Chapter One: Distant Memories

When I was a very young boy, my grandmother would take me to the mosque almost every day. We’d kneel and she’d show me how to pray properly, she’d always hold my hands and speak in her thick accent and her long hair would touch my shoulders. She’d sing to me, she’d laugh with me, she’d take me everywhere. Never, never, never would she let go of my hand. Never would she call me useless or disabled. I remember the feel of her cracked, wrinkled old hands on my skin, how it was just me and her and her and me and the rest of the world didn’t matter.

Then, when I was four-

Sounds from the kitchen exploded-

A crash-

I couldn’t reach the phone-

I shook her still body, screaming, until-

The neighbors called 911-

Then I was sent away-

My new parents had no accent. They were a lot younger, no dry, cracked hands and no soothing voice. No singing. Their last name was Jefferson, like the president. ‘Dad’ was a 4th grade teacher, ‘Mom’ was a lawyer. They changed my name from Aalam to David, they changed my religion from Muslim to Catholic. The weirdest thing was having no choice in the matter whatsoever. Just, boom, handed over to complete strangers like commodity.

I didn’t say they weren’t loving or kind, just… it was a big change for me. I didn’t know where things were in the house, I tripped on invisible extra stairs and cried in my big new bed. There were a lot new sounds to hear, some too loud to bear. For one thing, a year after I came to live with them, they had a biological kid. All I could smell were diapers and baby powder and baby food and baby everything. They named him Derek. David and Derek, new best buds.

In my head, I was still Aalam, the offspring of my grandmother. It seemed like they were trying hard to make me forget.

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There were a lot of phone calls that year, until they got me in a good private pre-school where I wore sunglasses so no one would stare at me, where I read differently than the rest of the other kids. I didn’t make friends easily, but Jared-the-weird-kid was nice to me and usually gave me gum. He came over to my house for sleepovers and played games we made up together. But we were never close, we never shared secrets or anything. The next year he moved to Connecticut.

‘Mom’ taught me how to spell Connecticut.

“It’s easy,” she said. “Connect-i-cut.”

Connect I cut. Connect the cuts. I felt scissors in my hand when I spelled Connecticut. What a harsh word. Who would ever name a state that?

Derek started talking pretty early on. Well, if you count baby-language “talking”. He’d babble in his own special languages, and ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ would babble back.

In that stage of life, I felt the world in textures and sounds. I knew my ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ must have loved me to adopt me, but I wasn’t David and could never fully be David. When I couldn’t sleep at night, I would dream of my grandmother holding me tight and singing my name in my ear. Everything would get really quiet then, and my brain would fade into haziness, and I’d hug my stuffed rabbit, feeling okay for one more night.