Now

The silver stork plucked my daughter Salma from the porch of our 1860 colonial during a downpour last July. 

It was our thing; sitting and watching the clouds build, eating fast-melting popsicles as the sky grew dark and heavy. She’d tell passersby, “Got to get home! يلا بنا” as they hurried past, unfurling umbrellas. She was two-and-a-half then. 

I’d 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’t, 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. 

Up, up, up she had gone, by the hood of her raincoat, legs still swinging below the stork’s 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.

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: 

“Mama, عايزة pouch!” (want applesauce).

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. “Can you taste it? Is it working, love?”

“Noooooo!” she said. 

I told her I’d 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 “nice” and “big like Burnell!” (our neighbor). 

That night, I moved the vase to my nightstand so I’d 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’d been a gift from my grandmother, who smiled softly, as I looked it over and thanked her. Eight years ago. A soft, knowing smile.

So began our routine of speaking through the nacreous vase, which continued for six autumn-winter months, until the eve of Salma’s 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.

A song came to me then. An old Egyptian folk song my grandmother and mother had both sung, which I hadn’t thought of in two decades, not since my own childhood.

ماما زمانها جايه

جايه بعد شويه

جايبه لعب وحاجات

Mama is on her way

Coming in a little bit

Bringing toys and things

I decided I’d sing it to her the next day, when she came into view. Because it would stay with her as it had stayed with me, tucked in some crevice that unfurls in crisis. Even if she lost everything else I’d ever spoken to her, she wouldn’t, couldn’t, lose a melody.

But the next day she started with something I hadn’t heard in all those six months, not since our storm-watching summer: “got to get home!” 

I panicked, asked questions she didn’t answer. Maybe she didn’t have the words, couldn’t answer. I asked the stork for answers, begged it, really, but it only sat silently, black-lined eyes unblinking. Another moment and Salma faded from view. 

For the next week, the vase was just a vase. I stared at it. Stared until my eyes burned, searching for any clouded figure, any hint of movement. And I sang the song anyway, in case she could somehow still hear me. Sang until my throat was raw and my voice was hoarse.

Until the following Saturday, when I heard hallucinatory footsteps pattering about the porch, and I peered out of the shutters and saw her. Bouncy, black hair, yellow rainboots, cherry rainjacket; as though she’d never left my sight. I stepped outside, trembling, bewildered, and crouched down. 

“Salma?” I whispered in disbelief. She looked up from the leaf she was considering, “Hold this, mama!” She handed it to me, then turned to search for another.

That night, I washed her clothes and sheets, and she slept in her crib like any other child. Soft snores and a worn stuffed fox tucked into her arms. I tried to sleep on the floor beside her, but I’d wake, jamming my knuckles into her crib bars, as though bolting to catch her. But there she was.

I never spoke of it. Never told anyone. In time, I began to question if it had happened at all. Salma started preschool. Soccer on Saturdays. Blew out her own candles on her fourth birthday. She learned to write the letter A by making two vertical lines and then saying, “across!” as she connected them.

One day that spring, we ventured out to the towpath near our house. It was long and lush with spring buds and sunlight. We wandered past the overgrown bamboo and the makeshift play yard to a small suspension bridge at the end of town, and stopped to watch the water flow down into the rocks and the greenery. Down, down, and across, like her A, to an odd thing. A long, lithe, silvery creature. Two wiry orange legs, a soft head, and a long beak. A stork peered up at us, and I took Salma’s hand in an iron grip. 

“Big, like Burnell!” Salma said. And the bird extended its wings and lifted with a few effortful flaps. Up, up, up.

“Got to get home!” Salma yelled after the stork, smiling, waving. As if to a neighbor. 

As if to a friend.

__________

Yasmeen Fahmy is an Egyptian American writer and mother based in New Jersey. Her stories are published or forthcoming in khōréō, Saros Speculative Fiction, Night Shades, and If There’s Anyone Left. She recently completed the 2026 Clarion West Six-Week Workshop and is a member of Codex Writers. You can find her on Bluesky @yasmeenfahmy and at yasmeenfahmy.com.