The Summer He Never Spoke About - The Name I Never Told Anyone - Part 8
“That… was the first time I heard it.”
The boy leaned forward instantly.
“What name? Tell me!”
Grandpa didn’t answer.
Instead, he looked down at his hands… gently rubbing his fingers together, as if holding something fragile.
“They called out to her,” he continued slowly.
“A simple call… nothing special for anyone else.”
“But for me…”
He paused.
“…it felt like I had been given something I didn’t know I was waiting for.”
“Then what was it?” the boy pressed again.
“What’s her name?”
Grandpa smiled.
But this time… it was different.
Soft. Private.
Almost guarded.
“I never told anyone her name,” he said quietly.
The boy blinked.
“What? Why?”
Grandpa looked at him.
“Because,” he said,
“some things feel… too personal to share.”
The boy frowned. “But you heard it, right?”
Grandpa nodded.
“Yes.”
“And you still remember it?”
Another nod.
“Then why not just tell me?” the boy insisted.
Grandpa leaned back slowly.
“I got to know her name…” he said, choosing his words carefully,
“…but I never needed to use it.”
The boy looked confused.
“What do you mean?”
Grandpa’s eyes softened.
“Because whatever her name was…” he said,
“…I had already named her.”
The boy’s expression changed.
“Named her?”
“Yes.”
“A name that came from how I saw her… not what the world called her.”
“What was it?” the boy asked, this time quieter.
Grandpa smiled faintly.
“The name I remember her by…”
He paused.
“…is ‘Mouna’.”
“Mouna?” the boy repeated.
“What does that mean?”
Grandpa looked into the distance.
“It means… silence.”
The boy tilted his head.
“Why that name?”
“Because she never spoke to me,” Grandpa said softly.
“And yet… she said everything.”
The night grew still again.
“That name stayed,” Grandpa continued.
“More than her real one.”
“Even now… when I think of her…”
He smiled slightly.
“…it’s not her face I remember first.”
“It’s that silence.”
The boy sat quietly for a moment.
“So… to you… she was always Mouna?”
Grandpa nodded.
“Yes.”
“And she never knew?” the boy asked.
Grandpa chuckled softly.
“No.”
“That’s kind of sad,” the boy said.
Grandpa looked at him.
“Not really.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Grandpa said gently,
“some names are not meant to be heard…”
He paused.
“…only felt.”
The boy didn’t reply this time.
He just sat there… thinking.
“So what happened after that?” he finally asked.
“You heard her name… then?”
Grandpa’s expression shifted again.
“That’s when things started becoming… real.”
“Real how?”
“For the first time,” he said,
“I wasn’t just watching her anymore.”
The boy leaned closer.
“Then what were you doing?”
Grandpa smiled.
“I was becoming someone… she could notice.”
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