so she is. But names are talismans, and maybe with the right one, she could have found the strength she needed.

[ladyrose42.livejournal.com]

A "wish" fic. A "what if". This is so wistful, tragic, and lost. One can only feel sorry for this lost soul whose life was turned upside down.

[elrhiarhodan]

Thank you so much. Neal seemed so lost when he talked about his mother - and I think the poor woman needs someone to tell her story.

[teaboyfan.livejournal.com]

Passover starts for my daughter in a little less than two hours. I'm so sorry for "Mary Alice" being uprooted into WitSec, but she could have held on to her holy days. Her turning away from Neal because of James's blue eyes seems a really plausible explanation for Neal's ambivalence about her in the present. He's lucky to have had Ellen. You've written an account of her life that is sympathetic without whitewashing her weakness - good job!

[elrhiarhodan]

Thank you so very much. It was funny - I wrote the line about Neal's mother turning away from him because of his blue eyes - so much like his father's - weeks before the finale aired.

[dizzydrea.livejournal.com]

This was so beautiful. I confess that I haven't yet watched this season, but I'm looking forward to it. It's stories like this that make it more enjoyable, somehow.

May you have a blessed Passover.

[elrhiarhodan]

Thank you so much. I've missed seeing you around - hope all is well.

Have a blessed Easter.

[dizzydrea.livejournal.com]

I went back to work at the first of the year, so I have considerably less time than I used to (for everything from writing to keeping up with folks online). I've seen a couple of posts inviting everyone in to chat, but because of the time difference, I'm usually still at work when you all settle in for a chat, and by the time we finish dinner, it's late where you are. If I can, I'll stop by one of these days just to say hi.

[theatregirl7299]

Beautiful and touching. Names have power and Neal's mother pining for a name that makes her feel strong is heart wrenching.

A wonderful gift. Thank you.

[elrhiarhodan]

Thank you.

I am a firm believer in the power of names and naming (I've always believed that having a very unusual name has made me what I am).

[daria234.livejournal.com]

This is very lovely. I like the way you explore the different ways she lost her identity when her husband "died." And her mixed feelings about her own son.

[elrhiarhodan]

Thank you so much. I wanted to explore this character we know so little about - not even a canonical first name.

Neal seemed so sad when he talked about his mother - her "absence". I wanted to give her something more than just disappointment.

[sapphire2309]

And shakespeare said "what's in a name?".....
Insightful and somehow, it seems canon. Don't know why, just makes sense and fits right in like a missing puzzle piece.

[elrhiarhodan]

Thank you so very much.

Names are important, they have tremendous power over us. I would have been a completely different person if my mother had given me a more common name.

[kanarek13]

This is beautiful. Heartbreaking and powerful at the same time. I love stories that tell the story of characters who are treated rather marginally on the show. To me this story is a wonderful canon addition \o/

Thank you :D

[elrhiarhodan]

I'm the same way too!

Thank you so very much.