The silver stork plucked my daughter Salma from the porch of our 1860 colonial during a downpour last July.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was our thing; sitting and watching the clouds build, eating fast-melting popsicles as the sky grew dark and heavy. She\u2019d tell passersby, \u201cGot to get home! \u064a\u0644\u0627 \u0628\u0646\u0627\u201d as they hurried past, unfurling umbrellas. She was two-and-a-half then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d left her, legs swinging over our worn wicker chair, fuchsia liquid dribbling down her chin, and returned, napkins in hand, to her yellow rainboots slipping away. I tried to catch a foot, but couldn\u2019t, so I ran down the block and across the main road; I followed them as far as I could to the canal, screaming her name before they disappeared into the canopy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Up, up, up she had gone, by the hood of her raincoat, legs still swinging below the stork\u2019s spiry, orange beak. Up, up, up she went in my dreams for days. Sometimes into a mahogany armoire or a grandfather clock or a chest, sometimes gulped by a baleen whale, sometimes swirling down a shower drain. Always gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I convinced myself the stork was a dream too, that someone real, someone human, had snatched her. Until I glimpsed them both again, in the hazy sheen of our dining room vase. It was just a little motion that caught my eye. I got closer and closer until I could see her warped image, and then I heard the greatest sound: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMama, \u0639\u0627\u064a\u0632\u0629 pouch!\u201d (want applesauce).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sprinted to the pantry, trembling, and ripped through the untouched pile of snacks. Without thinking, I tore one open and squeezed its contents into the vase. \u201cCan you taste it? Is it working, love?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNoooooo!\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I told her I\u2019d be there soon (how?) and get her out (of where?) and that I loved her so, so much. And she said that the stork was \u201cnice\u201d and \u201cbig like Burnell!\u201d (our neighbor). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That night, I moved the vase to my nightstand so I\u2019d wake if she spoke, and fell asleep staring at the mother-of-pearl mosaic. The next morning, my first memory of the vase returned: it\u2019d been a gift from my grandmother, who smiled softly, as I looked it over and thanked her. Eight years ago. A soft, knowing smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So began our routine of speaking through the nacreous vase, which continued for six autumn-winter months, until the eve of Salma\u2019s third birthday. I made a cake with blackberry jam and vanilla frosting. I lit three candles and when she blew, I blew too, so that the candles would go out. After she faded from the vase that night, I sat holding it tight, bruising my arms. And I wept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A song came to me then. An old Egyptian folk song my grandmother and mother had both sung, which I hadn\u2019t thought of in two decades, not since my own childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n