first memoriesMom and Dad and I go out to the City a few weeks after Bella’s birthday party. We catch an off-Broadway play and eat at a halal Turkish restaurant. We agree the Turkish food in New York is better than it is in Turkey, or at least Istanbul. It’s summer, and the wind slides through the open window, raising our clothes from our sticky skin. Mom has my hand in hers. She squeezes it and reaches for Dad’s.
“This is the sexiest thing about your dad,” Mom says. “The back of his hand. I always thought it was the sexiest thing about him.”
“Okay, Mom.”
Dad laughs. “Not the only thing!”
“Of course,” she says, looking at me.
The back of Dad’s hand is broad and thickly veined. Tiny patches of dry skin cover the remains of old wounds.
I recall one of my earliest memories at our first
