I was born with a broken heart.

The day I arrived into this lonely little world was also the first time I died. Nobody spotted the heart condition back then. Things weren’t as sophisticated in 1975 as they might be now, and my blue coloring was blamed on my traumatic birth. I was a breech baby, to complicate matters further. The weary doctor told my father to choose between me or my mother, explaining apologetically, and with just a hint of impatience, that he could only save one of us. My father, after a brief hesitation he would spend the rest of his life paying for, chose his wife. But the midwife persuaded me to breathe—against all their odds and my better judgment—and a hospital room full of strangers smiled when I started to cry. Everyone except for my mother. She wouldn’t even look at me.

My mother had wanted a son. She already had two daughters when I was born, and chose to name us all after flowers. My eldest sister is called Rose, which turned out to be strangely appropriate as she is beautiful but not without thorns. Next to arrive, but still four years ahead of me, was Lily. The middle child in our floral family is pale, and pretty, and poisonous to some. My mother refused to name me at all for a while, but when the time came, I was christened Daisy. She is a woman who only ever has a plan A, so none of us were given the contingency of a middle name. There were plenty of other—better—options, but she chose to name me after a flower that often gets picked, trampled on, or made into chains. A mother’s least favorite child always knows that’s what they are.

It’s funny how people grow into the names they are given. As though a few letters arranged in a certain order can predict a person’s future happiness or sorrow. Knowing a person’s name isn’t the same as knowing a person, but names are the first impression we all judge and are judged by. Daisy Darker was the name life gave me, and I suppose I did grow into it.