Seena’s birth, as was the case with everything else, was quieter than mine. My dad went to the hospital cafeteria to grab dinner, and just as he was ordering a nurse hurried down to tell him that he’d miss the birth of his child if he didn’t hurry. Seena’s labor took barely a few hours, and I was nineteen months old, probably just a few weeks or months into walking. I wonder what it was like to watch my mother get rounder with another baby. I was fourteen when I finally learned that babies aren’t kept in the stomach, though it would take me another seven to actually understand the biology behind it.

Nineteen months old; how much did I babble then? Maybe I was in the hospital waiting room with a family friend. Maman and baba are easy for babies to s...

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